Chapter 4 Emotions and Moods Page
Questions for Review
4-1. How are emotions different from moods?
Answer: Emotions are intense feelings directed at someone or something. Moods are
as joy and gratitude, and those with a negative affect, such as anger or guilt.
Learning Objective: Differentiate between emotions and moods
4-2. What are the sources of emotions and moods?
Answer: The primary sources of emotions and moods are:
and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
4-3. What impact does emotional labor have on employees?
courteous and not hostile in interactions with coworkers.
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
4-4. What is affective events theory?
Answer: Affective events theory states that an event in the work environment triggers
important messages. First, emotions provide valuable insights into understanding
employee behavior. Second, emotions in organizations and the events that cause them
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Both negative and positive emotions can distract workers and reduce job performance.
Learning Objective: Describe affective events theory
4-5. What is emotional intelligence?
Learning Objective: Describe emotional intelligence
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
4-6. What are some strategies for emotion regulation?
Answer: Emotion regulation is part of the EI literature but has also been studied as an
this effort can be exhausting. Emotion suppression appears to be especially difficult to do
effectively and can lead to more negative emotions; reappraising situations is usually
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
4-7. How do you apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues?
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
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emotions is closely linked to job attitudes and behaviors that follow from attitudes, such
as deviant workplace behavior.
coworkers’ and employees’ behavior.
Learning Objective: Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Reflective thinking
Experiential Exercise
Mindfulness at Work
This exercise contributes to:
specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
The concept of mindfulness emphasizes trying to focus your mind in the present moment,
immersing yourself in what’s going on around you. Core principles include suspending
performance.
The Procedure
Start this exercise individually and then come together into groups of three or four individuals to
discuss what you have found. Although full workplace mindfulness interventions can take
several weeks, some basic starting exercises can be done in a relatively short period and give you
3 minutes to discuss how this made them feel.
• Mindful listening: Now clear your head of everything except what is going on in the immediate
environment. Try to hear as many sounds around you as you can, without judging or evaluating
them. Try to maintain this mindful listening for 3 minutes. The group will then take 3 minutes to
discuss some of the details they noticed.
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just focus your whole quiet attention on this exercise and what it means. Try to maintain this
mindful thinking for 3 minutes. The group will then take 3 minutes to talk about what this
following questions in your groups:
4-8. Were there any aspects of the mindfulness practice sessions that you found especially
uncomfortable?
4-9. What concerns might you have about implementing a mindfulness intervention in the
workplace? What are some of the obstacles you might face in trying to have employees
engage in a mindfulness stress reduction program?
4-10. Bring the class together and discuss your responses.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
(http://www.wimba.com/solutions/higher-education/wimba_classroom_for_higher_education),
(http://go.secondlife.com/landing/education/) and
(http://docplayer.net/19442732-Effective-use-of-collaboration-tools-for-online-learning-jennifer-pontano-ke-anna-sk
ipwith-drexel-university-e-learning-2-0-conference-march-2011.html) for more information.
Ethical Dilemma
Data Mining Emotions
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
Did anyone ever tell you that you wear your heart on your sleeve? It’s a popular expression, but
obviously no one is looking at your sleeve to read your emotions. Instead, we tend to study a
person’s facial expressions to “read” their emotions. Most of us think we’re rather good at
muscle movements and their emotional content. His work even spawned a television series called
Lie to Me, in which the main characters analyzed microexpressions —expressions that occur in
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microexpressions that might predict behavior.
Honda, P&G, Coca-Cola, and Unilever have tried the technology to identify the reactions to new
products, with mixed results. For one thing, since expressions can change instantly, it is
challenging to discern which emotions prevail. A person watching a commercial, for instance,
may smile, furrow his brow, and raise his eyebrows all in the space of 30 seconds, indicating
emotions or their causes.
The potential applications of this technology to the workplace include surveillance, gauging
reactions to organization announcements, and lie detection. Cameras could be in every meeting
room, hallway, and even on employees’ computer screens. Emotion monitoring could be an
announced event—say, every Monday from 8 to 9 a.m.—or random. Monitoring could be
accurate depiction of when someone is concealing emotion.”
For each usage, there is an ethical consideration and a responsibility, particularly if a manager is
going to act on the findings or infer the employee’s future behavior. The fact that the technology
has not yet fully evolved for workplace application allows time for ethical guidelines to be
Charles Lieberman advises, “Recognize [the technology’s] limitations—it can lead you in the
right direction but is not definitive.”
Sources: Paul Ekman profile, Being Human, accessed April 17, 2015; E. Dwoskin and E. M. Rusli, “The Technology
That Unmasks Your Hidden Emotions,” The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2015, B1, B8; and D. Matsumoto and H.
Questions
4-11. What do you think are the best workplace applications for emotion reading technology?
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4-12. What are the ethical implications of reading faces for emotional content in the workplace?
based upon incorrect information.
4-13. Assuming you could become better at detecting the real emotions of others from facial
expressions, do you think it would help your career? Why or why not?
Case Incident 1
Managers Have Feelings, Too!
This exercise contributes to:
moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
Liz Ryan, CEO and founder of Human Workplace, recalls how shocked she was as a young
business person when she found out just how personal the business world is. Your relationship
important in the workplace. For one, some researchers assert that “what goes around comes
around,” meaning that negative emotional displays from the leader can alter the shared emotions
of the group, which in turn can lead to disapproval of the leader and employee cynicism. On the
other hand, leaders who display empathy tend to be seen as less likely to become ineffective as
in the organization. Although the dislike or negative emotions toward you may be rooted in
various perceptions of you (e.g., your manager thinks you are incompetent, does not like your
style, or does not relate to you), the negative emotions may also stem from other sources, such as
the manager’s disposition or situational constraints placed on him or her. Notably, Joseph Barber,
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Barber, is especially useful as a job applicant trying to anticipate what managers want in a new
employee and highlighting the areas of your relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities that match
these qualifications.
Exchange and Follower Outcomes,” The Leadership Quarterly 27 (2016): 85–97; A. McKee, “Empathy Is Key to a Great Meeting,” Harvard
Business Review, March 23, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/03/empathy-is-key-to-a-greatmeeting; L. Ryan, “Ten Signs Your Boss Hates You,” Forbes,
March 17, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2016/03/17/ten-signs-your-boss-hates-you/#563e527428cf; and G. Wang and S. E. Seibert,
“The Impact of Leader Emotion Display Frequency on Follower Performance: Leader Surface Acting and Mean Emotion Display as Boundary
Conditions,” The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015): 577–93.
Questions
4-14. How do you think managers can strike a balance between authenticity and managing
Student responses will vary.
4-15. Do you think there are any emotions that are off limits—that leaders (or employees)
Student responses will vary.
4-16. Do you think there is a way to improve your reading of your manager’s and
coworkers’ emotions, and adapting your behavior based on this emotional
information? What are some ways that you can work on these types of behaviors?
Case Incident 2
When the Going Gets Boring
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
We’ve all been there—whether your job itself is unfulfilling or if it’s a particularly slow day at
work, boredom strikes the best of us in the workplace. It is not a pleasant feeling. As Andreas
Elpidorou, a researcher at the University of Louisville notes, “Boredom is an aversive state
characterized by dissatisfaction, restlessness, and weariness. . . .
Being in a state of boredom feels like being emotionally trapped.” Boredom can hit
organizations hard. A study by Udemy, an online teaching and learning organization, found that
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you are not careful. For one, you can let your coworkers down when you’re unresponsive and
they need you, especially when they can’t move forward without you. Second, boredom can at
times lead to complaining—although this may seem common in organizations (due to media
portrayals on TV and movies of complaining employees), it can be irritating to many employees,
from their organizations, underemployment, and lower performance ratings.
So how can you get on track if you’re bored in the workplace? One of the keys to tackling
boredom is to take control and be proactive. Research on over 1,500 employees in Finland
(tracked over three years) suggests that taking control of your job and setting challenges for
of employees would become more interested in their tasks if they were given the opportunity to
learn more skills. These results echo calls for the gamification of the workplace in which
everyday tasks can be altered to include game mechanics, potentially leading to a reduction in
boredom and an increase in cognitive control.
Performance,” Forbes, February 21, 2017,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2017/02/21/how-gamification-can-driveworkplace-performance/#4493eae7f8e3; L. K. Harju, J. J.
Hakanen, and W. B. Schaufeli, “Can Job Crafting Reduce Job Boredom and Increase Work Engagement? A Three-Year Cross-Lagged Panel
Study,” Journal of Vocational Behavior 95–96 (2016): 11–20; S. Harrison, “6 Ways the Most Successful People Conquer Boredom at Work,”
Fast Company, November 13, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3053229/6-ways-the-most-successful-people-conquer-boredom-at-work; J.
Lumsden, E. A.
Roles of Work Centrality and Need Satisfaction,” Work & Stress 30, no. 3 (2016): 209–227; J. D. Watt and M. B. Hargis, “Boredom Proneness:
Its Relationship with Subjective Underemployment, Perceived Organizational Support, and Job Performance,” Journal of Business and
Psychology 25, no. 1 (2010): 163–174; E. Wiechers, “2016 Udemy Workplace Boredom Study,” Udemy Blog, October 26, 2016,
https://about.udemy.com/udemy-for-business/workplaceboredom-study/; and K. Zimmerman, “What to Do with a Millenial Employee That’s
what-to-do-with-a-millennial-employee-that-is-bored-at-work/#3a1649a33014.
Questions
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4-17. Who is responsible for reducing boredom in the workplace and why? Is it the employer?
The one who is bored?
Student responses will vary.
4-18. Do you think certain tasks are inherently boring and thus cannot be changed? If yes, what
Student responses will vary.
4-19. Which emotion regulation technique do you think would be the most successful in
mitigating boredom and why?
Student responses will vary.
MyLab Management
following Assisted-graded writing questions:
emotions read and interpreted by your organization?
4-21. Refer again to Case Incident 1, Have you ever had to adapt to a supervisor’s (or
superior’s) emotional state? If so, what was the outcome of your adaptation?
MyManagement Lab only – comprehensive writing assignment for this chapter.
Instructor’s Choice
Promoting Organizational Citizenship Behavior
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objective: Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
Begin this exercise by reinforcing the definition or description of what organizational citizenship
behavior is and what it is not. The voluntary aspect of the term is important. Students should be
sure to describe the behavior itself, not just the end result of the behavior. For example, “people
were helped” is not as clear as describing exactly how a specific person(s) was (were) helped.
Students must also be able to separate this type of behavior from normal duties. For example, a
receptionist or greeter might normally “go the extra mile” to show someone where they need to
go, or a greeter walks someone across campus to the exact building referenced instead of
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showing the party a map, because of the general atmosphere or culture of the organization. In
other words, there might be degrees of organizational citizenship behavior. Students should be
looking for exceptional behavior. Group discussion will oftentimes reveal these actions from
presented examples. Lastly, as students compile their lists of managerial steps to promote
organizational citizenship behavior, have them reference the section in the chapter that deals with
this form of behavior to find examples that will reveal some potential steps.
Exploring OB Topics on the Web
This exercise contributes to:
Learning Objectives: Apply concepts about emotions and moods to specific OB issues
Learning Outcome: Discuss the importance of individual moods and emotions in the workplace
AACSB: Written and oral communications; Reflective thinking
1. Learn more about yourself! Go to the website Out of Service and search for the Big Five:
them to class where we will discuss the validity of your findings.
3. Bring five new facts you learned from at least two of the above websites to class for a
group discussion.
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