How do We Know What Emotion to Show: The Influence of Culture and Relational Context on Display Rules in the Workplace

Display rules are an important and often overlooked aspect of emotional labour, a process which occurs when how we regulate and display our emotion is based on rules created by the organization. Only a limited number of studies have examined display rules within this context (Diefendorff & Greguras, 2009; Grosserand & Diefendorff, 2005; Gullekson & Vancouver, 2010; Mann, 2007). The current study examined display rules on both a part-time and full-time sample to examine how these rules may change across discrete emotions, work specific targets (e.g., internal customers such as supervisors, coworkers, and subordinates; and external customers or clients), and individual differences in social culture. Results replicated previous findings, and emphasized the importance of the internal customers. Further, display rules differed across samples, providing support for the examination of the influence of work status, industry, and individual cultural differences. Self-construal, as examined through independent and interdependent values, did not result in differences across emotional display rules, however, the application of the theory of planned behaviour and the concept of instrumental collectivistic behaviour, can provide insight to these findings, placing even more importance on context and organizational norms