ch4: workplace emotions, attitudes, stress Flashcards
emotions
physiological, behavioral and psychological episodes experienced toward an object, person, or event that create a state of readiness
o Episodes – very brief events, some lasting less than a second but usually around a couple of minutes
o Subtle – without our awareness
moods
not directed toward anything in particular, tends to be longer-term background emotional state
emotions are changes
in our physiological state (blood pressure, heart rate), psychological state (thought process), behavior (facial expression)
two features of emotions
o Level of activation – some emotions are strong enough to consciously motivate us to act, some aren’t – internal energy/effort
Negative emotions often have stronger levels of activation
o Valence (core affect) – evaluation that something is good/bad
attitudes
cluster of beliefs, assessed feelings, and behavioral intentions toward a person, object or event (attitude object)
o Judgements are often conscious, more stable over time
o Emotions are experiences related to the attitude objects, not necessarily about it
cognitive model of attitudes
o Beliefs – established perceptions about the attitude objects (has a valence)
o Feelings – conscious positive or negative evaluations of the attitude object
Calculated from beliefs and the associated feelings about those beliefs
o Behavioral intentions – planned effort to engage in a particular behavior regarding the attitude object
emotional markers
- Our brain tag incoming sensory information with emotional markers based on the evaluation of whether that information supports or threatens our innate drives
o Not calculated – automatic and nonconscious, based on thin slices of information
o Analyzed with other information about the attitude object – can sway conscious evaluation
o People often deliberately “listen in” on their emotions
can emotions and cognitive reasoning disagree
yes, logical analysis generates feelings that differ from the emotional reaction
o Ex: executives tend to make quick decisions based on their gut feelings, the best decisions occur when they spend time logically evaluating the situation
cognitive dissonance
an emotional experience caused by a perception that our beliefs, feelings, and behavior are incongruent with one another
o Attitude is inconsistent with behavior – most people think of themselves as rational and logical, but that’s not true
o Emotions also motivate consistency
how to reduce cognitive dissonance
o Reversing behaviors – impossible most of the time
o Changing beliefs and feelings – developing more favorable attitudes toward specific features of the decision that they didn’t notice earlier + discover subsequent problems with the alternative they didn’t choose
o Compensate by recognizing previous consonant decisions
what determines emotions
individual’s personality
o People with higher emotional stability and extraverted personalities – experience more positive emotions
o Higher neuroticism and introverted personalities – more negative emotions
emotional labor
the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions
emotions performance
display behaviors representing specific emotions and to hide observable evidence of other emotions
when’s emotional labor higher
o In jobs requiring a variety of emotions
o In jobs requiring more intense emotions
o In jobs where interactions with clients is frequent or longer
o When employees must precisely abide by display rules
what does incongruence result in
stress and exhaustion – produces an emotional tension, requires more mental effort
o Emotional labor may also require employees to act contrary to their self-concept – psychological separation from self, job dissatisfaction
cultural differences in emotional labor
- Several countries in Asia and Africa strongly discourage emotional expression – people are expected to be subdued, have relatively monotonic voice intonation, avoid physical movement and touching that display emotions – more stress, lower life satisfaction
o Several Latin and Middle Eastern cultures allow or encourage more vivid display of emotions, expect people to act more consistently with their true emotions - Ex: 81% of Ethiopians and 74% of Japanese agreed that it’s considered unprofessional to express emotions overtly in ther culture
o 43% of Americans, 33% of Italians, 19% of Spaniards, Cubans, Egyptians
two approaches to emotional labor
o Consciously engage in verbal and nonverbal behaviors that represent the expected emotions
Surface acting – consciously behaving in ways that are consistent with the expected emotions – pretend we’re experiencing emotions that we aren’t
Usually a poor strategy – can be stressful to pretend to feel particular emotions (also difficult) + true emotions tend to reveal themselves as subtle gestures usually without our awareness
o Actively change our emotional experiences so they are aligned with the expected emotions and emotional performance
We consciously change our emotions so they are aligned with the expected emotions performance – deep acting (reframing the situation and shifting attention are the most common, changing and modifying the situation can be applied when employees work alone, suppressing and amplifying emotions produces deep acting but these cognitive activities may actually involve reframing the situation and shifting attention)
five strategies of regulating behavior
o Changing the situation – moving out of or into work settings that affect our emotions
o Modifying the situation – people adapt their environment so it alters their emotional state
o Suppressing or amplifying emotions – consciously trying to block out dysfunctional emotions or to increase the intensity of expected emotions
o Shifting attention
o Reframing the situation – cognitive re-evaluation of a particular event that generates more appropriate emotions
emotional intelligence
a set of abilities to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in oneself and others
emotional intelligence
a set of abilities to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in oneself and others
components of emotional intelligence
- Awareness of our own emotions – the ability to perceive and understand the meaning of our own emotions
o People with higher emotional intelligence are better at making sense of their emotions - Management of our own emotions – keeping disruptive impulses in check
- Awareness of others’ emotions – the ability to perceive and understand the emotions of other people
o Empathy – having an understanding of and sensitivity to the feelings, thoughts and situations of others
o Being organizationally aware - Management of others’ emotions – managing other people’s emotions
what other skills do people with high EI have
more effective team members, perform better in jobs requiring emotional labor, make better decisions involving other people, maintain more positive mindset for creative work
what kind of tasks EI doesn’t improve
tasks that require minimal social interactions
how can EI increase
be developed through training (described the concept, gave feedback on their initial test scores, used case studies to teach EI dimensions, provided professional feedback)
- Increases with age – maturity
job satisfaction
– a person’s evaluation of their job and work context
o Appraisal of perceived job characteristics, work environment, emotional experiences at work – collection of attitudes about different aspects of the job and work context
where is job satisfaction highest/lowest
highest in Mexico, the US, India
o Lowest: Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary
why isn’t job satisfaction as high as some statistics suggest
o Surveys often use a single direct question (How satisfied are you with your job?) – many dissatisfied employees are reluctant to reveal their feelings and admit that they made a poor job choice and aren’t enjoying life
Inflated result – employees tend to report much less satisfaction with specific aspects of their work
Many employees plan to look for work within the next year or would leave their current employer if the right opportunity came along
o Cultural values make it difficult to compare job satisfaction across countries
People in Japan tend to subdue their emotions in public, avoid extreme survey ratings such as “very satisfied”
o Job satisfaction changes with economic conditions
EVLN model
the four ways in which employees respond to job dissatisfaction
what are the EVLN
o Exit – leaving the organization, transferring to another work unit, trying to get away from the dissatisfying situation
Traditional theory that job dissatisfaction builds over time and is eventually strong enough to motivate employees to search for better opportunities
More recent – “shock events” quickly energize employees to think about and engage in exit behavior
o Voice – changing the situation – can be a constructive response or can be more confrontational
o Loyalty – patiently waiting for the problem to work itself out or be resolved by others
o Neglect – reducing work effort, paying less attention to quality and increasing absenteeism and lateness
Passive form of counterproductive work
when’s voice more common
among employees with higher extraversion and conscientiousness
how do past experiences have an influence on EVLN
Employees who were unsuccessful with voice are more likely to engage in exit or neglect
when’s exist less common
when there’re few alternative job prospect
what’s the relationship between job satisfaction and performance
Moderately positive relationship
why isn’t satisfaction-performance relationship stronger
o General attitudes don’t predict specific very well – reduced performance is only one of four possible responses to dissatisfaction
o Employees have little control over their performance – work effort is paced by work technology or interdependence with coworkers
o Performance causes satisfaction (reverse causation)
service profit chain model
a theory explaining how employee’s job satisfaction influences company profitability indirectly through service quality, customer loyalty, and related factors
why does job satisfaction increase customer satisfaction and profitability
o Satisfied employees display more positive emotions, producing more positive customer emotions
Mutual – happy customers make employees happier
o Satisfied employees have lower turnover, resulting in better quality, more consistent, familiar service
affective organizational commitment
an individual’s emotional attachment to, involvement in, and identification with an organization
o Autonomous form of commitment
o Less likely to quit their jobs and be absent from work, higher work motivation and organizational citizenship, somewhat higher performance + improves customer satisfaction
o Concern: high conformity – lower creativity, motivated to defend the organization even if it involves illegal activity
continuance commitment
an individual’s calculative attachment to an organization
o An employee would face significant social or economic sacrifice if they left the company – company offers high pay or social bonds would be cut if the person gave up their organizational membership
o Limited alternative employment opportunities – unemployment is high, employees lack sufficient skills to be attractive – cost-based decision to stay
o Lower performance, less likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors
normative commitment
felt obligation or moral duty to the organization
o Norm of reciprocity – a felt obligation and social expectation of helping or otherwise giving something of value to someone who has already helped or given something of value to you
continuance commitment vs affective commitment
- Unionized employees with high continuance commitment – more likely to use formal grievances
o Employees with high affective commitment engage in more cooperative problem solving
building organizational commitment
- Justice and support – affective commitment is higher in organizations that support organizational justice
- Shared values – employees’ values are congruent with the organization’s values
- Trust – positive expectations one person has toward another person in situations involving risk
o Employees trust leaders and have a degree of job security - Organizational comprehension – how well employees understand the organization, including its strategic direction, social dynamics and physical layout
o Lack of it – uncertainty – distance employees from that source of uncertainty
o Giving staff information and opportunities to keep up to date about organizational events, interact with coworkers, discover what goes on in different parts of the organization, learn about the organization’s history and future plans - Employee involvement – strengthens the employee’s psychological ownership and social identity with the organization
stress
an adaptive response to a situation that is perceived as challenging or threatening to the person’s well-being
o Prepares us to adapt to hostile or noxious environmental conditions
o Our heart rate increases, muscles tighten, breathing speeds up, perspiration increases, our body moves more blood to the brain, releases adrenaline and other hormones, fuels the system by realizing more glucose and fatty acids, activates systems that sharpen our senses, conserves resources by shutting down our immune system
two schools of thought about stress
- One school of thought – stress is a negative evaluation of the external environment
o Critics: stress is more accurately described as an emotional experience which may occur before or after a conscious evaluation of the situation
distress
the degree of physiological, psychological and behavioral deviation from healthy functioning
eustress
– necessary part of life, activates and motivates people to achieve goals, change their environments, and succeed in life’s challenges
when was “stress” first used and when was it documented
first used more than 500 years ago – describe the human response to harsh environmental conditions
o 1930s – Hans Selye first documented the stress experience
general adaptation syndrome
a model of the stress experience, consisting of three stages: alarm reaction, resistance, exhaustion
phases of stress
o Alarm – when a threat or challenge activates the physiological stress responses – individual’s energy level and coping effectiveness decrease in response to the initial shock
o Resistance – activates various biochemical, psychological, behavioral mechanisms that give an individual more energy and engage coping mechanisms to overcome and remove the source of stress – limited
o Exhaustion – people who frequently reach exhaustion have increased risk of long-term physiological and psychological damage
the toll on the human body
tension headaches, muscle pain, cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes), cancer
o More than 100 000 deaths annually and as much as 8% of health care costs in the US are due to consequences of work-related stress
psychological toll of stress
leads to job dissatisfaction, moodiness, depression, lower organizational commitment
o High or persistent stress – lower job performance, poor decision making, increased workplace accidents, aggressive behavior
job burnout
emotional exhaustion, cynism, reduced feelings of personal accomplishment
o Emotional exhaustion – first stage, lack of energy, tiredness, feeling that one’s emotional resources are depleted
o Cynicism (depersonalization) – indifferent attitude toward work, emotional detachment form clients, cynical view of the organization, tendency to strictly follow rules and regulations
o Reduced personal accomplishment – feelings of diminished confidence in one’s ability to perform the hob well
stressors
any environmental conditions that place a physical or emotional demand on the person
workplace stressors
o Organizational constraints – lack of equipment, budget fundings, supplies, coworker support, information
Interferes with task performance which threatens their rewards, status, job security
Situational factors – lack of control, can’t influence their external environment
o Interpersonal conflict – employees disagree with one another regarding how to achieve those goals + how the work and resources should be distributed along that journey
Most interpersonal conflict is caused by structural sources such as ambiguous rules, lack of resources and conflict goals between employees or departments
Increasing concern – workplace harassment (workplace bullying, sexual harassment, other forms of mistreatment)
o Work overload – one of the most common workplace stressors
Evident when employees consume more of their personal time to get the job done
Contribute to work overload because they tether employees to work more hours of the day
“ideal worker norm” – expect themselves and others to work longer hours
39% of Millennial employees admitted that they work long and hours to they look like a “work martyr to their boss”
o Low task control – worse when held responsible but have limited control
Employees face high workloads without the ability to adjust the pace of the load to their own energy, attention span
Increases with the burden of responsibility the employee must carry
when do people experience less stress
o Better physical health – exercise, healthy lifestyle
o Good stress coping strategies – seeking support from others, reframing the stressor in a more positive light, blaming others for the stressor, denying the stressor’s existence
Few work for all stressors
People have a tendency to rely on one or two coping strategies
o Personality – low neuroticism and high extraversion – lower stress – positive thinking, less prone to negative emotions
o Positive self-concept, high self-esteem, self-efficacy, internal locus of control
workaholics
uncontrollable work motivation, constantly think about work, low work enjoyment
