Chapter 4:
Emotions & Moods
Affect, Emotions and Moods
• Affect is a generic term that covers a broad
Affect range of feelings people experience, including
both emotions and moods. There are two main
dimensions of Affect: Positive and Negative.
Positive Affect (PA) consists of specific
positive emotions such as excitement,
enthusiasm, and elation at the high end.
Negative Affect (NA) consists of emotions
such as nervousness, stress, and anxiety at
the high end.
• A person’s affect is the expression of emotion
or feelings displayed to others through facial
expressions, hand gestures, voice tone, and
other emotional signs such as laughter or tears.
Emotions
Emotions are intense feelings directed at someone or
something.
• Emotions are reactions to a person (seeing a friend at work
may make you feel glad) or an event (dealing with a rude
client may make you feel frustrated).
• Emotions are chemicals released in response to our
interpretation of a specific trigger. It takes our brains about
1/4 second to identify the trigger, and about another 1/4
second to produce the chemicals. By the way, emotion
chemicals are released throughout our bodies, not just in our
brains, and they form a kind of feedback loop between our
brains and bodies. They last for about six seconds.
The Basic Emotions
Happiness Surprise Fear
Sadness Anger Disgust
…The Basic Emotions
Contempt Enthusiasm Envy
Hate Hope Jealousy
…The Basic Emotions
Joy Love Pride
Frustration Disappointment Embarrassment
…The Basic Emotions
1. Anger [Link]
2. Fear [Link]
3. Sadness [Link]
4. Happiness [Link]
5. Disgust [Link]
6. Surprise [Link]
7. Contempt [Link]
8. Enthusiasm [Link]
9. Envy [Link]
Moods
Moods are less intense feelings than emotions and often arise
without a specific event acting as a stimulus.
• Moods are more generalized. They are not tied to a specific
incident, but a collection of inputs.
• Mood is heavily influenced by several factors: the
environment (weather, lighting, people around us),
physiology (what we’ve been eating, how we’ve been
exercising, how healthy we are), and finally our mental state
(where we’re focusing attention and our current emotions).
• Moods can last minutes, hours, probably even days.
Emotions v. Moods
Emotions and moods are closely connected and can
influence each other.
• For example, getting your dream job may generate
the emotion of joy, which can put you in a good
mood for several days. Similarly, if you’re in a good
or bad mood, it might make you experience a more
intense positive or negative emotion than otherwise.
In a bad mood, you might blow up in response to a
co-worker’s comment that would normally have
generated only a mild reaction.
Sources of Emotions and Moods
1. Personality
2. Time of the Day
3. Day of the Week
4. Weather
5. Stress
6. Social Interactions
7. Sleep
8. Exercise
9. Gender Identity
Emotional Labor
In addition to physical and mental labor, jobs also
require emotional labor.
• Emotional Labor is a situation in which an employee
expresses organizationally desired emotions during
interpersonal transactions at work.
• It means delivering smiles, high fives, making eye
contact, showing sincere interest and engaging in
friendly conversation with people who are
essentially strangers and who may or may not ever
be seen again.
Emotional Dissonance
Emotional Dissonance is inconsistencies between the
emotions people feel and the emotions they project.
• Emotional Dissonance is a feeling of discomfort that occurs
when someone evaluates an emotional experience as a
threat to his or her identity.
• Example: Harry’s personal life was in disaster last year
when his wife left him one weekend morning. He had to go
to work on Monday morning and act accordingly to be
happy and polite to airline customers. Inside, Harry was
devastated and depressed. He had a feeling of uneasiness as
his real emotion and his fake emotion were drastically at
odds with each other.
Types of Emotions
1. Felt Emotions are an individual’s actual emotions.
2. Displayed Emotions are the emotions that are organizationally
required and considered appropriate in a given job. They’re
not innate, they’re learned. It can be two types:
i. Surface Acting: It involves a “faking” process through which
outward expressions are altered, yet internal feelings are
left intact.
ii. Deep Acting: An effortful process through which employees
change their internal feelings to align with organizational
expectations, producing more natural and genuine
emotional displays.
Affective Events Theory
Affective Events Theory is a model developed by organizational psychologists
Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano to explain how emotions and moods
influence job performance and job satisfaction.
1. The theory begins by recognizing that emotions are a response to an event in
the work environment.
2. The work environment creates work events that can be hassles (excessive
time pressures), uplifting events (getting support from a colleague), or both.
3. These work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions, to which
employees’ personalities and moods predispose them to respond with greater
or lesser intensity.
4. Finally, emotions influence a number of performance and satisfaction
variables, such as organizational citizenship behavior, organizational
commitment, level of effort, intention to quit, and workplace deviance.
…Affective Events Theory
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to
identify his own emotions and the emotions of
others, understand the meaning of these emotions,
and use this information to regulate one’s emotions.
Emotional intelligence is essential in OB because it
strengthens both individual performance and
organizational effectiveness. More specifically, it
helps improve communication, foster better
teamwork, enable effective leadership, facilitate
conflict resolution, enhance job performance, and
promote a positive organizational culture.
Emotion Regulation
Have you ever tried to cheer yourself up when you’re
feeling down, or calm yourself when you’re feeling angry?
• Emotion Regulation is the identification and modification of
emotions.
• Strategies to change your emotions include-
1. Thinking about more pleasant things
2. Suppressing negative thoughts
3. Distracting yourself
4. Reappraising the situation
5. Engaging in relaxation techniques
OB Applications of
Emotions and Moods
1. Selection: Employers should consider EI in hiring employees, especially
in jobs that demand a high degree of social interaction.
2. Decision Making: Moods and emotions have important effects on
decision making.
3. Creativity: People in good moods tend to be more creative than
people in bad moods.
4. Motivation: Positive moods cause people to be more creative, which
leads to positive feedback from those observing their work. This
positive feedback further reinforces the positive mood, which may
make people perform even better, and so on.
5. Leadership: Effective leaders rely on emotional appeals to help convey
their messages.
…OB Applications of
Emotions and Moods
6. Negotiation: Negotiation is an emotional process and displaying a negative
emotion (such as anger) can be effective.
7. Customer Services: A worker’s emotional state influences customer service,
which influences levels of repeat business and of customer satisfaction.
8. Job Attitudes: People who had a good day at work tend to be in a better
mood at home that evening, and vice versa.
9. Deviant Workplace Behaviors: People who feel negative emotions,
particularly anger or hostility, are more likely than others to engage in
deviant behavior at work.
10. Safety and Injury at Work: Bad moods can contribute to injury at work.
Individuals in negative moods tend to be more anxious, which can make
them less able to cope effectively with hazards.
How Manager Can Influence Moods?
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. But what can companies do to
improve employees’ moods?
1. Managers can use humor.
2. Giving employees small tokens of appreciation for work well
done.
3. When leaders themselves are in good moods, group members are
more positive, and as a result they cooperate more.
4. Selecting positive team members because positive moods
transmit from team member to team member.
THE END
