Understanding emotional display rules at work and outside of work: The effects of country and gender

This study examined the long-held, but empirically untested assumption that emotional display rules at work are different
from more general display rules. We examined whether the effect of context (work vs. non-work) on display rules depended on
rater gender, rater country (i.e., Singapore, United States), and discrete emotion (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness,
and happiness). Results revealed that display rules at work involved less expressivity of emotion than did display rules outside
of work for all six emotions. Further, display rules in Singapore involved less expressivity of anger, sadness, and fear than
display rules in the US, with no country differences being observed for the emotions of happiness, contempt, and disgust.
These results were qualified by significant country-by-gender interactions for anger, contempt, and disgust, a significant
country-by-context interaction for fear, and a three-way interaction (i.e., country-by-gender-by-context) for sadness.