You can usually improve a friend’s mood by sharing a funny video clip, giving the person a small bag of candy, or even offering a pleasant beverage. 126 But what can companies do to improve employees’ moods? Managers can use hu- mor and give their employees small tokens of appreciation for work well done.
Also, when leaders themselves are in good moods, group members are more positive, and as a result they cooperate more. 127
Finally, selecting positive team members can have a contagion effect because positive moods transmit from team member to team member. One study of professional cricket teams found players’ happy moods affected the moods of their team members and positively influenced their performance. 128 It makes sense, then, for managers to select team members predisposed to experience positive moods.
8
Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues.MyManagementLab
Now that you have finished this chapter, go back to www.mymanagementlab.com to continue practicing and applying the concepts you’ve learned.
Summary and Implications for Managers
Emotions and moods are similar in that both are affective in nature. But they’re also different—moods are more general and less contextual than emotions.
And events do matter. The time of day and day of the week, stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns are some of the factors that influence emo- tions and moods. Emotions and moods have proven relevant for virtually every OB topic we study, and they have implications for managerial practice.
● Increasingly, organizations are selecting employees they believe have high levels of emotional intelligence. Research has helped to refine theory re- lated to emotional intelligence in recent years, which should lead to supe- rior tools for assessing ability-based EI.
● Emotions and positive moods appear to facilitate effective decision mak- ing and creativity.
● Recent research suggests mood is linked to motivation, especially through feedback.
● Leaders rely on emotions to increase their effectiveness.
● The display of emotions is important to social behavior like negotiation and customer service.
● The experience of emotions is closely linked to job attitudes and behav- iors that follow from attitudes, such as deviant workplace behavior.
● Our final managerial implication is a question: can managers control col- leagues’ and employees’ emotions and moods? Certainly there are limits, practical and ethical. Emotions and moods are a natural part of an individu- al’s makeup. Where managers err is in ignoring co-workers’ and employees’
emotions and assessing others’ behavior as if it were completely rational. As one consultant aptly put it, “You can’t divorce emotions from the workplace because you can’t divorce emotions from people.” 129 Managers who under- stand the role of emotions and moods will significantly improve their ability to explain and predict their co-workers’ and employees’ behavior.
1
What is the difference between emotions and moods?What are the basic emotions and moods?
2
Are emotions rational? What functions do they serve?3
What are the sources of emotions and moods?4
What impact does emotional labor have on employees?5
What is affective events theory? What are its applications?6
What is the evidence for and against the existence of emotional intelligence?7
What are some strategies for emotion regulation and their likely effects?8
How do you apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues?QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
122 CHAPTER 4 Emotions and Moods
Sometimes Blowing Your Top Is a Good Thing
POINT COUNTERPOINT
Y
es, anger is a common emotion. But it’s also a toxic one. The experience of anger and its close correlate, hostility, is linked to many counterproductive behaviors in organizations. That is why many organizations have developed anger management programs—to blunt the harmful effects of anger in the workplace.The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 16 percent of fatal workplace injuries resulted from workplace violence. Do we think the individuals who committed these acts were feeling joyful and contented?
To reduce anger in the workplace, many companies develop policies that govern conduct such as yelling, shouting profani- ties, and making hostile gestures. Others institute anger man- agement programs. For example, one organization conducted mandatory in-house workshops that showed individuals how to deal with conflicts in the workplace before they boil over. The director who instituted the training said it “gave people specific tools for opening a dialogue to work things out.” MTS Systems, an Eden Prairie, Minnesota, engineering firm, engages an out- side consulting firm to conduct anger management programs for its organization. Typically, MTS holds an eight-hour seminar that discusses sources of anger, conflict resolution techniques, and organizational policies. This is followed by one-on-one sessions with individual employees that focus on cognitive behavioral techniques to manage their anger. The outside trainer charges
$7,000–$10,000 for the seminar and one-on-one sessions. “You want people to get better at communicating with each other,”
says MTS manager Karen Borre.
In the end, everyone wins when organizations seek to diminish both the experience and, yes, the expression of anger at work. The work environment is less threatening and stressful to employees and customers. Employees are likely to feel safer.
And the angry employee is often helped as well.
A
nger is discussed throughout this chapter for a rea- son: it’s an important emotion. However, what about our responses to feeling anger? Work cultures teach us to avoid showing any anger at all, lest we be seen as poor service providers or, worse, unprofessional or even deviant or violent. While, of course, there are times when the expression of anger is harmful or unprofessional, we’ve taken this view so far that we now teach people to sup- press perfectly normal emotions. It is inappropriate to ask people to behave in abnormal ways, and there is even more evidence about the organizational and personal costs of such suppression.Emerging research shows that suppressing anger takes a terrible toll on individuals. One Stanford University study showed, for example, that when individuals were asked to wear a poker face during the showing of the atomic bombings of Japan during World War II, they were much more stressful conversation partners once the video was over. Other research shows that college students who suppress emotions like an- ger have more trouble making friends and are more likely to be depressed, and that employees who suppress anger feel more stressed by work.
There is a better way. One recent study showed that even when employees displayed anger deemed inappropriate by co-workers, if co-workers responded supportively to the anger (for example, by listening to the angry employee), favorable re- sponses such as constructive work changes were the result.
Yes, managers must work to maintain a positive, respectful, and nonviolent culture. However, asking employees to suppress their anger not only is an ineffective and costly strategy, it ulti- mately may backfire if appropriate ways to express and release anger are blocked.
Sources: B. Carey, “The Benefits of Blowing Your Top,” The New York Times (July 6, 2010), p. D1; R. Y. Cheung and I. J. Park,
“Anger Suppression, Interdependent Self-Construal, and Depression Among Asian American and European American College Students,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 16, no. 4 (2010), pp. 517–525; D. Geddes and L. T. Stickney, “The Trouble with Sanctions: Organizational Responses to Deviant Anger Displays at Work,” Human Relations 64, no. 2 (2011), pp. 201–230; and J. Fairley, “Taking Control of Anger Management,” Workforce Management (October 2010), p. 10.
ETHICAL DILEMMA Happiness Coaches for Employees
We know there is considerable spillover from personal un- happiness to negative emotions at work. Moreover, those who experience negative emotions in life and at work are more likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors with customers, clients, or fellow employees.
Increasingly, organizations such as American Express, UBS, and KPMG are turning to happiness coaches to ad- dress this spillover from personal unhappiness to work emotions and behaviors.
Srikumar Rao is a former college professor who has the nickname, “the happiness guru.” Rao teaches peo- ple to analyze negative emotions to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. If your job is restructured, for example, Rao suggests avoiding negative thoughts and feelings about it. Instead, he advises, tell yourself it could turn out well in the long run, and there is no way to know at present.
Beyond reframing the emotional impact of work situa- tions, some happiness coaches attack the negative emotional spillover from life to work (and from work to life). A work- ing mother found that a happiness talk by Shawn Actor helped her stop focusing on her stressed-out life and in- stead look for chances to smile, laugh, and be grateful.
In some cases, the claims made by happiness coaches seem a bit trite. Jim Smith, who labels himself “The Executive Happiness Coach,” asks: “What if I told you
that there are secrets nobody told you as a kid—or as an adult, for that matter—that can unlock for you all sorts of positive emotional experiences? What if the only thing that gets in the way of you feeling more happiness is—YOU?! What if you can change your experience of the world by shifting a few simple things in your life, and then practicing them until they become second nature?”
Then again, if employees leave their experiences with a happiness coach feeling happier about their jobs and their lives, is that not better for everyone? Says one individual, Ivelisse Rivera, who felt she benefitted from a happiness coach, “If I assume a negative attitude and complain all the time, whoever is working with me is going to feel the same way.”
Questions
1. Do you think happiness coaches are effective? How might you assess their effectiveness?
2. Would you welcome happiness training in your workplace? Why or why not?
3. Some argue that happiness coaches are a way for organi- zations to avoid solving real work problems—a diversion, if you will. How might we make this determination?
4. Under what circumstances—if any—is it ethically appropriate for a supervisor to suggest a happiness coach for a subordinate?
Sources: S. Shellenbarger, “Thinking Happy Thoughts at Work,” The Wall Street Journal (January 27, 2010), p. D2; S. Sharma and D. Chatterjee, “Cos Are Keenly Listening to ‘Happiness Coach’,” Economic Times (July 16, 2010), http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com ; and J. Smith, The Executive Happiness Coach , www.lifewithhappiness.com / (Downloaded May 3, 2011).
EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE Who Can Catch a Liar?
We mentioned earlier in the chapter that emotion re- searchers are highly interested in facial expressions as a window into individuals’ emotional worlds. Research has also studied whether people can tell someone is lying based on signs of guilt or nervousness in their facial expressions. Let’s see who is good at catching liars.
Split up into teams and follow these instructions.
1. Randomly choose someone to be the team organizer.
Have this person write down on a piece of paper “T”
for truth and “L” for lie. If there are, say, six people in the group (other than the organizer), then three people will get a slip with a “T” and three a slip with an “L.” It’s important that all team members keep what’s on their paper a secret.
2. Each team member who holds a T slip needs to come up with a true statement, and each team member who
holds an L slip needs to come up with a false state- ment. Try not to make the statement so outrageous that no one would believe it (for example, “I have flown to the moon”).
3. The organizer will have each member make his or her statement. Group members should then exam- ine the person making the statement closely to try to determine whether he or she is telling the truth or lying. Once each person has made his or her statement, the organizer will ask for a vote and record the tallies.
4. Each person should now indicate whether the state- ment was the truth or a lie.
5. How good was your group at catching the liars? Were some people good liars? What did you look for to determine whether someone was lying?
124 CHAPTER 4 Emotions and Moods
CASE INCIDENT 1 Is It Okay to Cry at Work?
As this chapter has shown, emotions are an inevitable part of people’s behavior at work. At the same time, it’s not en- tirely clear that we’ve reached a point where people feel comfortable expressing all emotions at work. The reason might be that business culture and etiquette remain poorly suited to handling overt emotional displays. The question is, can organizations become more intelligent about emo- tional management? Is it ever appropriate to yell, laugh, or cry at work?
Some people are skeptical about the virtues of more emotional displays at the workplace. As the chapter notes, emotions are automatic physiological responses to the en- vironment, and as such, they can be difficult to control appropriately. One 22-year-old customer service represen- tative named Laura who was the subject of a case study noted that fear and anger were routinely used as methods to control employees, and employees deeply resented this use of emotions to manipulate them. In another case, the chairman of a major television network made a practice of screaming at employees whenever anything went wrong, leading to badly hurt feelings and a lack of loyalty to the organization. Like Laura, workers at this organization were hesitant to show their true reactions to these emotional outbursts for fear of being branded as “weak” or “ineffec- tual.” It might seem like these individuals worked in heav- ily emotional workplaces, but in fact, only a narrow range of emotions was deemed acceptable. Anger appears to be more acceptable than sadness in many organizations, and anger can have serious maladaptive consequences.
Others believe organizations that recognize and work with emotions effectively are more creative, satisfying, and productive. For example, Laura noted that if she could
express her hurt feelings without fear, she would be much more satisfied with her work. In other words, the problem with Laura’s organization is not that emotions are displayed, but that emotional displays are handled poorly. Others note that use of emotional knowledge, like being able to read and understand the reactions of others, is crucial for workers ranging from salespeople and customer service agents all the way to managers and executives. One survey even found that 88 percent of workers feel being sensitive to the emotions of others is an asset. Management consultant Erika Anderson notes, “Crying at work is transformative and can open the door to change.” The question then is, can organizations take specific steps to become better at allowing emotional displays without opening a Pandora’s Box of outbursts?
Questions
1. What factors do you think make some organizations ineffective at managing emotions?
2. Do you think the strategic use and display of emotions serve to protect employees, or does covering your true emotions at work lead to more problems than it solves?
3. Have you ever worked where emotions were used as part of a management style? Describe the advantages and disadvantages of this approach in your
experience.
4. Research shows that acts of co-workers (37 percent) and management (22 percent) cause more negative emotions for employees than do acts of customers (7 percent). 130 What can Laura’s company do to change its emotional climate?
Sources: A. Kreamer, “Go Ahead—Cry at Work,” Time (April 4, 2010), www.time.com ; J. S. Lerner and K. Shonk, “How Anger Poisons Decision Making,” Harvard Business Review (September 2010), p. 26; and J. Perrone and M. H. Vickers, “Emotions as Strategic Game in a Hostile Workplace: An Exemplar Case,”
Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 16, no. 3 (2004), pp. 167–178.
CASE INCIDENT 2 Can You Read Emotions from Faces?
We mentioned previously that some researchers—the psy- chologist Paul Ekman is the best known—have studied whether facial expressions reveal true emotions. These researchers have distinguished real smiles ( so-called Duchenne smiles, named after French physician Guillaume Duchenne) from “fake” smiles. Duchenne found genuine smiles raised not only the corners of the mouth (easily faked) but also cheek and eye muscles (much more diffi- cult to fake). So, one way to determine whether someone is genuinely happy or amused is to look at the muscles
around the upper cheeks and eyes—if the person’s eyes are smiling or twinkling, the smile is genuine. Ekman and his associates have developed similar methods to detect other emotions, such as anger, disgust, and distress. According to Ekman, the key to identifying real emotions is to focus on micro-expressions, or those facial muscles we cannot easily manipulate.
Dan Hill has used these techniques to study the fa- cial expressions of CEOs and found they vary dramati- cally not only in their Duchenne smiles but also in the
Sources: Based on P. Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage (New York:
W. W. Norton & Co., 2009); D. Jones, “It’s Written All Over Their Faces,” USA Today (February 25, 2008), pp. 1B–2B; and N. O. Rule and N. Ambady, “The Face of Success,” Psychological Science 19, no. 2 (2008), pp. 109–111.
degree to which they display positive versus negative fa- cial expressions. The accompanying table shows Hill’s analysis of the facial expressions of some prominent male executives:
Jeff Bezos, Amazon 51% positive
Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway 69% positive Michael Dell, Dell Computers 47% positive Larry Ellison, Oracle 0% positive Bill Gates, Microsoft 73% positive
Steve Jobs, Apple 48% positive
Phil Knight, Nike 67% positive
Donald Trump,
The Trump Organization
16% positive
It’s interesting to note that these individuals, all of whom are successful in various ways, have such different levels of posi- tive facial expressions. It also raises the question: is a smile from Larry Ellison worth more than a smile from Bill Gates?
Questions
1. Most research suggests we are not very good at detect- ing fake emotions, and we think we’re much better at it than we are. Do you believe training would improve your ability to detect emotional displays in others?
2. Do you think the information in this case could help you tell whether someone’s smile is genuine?
3. Is your own impression of the facial expressions of the eight business leaders consistent with what the researcher found? If not, why do you think your views might be at odds with his?
4. One research study found people’s ratings of the positive affect displayed in CEO’s faces had very little correlation to their company’s profits. Does that sug- gest to you that Hill’s analysis is immaterial?
5. Assuming you could become better at detecting the real emotions in facial expressions, do you think it would help your career? Why or why not?
ENDNOTES
1. See, for instance, C. D. Fisher and N. M. Ashkanasy,
“The Emerging Role of Emotions in Work Life: An Introduction,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, Special Issue 2000, pp. 123–129; N. M. Ashkanasy, C. E. J. Hartel, and W. J. Zerbe (eds.), Emotions in the Workplace: Research, Theor y, and Practice (Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2000); N. M. Ashkanasy and C. S. Daus, “Emotion in the Workplace: The New Challenge for Managers,” Academy of Management Executive (February 2002), pp. 76–86; and N. M. Ashkanasy, C. E. J. Hartel, and C. S. Daus, “Diversity and Emotion: The New Frontiers in Organizational Behavior Research,” Journal of Management 28, no. 3 (2002), pp. 307–338.
2. See, for example, L. L. Putnam and D. K. Mumby,
“Organizations, Emotion and the Myth of Rationality,” in S. Fineman (ed.), Emotion in Organizations (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993), pp. 36–57; and J. Martin, K. Knopoff, and C. Beckman, “An Alternative to Bureaucratic Impersonality and Emotional Labor: Bounded Emotionality at the Body Shop,” Administrative Science Quarterly (June 1998), pp. 429–469.
3. B. E. Ashforth and R. H. Humphrey, “Emotion in the Workplace: A Reappraisal,” Human Relations (February 1995), pp. 97–125.
4. S. G. Barsade and D. E. Gibson, “Why Does Affect Matter in Organizations?” Academy of Management Perspectives (February 2007), pp. 36–59.
5. See N. H. Frijda, “Moods, Emotion Episodes and Emotions,”
in M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland (eds.), Handbook of Emotions (New York: Guilford Press, 1993), pp. 381–403.
6. H. M. Weiss and R. Cropanzano, “Affective Events Theory: A Theoretical Discussion of the Structure, Causes and Consequences of Affective Experiences at Work,”
in B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 18 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1996), pp. 17–19.
7. See P. Ekman and R. J. Davidson (eds.), The Nature of Emotions:
Fundamental Questions (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1994).
8. Frijda, “Moods, Emotion Episodes and Emotions,” p. 381.
9. See Ekman and Davidson (eds.), The Nature of Emotions.
10. See, for example, P. Ekman, “An Argument for Basic Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion (May/July 1992), pp. 169–200; C. E. Izard, “Basic Emotions, Relations Among Emotions, and Emotion–Cognition Relations,” Psychological Bulletin (November 1992), pp. 561–565; and J. L. Tracy and R. W. Robins, “Emerging Insights into the Nature and Function of Pride,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 16, no. 3 (2007), pp. 147–150.
11. R. C. Solomon, “Back to Basics: On the Very Idea of ‘Basic Emotions,’” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 32, no. 2 (June 2002), pp. 115–144.
12. R. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989).
13. P. Ekman, Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life (New York: Times Books/Henry Holt and Co., 2003).
14. P. R. Shaver, H. J. Morgan, and S. J. Wu, “Is Love a ‘Basic’
Emotion?” Personal Relationships 3, no. 1 (March 1996), pp. 81–96.
15. Ibid.