Daily Mail Australia: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian's cheek sucking and puffing behaviours.
Media Requests: Gladys Berejiklian
This morning I put my workload on hold for two media requests. Both were regarding NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who yesterday gave details about her relationship with former Australian politician, Daryl Maguire. Maguire quit the Liberal Party after admitting that he sought payment over a property deal at a corruption inquiry.
The first media request, from Mail Online, was interested in the way Berejiklian sucked her cheeks in and out during her press conference about Daryl Maguire, and again this morning during her public update on coronavirus stats.
Cheek Sucking Behaviours
I spent a while looking for the behaviour in question, before asking for confirmation about exactly when this had been observed. I offered several possibilities for the behaviour described, without having seen it:
Usually, cheeks are pulled in when someone feels like they are going to vomit, I don't think this is the case here, although she may have nausea due to the feelings of emotions experienced.
A change in breathing due to the stress and emotional turmoil she's experiencing–breath is most likely shallow and forceful. We often breathe like this after a good cry. I'm sure you have experienced that and know the feeling, it's almost like trying to catch your breath. The cheeks would go inwards during inhalation and outwards during exhalation.
An attempt to conceal or suppress emotional expression–to seem less emotional than she feels, in order to fit in with social norms and expectations.
A holding back of expressing something verbally.
Action units (specific facial movements) which could create the appearance of the cheeks being sucked in or pushed out. These could relate to emotional expressions of sadness, fear, anger, possibly even surprise or disgust.
Emotional Control and Emotional Intelligence
After pinpointing the timing on the video of the cheek sucking behaviour in question, it was clear that this was suppression of an extreme emotion of sadness. Berejiklian appeared to be on the cusp of a public emotional breakdown. I’m sure many people would feel the same way, given the circumstances. Fortunately for Berejiklian, she was able to contain her emotion and perhaps avoided an even bigger media onslaught. And yes, I acknowledge I’m contributing to a media onslaught!
Emotional control is an important part of emotional intelligence. We all experience a myriad of emotion on a daily basis, ranging from subtle to strong. Most people suppress or control how they feel internally and how they express the related emotion externally. Some are better than others. It’s absolutely normal to make attempts to suppress emotion, we all do this as a means to fit in with social norms and expectations. If we didn’t we’d risk appearing odd or emotionally immature.
Cheek Puffing Behaviours
It’s only since the article has been published in Daily Mail Australia, that I have observed the other behaviour mentioned–the ‘cheek puffing’ at a different point in the video. You can see this in the video below at around 15 minutes in.
I hadn’t made reference to this in my analysis for Mail Online, but after seeing it, I believe this is the result of her fast breathing rate (due to the high level of stress), combined with her mouth being firmly closed to suppress her extreme emotion of sadness. The air has nowhere to go. This behaviour is also, most likely acting as a pacifying behaviour.
Pacifying behaviours, otherwise known as self-soothing behaviours, are repetitive behaviours which bring comfort as we experience negative emotion. These behaviours appear during times of stress. The theory is that the sensations experienced from behaviours such as this, like pressure on the lips, create a physical feeling or distraction which helps to deal with internal negative emotion. This all happens at a subconscious level.
Gladys Berejiklian Press Conference Video
You can read the first article to which I contributed and learn about the expression of sadness, on Daily Mail Australia, by clicking the link below.
Why an emotional Gladys Berejiklian continues to bizarrely 'puff' her cheeks during tense press conferences - as her body language indicates she's 'right on the edge' of breaking down
In my next post, I’ll reveal Berejiklian’s nonverbal behaviours that I found to be the most interesting—they don’t include cheek sucking or puffing.
