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 toward diversity in professional settings.
Highlights
In a world where cultural diversity in professional settings is more often than not the norm, it is crucial to have in-depth understanding of the role emotional dynamics play in multicultural groups
We proposed that the negative effect of suppression on social support network expansion would vary depending on the cultural values regarding individualism/collectivism in which people got their primary socialization
To investigate if the impact of suppression is different for people coming from more collectivistic vs. more individualistic cultures when they are interacting together in a multicultural group we focus on the superdiverse case, that is the group of MBA students
Summary
In a world where cultural diversity in professional settings is more often than not the norm, it is crucial to have in-depth understanding of the role emotional dynamics play in multicultural groups. Research on emotional processes in multicultural groups is so far scant (Elfenbein and Shirako, 2006; Fischbach, 2009). This may be surprising, given the growing attention to both. Multicultural groups challenge our most basic assumptions about the “rules of the game” of working together (Stahl et al, 2010).. Multicultural groups challenge our most basic assumptions about the “rules of the game” of working together (Stahl et al, 2010).1 These challenges often come with intense emotions for members of multicultural groups, and group members may reach out to others in their group for support in handling and making sense of these emotions (Rimé, 2009). For the larger group to which the individual belongs, social support exchanges are the canvas that allow stronger and longer-lasting relationships to be built (Ibarra, 1993), newcomers to be socialized into organizational culture, organizational culture to be propagated and strengthened (Morrison, 2002), and groups to become more cohesive (Hogg, 1992)
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