EMOTIONS AT THE WORKPLACE- AN OVERVIEW

Sreedevi V

Sumathi Annamalai

Dr.Ramalingam. S

INTRODUCTION

Towards the end of the 20th century, there was a growing interest in organizational
psychology, especially in emotional dynamics in work and organizations, and
recognition that emotions are relevant to multiple facets and levels of organizational
life (Brief & Weiss, 2002). Rafaeli, Semmer and Tschan opine that to discuss the
current state of research on emotion at work, one need to address four questions: (a)
what emotions do people feel? (b) Why do people feel these emotions? (c)What are
the effects of experiencing these emotions? (d) What is the relationship between
emotions felt and emotions expressed?

WHAT EMOTIONS DO PEOPLE FEEL AT WORK?

Work is associated with a wide range of affective reactions, including general feeling
states that can be positive (pleasure, happiness) or negative (displeasure,
frustration), but also specific emotions (anger, frustration, joy, excitement). Little
research is available about general, everyday emotions at work (Scherer, Wranik,
Sangsue, Tran, & Scherer, 2004). In the work setting, anger seems to be an often
experienced negative emotion (Scherer et al., 2004), most often caused by
interactions with clients, colleagues and superiors. Pride is also an important
emotion at work, as it was associated with 25% of events reported in one study
(Grandey, Tam and Brauburger, 2002). Also studies have concluded that frustration
as the most intense negative, and liking the most intense positive emotion (Grandey
et al., 2002) at the workplace.

WHY DO PEOPLE FEEL THESE EMOTIONS?

Generally speaking, the instigators of specific emotions at work are the same as
outside work. Thus, injustice promotes anger (Barclay, Skarlicki, and Pugh, 2005),
success promotes pride, and internal attributions of stressful events promote shame
or embarrassment. Research on specific emotions at work and their triggers at work
are limited with Basch & Fisher (2000) representing a notable exception. Their data
show, for instance, that goal achievement was one of the most important instigators
of positive emotions, including pleasure, happiness, enthusiasm, relief, optimism,
and power. Receiving recognition was second, being associated with pleasure,
happiness, pride, enthusiasm, and affection. For negative emotions, acts of
colleagues and acts of management were by far the most frequent events
(representing 37 and 28%) of all events recalled; they were associated with all
negative emotions measured. Making mistakes, on the other hand, was associated
with only one emotion, that is, embarrassment. The bulk of emotions reported
referred to “happy / pleased” and “comforted / calm / relaxed”, which together
constituted 421 of the 520 positive emotional reactions. Negative emotions appear to
be experienced in a more differentiated way than positive ones, and are typically
triggered by communication that is ineffective (e.g., failing to inform) or
inappropriate (yelling, blaming), by lack of awareness and respect, and by lack of
empowerment. The most typical emotional negative reactions reported to
Dasborough (2006) were annoyance / anger and frustration.

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF THE EMOTIONS THAT PEOPLE FEEL?

Emotions felt at work can have wide range of implications (Brief & Weiss, 2002).
Strong affect may lead to “intrusions”, which compete for cognitive capacity and
may interfere with performance. Although (mild) negative affect sometimes has
positive consequences (Forgas, 2002), positive mood is a more likely source of
positive impact on social interactions, helping behavior, creativity, decision making,
and dealing with difficult situations (Brief & Weiss, 2002). Experiencing negative
affect typically is associated with poor social interaction and negotiating behaviors,
reduced motivation and performance, lower creativity, and increased withdrawal
behavior, such as turnover (Brief & Weiss, 2002). In the longer term affect is also
related to health consequences (Semmer, et al., 2005). Fostering positive emotions,
and avoiding high amounts of stress, can therefore pay off both for organizations
and their employees.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONS FELT AND

Work requirements often specify the emotions that employees are expected to
display, independent of how they actually feel an idea discussed as emotion work or
emotional labour (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). For instance, bill collectors and criminal
interrogators must display negative emotions (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1991), and
employees in sales or customer service roles must display happiness and good cheer
as part of their work, because such emotion displays are presumed to improve sales.
If an emotion that has to be displayed is not genuinely felt, emotion regulation
processes are required. Hochschild (1983) suggested two main emotion regulation
strategies:

Surface acting involves hiding the emotions actually felt and displaying the required
emotion; the regulation effort consists of hiding the spontaneous expression of the
felt emotion and 'faking' the desired emotion. Deep acting involves a reappraisal of
the situation, for example in empathizing with a difficult customer. After such a
reappraisal, the display of the required emotion is authentic, because the underlying
feeling has been changed. A third possibility is to show "deviance from the required
emotion" (Tschan, Rochat, & Zapf, 2005), that is, to display the felt emotion despite
the requirement to the contrary. Emotion work requirements have been found to
have negative effects on wellbeing, including burnout and other stress symptoms
(Grandey, 2003; Hochschild, 1983), although some authors report or suggest also
positive effects of display rules, especially if there is a requirement to display
positive emotions (Zapf & Holz, 2006). The most straining aspect related to emotion
work is experiencing emotional dissonance – dissonance between emotions felt and
display rules, and thus having to regulate one’s emotional display.

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