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Chapter4 Emotions and Moods LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, students should be able to: Differentiate between emotions and moods. Identify the sources of emotions and moods. Show the impact emotional labor has on employees. Describe affective events theory. Describe emotional intelligence. Identify strategies for emotional regulation. Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues. INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES Instructors may wish to use the following resources when presenting this chapter. Text Exercises Myth or Science?: “Smile, and the Work World Smiles with You” An Ethical Choice: Should Managers Use Emotional Intelligence (EI) Tests? Personal Inventory Assessment: Emotional Intelligence Assessment Career Objectives: How Do I Turn Down The Volume On My Screaming Boss? Point/Counterpoint: Sometimes Yelling Is For Everyone’s Good Questions for Review Experiential Exercise: The Happiness Test Ethical Dilemma: Data Mining Emotions Text Cases Case Incident 1: Cry babies Case Incident 2:Tall Poppy Syndrome Instructor’s Choice This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student's textbook. Instructor's Choice reinforces the text's emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor's Choice activities are centered on debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student experiences. Some can be used in class in their entirety, while others require some additional work on the student's part. The course instructor may choose to use these at anytime throughout the class—some may be more effective as icebreakers, while some may be used to pull together various concepts covered in the chapter. Web Exercises At the end of each chapter of this Instructor’s Manual, you will find suggested exercises and ideas for researching OB topics on the Internet. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-of-class activity or as lab activities with your class. Summary and Implications for Managers Emotions and moods are similar in that both are affective in nature. But they’re also different—moods are more general and less contextual than emotions. The time of day and day of the week, stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns are some of the factors that influence emotions and moods. Emotions and moods have proven relevant for virtually every OB topic we study, and they have implications for managerial practice. Specific implications for managers are below: Recognize that emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management does not mean creating an emotion-free environment. To foster effective decision making, creativity, and motivation in employees, look to model positive emotions and moods as much as is authentically possible. Provide positive feedback to increase the positivity of employees. Of course, it also helps to hire people who are predisposed to positive moods. In the service sector, encourage positive displays of emotion, which make customers feel more positive and thus, improve customer service interactions and negotiations. Understand the role of emotions and moods to significantly improve your ability to explain and predict your coworkers’ and other’s behavior. This chapter begins with a vignette discussing the controversy of the movie “The Interview. ”As the escalation over “The Interview” illustrates, emotions can greatly influence decision making, even sparking conflict with potentially disastrous consequences. In truth, we cannot set aside our emotions, but we can acknowledge and work with them. And not all emotions have negative influences on us. Given the obvious role emotions play in our lives, it might surprise you that, until recently, the field of OB has not given the topic of emotions much attention. Why? Generally, because emotions in the workplace were historically thought to be detrimental to performance. Although managers knew emotions were an inseparable part of everyday life, they tried to create organizations that were emotion-free. Researchers tended to focus on strong negative emotions— especially anger—that interfered with an employee’s ability to work effectively. Thankfully, this type of thinking is changing. Certainly some emotions, particularly exhibited at the wrong time, can hinder performance. Other emotions are neutral, and some are constructive. Employees bring their emotions to work every day, so no study of OB would be comprehensive without considering their role in workplace behavior. BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE What Are Emotions and Moods? Introduction Affect is a generic term that covers a broad range of feelings that people experience, and encompasses both emotions and moods. Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Moods are less intense feelings than emotions and often arise without a specific event acting as a stimulus. Exhibit 4-1 shows the relationships among affect, emotions, and mood. The Basic Emotions Numerous researchers have tried to limit and define the dozens of emotions into a basic set of emotions. Cultural norms that govern emotional expression – how we experience an emotion isn’t always the same as how we show it. Six essentially universal emotions can be plotted along a continuum: happiness—surprise—fear—sadness—anger—disgust. Moral Emotions Researchers have been studying what are called moral emotions; that is, emotions that have moral implications because of our instant judgement of the situation that evokes them. Interestingly, research indicates that our responses to moral emotions differ from our responses to other emotions. Moral emotions are learned, usually in childhood, and thus, they are not universal like innate emotions. Because morality is a construct that differs between cultures, so do moral emotions. Therefore, we need to be aware of the moral aspects of situations that trigger our emotions and make certain we understand the context before we act, especially in the workplace. The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative Affect One way to classify emotions is by whether they are positive or negative. Positive emotions—such as joy and gratitude—express a favorable evaluation or feeling. Negative emotions—such as anger or guilt—express the opposite. When we group emotions into positive and negative categories, they become mood states because we are now looking at them more generally instead of isolating one particular emotion. In Exhibit 4-2, excited is a pure marker of high positive affect, while boredom is a pure marker of low negative affect. Nervous is a pure marker of high negative affect; relaxed is a pure marker of low positive affect. We can think of positive affect as a mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, alertness, and elation at the high end and contentedness, calmness, and serenity at the low end. Negative affect is a mood dimension consisting of nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end and boredom, depression, and fatigue at the low end. Experiencing Moods and Emotions As if it weren’t complex enough to consider the many distinct emotions and moods a person might identify, the reality is that we all experience moods and emotions differently. For most people, positive moods are somewhat more common than negative moods. Indeed, research finds a positivity offset, meaning that at zero input (when nothing in particular is going on), most individuals experience a mildly positive mood. Does the degree to which people experience positive and negative emotions vary across cultures? Yes (see the OB Poll). People in most cultures appear to experience certain positive and negative emotions, and people interpret them in much the same way worldwide. However, an individual’s experience of emotions appears to be culturally shaped. The Function of Emotions Do emotions make us irrational? Observations of emotions suggest rationality and emotion are in conflict, and that if you exhibit emotion, you are likely to act irrationally. These perspectives suggest that the demonstration or even experience of emotions can make us seem weak, brittle, or irrational. Do emotions make us unethical? A growing body of research has begun to examine the relationship between emotions and moral attitudes. Decision making was believed to be a higher-order cognitive process, but recent research on moral emotions questions this assumption. Sources of Emotions and Moods Personality Affect intensity—individual differences in the strength with which individuals experience their emotions. Time of the day People vary in their moods by time of day. Researchers analyzed 509 million Twitter messages from 2.4 million individuals across 84 countries. Exhibit 4-3 shows positive affect increased after sunrise, tended to peak at midmorning, remained stable until roughly 7 p.m., and then tended to increase again until the midnight drop. Day of the week In most cultures, people are in better moods on the weekend. Exhibit 4-4 shows that this is true in several cultures. Weather Weather has little effect on mood. Illusory correlation occurs when people associate two events, but in reality there is no connection. Stress Stress can be cumulative and does affect mood and emotional states. Social activities Social activities tend to increase positive mood. People who are in positive moods seek out social activities. Sleep A large portion of the U.S. workforce suffers from sleep deprivation. Sleep quality affects mood. Exercise Enhances positive moods, but don’t expect miracles. Age Negative emotions seem to occur less as people get older. Sex Women show greater emotional expression than men, experience emotions more intensely, and display more frequent expressions of both positive and negative emotions. Women also report more comfort in expressing emotions. Women are better at reading nonverbal cues than men are. Emotional Labor Introduction Emotional labor is an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. Challenge for employees is to project one emotion while simultaneously feeling another (emotional dissonance). Felt Versus Displayed Emotions Separate emotions into felt(an individual’s actual emotions) and displayed (those that the organization requires workers to show and considers appropriate in a given job). Displayed emotions may require acting to keep employment. Surface acting is hiding inner feelings and forgoing emotional expressions in response to display rules. Deep acting is the modification of inner feelings. Displaying emotions we don’t really feel is exhausting, so it is important to give employees who engage in surface displays a chance to relax and recharge. Affective Events Theory Understanding emotions at work has been helped by a model called affective events theory (AET). Employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work and this influences job performance and satisfaction. Work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions to which employees’ personalities and moods predispose them to respond with greater or lesser intensity. In summary, AET offers two important messages: First, emotions provide valuable insights into how workplace hassles and uplifting events influence employee performance and satisfaction. Second, employees and managers shouldn’t ignore emotions or the events that cause them, even when they appear minor, because they accumulate. Emotional Intelligence Introduction Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to: Perceive emotions in the self and others. Understand the meaning of these emotions. Regulate one’s emotions accordingly in a cascading model, as shown in Exhibit 4-5. Several studies suggest EI may play an important role in job performance. EI has been a controversial concept in OB, with supporters and detractors. Emotional Regulation Emotion regulation means to identify and modify the emotions you feel. Emotion Regulation Influences and Outcomes As you might suspect, not everyone is equally good at regulating emotions. Individuals who are higher in the personality trait of neuroticism have more trouble doing so and often find their moods are beyond their ability to control. The workplace environment has an effect on an individual’s tendency to employ emotion regulation. In general, diversity in work groups increases the likelihood that you will regulate your emotions. Racial diversity also has an effect: if diversity is low, the minority will engage in emotion regulation, perhaps to “fit in” with the majority race as much as possible; if diversity is high and many different races are represented, the majority race will employ emotion regulation, perhaps to integrate themselves with the whole group. These findings suggest a beneficial outcome of diversity—it may cause us to regulate our emotions more consciously and effectively. Changing your emotions takes effort, and this effort can be exhausting. From another perspective, research suggests that avoiding negative emotional experiences is less likely to lead to positive moods than does seeking out positive emotional experiences. Emotion Regulation Techniques Researchers of emotion regulation often study the strategies people employ to change their emotions. One technique we have discussed in this chapter is surface acting, or literally “putting on a face” of appropriate response to a given situation. Surface acting doesn’t change the emotions, though, so the regulation effect is minimal, and the result of daily surface acting leads to exhaustion and fewer OCBs. Deep acting, another technique we have covered, is less psychologically costly than surface acting because the employee is actually trying to experience the emotion. Emotion regulation through deep acting can have a positive impact on work outcomes. One technique of emotion regulation is emotional suppression, or suppressing initial emotional responses to situations. This response seems to facilitate practical thinking in the short term. However, it appears to be helpful only when a strongly negative event would illicit a distressed emotional reaction in a crisis situation. Thus, unless we’re truly in a crisis situation, acknowledging rather than suppressing our emotional responses to situations, and re-evaluating events after they occur, yields the best outcomes. Cognitive reappraisal, or reframing our outlook on an emotional situation, is one way to effectively regulate emotions. This result suggests that cognitive reappraisal may allow people to change their emotional responses, even when the subject matter is as highly emotionally charged as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another technique with potential for emotion regulation is social sharing, or venting. Research shows that the open expression of emotions can help individuals to regulate their emotions, as opposed to keeping emotions “bottled up.” Social sharing can reduce anger reactions when people can talk about the facts of a bad situation, their feelings about the situation, or any positive aspects of the situation. While emotion regulation techniques can help us cope with difficult workplace situations, research indicates that the effect varies. Thus, while there is much promise in emotion regulation techniques, the best route to a positive workplace is to recruit positive-minded individuals and train leaders to manage their moods, job attitudes, and performance. Ethics of Emotion Regulation Emotion regulation has important ethical implications. Some people might argue that controlling your emotions is unethical because it requires a degree of acting. Recent research has found that acting like you are in a good mood might put you in a good mood. OB Applications of Emotions and Moods Selection One implication from the evidence on EI to date is that employers should consider it a factor in hiring employees, especially in jobs that demand a high degree of social interaction. More employers are starting to use EI measures to hire people. Decision Making OB researchers are increasingly finding that moods and emotions have important effects on decision making, but there are other variables that require further research. Creativity Good moods are associated with idea generation. Some believe that good moods make people more creative, but others don’t agree. Motivation Several studies have highlighted the importance of moods and emotions on motivation. Leadership Effective leaders rely on emotional appeals to help convey their messages. The expression of emotion is often the critical element that results in individuals accepting or rejecting a leader’s message. Negotiation Displaying a negative emotion can be effective in negotiation. Emotions may impair negotiator performance. Customer service Quality customer service makes demands on employees that can create emotional dissonance. Emotional contagion is an important consideration. Job Attitudes Several studies have shown people who had a good day at work tend to be in a better mood at home that evening, and vice versa. People who have a stressful day at work also have trouble relaxing after they get off work. If you’ve had a bad day at work, your spouse is likely to have an unpleasant evening. Deviant Workplace Behaviors Negative emotions can lead to deviant workplace behaviors. For example, envy is an emotion that occurs when you resent someone for having something that you do not, and which you strongly desire; it can lead to malicious deviant behaviors. Once aggression starts, it’s likely that other people will become angry and aggressive, so the stage is set for a serious escalation of negative behavior. Managers, therefore, need to stay connected with their employees to gauge emotions and emotional intensity levels. Safety and Injury at Work Employers might improve health and safety (and reduce costs) by ensuring that workers aren’t engaged in potentially dangerous activities when they’re in a bad mood. Individuals in negative moods tend to be more anxious, which can make them less able to cope effectively with hazards. Negative moods also make people more distractible, and distractions can obviously lead to careless behaviors. How Managers Can Influence Moods Selecting positive team members can have a contagion effect, as positive moods transmit from team member to team member. Summary and Implications for Managers Emotions and moods are similar in that both are affective in nature. But they’re also different—moods are more general and less contextual than emotions. The time of day and day of the week, stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns are some of the factors that influence emotions and moods. Emotions and moods have proven relevant for virtually every OB topic we study, and they have implications for managerial practice. Specific implications for managers are below: Recognize that emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management does not mean creating an emotion-free environment. To foster effective decision making, creativity, and motivation in employees, look to model positive emotions and moods as much as is authentically possible. Provide positive feedback to increase the positivity of employees. Of course, it also helps to hire people who are predisposed to positive moods. In the service sector, encourage positive displays of emotion, which make customers feel more positive and thus, improve customer service interactions and negotiations. Understand the role of emotions and moods to significantly improve your ability to explain and predict your coworkers’ and others’ behavior. EXPANDED CHAPTER OUTLINE Why Were Emotions Ignored in OB? The “Myth of Rationality”. Emotions were seen as disruptive. What Are Emotions and Moods? Introduction Affect is a generic term that covers a broad range of feelings that people experience and encompasses both emotions and moods. Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Moods are less intense feelings than emotions and often arise without a specific event acting as a stimulus. Exhibit 4-1 shows the relationships among affect, emotions, and mood. Affect is a broad term encompassing both emotions and moods. Differences exist between emotions and moods. Emotions and moods can mutually influence each other. The Basic Emotions Numerous researchers have tried to limit and define the dozens of emotions into a basic set of emotions. Differences exist among researchers in this area. Contemporary research, psychologists have tried to identify basic emotions by studying facial expressions. Cultural norms that govern emotional expression – how we experience an emotions isn’t always the same as how we show it. There has been agreement on six essentially universal emotions – anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise. Plot emotions along a continuum: happiness—surprise—fear—sadness—anger—disgust. Moral Emotions Researchers have been studying what are called moral emotions; that is, emotions that have moral implications because of our instant judgement of the situation that evokes them. Interestingly, research indicates that our responses to moral emotions differ from our responses to other emotions. Moral emotions are learned, usually in childhood, and thus, they are not universal like innate emotions. Because morality is a construct that differs between cultures, so do moral emotions. Therefore, we need to be aware of the moral aspects of situations that trigger our emotions and make certain we understand the context before we act, especially in the workplace. The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative Affect One way to classify emotions is by whether they are positive or negative. Positive emotions—such as joy and gratitude—express a favorable evaluation or feeling. Negative emotions—such as anger or guilt—express the opposite. Keep in mind that emotions can’t be neutral. Being neutral is being non-emotional. When we group emotions into positive and negative categories, they become mood states because we are now looking at them more generally instead of isolating one particular emotion. In Exhibit 4-2, excited is a pure marker of high positive affect, while boredom is a pure marker of low negative affect. Nervous is a pure marker of high negative affect; relaxed is a pure marker of low positive affect. We can think of positive affect as a mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, alertness, and elation at the high end and contentedness, calmness, and serenity at the low end. Negative affect is a mood dimension consisting of nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end and boredom, depression, and fatigue at the low end. (Note: Positive and negative affect are moods.) Experiencing Moods and Emotions As if it weren’t complex enough to consider the many distinct emotions and moods a person might identify, the reality is that we all experience moods and emotions differently. For most people, positive moods are somewhat more common than negative moods. Indeed, research finds a positivity offset, meaning that at zero input (when nothing in particular is going on), most individuals experience a mildly positive mood. Does the degree to which people experience positive and negative emotions vary across cultures? Yes (see the OB Poll). People in most cultures appear to experience certain positive and negative emotions, and people interpret them in much the same way worldwide. However, an individual’s experience of emotions appears to be culturally shaped. The Function of Emotions Do emotions make us irrational? Observations of emotions suggest rationality and emotion are in conflict, and that if you exhibit emotion, you are likely to act irrationally. These perspectives suggest the demonstration or even experience of emotions can make us seem weak, brittle, or irrational. The example of Phineas Gage and many other brain injury studies show emotions are critical to rational thinking. The key to good decision making is to employ both thinking and feeling in our decisions. Do emotions make us unethical? A growing body of research has begun to examine the relationship between emotions and moral attitudes. Decision making was believed to be a higher-order cognitive process, but recent research on moral emotions questions this assumption. Examples of moral emotions include sympathy for the suffering of others, guilt about our own immoral behavior, anger about injustice done to others, contempt for those who behave unethically, and disgust at violations of moral norms. Numerous studies suggest that these reactions are largely based on feelings rather than cold cognition. Sources of Emotions and Moods Personality Affect intensity—individual differences in the strength with which individuals experience their emotions. People differ in how predisposed they are to experience emotions intensely. Affectively intense people experience both positive and negative emotions more deeply: When they’re sad, they’re really sad. When they’re happy, they’re really happy. Time of the day Levels of positive affect tend to peak in the late morning and then remain at that level until early evening. Most research suggests that negative affect fluctuates less than positive affect, but the general trend is for it to increase over the course of a day. Researchers analyzed millions of Twitter messages from individuals across the globe. Exhibit 4-3 shows positive affect increased after sunrise, tended to peak at midmorning, remained stable until roughly 7 p.m., and then tended to increase again until the midnight drop. Day of the week In most cultures, people are in better moods on the weekend. Exhibit 4-4 shows that this is true in several cultures. Weather Weather has little effect on mood. Illusory correlation occurs when people associate two events, but in reality, there is no connection. Stress Stress can be cumulative and does affect mood and emotional states. Social activities Social activities tend to increase positive mood. People who are in positive moods seek out social activities. The type of social activity matters– activities that are physical, informal, or epicurean are more strongly associated with increases in positive mood. Sleep A large portion of the U.S. workforce suffers from sleep deprivation. Sleep quality affects mood. Poor sleep also impairs job satisfaction because people that feel fatigue are irritable and less alert. Exercise Exercise enhances peoples’ positive moods, but don’t expect miracles. Age Negative emotions seem to occur less as people get older. Sex Women show greater emotional expression than men, experience emotions more intensely, and display more frequent expressions of both positive and negative emotions. People also tend to attribute men’s and women’s emotions in ways that might be based on stereotypes of what typical emotional reactions are. Emotional Labor Introduction Emotional labor is an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. The concept emerged from studies of service jobs. Felt Versus Displayed Emotions Separate emotions into felt(an individual’s actual emotions) and displayed (those that the organization requires workers to show and considers appropriate in a given job). Displaying fake emotions requires us to suppress real ones. Surface acting is hiding inner feelings and hiding emotional expressions in response to display rules. Deep acting is trying to modify our true inner feelings based on display rules. Displaying emotions we don’t really feel is exhausting, so it is important to give employees who engage in surface displays a chance to relax and recharge. Affective Events Theory A model called affective events theory (AET) demonstrates that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and this reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction. Employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work and this influences job performance and satisfaction. Work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions. The events-reaction relationship is moderated by the employee’s personality and mood. A person’s emotional response to a given event can change depending on his or her mood. Emotions influence a number of performance and satisfaction variables such as OCB, organizational commitment, turnover, and level of effort. In summary, AET offers two important messages: First, emotions provide valuable insights into how workplace hassles and uplifting events influence employee performance and satisfaction. Second, employees and managers shouldn’t ignore emotions or the events that cause them, even when they appear minor, because they accumulate. Emotional Intelligence Introduction Emotional intelligence (EI is a person’s ability to: Perceive emotions in the self and others. Understand the meaning of these emotions. Regulate one’s emotions accordingly in a cascading model, as shown in Exhibit 4-5. Several studies suggest EI may play an important role in job performance. One study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology found executive MBA students who performed best on a strategic decision making task were more likely to incorporate emotion centers of the brain into their choice process. The students also de-emphasized the use of the more cognitive parts of their brains. EI has been a controversial concept in OB, with supporters and detractors. Emotion Regulation Emotion regulation, which is part of the EI literature, is increasingly being studied as an independent concept. The central ideal behind emotion regulation is to identify and modify the emotions you feel. Emotion Regulation Influences and Outcomes As you might suspect, not everyone is equally good at regulating emotions. Individuals who are higher in the personality trait of neuroticism have more trouble doing so and often find their moods are beyond their ability to control. The workplace environment has an effect on an individual’s tendency to employ emotion regulation. In general, diversity in work groups increases the likelihood that you will regulate your emotions. Racial diversity also has an effect: if diversity is low, the minority will engage in emotion regulation, perhaps to “fit in” with the majority race as much as possible; if diversity is high and many different races are represented, the majority race will employ emotion regulation, perhaps to integrate themselves with the whole group. These findings suggest a beneficial outcome of diversity – it may cause us to regulate our emotions more consciously and effectively. Changing your emotions takes effort, and this effort can be exhausting. From another perspective, research suggests that avoiding negative emotional experiences is less likely to lead to positive moods than does seeking out positive emotional experiences. Emotion Regulation Techniques Researchers of emotion regulation often study the strategies people employ to change their emotions. One technique we have discussed in this chapter is surface acting, or literally “putting on a face” of appropriate response to a given situation. Surface acting doesn’t change the emotions, though, so the regulation effect is minimal, and the result of daily surface acting leads to exhaustion and fewer OCBs. Deep acting, another technique we have covered, is less psychologically costly than surface acting because the employee is actually trying to experience the emotion. Emotion regulation through deep acting can have a positive impact on work outcomes. Ethics of Emotion Regulation One technique of emotion regulation is emotional suppression, or suppressing initial emotional responses to situations. This response seems to facilitate practical thinking in the short term. However, it appears to be helpful only when a strongly negative event would illicit a distressed emotional reaction in a crisis situation. Thus, unless we’re truly in a crisis situation, acknowledging rather than suppressing our emotional responses to situations, and re-evaluating events after they occur, yields the best outcomes. Cognitive reappraisal, or reframing our outlook on an emotional situation, is one way to effectively regulate emotions. This result suggests that cognitive reappraisal may allow people to change their emotional responses, even when the subject matter is as highly emotionally charged as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another technique with potential for emotion regulation is social sharing, or venting. Research shows that the open expression of emotions can help individuals to regulate their emotions, as opposed to keeping emotions “bottled up.” Social sharing can reduce anger reactions when people can talk about the facts of a bad situation, their feelings about the situation, or any positive aspects of the situation. While emotion regulation techniques can help us cope with difficult workplace situations, research indicates that the effect varies. Thus, while there is much promise in emotion regulation techniques, the best route to a positive workplace is to recruit positive-minded individuals and train leaders to manage their moods, job attitudes, and performance. Ethics of Emotion Regulation Emotion regulation has important ethical implications. Some people might argue that controlling your emotions is unethical because it requires a degree of acting. Recent research has found that acting like you are in a good mood might put you in a good mood. OB Applications of Emotions and Moods Selection One implication from the evidence on EI to date is that employers should consider it a factor in hiring employees, especially in jobs that demand a high degree of social interaction. More employers are starting to use EI measures to hire people. Decision Making Traditional approaches to the study of decision making in organizations have emphasized rationality. But OB researchers are increasingly finding that moods and emotions have important effects on decision making. Positive emotions can increase problem solving and facilitate the integration of information. OB researchers continue to debate the role of negative emotions and moods in decision making. Recent research suggests that depressed people make poorer decisions. Creativity People in good moods tend to be more creative than people in bad moods. But some researchers do not believe that a positive mood makes people more creative. They argue that when people are in positive moods, they may relax and not engage in the critical thinking necessary for some forms of creativity. Motivation Several studies have highlighted the importance of moods and emotions on motivation. One study set two groups of people to solving word puzzles. The first group saw a funny video clip, intended to put the subjects in a good mood first. The other group was not shown the clip and started working on the puzzles right away. The positive-mood group reported higher expectations of being able to solve the puzzles, worked harder at them, and solved more puzzles as a result. The second study found that giving people performance feedback—whether real or fake—influenced their mood, which then influenced their motivation. So a cycle can exist in which positive moods cause people to be more creative, which leads to positive feedback from those observing their work. This positive feedback further reinforces the positive mood, which may make people perform even better, and so on. Another study looked at the moods of insurance sales agents in Taiwan. Agents in a good mood were more helpful toward their coworkers and also felt better about themselves. These factors in turn led to superior performance in the form of higher sales and better supervisor reports of performance. Leadership Effective leaders rely on emotional appeals to help convey their messages. Transformational leaders recognize the effect emotion has on their followers and often freely share their own emotions. Corporate executives know emotional content is critical if employees are to buy into their vision of the company’s future and accept change. Negotiation Displaying a negative emotion can be effective in negotiation, but feeling bad about your performance appears to impair future negotiations. Customer Service Quality customer service makes demands on employees that can create emotional dissonance. Long-term emotional dissonance is a predictor of job burnout, declines in job performance, and lower job satisfaction. Emotional contagion is an important consideration. Job Attitudes Several studies have shown people who had a good day at work tend to be in a better mood at home that evening, and vice versa. People who have a stressful day at work also have trouble relaxing after they get off work. If you’ve had a bad day at work, your spouse is likely to have an unpleasant evening. Deviant Workplace Behaviors Negative emotions can lead to a number of deviant workplace behaviors. Employee deviance: voluntary actions that violate established norms and which threaten the organization, its members, or both. Many of these deviant behaviors can be traced to negative emotions. For example, envy is an emotion that occurs when you resent someone for having something that you do not, and which you strongly desire, and can lead to malicious deviant behaviors. Safety and Injury at Work Employers might improve health and safety (and reduce costs) by ensuring that workers aren’t engaged in potentially dangerous activities when they’re in a bad mood. Individuals in negative moods tend to be more anxious, which can make them less able to cope effectively with hazards. Negative moods also make people more distractible, and distractions can obviously lead to careless behaviors. How Managers Can Influence Moods Managers can use humor and give their employees small tokens of appreciation for work well done. When leaders are in good moods, group members are more positive, and as a result, they cooperate more. Selecting positive team members can have a contagion effect as positive moods transmit from team member to team member. Summary and Implications for Managers Emotions and moods are similar in that both are affective in nature. But they’re also different—moods are more general and less contextual than emotions. And events do matter. The time of day and day of the week, stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns are some of the factors that influence emotions and moods. Emotions and moods have proven relevant for virtually every OB topic we study, and they have implications for managerial practice. Specific implications for managers are below: Recognize that emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management does not mean creating an emotion-free environment. To foster effective decision making, creativity, and motivation in employees, look to model positive emotions and moods as much as is authentically possible. Provide positive feedback to increase the positivity of employees. In the service sector, encourage positive displays of emotion, which make customers feel more positive and thus, improve customer service interactions and negotiations. In the service sector, encourage positive displays of emotion, which make customers feel more positive and thus, improve customer service interactions and negotiations. Understand the role of emotions and moods to significantly improve your ability to explain and predict your coworkers’ and others’ behavior. Myth or Science? “Smile, and the Work World Smiles with You” It is true that a smile is not always an emotional expression. Smiles are used as social currency in most organizations to create a positive atmosphere, and a smile usually creates an unconscious reflexive return smile. However, anyone who has ever smiled at an angry manager knows this doesn’t always work. In truth, the giving and withholding of smiles is an unconscious power play of office politics. Research on the “boss effect” suggests that the amount of power and status a person feels over another person dictates who will smile. Subordinates generally smile more often than their bosses smile back at them. This may happen in part because workers are increasingly expected to show expressions of happiness with their jobs. However, the perception of power is complex and varies by national culture. In a recent study, Chinese workers, for instance, reflexively smiled only at bosses who had the power to give them negative job evaluations, while U.S. participants smiled most to managers perceived to have higher social power. Other researchers found that when individuals felt powerful, they usually didn’t return even a high-ranking individual’s smile. Conversely, when people felt powerless, they returned everyone’s smiles. The science of smiling transcends the expression of emotion. While an angry manager may not smile back, a happy manager might not as well, according to the “boss effect” research. “The relationship of what we show on our face and how we feel is a very loose one,” acknowledged Arvid Kappas, a professor of emotion research at Jacobs University Bremen in Germany. This suggests that, when we want to display positive emotions to others, we should do more than smile, such as when service representatives try to create happy moods in their customers with excited voice pitch, encouraging gestures, and energetic body movement. The science of smiling is an area of current research, but it is clear already that knowing about the “boss effect” suggests many practical applications. For one, managers and employees can be made more aware of ingrained tendencies toward others and, through careful self-observation, change their habits. Comprehensive displays of positive emotion using voice inflection, gestures, and word choice may also be more helpful in building good business relationships than the simple smile. Sources: R. L. Hotz, “Too Important to Smile Back: The ‘Boss Effect’,” The Wall Street Journal (October 16, 2012), p. D2; E. Kim and D. J. Yoon, “Why Does Service With a Smile Make Employees Happy? A Social Interaction Model,” Journal of Applied Psychology 97 (2012), pp. 1059–-1967; and K. Weintraub, “But How Do You Really Feel? Someday the Computer May Know,” The New York Times (October 16, 2012), p. D3 Class Exercise Divide the class into groups of three to five students. Have each group discuss situations in which students experienced the “boss effect” either as the superior in the relationship or as the subordinate. Have students try to remember how they felt about the other person in this situation. Ask students whether they think their expression or that of the other individual really reflected how they each felt. Have the group write down the results. Have the groups present to the class their perceptions about smiling in the workplace and whether smiling accurately conveys what people feel. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as Black Board 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. Ethical Choice Should Managers Use Emotional Intelligence (EI) Tests? As we discussed in this chapter, the concept of emotional intelligence has raised some debate. One of the topic questions for managers is whether to use EI tests in the selection process. Here are some ethical considerations: There is no commonly accepted test. For instance, researchers have recently used the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, and the newly developed Situational Judgment Test of Emotional Intelligence (SJT of EI) in studies. Researchers feel EI tests may need to be culturally specific because emotional displays vary by culture; thus, the interpretation of emotional cues differs. For example, a recent study in India comparing the emotional intelligence scores for Indian and North American executives using the Emotional Competence Inventory test (ECI-2) found the results similar but not the same, suggesting the need for modification. Applicants may react negatively to taking an EI test in general, or to parts of it. The face recognition test, for example, may seem culturally biased to some if the subject photos are not diverse. Also, participants who score high on EI tests tend to consider them fair; applicants who score lower may not perceive the tests to be fair and can thus consider the hiring organizations unfavorably—even if they score well on other assessments. EI tests may not be predictive of performance for all types of jobs. In a study of 600 Romanian participants, results showed that EI was valid for salespeople, public servants, and CEOs of public hospitals, but these were all roles requiring significant social interaction. EI tests may need to be tailored for each position category or not be used when the position description does not warrant. It remains somewhat unclear what EI tests are actually measuring. They may reflect personality or intelligence, in which case, other measures might be better. Also, mixed EI tests may predict job performance, but many of these tests include personality constructs and measures of general mental ability. There is not enough research on how emotional intelligence affects, for instance, counterproductive work behaviors. It may not be prudent to test and select applicants who are rated high on EI when we aren’t yet certain that everything about EI leads to desired workplace outcomes. These concerns suggest EI tests should be avoided in hiring decisions. However, because research has indicated that emotional intelligence does predict job performance to some degree, managers should not be too hasty to dismiss the tests. Rather, those wishing to use EI in hiring decisions should be aware of these issues in order to make informed and ethical decisions about not only whom to hire, but how. Sources: D. Iliescu, A. Ilie, D. Ispas, and A. Ion, “Emotional Intelligence in Personnel Selection: Applicant Reactions, Criterion, and Incremental Validity,” International Journal of Selection and Assessment (September 2012), pp. 347–-358; R. Sharma, “Measuring Social and Emotional Intelligence Competencies in the Indian Context,” Cross Cultural Management 19 (2012), pp. 30–-47; and S. Sharma, M. Gangopadhyay, E. Austin, and M. K. Mandal, “Development and Validation of a Situational Judgment Test of Emotional Intelligence,” International Journal of Selection and Assessment (March 2013), pp. 57–-73. Class Discussion Ask students whether they have ever taken an EI test. If they have, did they think it provided an accurate assessment of their EI? Did the results of the test prevent them from getting a position they wanted? Then, ask students whether they would rely on EI tests when making hiring decisions. Personal Inventory Assessments Intercultural Sensitivity Scale Have you ever been able to “read” others well? Do people say you seem to have “the right thing to say” for every occasion? Complete this PIA to determine your emotional intelligence (EI). Career Objectives How do I turn down the volume on my screaming boss? My boss is a yeller. One time, he kicked my chair and yelled for me to get out of the office just because I’d forgotten to tell him that lunch had been delivered. His rage makes me so mad I want to yell back, but I don’t because it isn’t professional. Is there a way to get him to think before he fumes?—Leslie Dear Leslie: We feel for you! Actually, your internal anger response is perfectly normal. Almost everyone has an emotional reaction to screaming and other situations of workplace incivility like swearing and rude behavior, and a majority of employees react somehow. For example,66 percent of participants in a recent study reported their performance declined when they were the recipients of incivility, and 25 percent admitted they took their frustration out on customers. Another study found that verbal aggression reduces victims’ working memory, making even simple instructions difficult to follow. So you’re right to want to strategize how to calm the situation since it hurts you, your coworkers, and the company. The good news is that you can work on your reactions to de-escalate an episode. Experts suggest empathizing with your boss (often we find if we try to understand where someone is coming from, it helps us deal with the emotions more effectively), apologizing ifyou ’ve done something wrong, and not talking back (incivility is never cured by payment in kind). Find situations where you can laugh over mutual frustrations and don’t take his outbursts personally. The bad news is that you probably can’t change his emotional response to incidents, but you may be able to help him see the error of his ways by modeling better behavior. Of course, there are situations in which you cannot and should not tolerate uncivil behavior (such as when you are being threatened or when the behavior becomes truly abusive). In those cases, you may need to deal with the situation more directly by first calmly confronting your boss or, if that fails, seeing someone in human resources. But short of that breaking point, our experience and the research suggest that your best response is not to respond outwardly but rather to rethink the way you are responding inwardly. As the British poster says, “Keep calm and carry on!” Sources: C. Porath and C. Pearson, “The Price of Incivility,” Harvard Business Review (January–February 2013): 114–21; A. Rafaeli et al., “When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay Cognitive Costs,” Journal of Applied Psychology (September2012): 931–50; S. Shellenbarger, “’It’s Not My Fault!’ A Better Response to Criticism at Work,” The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2014, D1, D4; and S. Shellenbarger, “When the Boss Is a Screamer,” The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2012, D1, D2. Point/Counterpoint Sometimes Yelling is for Everyone’s Good
Point Anger is discussed throughout this chapter for a reason: It’s an important emotion. There are benefits to expressing anger. For one, research indicates that only employees who are committed to their organizations tend to express their anger, and generally only to leaders who created the situation. This type of expression of anger could lead to positive organizational change. Second, suppressed anger can lower job satisfaction and lead to a feeling of hopelessness that things will improve. Even with these findings, we hear a lot about not responding emotionally to work challenges. Work cultures teach us to avoid showing any anger at all, lest we be seen as poor workers or, worse, unprofessional, or even deviant or violent. While, of course, there are times when the expression of anger is harmful or unprofessional, we’ve taken this view so far that we now teach people to suppress perfectly normal emotions, and to ignore the effectiveness of some emotional expression. Emerging research shows that suppressing anger takes a terrible internal toll on individuals. One Stanford University study found, for example, that when individuals were asked to wear a poker face during the showing of a movie clip depicting the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, they were much more stressed in conversations after the video. Other research shows that college students who suppress emotions like anger have more trouble making friends and are more likely to be depressed, and that employees who suppress anger feel more stressed by work. For the good of organizations and their employees, we should encourage people not to hold back their emotions, but to share them constructively. Counterpoint Yes, anger is a common emotion. But it’s also a toxic one for the giver and the receiver. Angry outbursts can compromise the heart and contribute to diabetes, among other ill effects. The experience of another’s anger and its close correlate, hostility, is also linked to many counterproductive behaviors in organizations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 16 percent of fatal workplace injuries result from workplace violence. That is why many organizations have developed counteractive techniques—to blunt the harmful effects of anger in the workplace. To reduce outcomes, many companies develop policies that govern conduct such as yelling, shouting profanities, and making hostile gestures. Others institute anger management programs. For example, one organization conducted mandatory in-house workshops that showed individuals how to deal with conflicts in the workplace before they boil over. The director who instituted the training said it “gave people specific tools for opening a dialogue to work things out.” MTS Systems, a Minnesota engineering firm, engages an outside consulting company to conduct anger management programs for its organization. Typically consultants hold an 8-hour seminar that discusses sources of anger, conflict resolution techniques, and organizational policies. This is followed by one-on-one sessions with individual employees that focus on cognitive behavioral techniques to manage their anger. The outside trainer charges around $10,000 for the seminar and one-on-one sessions. The financial cost, though, is worth it for the emotional benefits the participants receive. “You want people to get better at communicating with each other,” says MTS manager Karen Borre. In the end, everyone wins when organizations seek to diminish both the experience and the expression of anger at work. The work environment becomes less threatening and stressful to employees and customers. Employees are likely to feel safer, and the angry employees often helped as well. Sources: B. Carey, “The Benefits of Blowing Your Top,” The New York Times, July 6, 2010, D1; R. Y. Cheung and. J. Park, “Anger Suppression, Interdependent Self-Construal, and Depression among Asian American and European American College Students,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 16, no. 4 (2010): 517–25; D. Geddes andL. T. Stickney, “The Trouble with Sanctions: Organizational Responses to Deviant Anger Displays at Work,” Human Relations 64, no. 2 (2011): 201–30; J. Fairley, “Taking Control of Anger Management,” Workforce Management (October 2010):10; L. T. Stickney and D. Geddes, “Positive, Proactive, and Committed: The Surprising Connection Between Good Citizens and Expressed (vs. Suppressed) Anger at Work,” Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 7, no. 4 (November2014): 243–64; and J. Whalen, “Angry Outbursts Really Do Hurt Your Health, Doctors Find,” The Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2015, D1, D4. Class Exercise Divide the class into two groups—one group to take on the issues raised in Point, the other group to take on the issues raised in Counterpoint. You may want to divide each half into smaller groups to enable all class members to participate in the group’s discussions. Ask the class to act as an organization’s management team. Their job is to make recommendations for a company policy on displays of anger in the work place. Have students present their recommendations to the class and make a decision as to what the best arguments are and why. What gains do they expect as a result of the criteria that they used? Have them list the recommendations and benefits on the board for the class to evaluate during the discussion. Teaching Notes This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as Black Board 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See http://www.baclass.panam.edu/imob/SecondLife for more information. Instructor Manual for Organizational Behavior Timothy A. Judge Stephen P. Robbins 9781292146300, 9780133507645, 9780136124016
