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- OB Toolbox: Practice Changing Your Emotions
- KEY TAKEAWAY
- 7.4 Emotions at Work
- Emotions Affect Attitudes and Behaviors at Work
Emotional ContagionBoth positive and negative emotions can be contagious, with the spillover of negative emotions lasting longer than positive emotions. [6] As you may have experienced in the past, contagion can be especially salient in a team setting. Research shows that emotions are contagious and that team members affect one another even after accounting for team performance. [7] One explanation for negative emotions’ tendency to linger may be a stronger connection to the fight-or-flight situations people experience. Anger, fear, and suspicion are intentionally unpleasant messages urging us to take action immediately. And to make sure we get the message, these emotions stick around. Research shows that some people are more susceptible to emotional contagion than others. [8] But in general, when the boss is happy, the staff is happy. [9] We can also imagine how negative emotions can be transferred. Imagine you’re working behind the counter at a fast-food restaurant. Your mood is fine, until a customer argues with you about an order. You argue back. The customer leaves in a huff. Your anger emotions continue, turning into negative feelings that last throughout the day. As you might guess, you are more likely to make mistakes and find ordinary challenges annoying when you’re experiencing negative emotions. Unchecked, your negative emotions can spread to those around you. A negative interaction with one customer can spill over onto interactions with another customer. [10] OB Toolbox: Practice Changing Your EmotionsOlympic athletes train for peak performance by stimulating their brains to believe they’ve just run a record race. You can do the same thing to experience different moods. By providing your brain with the external stimulus of happiness or sadness, you can create those feelings. Give it a try! It’s best to practice this when you are feeling relatively calm. To give yourself a neutral starting point, close your eyes and breathe in slowly. Now, release your breath. Open your eyes and smile wide. Allow your eyes to crinkle. Now smile a bit more. The changes you have consciously made to your expression are signaling your body that a positive event has taken place. How does this affect you emotionally? Answer these questions to find out: Do you feel more or less energetic as you smile? More or less calm? More or less optimistic? How does the feeling resulting from your physical changes compare with your feelings a moment before? Now, let’s try the opposite: Close your eyes and breathe in and out slowly, as detailed above, to clear your “emotional slate.” Then open your eyes. Pull down the corners of your mouth. Open your eyes wide. You have just signaled to your body that something negative has taken place. Note your feelings using the list above. How do these feelings compare with your feelings of “intentional happiness”? Now consider this: Dr. Aston Trice of Mary Baldwin College in Virginia found that humor has mood-altering effects. Subjects were given a frustrating task. Then, one-half were shown cartoons. Those who had seen the cartoons overcame their frustration and attacked a new test with renewed enthusiasm and confidence, compared to those subjects who hadn’t had the humorous interlude. [11] KEY TAKEAWAYEmotions serve many purposes and affect people at work. There are positive and negative emotions, and both can be helpful at motivating us to work harder. Emotions are malleable and they can also be contagious. EXERCISES
7.4 Emotions at WorkLEARNING OBJECTIVES
Emotions Affect Attitudes and Behaviors at WorkEmotions shape an individual’s belief about the value of a job, a company, or a team. Emotions also affect behaviors at work. Research shows that individuals within your own inner circle are better able to recognize and understand your emotions. [1] So, what is the connection between emotions, attitudes, and behaviors at work? This connection may be explained using a theory named Affective Events Theory (AET). Researchers Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano studied the effect of six major kinds of emotions in the workplace: anger, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise. [2] Their theory argues that specific events on the job cause different kinds of people to feel different emotions. These emotions, in turn, inspire actions that can benefit or impede others at work. [3] Figure 7.11 
According to Affective Events Theory, six emotions are affected by events at work. For example, imagine that a coworker unexpectedly delivers your morning coffee to your desk. As a result of this pleasant, if unexpected experience, you may feel happy and surprised. If that coworker is your boss, you might feel proud as well. Studies have found that the positive feelings resulting from work experience may inspire you to do something you hadn’t planned to do before. For instance, you might volunteer to help a colleague on a project you weren’t planning to work on before. Your action would be an affect-driven behavior. [4] Alternatively, if you were unfairly reprimanded by your manager, the negative emotions you experience may cause you to withdraw from work or to act mean toward a coworker. Over time, these tiny moments of emotion on the job can influence a person’s job satisfaction. Although company perks and promotions can contribute to a person’s happiness at work, satisfaction is not simply a result of this kind of “outside-in” reward system. Job satisfaction in the AET model comes from the inside-in—from the combination of an individual’s personality, small emotional experiences at work over time, beliefs, and affect-driven behaviors. Jobs that are high in negative emotion can lead to frustration and burnout—an ongoing negative emotional state resulting from dissatisfaction. [5] Depression, anxiety, anger, physical illness, increased drug and alcohol use, and insomnia can result from frustration and burnout, with frustration being somewhat more active and burnout more passive. The effects of both conditions can impact coworkers, customers, and clients as anger boils over and is expressed in one’s interactions with others. [6] Directory: site -> textbooks textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface Introduction and Background textbooks -> Chapter 1 Introduction to Law textbooks -> 1. 1 Why Launch! textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. Preface textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License textbooks -> Chapter 1 What Is Economics? textbooks -> This text was adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 0 License Download 2.98 Mb. Share with your friends:
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