COURSE LEARNING MODULE

HBOR 1013 Human Behavior in Organization

AY 2023-2024

Lesson: Emotions

Topic: Explain how emotions affect job performance

Learning Outcomes: At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Differentiate emotions from moods

2. Contrast felt versus displayed emotions
3. Explain any gender differences in emotions

LEARNING CONTENT

Introduction:

WELCOME BACK FUTURE CMA’S AND MARKETING ANALYSTS. You see we are now on our 5 th
week! Work hard, soar high, and inspired so you will get focus on your studies. Can you now relate how
personality affects productivity in the workplace? How about the type of personality you have. You can reflect
whether you belong to the type A or type B personality trait. This time we proceed to the topic emotions.

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Lesson Proper:

EMOTIONS On one recent Friday, a 37-year-old U.S. postal worker in Milwaukee walked into his place of work.
He pulled out a gun and shot and killed a co-worker with whom he had argued, wounded a supervisor who had
scolded him, and injured another worker. He then killed himself." For this worker, anger had led to violence.

Going on a shooting rampage at work is an extreme example but it does dramatically illustrate the theme of
this section: Emotions are a critical factor in employee behavior.

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 Given the obvious role that emotions play in our
everyday life, it might surprise you to learn that,
until very recently, the topic of emotions had been
given little or no attention within the field of OB.
How could this be?

We can offer two possible explanations. The first

is the myth of rationality. Since the late
nineteenth century and the rise of scientific
management, organizations have been specifically
designed with the objective of trying to control
emotions. A well-run organization was one that
successfully eliminated frustration, fear, anger,
love, hate, joy, grief, and similar feelings. Such
emotions were the antithesis of rationality.

So while researchers and managers knew that

emotions were an inseparable part of everyday
life, they tried to create organizations that were
emotion free.
The second factor that acted to keep emotions out
of OB was the belief that emotions of any kind
were disruptive. When emotions were considered, Emotions were rarely viewed as being constructive or able
to stimulate performance-enhancing behaviors.

Certainly some emotions, particularly when exhibited at the wrong time, can reduce employee performance. But
this doesn't change the reality that employees bring an emotional component with them to work every day
and that no study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in workplace behavior.

"People work hard, but they have a good time. We are allowed to let our personalities show," says Mary Ann
Adams, project director at Southwest Airlines. Southwest uses the person-organization fit during its selective
hiring process. During interviews, applicants must prove that they have a sense of humor..

WHAT ARE EMOTIONS?

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Although we don't want to obsess analysis, we need to clarity three terms that are closely intertwined. These
are affect, emotions, and moods.

Affect is a generic term that covers a broad range of feelings that people experience. It's an umbrella
concept that encompasses both emotions and moods.
Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.
Moods are feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus.

Emotions are reactions to an object, not a trait. They're object specific. You show your emotions when you're
happy about something. angry at someone afraid of something. Moods, on the other hand, aren't directed at an
object Emotions can turn into moods when you lose focus on the contextual object. So when a work colleague
criticizes you for the way you spoke to a client, you might become angry at him. That is you show emotion
(anger) toward a specific object dispirited. You can't attribute this feeling to any single event: you're just not your
normal, upbeat self. This affective state describes a mood.

A related behavior term that is gaining increasing importance in organizational be is emotional labor. Every
employee expends physical and mental labor when they put their bodies and cognitive capabilities, respectively,
into their job. But most jobs also require emotional labor. This is when an employee expresses organizationally
desired emotions during interpersonal transactions." The concept of emotional labor originally developed in
relation to service jobs Airline flight attendants, for instance, are expected to be cheerful, funeral coin selors sad,
and doctors emotionally neutral But today the concept of emotional labor seems relevant to almost every job
You're expected, for example, to be courteous and not hostile in interactions with co-workers.
.

FELT VERSUS DISPLAYED EMOTIONS

Emotional labor creates dilemmas for employees when their job requires them to exhibit emotions that are
incongruous with their actual feelings Not surprisingly, this is a frequent occurrence.

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There are people at work with whom you find it very difficult to be friendly: Maybe you consider their
personality abrasive. Maybe you know they've said negative things about you behind your back.

They're not Innate: they're learned "The ritual look of delight on the face of the font runner-up as the new Miss
America is announced is a product of the display rule that losers should mask their sadness with an expression
of 10 for the winners
Effective managers have learned to be serious when giving an employee a negative performance evaluation
and to cover up their anger when they've been passed over for promotion. . And the salesperson who hasn't
learned to smile and appear friendly, regardless of his or her true feelings at the moment, isn't typically going
to last long on most sales jobs.

The key point here is that felt and displayed emotions

are often different. In fact, many people have
problems working with others simply because they
naively assume that the emotions they see others
display is what those others actually feel.

EMOTION DIMENSIONS

How many emotions are there? In what ways do they vary? We'll answer these questions in this section.

1. Variety There have been numerous efforts to limit and define the fundamental or basic set of emotions.

Research has identified six universal emotions:

anger fear sadness

happiness disgust and surprise.

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One factor that has strongly shaped what is and isn't listed in this basic set is the manner in which emotions
were identified. Researchers tended to look for universally identified facial expressions and then convert them
into categories. Emotions that couldn't be readily identified by others through facial expressions, or which were
considered a subset of one of the basic six, were not selected.

The closer any two emotions are to each other on this $7 continuum, the more people are
likely to confuse them. For instance, happiness and surprise are frequently mistaken for
each other, while happiness and disgust are rarely confused.

Do these six basic emotions surface in the workplace? Absolutely. I get angry after receiving a poor
performance appraisal. I fear that I could be laid off as result of a company cutback. I'm sad about one of my
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co-workers leaving to take new job in another city. I'm happy after being selected as employee-of th
month.

2. Intensity People give different responses to identical emotion-provoking stim uli. In some cases this can be
attributed to the individual's personality. People vary in their inherent ability to express intensity. You undoubtedly
know individuals who almost never show their feelings. They rarely get angry They never show rage. In contrast,
you probably also know people who seem to be on an emotional roller coaster. When they're happy, their
ecstatic. When they're sad, they're deeply depressed.

Jobs make different intensity demands in terms of emotional labor. For in stance, air traffic controllers and
trial judges are expected to be calm and con trolled, even in stressful situations.

3. Frequency and Duration. How often does an emotion need to be exhibited? And for how long?

Sean Wolfson is basically a quiet and reserved person. He loves his job as financial planner. He doesn't enjoy,
however, having to give occasional speeches in order to increase his visibility and to promote his programs. "If
I had to speak to large audiences every day, I'd quit this business," he says. "I think this works for me because
I can fake excitement and enthusiasm for an hour, a couple of times a month."

Emotional labor that requires high frequency or long durations is more demanding and requires more exertion
by employees. So whether an employee ca successfully meet the emotional demands of a given job depends
not only which emotions need to be displayed and their intensity, but also how frequently and for how long the
effort has to be made.

CAN PEOPLE BE EMOTIONLESS?

Are people who seem outwardly calm or apathetic in situations, in which othe are clearly emotionally charged,
without feeling? Can people be emotionless?
Some people have severe difficulty in expressing their emotions and under standing the emotions of others.
Psychologists call this alexithymia (which is Greek for "lack of emotion"). People who suffer from alexithymia
rarely cry and are often seen by others as bland and cold. Their own feelings make them discomfort able, and
they're not able to discriminate among their different emotions.
Does this inability to express emotions and read others mean that people who suffer from alexithymia are poor
work performers? Not necessarily. Consistent with our discussion on matching personality types with
appropriate jobs, people who lack emotion need to be in jobs that require little or no emotional labor. These
people are not well suited to sales and managerial positions.

*** END of LESSON ***

REFERENCES

Textbooks

HBOR 1013: Human Behavior in Organization| 7

This document is a property of University of Saint Louis Tuguegarao. It must not be reproduced or transmitted in any form,
in whole or in part, without expressed written permission.
Mcshane, S. & Glinow, M. (2018). Organizational behavior: emerging knowledge. global reality, McGraw-Hill Education

Books:

Colquitt, J., et. al. (2019). Organizational Behavior -Improving Performance and Commitment in the Workplace. Mc Graw
Hill Education

King, D. and Lawley, S. (2019). Organizational Behavior. Oxford

Knights, D., Willmott, H. (2022). Introducing organizational behaviour and management. 4th ed. Annabel Ainscow

Lussier, R. (2019). Human Relations in Organizations: Applications and Skills Building. MCGraw Hill.

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This document is a property of University of Saint Louis Tuguegarao. It must not be reproduced or transmitted in any form,
in whole or in part, without expressed written permission.