Emotions and Moods

6
 What Are Emotions and Moods?

affect
A term used to describe a broad
range of feelings that people
experience.

emotions
Intense, discrete, and short-lived
feeling experiences that are often
caused by a specific event.

moods
Feelings that tend to be longer-lived
and less intense than emotions and
that lack a contextual stimulus.
 The Basic Emotions

 How many emotions are there?

 There are dozens, including anger, contempt, enthusiasm, envy, fear, frustration, disappointment,
embarrassment, disgust, happiness, hate, hope, jealousy, joy, love, pride, surprise, and sadness.

 Numerous researchers have tried to limit them to a fundamental set. 4

 Other scholars argue that by thinking in terms of “basic” emotions, we lose sight of the bigger
picture because emotions can mean different things in different contexts and may vary across
cultures.5
Psychologists have tried to identify basic emotions by studying
how we express them. Facial expressions have proved difficult
to interpret.6
One problem is that some emotions are too complex to be easily researchers agree on six
represented on our faces. universal emotions—
 anger,
Second, although people can, for the most part, recognize  fear,
emotions across cultures at better than- chance levels, this  sadness,
 happiness,
accuracy is worse for cultural groups with less exposure to one
 disgust, and
another.7  surprise.
Cultures also have norms that govern emotional expression, so We sometimes mistake
the way we recognize an emotion isn’t always the same as the happiness for surprise, but
rarely do we confuse
way we show it.
happiness and disgust.

For example, in collectivist countries, where emotional restraint

is the norm, people focus more strongly on the eyes, whereas in
individualistic countries, where emotional expression is the
norm, people focus more strongly on the position of the mouth. 8
 Moral Emotions

moral emotions Emotions that have moral

implications.
Examples of moral emotions include:
No moral Judgment
 sympathy for the suffering of others,
 guilt about our own immoral behavior,
 anger about injustice done to others,
 and contempt for those who behave unethically.

moral disgust.

you stepped in cow dung by mistake

you might feel disgusted by it, but you

wouldn’t feel moral disgust—you probably wouldn’t make a
moral judgment
 Yes, moral Judgment

you watched a video of a police officer making a sexist or racist slur. You might feel
disgusted in a different way because it offends your sense of right and wrong.
Research indicates that our responses to moral emotions differ from our
responses to other emotions.

 When we feel moral anger, for instance, we may be more likely to confront
the situation that causes it than when we just feel angry.

 However, we cannot assume our emotional reactions to events on a moral

level will be the same as someone else’s.

 Moral emotions are developed during childhood as children learn moral

norms and standards, so moral emotions depend on the situation and
normative context more so than other emotions.

 Because morality is a construct that differs from one culture to the next, 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
Emotions can be fleeting, but moods
can endure, and for quite a while.
The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative
Affect
Experiencing Moods and
Emotions

positivity offset The tendency of

most individuals to experience a
mildly positive mood at zero input
(when nothing in particular is going
on).
Does the degree to which people experience positive and negative emotions vary across cultures?

Yes (see the OB Poll). The reason is not that people of various cultures are inherently different: People
in most cultures appear to experience certain positive and negative emotions, and people interpret
them in much the same way worldwide.

We all view negative emotions such as hate, terror, and rage as dangerous and destructive, and we
desire positive emotions such as joy, love, and happiness.

However, an individual’s experience of emotions appears to be culturally shaped. Some cultures value
certain emotions more than others, which leads individuals to change their perspective on
experiencing these emotions.
 The Function of Emotions

In some ways, emotions are a mystery. What function do they serve?

As we discussed, OB researchers have been finding

that emotions can be critical to an effectively
functioning workplace.
For example, a large number of reviews suggest that

happy employees tend:

 to have positive job attitudes,
 to engage in less withdrawal and counterproductive
work behaviors,
 to engage in more task and citizenship performance,
and even
 to be more successful than their unhappy counterparts
Do Emotions Make Us Irrational? Do Emotions Make Us Ethical?

How often have you heard someone say, “Oh, A growing body of research has begun to examine moral emotions
you’re just being emotional”? You might have and moral attitudes.28 It was previously believed that, like decision
been offended. Observations like this suggest making in general, most ethical decision making was based on
that rationality and emotion are in conflict higher-order cognitive processes, but the research on moral
and that by exhibiting emotion you are acting emotions increasingly questions this perspective.
irrationally. Numerous studies suggest that moral judgments are largely based
on feelings rather than on cognition, even though we tend to see
our moral boundaries as logical and reasonable,
not as emotional.
Sources of Emotions and Moods

Have you ever said, “I got up on the wrong side of the bed today”?
Have you ever snapped at a coworker or family member for no reason?
If you have, you probably wonder where those emotions and moods originated.

Personality

Time of the day

Day of the Week

Weather

Stress

Sleep

Exercise

Age

Gender
 Emotional Labor

 If you’ve ever had a job in retail or in sales, or waited on tables in a restaurant, you know the importance of projecting a
friendly demeanor and smiling.

 Even though there were days when you didn’t feel cheerful, you knew management expected you to be upbeat when
dealing with customers, so you faked it.

Emotional labor An employee’s felt emotions An displayed emotions Emotions that are
organizationally desired emotions individual’s actual organizationally required and considered
during interpersonal transactions at emotions. appropriate in a given job.
work
surface acting Hiding deep acting Trying to modify one’s
one’s feelings and true feelings based on display rules.
forgoing emotional
expressions in response
to display rules.
One of Apple’s “geniuses,” the title
given to Apple store employees, meets
with customers in Grand Central
Terminal in New York City, one of the
largest Apple stores in the world.

Employees’ smiles when meeting with

customers are expressions of emotional
labor that Apple requires and considers
appropriate for their jobs.

New employees of the ward office in the

city of Daejeon, South Korea, practice
smiling during their training on how to be
kind public employees.

The strategy of surface acting, or “putting on

a face,” is an appropriate technique that the
employees learn for modifying their
emotions and helping them create positive
interactions with customers.
 Affective Events Theory

Affective events theory (AET) A model

suggesting that workplace events cause emotional
reactions on the part of employees, which then
influence workplace attitudes and behaviors.

 We’ve seen that emotions and moods are an important part of our personal and work lives. But
how do they influence our job performance and satisfaction?

 Affective events theory (AET) proposes that employees react emotionally to things that happen
to them at work, and these reactions influence their job performance and satisfaction

Say that you just found out your company is downsizing. You might
experience a variety of negative emotions, causing you to worry that
you’ll lose your job.

Because it is out of your hands, you may feel insecure and fearful, and
spend much of your time worrying rather than working. Needless to say,
your job satisfaction will also be down.
In sum, AET offers two important messages.

 First, emotions provide valuable insights into how workplace 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 is another framework that helps us understand the impact of

emotions on job performance, so we will look at that topic next.
 Emotional Intelligence

As the CEO of an international talent company, Terrie Upshur-Lupberger was at a career pinnacle. So why was she
resentful and unhappy?

A close friend observed, “Terrie, you were out on the skinny branch—you know, the one thatbreaks easily in a strong
wind. You were so busy and overwhelmed and out of touch with your own values, cares, and guiding beliefs that you
failed to pay attention to the branch that was about to break.”74

According to Upshur-Lupberger, she had failed to notice that her moods constantly swung toward frustration and
exhaustion. Her job satisfaction, productivity, and relationships suffered.

Worse, she was too busy to realize the deficiencies until she was completely depleted.

She said, “I learned that, as a leader, you either pay attention to and manage the moods (including your own) in the
organization, or . . . you ignore them and pay the price.” Upshur-Lupberger learned the value of emotional intelligence.
emotional intelligence (EI) The ability to detect and to manage
emotional cues and information.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to

(1) perceive emotions in the self and others,

(2) understand the meaning of these emotions, and
(3) regulate his or her own emotions accordingly, 7

People who know their own emotions and are good at reading emotional
cues—for instance, knowing why they’re angry and how to express themselves
without violating norms—are most likely to be effective
 Emotion Regulation

Have you ever tried to cheer yourself up when you’re feeling down, or calm yourself when you’re
feeling angry? If so, you have engaged in emotion regulation.

The central idea behind emotion regulation is to identify and modify the emotions you feel. Recent
research suggests that emotion management ability is a strong predictor of task performance for some
jobs and for organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).84

Therefore, in our study of OB, we are interested in whether and how emotion regulation should be used
in the workplace. We begin by identifying which individuals might naturally employ it.
 Emotion Regulation Influences and
Outcomes

The workplace environment influences an individual’s tendency to employ emotion regulation. In general, diversity in
work groups increases the likelihood that you will regulate your emotions.

For example,

 younger employees
are likely to regulate their emotions when their work groups include older
members.
 Racial diversity also has an effect:
If diversity is low, the minority employee will engage in emotion regulation, perhaps to “fit in” with the majority
employees as much as possible;

 if diversity is high and many different races are represented, the majority employee will employ emotion regulation,
perhaps to integrate him- or herself with the whole group.
These findings suggest a beneficial outcome of diversity—it may cause us to regulate our emotions
more consciously and effectively.
Emotion Regulation Techniques
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 during a crisis

For example,
 a soldier in battle may suppress initial emotional distress after a shooting and thus be able to make clearer
decisions about how to proceed.

 A portfolio manager might suppress an emotional reaction to a sudden drop in the value of a stock and can
therefore clearly decide how to plan.

Suppression used in crisis situations appears to help an individual recover from the event emotionally, while
suppression used as an everyday emotion regulation technique can take a toll on mental ability, emotional
ability, health, and relationships.92
Thus, unless we’re truly in a crisis, acknowledging rather than suppressing our emotional responses to
situations and reevaluating events after they occur yield the best outcomes
 Cognitive reappraisal

Or reframing our outlook on an emotional situation, is one way to regulate emotions effectively.
Cognitive reappraisal ability seems to be the most helpful to individuals in situations where they cannot
control the sources of stress.
A recent study illustrates the potentially powerful effect of this technique.

Israeli participants who were shown anger-inducing information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
after they were primed to reappraise the situation showed more inclination toward conciliation and less
inclination toward aggressive tactics against Palestinians than the control group, not only immediately
after the study but up to 5 months later.

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
 Social sharing, or venting.

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. Caution must be exercised, though,
because expressing your frustration affects other people.

In fact, whether venting emotions helps the “venter” feel better depends very much upon the listener’s
response.

 If the listener doesn’t respond (many refuse to respond to venting), the venter feels worse.
 If the listener responds with expressions of support or validation, the venter feels better.
Therefore,
 if we are going to vent to a coworker, we need to choose someone who will respond sympathetically.
Venting to the perceived offender rarely improves things and can result in heightening the negative
emotions
mindfulness

mindfulness Reception, attention, and awareness of the

present moment, events, and experiences.

 While emotion regulation techniques can help us cope with difficult workplace
situations, research indicates that the effect varies.
 For example, a recent study in Taiwan found that all participants who worked for
abusive supervisors reported emotional exhaustion and work-withdrawal
tendencies but to different degrees based on the emotion regulation strategies
they employed.
 Employees who used suppression techniques suffered greater emotional
exhaustion and work withdrawal than employees who used cognitive
reappraisal.
 This suggests that more research on the application of techniques needs to be
done to help employees increase their coping skills
 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.

 The best leaders manage emotions as much as they do tasks and activities.

 The best employees can use their knowledge of emotion regulation to decide
when to speak up and how to express themselves effectively.

 The key is to be adaptive: try to be aware of your emotions and use the
regulation techniques best suited for the situation
Ethics of Emotion
Regulation
 The Selection Decision
Creativity
OB Process Making
Applications
of Emotions
and Moods
Motivation Leadership Negotiation

Costumer Work-life
Service satisfaction
Deviant Workplace
Behaviors
Anyone who has spent much time in an organization realizes people can behave in ways that violate established
norms and threaten the organization, its members, or both.

As we saw in Chapter 1, these actions are called counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs).142 They can be
traced to negative emotions and can take many forms.

People who feel negative emotions are more likely than others to engage in short-term deviant behavior at work,
such as gossiping or excessively surfing the Internet instead of working,143 although negative
emotions can also lead to more serious forms of CWB

For instance, envy is an emotion that occurs when you resent someone for having something you don’t have but
strongly desire—such as a better work assignment, larger office, or higher salary.

It can lead to malicious deviant behaviors. An envious employee could undermine other employees and take all
the credit for things others accomplished. Angry people look for other people to blame for their bad mood,
interpret other people’s behavior as hostile, and have trouble considering others’ points of view. 144 It’s also not hard
to see how these thought processes can lead directly to verbal or physical aggression.
A recent study in Pakistan found that anger correlated with more aggressiveCWBs such as abuse against others and
production deviance, while sadness did not.
Neither anger nor sadness predicted workplace withdrawal, which suggests that managers need to take employee
expressions of anger seriously; employees may stay with an organization and continue to act aggressively toward
others.145
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. Therefore, managers need to stay connected with their employees to gauge emotions
and emotional intensity levels.
Safety and Injury at Work
Research relating negative affectivity to increased injuries at work suggests 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.

Bad moods can contribute to injury at work in several ways. 146 Individuals in negative moods tend to be more
anxious, which can make them less able to cope effectively with hazards.

A person who is always fearful will be more pessimistic about the effectiveness of safety precautions because
she feels she’ll just get hurt anyway, or she might panic or freeze up when confronted with a threatening
situation. Negative moods also make people more distractible, and distractions can obviously lead to careless
behaviors.

Selecting positive team members can contribute toward a positive work environment because positive moods
transmit from team member to team member.

One study of 130 leaders and their followers found that leaders who are charismatic transfer their positive
emotions to their followers through a contagion effect. 147
It makes sense, then, to choose team members predisposed to positive moods.