Comprehensive Guide to Job Attitudes, Emotional Intelligence, and Workplace Emotions

Job Attitudes (cognition, affect, behavior)

Job attitudes reflect how people evaluate their work, made up of thoughts/beliefs (cognition), emotional reactions (affect), and intended actions (behavior).

Cognitive Dissonance

An uncomfortable mental state that occurs when behavior and attitude don't align; people try to restore consistency by adjusting thoughts, feelings, or actions.

Job Characteristics Model

Theory suggesting jobs are most engaging when they have five elements: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

Skill Variety

Extent to which a job requires multiple abilities and talents.

Task Identity

Degree to which a person completes an entire piece of work from start to finish.

Task Significance

How important the job is in affecting the lives or work of other people.

Autonomy

Level of independence and choice an employee has in carrying out tasks.

Feedback

Clarity and directness of information workers receive about how well they are performing.

Job Embeddedness Theory

Why people remain in their jobs, explained through how well they fit, the number of ties they have, and what they would lose if they left.

Fit

Compatibility between the job/organization and an individual's personal values, skills, and lifestyle.

Links

Social and professional connections that tie employees to their workplace and community.

Sacrifice

Benefits, perks, and relationships an employee would give up by leaving their current role.

Job Crafting

When workers reshape aspects of their job tasks, relationships, or perceptions to make the role more meaningful.

Calling

Viewing work as a source of meaning or purpose, often tied to serving a cause beyond oneself.

Affective Circumplex

Diagram placing emotions along two dimensions: pleasant vs unpleasant feelings and high vs low energy.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Capability to recognize, understand, regulate, and use emotions effectively in oneself and others.

MSCEIT (Emotional Intelligence Test)

A skills-based assessment that tests how well someone can process and manage emotional information.

Emotional Intelligence Surveys

Questionnaires where people report how well they handle or regulate emotions in daily life.

Emotional Labor

Effort employees put into controlling or displaying emotions that meet job expectations.

Deep Acting

Modifying internal feelings so the emotions expressed are genuine.

Surface Acting

Pretending to feel emotions by faking expressions while inner feelings remain unchanged.

Affective Revolution

Shift in workplace psychology that highlighted emotions as central to performance and satisfaction, illustrated by Southwest Airlines' success.

Emotional Display Rules

Organizational guidelines about which emotions should be shown and how they should be expressed on the job.

Felt Emotion

Authentic emotions a worker truly experiences, which may or may not be visible to others.