Week 10 Blog: Thematic Coding

This week, I focused on putting more details into my thematic coding. I grouped different sub-themes under bigger themes like emotional suppression, power, invisibility, and identity. Then I counted how many times each sub-theme appears across the participants. One thing that surprised me is how dominant emotional suppression is. Out of 15 participants, 22 times the sub-themes related to suppression was mentioned

Also, I noticed that suppression often appears together with power. For example, many workers said they don’t speak up because they are afraid of being blamed or getting into trouble. This shows that how significant influence workplace structure has brought to emotional labors.

Another interesting pattern is identity change. Some workers mentioned becoming more obedient or feeling like a different person at work. This makes me think that emotional labor can affect people in a long-term way, not just in one moment.