Abstract
Do cultural differences in emotion play a role in employment settings? We predicted that cultural differences in ideal affect-the states that people value and ideally want to feel-are reflected in: (a) how individuals present themselves when applying for a job, and (b) what individuals look for when hiring someone for a job. In Studies 1-2 ( N S1 = 236, N S2 = 174), European Americans wanted to convey high arousal positive states (HAP; excitement) more and low arousal positive states (LAP; calm) less than did Hong Kong Chinese when applying for a job. European Americans also used more HAP words in their applications and showed more "high intensity" smiles in their video introductions than did Hong Kong Chinese. In Study 3 ( N = 185), European American working adults rated their ideal job applicant as being more HAP and less LAP than did Hong Kong Chinese, and in Study 4a ( N = 125), European American Masters of Business Administration (MBAs) were more likely to hire an excited (vs. calm) applicant for a hypothetical internship than were Hong Kong Chinese MBAs. Finally, in Study 4b ( N = 300), employees in a U.S. company were more likely to hire an excited (vs. calm) applicant for a hypothetical internship. In Studies 1-4a, observed differences were partly related to European Americans valuing HAP more than Hong Kong Chinese. These findings support our predictions that culture and ideal affect shape behavior in employment settings, and have important implications for promoting cultural diversity in the workplace. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 377-401 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Emotion |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 5 Jul 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation awarded to Jeanne L. Tsai (BCS-1324461), a General Research Fund Grant from the Research Grant Council, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China to Helene H. Fung (14403014), as well as grants from the Stanford Department of Psychology, Stanford Graduate Research Oppor- tunity, and Stanford Department of East Asian Studies awarded to Lucy Zhang Bencharit. We thank Austyn Lee, Stephanie Lin, Michael Ko, Angela Lee, Grace Boorstein, Shawn Estrada, Marianne Naval, Sophie Ye, Christopher Lee, Leela Srinivasan, Qinzi Cao, Sitang Li, Brian Kim, Yong-hun Kim, Mallika Roy, and Angela Chou for their research assistance. We also thank Eric Pooley and David Acup for their support of this project and Hazel Markus, the Stanford Culture Collaboratory, and the Stanford Culture and Emotion Lab for their valuable feedback on these studies.
Keywords
- Culture
- Emotion
- Emotional expression
- Hiring
- Organizational behavior