The Role of Identity Prominence and Salience in Emotional Response to Underpayment

• In Event: Reproducing Inequality at Work: Social Psychological Mechanisms (Co-Sponsored by Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section)

Abstract

This paper examines how the meaning workers derive from their labor shapes their responses to underpayment. Drawing on insights from research on work value and identity, I test two competing hypotheses: (1) the meaningfulness of the work identity (conceptualized as work identity prominence and salience) amplifies the stress of underpayment, intensifying felt and expressed emotions, and (2) the meaningfulness of the work identity buffers the stress of underpayment, reducing felt and expressed negative emotions. The findings reveal that work identity prominence, but not salience, acts as a psychological resource that mitigates the stress of underpayment on negative felt emotions. However, identity prominence amplifies the association between felt emotions and expressed emotions, as individuals with prominent work identities who feel negative emotions are more likely to express those emotions in interactions with coworkers. These results have implications for the unequal distribution of “meaningful work” in society and contribute to theoretical advancements by integrating identity theory and the distributive justice framework.

Author

• Tenshi Kawashima, New York University-Abu Dhabi