Chapter 8 - Emotions & moods

What are emotions and moods?

• @@Affect@@: broad range of feelings that people experience.
• @@Emotions@@: intense feelings that are directed at someone/something.
• @@Moods@@: feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus.
• @@Positive affect@@: mood dimension that consists of specific positive emotions such as excitement, self-assurance and cheerfulness at the high end and boredom, sluggishness and tiredness at the low end.
• @@Negative affect@@: mood dimensions that consists of emotions such as nervousness, stress and anxiety at the high end and relaxation, tranquility and poise at the low end.
• @@Positivity offset@@: tendency of most individuals to experience a mildly positive mood at zero input (when nothing in particular is going on).
• @@Evolutionary psychology@@: area of inquiry which argues that we must experience the emotions we do because they serve a purpose.
• Sources of emotions and moods
  • @@Personality@@
  • Affect intensity: individual differences in the strength with which individuals experience their emotions.
  • @@Time of the day@@
  • @@Day of the week@@
  • @@Weather@@
  • Illusory correlation: tendency of people to associate two events when in reality there is no connection.
  • @@Stress@@
  • @@Social activities@@
  • @@Exercise@@
  • @@Age@@
  • @@Gender@@

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Emotional labour

• @@Emotional labour@@: situation in which an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work.
• @@Emotional dissonance@@: inconsistencies between the emotions people feel and the emotions they project.
• @@Felt emotions@@: individual’s actual emotions.
• @@Displayed emotions@@: emotions that are organizationally required and considered appropriate in a given job.
• @@Surface acting@@: hiding one’s inner feeling and forgoing emotional expressions in response to display rules.
• @@Deep acting@@: trying to modify one’s true inner feelings based on display rules.

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Affective events theory (AET)

• @@Affective events theory (AET)@@: model which suggests that workplace events cause emotional reactions the part of employees, which then influence workplace attitudes and behaviors.

  

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Emotional intelligence (EI)

• @@Emotional intelligence (EI)@@: ability to detect and to manage emotional cues and information.

  

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Emotion regulation

• Strategies for emotion regulation and their likely effects
  • Being able to identify and modify the emotions you feel
  • Strategies include acknowledgement rather than suppressing our emotional response
  • Re-evaluating events as they occur
  • Venting is another technique (expressing emotions outwardly).

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OB applications of emotions and moods

• Selection → emotional intelligence (EI) is a factor that employers should consider when hiring especially when there is a high level of social interaction involved.
• Decision-making → positive moods and emotions help when decision making, depends but a recent study says negative moods are worse when making decisions.
• Creativity → people in good moods tend to be more creative than people in bad moods, they produce more original ideas, more flexible and open in thinking.
• Motivation → organizations that promote positive moods are likely to have more motivated workers.
• Leadership → effective leaders rely on emotional appeal to help convey their messages, expression of emotions in speeches is often the critical element that makes us accept or reject a leaders message.
• Negotiation → negotiation is an emotional process, skilled negotiator has a “poker face”.
• Customer service → workers emotional state influences customer service, influences level of repeat business and level of customer satisfaction.
  • @@Emotional contagion@@: process by which people’s emotions are caused by the emotions of others.
• Job attitudes → people who have a good day at work tend to be in a better mood that evening at work.
• Deviant workplace behaviors → violating established norms provoke negative emotions, people who feel negative emotions are more likely to participate in short-term deviant workplace behaviors.
• Safety and injury at work → employers might improve health and safety by ensuring that workers are engaged in potentially dangerous activities when they are in a bad mood.
• How managers can influence moods → managers can use humor and give their employees small tokens of appreciation for work well done.

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