Chapter 4 Emotions and Moods Page
CHAPTER 4
Emotions and Moods
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, students should be able to:
4-1. Differentiate between emotions and moods.
4-2. Identify the sources of emotions and moods.
4-3. Show the impact emotional labor has on employees.
4-4. Describe affective events theory.
4-5. Describe emotional intelligence.
4-6. Identify strategies for emotional regulation.
4-7. Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues.
INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
Instructors may wish to use the following resources when presenting this chapter.
Text Exercises
Myth or Science?: “Smile, and the Work World Smiles with You”
An Ethical Choice: Should Managers Use Emotional Intelligence (EI) Tests?
MyLab Management
oPersonal Inventory Assessment: Emotional Intelligence Assessment
oTry It!: Emotions and Mood
oWatch It!: East Haven Fire Department: Emotions and Moods
Career OBjectives: How Do I Turn Down the Volume on My Screaming Boss?
Point/Counterpoint: Sometimes Yelling Is for Everyone’s Good
Questions for Review
Experiential Exercise: Mindfulness at Work
Ethical Dilemma: Data Mining Emotions
Text Cases
Case Incident 1: Managers Have Feelings, Too!
Case Incident 2: When the Going Gets Boring
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Instructor’s Choice
This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student’s textbook. Instructor’s Choice
reinforces the text’s emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor’s Choice activities are
centered on debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student experiences. Some can be
used in class in their entirety, while others require some additional work on the student’s part.
The course instructor may choose to use these at any time throughout the class—some may be
more effective as icebreakers, while some may be used to pull together various concepts covered
in the chapter.
Web Exercises
ideas for researching OB topics on the Internet. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the
Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and
make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-of-class activity
or as lab activities with your class.
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. The time of day and day of the week,
stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns are some of the factors that influence
emotions and moods.
OB research on emotional labor, affective events theory, emotional intelligence, and emotion
regulation helps us understand how people deal with emotions.
Emotions and moods have proven relevant for virtually every OB topic we study, and they have
implications for managerial practice. Specific implications for managers are below:
Recognize that emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management does
not mean creating an emotion-free environment.
To foster effective decision making, creativity, and motivation in employees, look to
model positive emotions and moods as much as is authentically possible.
Provide positive feedback to increase the positivity of employees. Of course, it also helps
to hire people who are predisposed to positive moods.
In the service sector, encourage positive displays of emotion, which make customers feel
more positive and thus, improve customer service interactions and negotiations.
Understand the role of emotions and moods to significantly improve your ability to
explain and predict your coworkers’ and other’s behavior.
This chapter begins with a vignette discussing the controversy over price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry. As
the outrage over drug profiteering illustrates, emotions can greatly influence our attitudes toward others, our
decision making, and our behaviors. It can even spark conflict with potentially disastrous consequences. In truth, we
cannot set aside our emotions, but we can acknowledge and work with them. And not all emotions have negative
influences on us. Given the obvious role emotions play in our lives, it might surprise you that, until recently, the field
of OB has not given the topic of emotions much attention. Why? Generally, because emotions in the workplace were
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historically thought to be detrimental to performance. Although managers knew emotions were an inseparable part
of everyday life, they tried to create organizations that were emotion-free. Researchers tended to focus on strong
negative emotions— especially anger—that interfered with an employee’s ability to work effectively. Thankfully, this
type of thinking is changing. Certainly some emotions, particularly exhibited at the wrong time, can hinder
performance. Other emotions are neutral, and some are constructive. Employees bring their emotions to work every
day, so no study of OB would be comprehensive without considering their role in workplace behavior.
BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. What Are Emotions and Moods?
A. Introduction
and encompasses both emotions and moods.
2. Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.
acting as a stimulus.
B. The Basic Emotions
basic set of emotions.
3. Researchers agree on six universal emotions: happiness—surprise—fear—sadness—
anger—disgust.
C. Moral Emotions
1. Researchers have been studying what are called moral emotions; that is, emotions
evokes them.
responses to other emotions.
innate emotions.
4. Because morality is a construct that differs between cultures, so do moral emotions.
Therefore, we need to be aware of the moral aspects of situations that trigger our
emotions and make certain we understand the context before we act, especially in the
workplace.
feeling.
b. Negative emotions—such as anger or guilt—express the opposite.
2. When we group emotions into positive and negative categories, they become mood
states because we are now looking at them more generally instead of isolating one
particular emotion.
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b. Nervous is a pure marker of high negative affect; relaxed is a pure marker of low
positive affect.
E. Experiencing Moods and Emotions
1. As if it weren’t complex enough to consider the many distinct emotions and moods a
person might identify, the reality is that we all experience moods and emotions
differently.
2. For most people, positive moods are somewhat more common than negative moods.
5. However, an individual’s experience of emotions appears to be culturally shaped.
F. The Function of Emotions
1. Do emotions make us irrational?
a. Observations of emotions suggest rationality and emotion are in conflict, and that
if you exhibit emotion, you are likely to act irrationally.
b. These perspectives suggest that the demonstration or even experience of emotions
can make us seem weak, brittle, or irrational.
2. Do emotions make us ethical?
a. A growing body of research has begun to examine emotions and moral attitudes.
b. Decision making was believed to be a higher-order cognitive process, but recent
research on moral emotions questions this assumption.
II. Sources of Emotions and Moods
A. Personality
1. Affect intensity—individual differences in the strength with which individuals
experience their emotions.
B. Time of the Day
1. Moods vary by time of day.
again until the midnight drop.
C. Day of the week
1. In most cultures, people are in better moods on the weekend.
2. Exhibit 4-4 shows that this is true in several cultures.
D. Weather
1. Weather has little effect on mood.
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no connection.
E. Stress
1. Stress can be cumulative and does affect mood and emotional states.
F. Social activities
1. Social activities tend to increase positive mood.
G. Sleep
1. A large portion of the U.S. workforce suffers from sleep deprivation.
2. Sleep quality affects mood.
H. Exercise
1. Research consistently shows that exercise enhances peoples’ positive moods.
I. Age
J. Sex
1. Women show greater emotional expression than men, experience emotions more
intensely, and display more frequent expressions of both positive and negative
emotions.
2. Women also report more comfort in expressing emotions.
III. Emotional Labor
A. Introduction
1. Emotional labor is an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions
during interpersonal transactions at work.
B. Felt Versus Displayed Emotions
job).
2. Displayed emotions may require acting to keep employment.
3. Surface acting is hiding inner feelings and forgoing emotional expressions in
response to display rules.
4. Deep acting is the modification of inner feelings.
6. The disparity between employees having to project one emotion while feeling another
is called emotional dissonance.
IV. Affective Events Theory
A. Understanding emotions at work has been helped by a model called affective events
theory (AET).
influences job performance and satisfaction.
2. Work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions to which employees’
personalities and moods predispose them to respond with greater or lesser intensity.
B. In summary, AET offers two important messages:
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events influence employee performance and satisfaction.
2. Second, employees and managers shouldn’t ignore emotions or the events that cause
them, even when they appear minor, because they accumulate.
V. Emotional Intelligence
A. Introduction
4-5.
2. Several studies suggest EI may play an important role in job performance.
3. EI has been a controversial concept in OB, with supporters and detractors.
B. Emotional Regulation
1. Emotion regulation means to identify and modify the emotions you feel.
C. Emotion Regulation Influences and Outcomes
emotion regulation.
4. In general, diversity in work groups increases the likelihood that you will regulate
your emotions.
5. Racial diversity also has an effect: if diversity is low, the minority will engage in
emotion regulation, perhaps to “fit in” with the majority race as much as possible; if
7. From another perspective, research suggests that avoiding negative emotional
experiences is less likely to lead to positive moods than does seeking out positive
emotional experiences.
D. Emotion Regulation Techniques
their emotions.
a. Surface acting and deep acting are emotion regulation techniques.
2. One technique of emotion regulation is emotional suppression, or suppressing initial
emotional responses to situations.
our emotional responses to situations, and re-evaluating events after they occur, yields
the best outcomes.
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to effectively regulate emotions.
a. This result suggests that cognitive reappraisal may allow people to change their
emotional responses, even when the subject matter is as highly emotionally
charged as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
bad situation, their feelings about the situation, or any positive aspects of the
situation.
8. A final emotion regulation technique, mindfulness—receptively paying attention to
become popular in organizations.
9. While emotion regulation techniques can help us cope with difficult workplace
situations, research indicates that the effect varies.
10. Thus, while there is much promise in emotion regulation techniques, the best route to
a positive workplace is to recruit positive-minded individuals and train leaders to
manage their moods, job attitudes, and performance.
E. Ethics of Emotion Regulation
1. Emotion regulation has important ethical implications. Some people might argue that
controlling your emotions is unethical because it requires a degree of acting.
2. Recent research has found that acting like you are in a good mood might put you in a
good mood.
VI. OB Applications of Emotions and Moods
A. The Selection Process
1. One implication from the evidence on EI to date is that employers should consider it a
factor in hiring employees, especially in jobs that demand a high degree of social
interaction.
2. More employers are starting to use EI measures to hire people.
B. Decision Making
C. OB researchers are increasingly finding that moods and emotions have important effects
on decision making, but there are other variables that require further research. Creativity
1. Good moods are associated with idea generation.
2. Some believe that good moods make people more creative, but others don’t agree.
D. Motivation
motivation.
E. Leadership
1. Effective leaders rely on emotional appeals to help convey their messages.
2. The expression of emotion is often the critical element that results in individuals
accepting or rejecting a leader’s message.
F. Negotiation
2. Emotions may impair negotiator performance.
G. Customer service
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from others.
H. Job Attitudes
1. Several studies have shown people who had a good day at work tend to be in a better
mood at home that evening, and vice versa.
2. People who have a stressful day at work also have trouble relaxing after they get off
work.
I. Work-Life Satisfaction
1. A positive mood at work can apparently spill over to your off-work hours, and a
negative mood at work can be restored to a positive mood after a break.
J. Deviant Workplace Behaviors
1. Negative emotions can lead to deviant workplace behaviors.
deviant behaviors.
3. Once aggression starts, it’s likely that other people will become angry and aggressive,
so the stage is set for a serious escalation of negative behavior.
4. Managers, therefore, need to stay connected with their employees to gauge emotions
and emotional intensity levels.
K. Safety and Injury at Work
mood.
2. Individuals in negative moods tend to be more anxious, which can make them less
able to cope effectively with hazards.
3. Negative moods also make people more distractible, and distractions can obviously
lead to careless behaviors.
VII. Summary and Implications for Managers
A. 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.
B. The time of day and day of the week, stressful events, social activities, and sleep patterns
are some of the factors that influence emotions and moods.
below:
1. Recognize that emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management
does not mean creating an emotion-free environment.
2. To foster effective decision making, creativity, and motivation in employees, look to
model positive emotions and moods as much as is authentically possible.
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