Keep a Stiff Upper Lip or Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve? Ethnic Identity and Emotion Management among Arab/Palestinians in Israel

Abstract

This study examines how emotion management is linked to subjective identity among members of ethnic minority groups in ethnically mixed workplaces. Data were drawn from interviews with Arab/Palestinian citizen residents of Israel. The results reveal three distinct strategies of emotion management: (1) Arab/Palestinians, regardless of their subjective identity, tend to conceal emotions during interactions with majority group members; (2) individuals who identify as ‘Arab’ also tend to regulate social interactions to avoid the emotional risks that accompany interactions with majority group members; (3) those who choose a ‘Palestinian’ label are more likely to actively express their ethnic identities despite the emotional risks associated with this type of identification. The findings suggest that emotion management is influenced not only by a person’s assignment to a social minority category (the emphasis of previous research), but also by a person’s subjectively defined identity.