Affect in Organizations

Affect

abilities to influence behaviors or actions (emotions)

Can be broken into emotions, moods, and temperaments (trait emotion)

Emotions

what you are feeling in the moment

Moods

longer-term, averaged across time (hours, days, weeks)

General Temperaments

trait level emotion averaged across the lifetime

ex. high trait positive affect (emotion)

Importance of Emotions

informs out decision-making (they are not irrational)

they can be contagious and can motivate

Negative Emotions

communicate threat, provoke discussion about “what’s wrong”

Positive Emotions

communicate correct path, predict continued motivation

The Basic Emotions

Cross-cultural facial expressions

surprise, fear, disgust, contempt, anger, joy, sadness, and pride(contested)

Theory of Constructed Emotion

emotions emerge from our interpretation of core activation/arousal and valence (pleasantness vs unpleasantness)

Amygdala Hijacking

doing something due to heightened emotions without rational thinking (crashing out)

ex. panic/anxiety attacks

Cognitive Reappraisal

seeing something in another light (flipping your emotions from negative to positive)

Emotional Intelligence

recognizing, regulating, and “harnessing” or changing emotions (experience most appropriate emotion state for the task at hand)

managing ours or others’ emotions

Needed to combat maladaptive negative emotions

Affect Labeling

recognizing emotions and giving them a name

Labeling lowers amygdala activity

Alexithymia

people with difficulty labeling and differentiating emotions default to anxiety

Acceptance and Commitment

accepting and committing to changing behaviors and situations

Situation Selection

choosing or avoiding situations based on response they may provoke

Group Affect

emotions and mood of the group as determined by the affective composition (bottom up; group member’s individual emotions) and affective context (situational determinants of emotions to be experienced)

Bottom Up

aggregate of team/group/organizational members’ emotions (state or trait)

Top Down

emotional culture, affective climate

Positive Group Affect

greater cooperation, creativity, productivity (helps enhance problem solving)

Negative Group Affect

emotional conflict, low group cohesion, lowered efficiency (decreased performance ratings and satisfaction)

Affective Events Theory

workplace events provoke reactions at work

Social Identity Theory

individuals derive identity and self-esteem from group members and self esteem leads to a positive effect

Emotional Contagion

emotions spread from one person to another

susceptibility can vary from person to person (individual difference)

Mirror Neurons

neurons which fire when we perform an action AND when we observe those actions (yawning, crossing arms)

Mimicry

automatically mimic others’ facial expressions

Afference/Efference

expression sends feedback to the brain and creates a similar emotional experience

Facial Feedback Hypothesis

making expressions leading to “feeling” those emotions in the short-term (mixed results however when the study was replicated)

Countercontagion

experiencing differing or even opposing emotions in response to emotions of others

Can occur due to group differences (ingroup vs. outgroup)

Affective Homogeneity

(Bottom Up) consistent affective reactions within a group (aka group affective tone)

Affective Diversity

(Bottom Up) variance in individual emotions and trait affect (temperament) within the group

Affective/Emotional Culture

(Top Down) collection of assumptions, beliefs, norms, practices, rituals, symbols, stories, and physical arrangements which suggest meaning and subsequent appropriate behavioral enactment of those emotions within groups (emotions that determine how people act) (Barsade & O’Neill)

Can better individual and group performance and satisfaction

Emotional Labor

(Top Down) managing emotions to meet organizational expectations

Surface Acting

(Top Down) modifying external expressions without changing internal feelings

can lead to stress, burnout, eventual organizational exit, even customer abuse (you are being mistreated by customer)

Deep Acting

(Top Down) modifying internal feelings to align with expected emotions

can lead to a decrease in stress and burnout, can increase person-organization fit and job satisfaction

Leaders Emotions

(Top Down) this affect influences individuals and groups (often via contagion)

they often model appropriate emotional responses