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When holding in prevents from reaching out: Emotion suppression and social support-seeking in multicultural groups
Boros, Smaranda ; Van Gorp, Lore ; Boiger, Michael
Boros, Smaranda
Van Gorp, Lore
Boiger, Michael
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Publication Type
Journal article with impact factor
Editor
Supervisor
Publication Year
2019
Journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Book
Publication Volume
10
Publication Issue
2431
Publication Begin page
Publication End page
Publication NUmber of pages
13
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Abstract
Members of multicultural groups benefit from developing diverse social support networks Engaging openly with people who have a different worldview (i.e., given by a different cultural background) broadens one’s cognitive horizons, facilitates one’s adaptation to new contexts, decreases stereotyping and discrimination and generally improves individual and group performance. However, if this social connection is hindered (either by limiting the number of people one reaches out to or in terms of preferring to connect to similar others), then the diversity advantage is lost – both for the individuals and for the groups. Through two case studies of professional groups with varying cultural diversity (moderate and superdiverse), we investigate the evolution of their members’ social support networks (i.e., to what extent and to whom they reach out for support) depending on (1) individuals’ habitual emotion suppression and (2) cultural orientation on the individualism-collectivism dimension. Results show that individualistic cultures suffer a double-whammy: when suppressing, their members seek less support (i.e., don’t reach out so much to ask for support) and tend to seek culturally similar others for it when they do. Suppressing collectivists are less affected in absolute levels of connectedness, but still prefer culturally similar others as sources of support. Our study offers an emotion-based view of why people stick together with similar others in diverse groups and how learning to better cope with emotions can make us more open-minded towards diversity in professional settings.
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Keywords
Emotion Suppression, Individualism – Collectivism, Social Support, Similarity Attraction, Multicultural Group