Majorities’ emotions acculturate too: The role of intergroup friendships and clarity of minority emotion norms

When people come into contact with members of a new/other culture, their emotions may acculturate. In support of this idea, previous research has found that the emotions of immigrant minorities who have frequent contact with majority culture members, fit the majority emotion norms better than those who have less contact. Little is known about the possibility of majority members’ emotions acculturating towards the emotion norms in the minority culture. To shed light on this question, the current study investigated the emotional patterns and social contact experiences (i.e., self-reported friendships with minority peers) of 916 majority youths in a representative sample of Belgian middle schools. We computed majority members’ emotional fit with immigrant minority culture by relating majority members’ emotional patterns to the average (i.e., normative) emotional pattern of their minority classmates in comparable situations. We also examined the role of clear minority norms for emotions (measured as a high average fit of minority classmates’ emotions with the average emotional pattern of other minority students in the class). Results show that majority members’ emotional fit with the minority norm is high when the minority norm clarity is high. In addition, they show that the emotional fit of majorities is high to the extent that majority members have close friendships with minority peers but only in contexts where there is clarity in the minority emotion norms. We conclude that even though non-symmetrically, majority and minority culture groups can mutually accommodate to the other group’s emotion norms.

2024
International Journal of Intercultural Relations
Jasini, A., Tekin, E. A., Vieira, F. F., & Mesquita, B. (2024). Majorities’ emotions acculturate too: The role of intergroup friendships and clarity of minority emotion norms. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 98.
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