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CHAPTER FOUR
Workplace Emotions,
Attitudes, and Stress
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Explain how emotions and cognition (conscious reasoning)
influence attitudes and behavior.
2. Discuss the dynamics of emotional labor and the role of
emotional intelligence in the workplace.
3. Summarize the consequences of job dissatisfaction, as well
as strategies to increase organizational (affective)
commitment.
4. Describe the stress experience and review four major
stressors.
5. Identify five ways to manage workplace stress.
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Workplace Emotions and Attitudes at Hilton
Hilton Hotels and Resorts has become the number
one place to work in America, due to its “Heart of
House” and other initiatives focused on improving
employee emotions and attitudes.
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Andreas Hub/laif/Redux
Emotions Defined
Psychological, behavioral, and physiological episodes
that create a state of readiness.
• Brief episodes. (e.g. joy or anger toward tasks, customers,
etc.)
• Subtle, nonconscious – not aware
• Experiences (e.g. heart rate), psychological state (e.g.
thought processes), and behavior (e.g. facial expression).
• Emotions motivate - put us in a state of readiness to act.
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Types of Emotions
Two dimensions of all emotion
depicted in the circumplex mod
Activation:
Emotions put us in a state of rea
Generate some level of energy
— primary source of motivation
Evaluation (core affect):
Emotions generate a globa
Positive or negative valence
(e.g. that something is goo
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Exhibit 4.1 Circumplex Model of Emotions.
Sources: Adapted from J.A. Russell, “Core
Affect and the Psychological Construction of
Emotion,” Psychological Review 110, no. 1
(2003). 145-72; M. Yik, J.A. Russell, and J.H.
Steiger, “A 12-Point Circumplex Structure of
Core Affect,” Emotion 11, no. 4 (2011); 705-31.
Attitudes versus Emotions
Attitudes:
Emotions:
• Cluster of beliefs, feelings,
behavioral intentions.
• Experiences related to
attitude object.
• Judgments with conscious
reasoning.
• Operate as events, often
nonconscious.
• More stable over time.
• Brief experiences.
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Emotions, Attitudes, and Behavior Model
Exhibit 4.2 Model of
Emotions, Attitudes, and
Behavior.
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Attitude-Behavior Contingencies
Beliefs-Feelings Contingencies:
• Two people have the same belief but different valences about that
belief. (e.g. challenging work is positive for some, negative for others.)
Feelings-Behavioral Intentions Contingencies:
• Two people have the same feelings but form different behavioral
intentions due to past experience, personality. (e.g., two employees
dislike long work hours, but one complains about long hours; the
other doesn’t complain because complaining didn’t work in past.)
Behavioral Intentions-Behavior Contingencies:
• Two people have same behavioral intentions, but different situation
or skills enables only one of them to act. e.g., employee wants to quit
(intention) but can’t find a suitable job elsewhere (behavior).
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How Emotions Influence Attitudes and Behavior
Emotional markers attach to incoming sensory information.
Emotional experiences occur when information is first
received and later thinking about that information.
Feelings and beliefs are influenced by cumulative emotional
episodes.
Emotions influence our cognitive thinking about the attitude
object.
We “listen in” on our emotions.
Emotions also directly affect behavior. e.g. facial expression
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Cognitive Dissonance
Potential conflict (“mental tug-of-war”) when cognitive
and emotional processes disagree with each other.
Emotional experience caused by perceived incongruence
of our beliefs, feelings, and behavior.
• Violates image of being rational.
• Emotion motivates consistency.
Reducing cognitive dissonance:
• Difficult to undo or change behavior.
• Typically change beliefs and feelings about attitude object.
• Compensate by recognizing previous consonant decisions.
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Emotional Labor
Effort, planning and control needed to express
organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal
transactions.
Employees required to display behaviors representing
specific emotions.
Some jobs have higher emotional labor demands.
Stressful when required emotion display is:
• Quite different from actually experienced emotions.
• Contrary to one’s self-concept.
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Smiling in Russia
Russian employees are less likely to smile at customers
because they have a different interpretation of smiling than
do people in the United States and some other societies.
Consequently, Russians tend to experience more stress from
emotional labor when forced to smile at customers.
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Emotion Display Norms Across Cultures
Cultural variations in emotional display norms:
• Some countries/cultures strongly discourage emotional
expression.
•
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Some countries/cultures encourage open display of one’s
true emotions.
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Strategies for Displaying Expected Emotions
1. Consciously engage in verbal and nonverbal behaviors
that represent the expected emotions.
• Surface acting is faking the expected emotions.
• Surface acting is stressful and difficult.
2. Regulate actual emotions (basis of deep acting).
• Change the situation. e.g. temporarily leave a work area
• Modify the situation. e.g., stop working on an aggravating task and
move to a more enjoyable task.
• Suppress or amplify emotions. e.g., stop thinking about events that
bother us
• Shift attention. e.g., engage in work that takes your mind off earlier
problems.
• Reframe the situation. e.g., view a failed client presentation as a
learning experience with low chance of success
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Emotional Intelligence Model
ABILITIES
Yourself
Others
Recognition of
emotions
Awareness of own
emotions
Awareness of others’
emotions
Regulation of emotions
Management of own
emotions
Management of
others’ emotions
Exhibit 4.3 Dimensions of Emotional Intelligence
Sources: D. Goleman, “An El-Based Theory of Performance,” in The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace, ed. C. Cherniss and D. Goleman (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 28; Peter J. Jordan and Sandra A. Lawrence, “Emotional Intelligence in Teams: Development and Initial Validation of
the Short Version of the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profiles (WEIP-S).” Journal of Management & Organization 15 (2009); 452-69.
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Emotional Intelligence Outcomes and
Development
Emotional Intelligence Outcomes:
More effective team members.
Perform better in jobs requiring emotional labor.
Better leaders.
Make better decisions involving others.
More positive mindset for creative work.
Developing emotional intelligence through training, coaching, practice
and feedback.
Age increases emotional intelligence.
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1) Job Satisfaction and Performance
Job satisfaction is a person’s evaluation of his/her job and
work context.
An appraisal of perceived job characteristics, work
environment and emotional experiences at work.
Moderately positive relationship between job satisfaction
and performance.
Performance relationship is NOT stronger because:
• Satisfaction is a an attitude, and general attitudes are poor predictors
of specific behaviors.
• Employees have little control over performance.
• Performance causes satisfaction (reverse causation), but performance
often isn’t rewarded.
Note; Job satisfaction and organisational commitment are 2 overall job attitudes.
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EVLN: Responses to Dissatisfaction
E = Exit
• Leaving the situation.
• Quitting, transferring, being absent.
V = Voice
• Changing the situation.
• Problem solving, complaining.
L = Loyalty
• Patiently waiting for the situation to improve.
N = Neglect
• Reducing work effort or quality
• Increasing absenteeism.
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Service Profit Chain Model
Why job satisfaction increases customer satisfaction and
profits:
1. Employee emotions affect customer emotions.
2. Experienced employees provide better service.
Exhibit 4.5 Service Profit Chain Model
Sources: This model is based on J.I. Heskett, W.E. Sasser, and L.A. Schlesinger, The Service Profit Chain (New York: Free Press, 1997); A.J. Rucci, S.P. Kim, and R.T. Quinn, “The
Employee-Customer-Profit-Chain at Sears,” Harvard Business Review 76 (1998): 83-97; S.P. Brown and S.K. Lam, “A Meta-Analysis of Relationships Linking Employee
Satisfaction to Customer Responses,” Journal of Retailing 84, no. 3 (2008): 243-55.
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2) Organizational Commitment
Affective commitment:
• Emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in an
organization.
• Lower turnover, higher motivation and organizational citizenship.
Continuance commitment:
• Calculative attachment.
• Leaving is difficult: (a) due to social/economic loss or (b) lack of
alternative employment.
• Lower turnover, performance, organizational citizenship, cooperation.
Normative commitment:
• Felt obligation or moral duty to the organization.
• Applies norm of reciprocity.
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Building Affective Commitment
Justice and support.
• Support organizational justice and employee well-being.
Shared values.
• Employees believe their values are congruent with firm’s values.
Trust.
• Positive expectations toward another person in situations involving risk.
• Employees trust management when management trusts employees.
Organizational comprehension.
• How well employees understand the organization.
• Need a clear mental model of organization to identify with it.
Employee involvement.
• Psychological ownership of and social identity with the company.
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What Is Stress?
Adaptive response to situations perceived as challenging
or threatening to well-being.
Prepares us to adapt to hostile environmental conditions.
Eustress (some level of stress necessary) versus distress
(deviation from healthy functioning)
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General Adaptation Syndrome
Exhibit 4.6 General Adaptation Syndrome
Source: Adapted from H. Selye, The Stress of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956).
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Consequences of Distress
Physiological:
Tension headaches, muscle pain.
Cardiovascular disease — heart attacks, strokes.
Psychological:
Job dissatisfaction, moodiness, depression, lower organizational commitment.
Behavioral:
Lower job performance, poor decision making, increased workplace accidents, aggressive behavior.
Job Burnout:
Process of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment
resulting from prolonged exposure to stress.
Stage 1: Emotional exhaustion — lack of energy.
Stage 2: Cynicism (depersonalization) — indifferent attitude toward work, emotional detachment,
strictly follow rules.
Stage 3: Reduced personal accomplishment — diminished confidence.
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Workplace Stressors
Four most common workplace stressors:
1. Organizational constraints.
•
•
Lack of resources: “situation” in MARS model.
Interfere with performance: indirectly threatens rewards, status.
2. Interpersonal conflict.
•
•
Interferes with goals, other’s behavior threatening.
Includes workplace harassment such as bullying, sexual harassment.
3. Work overload.
•
More hours, intensive work.
4. Low task control.
•
•
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Lack of control over how and when tasks are performed.
More stressful as responsibility for outcomes increases.
Managing Work-Related Stress
Remove the stressor.
• Person-job matching, reduce noise, complaint system, employee
control over work, work-life integration practices (eg: maternity and
paternity leave, covid leave, hajj leave, remote work, n
communication during non-work hours).
Withdraw from the stressor.
• Permanent (transfer) and temporary (vacation) solutions.
Change stress perceptions.
• Positive self concept, personal goal setting, humor.
Control stress consequences.
• Exercise, meditation, wellness programs, EAPs.
Receive social support.
• Emotional and informational support from others.
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People experience less stress and/or negative stress consequences when
they have:
1. Better physical health.
Regular exercise, healthy lifestyle.
2. Better coping strategies.
Seeking support from others, reframing stressor in a positive light.
3. Personality — possibly the most important reason.
Low neuroticism (high emotional stability); extraversion (interact with
others, degree of positive thinking).
4. Positive self-concept (high self-esteem, self-efficacy, and internal locus
of control).
More confident, feel in control, sense of optimism.
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Individual Difference in Stress
People experience less stress or less negative stress
outcomes when they have:
1. Better physical health: exercise, lifestyle.
2. Appropriate stress coping strategies.
3. Personality: lower neuroticism and higher
extraversion.
4. Positive self-concept.
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0bu/009000c
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No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill.
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