EmotionalStability APJM2016

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Emotional stability: A new construct and its implications for individual

behavior in organizations
Article in Asia Pacific Journal of Management · August 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s10490-015-9423-2
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Asia Pac J Manag (2016) 33:1–28
DOI 10.1007/s10490-015-9423-2
Emotional stability: A new construct and its implications

for individual behavior in organizations
Yan Li 1 & David Ahlstrom 2
Published online: 6 August 2015

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Despite being generally well studied, emotional stability (ES) has not yet
been widely accepted as a satisfactory and solidly valid theoretical construct. Without a
clearly defined and validated construct, it is difficult to infer what ES means for the
behavior and decisions of individuals as well as the performance of groups and
organizations. Based on self-organization theory, this study infers a two dimensional
construct for ES (threshold and recovery) under the framework of dynamic change and
complexity. Two studies were conducted in China to develop and examine the construct
of ES in an organizational context. The psychometric examination indicated that the
newly developed construct of ES has discriminant and convergent validity with respect
to different though related constructs such as the Big Five personality model and
emotional intelligence (EI). It also demonstrates incremental validity in predicting
group leadership, job satisfaction, job self-efficacy, and commitment. The findings also
demonstrate that ES moderates the relationship between individual commitment and
group relationship conflict. The results indicate that self-ratings effectively reflect the
theoretical construct, whereas peer ratings and supervisor ratings create different biases.
Additional theory, empirical, and methodological contributions are also discussed.
Keywords Emotional stability . Construct validity . Self-organization theory . Multi-trait-

multi-methods (MTMM) . Group leadership . Commitment . China
Contemporary organizations around the world increasingly face challenges ranging

from downsizing and retrenching, globalization and technological change (Aghion,
Akcigit & Howitt, 2014; Christensen & Raynor, 2003), to financial and geopolitical
upheaval (Hamel, 2012) in what has been called the new competitive landscape (Hitt,
* Yan Li
y.li@bit.edu.cn
David Ahlstrom
Ahlstrom@baf.msmail.cuhk.edu.hk
1
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
2
School of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
2 Y. Li, D. Ahlstrom
Keats, & DeMarie, 1998). Such rapid change coupled with new competitors emerging
from around the world can stir strong emotions in the workplace, which can have a
significant impact on performance even in the largest firms, especially if workplace
emotions are not properly managed (Ashkanasy, 2004; Ashkanasy, 2011a, b;
Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002; Li, 2011). This is especially true for firms that have
experienced very solid and steady growth for many years, but face increasing disruptive
threats from new competitors. Such transformational challenges require that employees
manage their emotions well, build trust and adapt to changes quickly rather than
treating them like a threat (Ashkanasy & Humphrey, 2011; Gilbert, 2005, 2006) while
maintaining good decision making, innovation, and evaluation practices (Li,
Ashkanasy, & Ahlstrom, 2014; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2002; Williams
& Du, 2014; Zhao, Gu, Yue, & Ahlstrom, 2013).
Emotions are especially salient in terms of organizational commitment (Li,
Ahlstrom, & Ashkanasy, 2010a), innovation and new ventures (Li, 2011) and a host
of other important organizational and managerial performance considerations of par-
ticular importance today (Ahlstrom, 2014; Ashkanasy, 2004; Zerbe, Härtel, &
Ashkanasy, 2010). In spite of this importance, individuals vary in their stability to
maintain their psychological calm in the face of difficult pressures, especially in an
organizational context. The easily elicited anger, sadness, anxiety, upset, or fear can
inhibit people from providing rational analyses to difficult situations or generally using
their emotions (and intellect) effectively (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2015). Thus, in an
unsettled business environment, emotional stability (ES) is likely to be a key element
in predicting important outcomes such as people’s reaction to stressful events, propen-
sity to make intelligent and well-considered decisions, and generally adapting to
changes in the organizational and commercial environment effectively (Ashkanasy &
Humphrey, 2011). And this is not only true for line employees and support staff; ES
also impacts executives’ capacity for good judgment, trust, and the minimization of
unproductive conflict (Hiller & Hambrick, 2005; Judge & Bono, 2000).
Despite its likely importance in organizational contexts, the theoretical construct of
ES has remained somewhat ambiguous. The previous understanding of ES held that it
is still descriptive and largely inductive (Saucier & Goldberg, 2001). In addition, past
research has often been based on natural language or clinical observation studies, which
reduces predictive validity (Saucier, 1994). To bridge this gap in terms of the lack of a
theoretical framework, this study takes a deductive tack and infers the ES construct
through the use of self-organization theory. Such a dynamic and nonlinear approach can
better reflect the biological and psychological complex of emotion systems (Ahlstrom,
2010; Izard, Ackerman, Schoff, & Fine, 2000).
In this study, ES is reflected by two dimensions derived from self-organization
theory, the threshold of chaotic emotions and recovery from negative emotions and thus
in turn ES can be discriminated from similar constructs such as neuroticism and
emotional intelligence (EI). Since the construct is well defined, it should provide
incremental validity in comparison to its competing construct, neuroticism, in the Big
Five personality model. The newly developed ES should be positively related to
satisfaction and self-efficacy measures and also should moderate the relationship
between organizational commitment and relationship conflict. To test the hypotheses,
two studies were conducted. In the first study, items were developed to measure the two
dimensional construct. In the second study, the hypotheses were examined thorough the
Construct of emotional stability 3
data collected in a sample of commercial organizations in China. Thus, this study

contributes to incorporating self-organization theory as a theoretical framework. This is
important as self-organization theory has been applied in the study of psychological
systems, of which emotion is a self-organizing system (Barton, 1994; Izard et al.,
2000). In so doing, the construct of ES could be inferred based on a complex, dynamic
nonlinear framework which is close to a biological and psychological organization,
which should enhance the validity and reliability of the construct (Ashkanasy, 2011a).
This research also contributes empirically by testing this construct with a large sample
in China. This addresses the call to test constructs more widely by employing samples
from major emerging economies (Ahlstrom, Levitas, Hitt, Dacin, & Zhu, 2014; Li
et al., 2014). It further contributes to both theory and practice by providing robust
psychological constructs (Arndt & Ashkanasy, 2015). Finally, this study also contrib-
utes to research methods in creating and testing a scale correspondingly to measure and
to reflect the developed construct, while further adding to the understanding of
organizations (Young, Tsai, Wang, Liu, & Ahlstrom, 2014).
Literature review
ES is a common personality trait in a range of personality approaches (e.g., Eyenck’s

personality questionnaire [EPQ], the 16 personality factor [16PF] of Cattell, and the
Big Five personality model) (Digman, 1990). The Big Five model accounts for five
distinct major personality traits. Research has shown that the Big Five personality traits
have predictive validity in interviews, self-descriptions, and work performance (Barrick
& Mount, 2004; Hurtz & Donovan, 2000). Moreover, this five-factor structure seems to
be found across a wide range of participants of different ages and, importantly, of
different cultures (Matthews, Deary, & Whiteman, 2003; Rolland, 2002). It has been
examined and recognized as a personality representation in the human mind (e.g.,
Cattell, 1943; Cattell & Schuerger, 2003; Goldberg, 1993; McCrae & Costa, 1987).
Previous personality research is primarily rooted in two traditions. One is the natural
language description based on lexical hypothesis (e.g., Allport & Odbert, 1936; Cattell,
1943; Goldberg, 1995), such as the 16PF and the Big Five, which assumes personality
as represented in the human mind does exist and can be described in daily language. In
this research stream, ES as a factor was drawn from a large number of emotional words
using personality ratings and was named using commonly-held meanings of the
emotional words. Another personality research line is clinical observations such as
EPQ (e.g., Eysenck, 1998).
ES as a personality dimension was inductively derived from the study of natural
language as well as clinical observation. As such, it generally lacked a theoretical
framework to reflect the construct’s meaning. Because of this, the criterion validity of
the existing ES measurements on the prediction of behavior in organizations, such as
leadership, is sometimes challenged by trait theorists (e.g., Hiller & Hambrick, 2005;
Judge & Bono, 2000), who call for a new approach or a paradigm to reflect the nature
of ES and its predictive validity on intrapersonal investigation and organizational
behavior could be increased correspondingly.
Incorporating a new paradigm into research is likely to bridge the gap between the
current theory and observable phenomena (Kuhn, 1970). In this study, self-organization
theory is employed as a new way to reveal the nature of emotional stability from a
dynamic nonlinear perspective and its importance in organizations (cf. Aaker, Drolet, &
Griffin, 2008; Li et al., 2010a). As an emerging research paradigm, self-organization
theory has been applied to study psychological systems (Barton, 1994). And as a part of
a psychological system, emotion is also considered to be a self-organizing system (e.g.,
Izard et al., 2000), assuming that emotion can recover to its equilibrium state automat-
ically. Emotional stability hereby is defined as a property to label the efficiency that an
emotional system automatically maintains its equilibrium. Higher emotion stability
indicates that an emotion system can recover its equilibrium efficiently (Li, Ashkanasy,
& Ahlstrom, 2010b). More specifically, this study more deeply addresses the key
construct of ES through the following three issues: First, a new construct of ES based
on self-organizational theory. Second, this paper develops a new scale to represent the
construct and also develops the psychometric properties of the new measurement.
Finally, the new construct is applied to organizations, in particular, the moderating
effects of ES on the relationship between organizational commitment and group
relationship conflict.
The construct of ES
Constructs are essential to the defining, testing, and improving of theory (Ahlstrom,
Bruton, & Zhao, 2013; Ashkanasy, Christensen, 2006; Edwards, 2003). Based on self-
organization theory, personality can be determined by stabilized behavioral patterns. A
pattern is defined as a coherent set of interactions among sub-level components (Izard
et al., 2000) and lower-order constituents interact together and generate higher-order
patterns (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Van de Ven, 2007). The analyses of patterns can
obviate the need to analyze all the Batomic^ coordinates of emotion activities. In order
to describe or constrain a particular pattern from a higher level, the order parameter that
indicates the degree of order of a system, is used as a critical element in defining the
macroscopic order state of self-organization accurately (Haken, 2004).
Correspondingly, in the process of emotion activation and recovery, the higher-order
patterns reoccur and stabilize as a personality characteristic (Kelso, 2000; Treffner &
Kelso, 1999), that is, emotional stability. Two patterns of an emotion system could be
identified at the higher order level: stable or unstable. Pattern A (a stable emotion
system shown in Fig. 1) has a long intermittent period between emotion episodes and a
short recovery time, which means that the emotion of a person with Pattern A is not
easily activated (i.e., a high threshold of emotional response) and that person can
recover quickly. Pattern B (an unstable emotion system) has a short emotion intermit-
tent period (low threshold of emotion response) from which also takes a relatively long
time to recover. The threshold of emotion response and the time of emotional recovery,
therefore, are two order parameters that define the ordered state of an emotional system.
The threshold represents a critical parameter that describes the sensitivity of the
system in analyzing a self-organization system (Partridge, 2000; Tong, 1990). The
threshold level will determine whether or not an emotional system can easily become
disordered. A lower threshold means that the equilibrium of an emotional system is
easily disturbed. In Eyenck’s arousal theory (Eyenck & Eyenck, 1985: 248), very low
and very high levels of stimulation activate negative feelings, whereas positive feelings
Intensity
Pattern A
Intermittent Period
Time
Recovery Period Recovery Period
Intensity
Pattern B
Intermittent Period Intermittent Period
Time
Recovery Period Recovery Period
Fig. 1 Patterns of emotional stability
occur only at intermediate levels of sensory stimulation. Thus, the activation of positive
emotions could not represent the threshold of the emotional system, and hence, the
activation of negative emotions is an indicator to measure the threshold of an emotional
system. The time required for emotion recovery is further related to psychological
resilience, a term used by Tugade and Fredrickson (2004: 320), who define it as the
Bflexible adaptation to the changing demands of stressful experiences.^ The recovery
time can reflect whether the sub-components of the emotional system can collaborate
effectively to cope with negative stimuli and restore it efficiently to a stable state or not.
It also is one of the dimensions that can be used to indicate whether an emotional
system is stable. Therefore, in the new construct, ES is comprised of two dimensions
(i.e., the threshold of negative emotion responses and their recovery time).
Construct validity of ES
The validity of a new personality construct is usually demonstrated by its convergent

and discriminant validity among its relevant traits. The construct validity of ES can be
examined through comparing its degree of convergence and discriminance with the Big
Five personality model and EI.
ES and the Big Five
In the Big Five, personality is represented by five dimensions: Extroversion, neuroti-

cism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. Among the five, neuroticism is
the antonym of emotional stability (Bentler, 1969; Goldberg, 1993), which should have
similar properties to ES. Thus, ES should have a higher correlation with neuroticism
(convergent validity) but can also be discriminated from the four other Big Five
personality traits. Therefore, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1a ES has a higher correlation with neuroticism than with other four
dimensions of the Big Five traits.
On the other hand, ES differs from the neuroticism of Big Five (e.g., McCrae &
Costa, 1987). Neuroticism measures static emotional experience, composing of pairs of
emotional adjectives, for example calm–worrying, at ease–nervous, relaxed–high-
strung, comfortable–self-conscious. On the basis of self-organization, the stability of
the emotional system is evaluated from dynamic courses of emotional changes, such as,
whether the emotional system is easily activated (threshold) and can recover quickly.
Therefore, ES should be discriminant with neuroticism. Therefore we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1b ES can be discriminated from neuroticism.
ES and EI
Emotional Intelligence (EI) has generated a prodigious amount of research in recent

years, both at the individual and the organizational levels of analysis (Jordan,
Ashkanasy, & Ascough, 2007; Jordan, Ashkanasy, & Härtel, 2003; Mayer, Salovey,
& Caruso, 2008). Different theorists have suggested a variety of EI models, such as the
intelligence model (Salovey & Mayer, 1989), well-being model (Bar-On, 1988),
performance model (Goleman, 1998), and adaptive emotion model (Izard, 2001). Peter
Salovey and his colleagues have more recently created a model and instrument to
specify and test emotional intelligence, which is well-validated (Mayer, Salovey,
Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2003; Salovey & Grewal, 2005). This construct has four dimen-
sions in common (i.e., the perception and regulation of one’s emotions, and the
understanding and utilization or management of emotions in others). We can compare
the relationship between ES and the four common dimensions of EI. Emotion regula-
tion and utilization might be related to the ES dimension of recovery (Ehring, Tuschen-
Caffier, Schnülle, Fischer, & Gross, 2010; Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012), that is,
higher emotion regulation and using emotion to enhance performance is likely to help
people recover from negative emotions. Also, cognitive elements are important for
emotion activation and arousal (e.g., Colquitt, Scott, Judge, & Shaw, 2006; Izard,
1993). Therefore, the EI dimension of emotion perception in oneself and others might
be related to the ES dimension of threshold. Thus we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1c ES and EI are positively correlated.
EI places much emphasis on emotion regulation and using emotion; however,

emotion regulation process may induce stress in workers (e.g., Ashforth & Humphrey,
1993; Hochschild, 1983). Longitudinal analysis (e.g., Cote & Morgan, 2002) has
indicated that the suppression of unpleasant emotions decreases job satisfaction, which
in turn increases intention to quit. In contrast to EI, ES emphasizes the notion that
emotion can recover automatically and that recovery could happen naturally, which
indicates that ES might have greater validity in predicting satisfaction than EI. Despite
the similarity between ES and EI, they are different constructs. Thus, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1d ES should be discriminated from EI.
Criterion validity of ES
Criterion validity is usually utilized to demonstrate the usefulness of an assessment in

predicting outcomes. Correspondingly, the usefulness of the newly developed ES in
behavior prediction will be tested by the criteria of job satisfaction, life satisfaction, self-
efficacy, and group leadership. In relation to job satisfaction, emotion is adaptive and useful
(e.g., Frijda, 1986), which feelings provide a signal to remind people of the conflicts
between external requirements and their internal needs and motivate people to get optimal
satisfaction for personal needs (e.g., Parrot, 2001). Stable emotion indicates that people can
respond and adapt to circumstances effectively, and their needs can be satisfied. It also
represents good emotional adjustment that is likely to facilitate job satisfaction (Fisher &
Hanna, 1931; Hoppock, 1935). At the same time, ES has been used as a dispositional
predictor of job satisfaction (Judge & Larsen, 2001). Therefore, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2a ES is positively related to job satisfaction.
With regard to life satisfaction, it is conceptualized as the result of overall satisfac-

tion with various life domains (e.g., Rode, 2004). By the dynamic equilibrium theory of
stress (Hart, Wearing, & Headey, 1995; Headey & Wearing, 1989), a state of disequi-
librium brings about a change in people’s normal (i.e., equilibrium) levels of psycho-
logical well-being. If the emotional system is not stable and the equilibrium state is
easily disordered, satisfaction or psychological well-being will be influenced. There-
fore, emotional stability as a personality trait can be a dispositional predictor of life
satisfaction. Thus:
Hypothesis 2b ES is positively related to life satisfaction.
In relation to self-efficacy, it is defined as Bbeliefs in one’s capabilities to organize

and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments^ (Bandura,
1977: 3). A stable emotional system enables people to adapt to their environment,
which also means that the sub-components of the emotional system collaborate effi-
ciently (Kelso, 2000). It has been evident that higher ES helps in handling stresses and
difficulties efficiently (Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti, & Wallace, 2006), which in turn is
likely to strengthen the beliefs of self-capability. Therefore, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2c ES is positively related to self-efficacy.
As to leadership at the group level, the evolutionary viewpoint regards that groups
are the by-product of individual behaviors to maximize reproductive potential
(Caporael, Wilson, Hemelrijk, & Sheldon, 2005). Natural selection results from
selection between groups rather than of individuals (Wynne-Edwards, 1962). The

survival of individuals depends on the survival of the groups to which they belong.
So the natural selection process requires individuals to follow the group member who
can present more adaptability to their environment. Group leadership can show other
group members an Bappropriate^ or Bacceptable^ response to the situations the group is
encountering (Pescosolido, 2002). Group adaptiveness and the possibilities of survival
will be increased through following the more adaptive responses. Individuals with a
disposition that lacks adaptable emotional responses and ability to recover quickly from
negative emotion(s) are unlikely to be perceived as a model to be followed by other
group members. Therefore we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2d ES is positively related to group leadership.
The moderating effect of ES on group relational conflict and organizational

commitment
Relationship conflict is ubiquitous over organizations and groups. As a key group

process (Amason & Schweiger, 1997; Jehn, 1997; Kabanoff, 1991), relationship
conflict results in interpersonal incompatibilities and negative emotions (Jehn &
Mannix, 2001). And it also harms the group members’ organizational commitment
(Jehn & Chatman, 2000), satisfaction, and performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003).
In spite of its negative effects, individuals react differently in the similar circumstances
(cf. Brockner, 1988). ES could buffer the negative effects and stress from the group
conflict relationship. Employees with higher ES tend not to be as sensitive to the
negative influence of group relationship conflict as the lower ES, and they can also
recover from its negative influences more quickly. So the commitment will not be
significantly influenced by the increasing group relationship conflict for the higher ES
individuals. However, the commitment will be significantly reduced with increasing
group relationship conflict when the ES is lower. Thus we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3 For the lower ES individuals, the organizational commitment will be

significantly reduced with the increasing of group relationship conflict.
Study 1
Methodology
In this study, the items representing the two dimensional construct of ES are developed
according to the previous descriptions on the two dimensions. As a first step, the
negative emotions include upset, irritable, angry, guilty (ashamed), anxious, panicked
(or fearful, scared), disturbed, feeling as if faced with imminent disaster, hurt, and hostile
were collected from the Big Five, 16PF, and PANA scale (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988). Second, these negative emotions items were transferred to represent their thresh-
old and recovery. As the sensitivity of negative emotional responses, ten items of
threshold were developed to measure whether or not individuals experience negative

emotion easily, such as: BAre you easily upset?^, BAre you easily irritable?^, and BDo
you feel angry, guilty (ashamed), anxious, panicked, disturbed, hurt and hostile easily?^
Recovery time describes whether a person can recover from various negative emotions
quickly. Nine items were developed correspondingly, for example, BAre you a person
who can recover from negative emotions quickly?^ or BCan you calm down quickly?^
In order to increase the validity of items (including the item consistency, discriminabil-
ity) for further research, item analysis and revision were conducted.
This study was conducted at a major university in China. One hundred sixty-eight
undergraduate students from five classes on business courses for non-business major
students participated in the investigation. One hundred forty-eight of the respondents
were full time undergraduate students. The other 20 respondents were part time graduate
students who were business majors and had working experience. Among the partici-
pants, 104 students were female and 64 male. The average age was 20.62 years (SD=
4.09, range from 17 to 42). All of the investigation was conducted on-site.
Measurement
In order to avoid the center tendency bias of the Chinese participants, all the 20 author-
centered items were evaluated by bipolar 6-point scales (1=strongest agreement, 6=
strongest disagreement).
Results
Item analysis was conducted to select the items. The two dimensions of ES, threshold
and recovery, were separately analyzed based on the values of co-efficient alpha, item-
total correlation, and scale variance according to three disciplines: (1) Only one item
was deleted per item analysis; (2) The deleted item has the least item-total correlation
and deleting it will increase the co-efficient alpha and scale variance; and (3) No items
were deleted until the item-total correlations of all the remaining items are above .50.
By this procedure, four items remain to represent the dimension of threshold and three
items for the dimension of recovery as shown in Table 1. The higher item-correlations
(larger than .5) indicate that these remaining seven items have items consistency to
represent the two dimensions.
In order to know whether these items are discriminant on the two factors, explor-
atory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted. The principal components method was used
to extract factors and the factors were rotated by varimax. The results show that the
seven items distributed on two factors account for 68.2 % of the variance. From Table 1,
the factor loadings of each item have higher loading on one factor but lower on the
other, indicating that these items have discriminability over the two factors. The items
1, 2, and 3 converge on the factor 2, that is whether people can recover or calm down
from negative emotions quickly. It is named as the recovery of emotion. The items 4, 5,
6, and 7 represent factor 1, threshold, that is whether negative emotions like upset,
panic (scared, fear), and anxiety can be activated easily.
In order to increase the content validity of the seven items, we interviewed some
participants and asked them whether these items represent the threshold and recovery of
Table 1 Summary of item-total correlations
Items M SD Factor 1 Factor 2 Item-total Coefficient

correlations alpha
1. Are you a person who can recover 3.97 1.05 −.13 .82 .61 .76
from negative emotion quickly?
2. Do you calm down quickly after 3.87 1.11 −.18 .80 .61
trivial incidents?
3. Some trivia in life make you upset. 3.80 .91 −.20 .78 .56
But you can recover calm quickly
and not be influenced by
the negative emotion?
4. Do you get upset easily? 3.45 1.18 .67 −.40 l.63 .83
5. Do you easily feel as if you are 3.81 1.20 .82 −.00 .65
facing imminent disaster?
6. Do you panic easily? 3.52 1.03 .82 −.00 .61
7. Do you get anxious easily? 3.46 1.12 .81 −.36 .76
emotions from the item content. The content validity of threshold was identified
however, one item of recovery (i.e., BSome trivia in life make you upset. But you
can recover calm quickly and not be influenced by the negative emotion?^ was
suggested to be short and simple). Hence this item was revised as BCan you recover
from upset quickly and not be influenced by it?^ Another item BDo you calm down
quickly after trivial incidents?^ was criticized by the participants as having no explicit
relationship with negative emotions. Hence, this item was replaced by the emotions
which appeared in the threshold dimension. Therefore, there are four more items to
measure recovery, such as BDo you calm down quickly from panic (or scare/fear),
unhappiness, distress (or worry), anxiety?^ On the basis of the above procedure of item
analysis and content analysis, an updated scale to measure ES was formed, which is
expected with increased face and content validity than the previous one. Further
analyses were conducted in Study 2.
Study 2
The second study aimed at examining the correspondence between the theoretical
construct of ES and the modified ES measure, in terms of construct validity (Cronbach
& Meehl, 1955; Schwab, 1980), including its convergent and discriminant validity with
relevant traits, multi-trait-multi-methods (MTMM) test. Its incremental validity, crite-
rion validity, and its moderating effect were also examined in this study.
Methodology
Research design
In order to examine the discriminant validity of ES across different rating sources, MTMM
(multi-traits-multi-methods) was used in our sample design. We used three traits (emotion
recovery, emotion threshold, and group leadership)×three methods (self-rating, peer rating,
and supervisor rating) design. Except the three traits, the other variables were all self-rated.
Sample and procedure
All participants were employees from eight Chinese firms based in Beijing, and drawn
from the IT, publishing, consultancy and design industries. Apart from one being state-
owned, all of the firms were privately-owned. The size of the firms ranged from 25 to
300 employees. All departments of each firm were involved in the survey. In order to
control participants’ social desirability, there was an introduction on the first page of the
questionnaire highlighting that: (1) it is for the purposes of academic research; (2) the
survey is confidential; and (3) as for the answers to each question, there was no wrong
and no right. They were not required to write their name on the questionnaire. The
participants were selected based on the register of each firm. The procedure of sampling
was: (1) the working group was the unit of our sampling; (2) all group members were
selected as participants, if the number of members of a particular group was less or
equal than 5; (3) otherwise, 5 participants were randomly selected based on their roll
number. Two hundred thirty employees from 56 working groups took part in the
investigation. HR managers selected peers within the same group to rate the target
employees. The peer should have worked with the target employee for at least 3 months.
Supervisor rating was conducted by the direct group leader. All of the questionnaires
were completed within 1 week.
Among the 230 employees, average age was 28.92 years (SD=7.05, range from 21
to 60); 38 % were female, 62 % male. The average tenure of the respondents was
25.04 months (SD=33.03, ranging from 3 to 290). The average working hours each
day was 8.66 (SD=1.28, ranging from 5.5 to 14). One hundred ninety-two cases had a
complete self-, supervisor, and peer rating record.
Measures
All multi-item scales were measured on a 6-point scale (1=strongly agree, 6=strongly
disagree). The questionnaire about ES was developed in Chinese. All of the other
measures were first translated from English to Chinese and back translated to English to
ensure equivalence of meaning.
The Big Five Since the original Big Five inventory of McCrae and Costa (1987) is too
long (80 items), the inventory was shortened according to Saucier’s (1994) rationale to
increase the factor purity. Forty bipolar adjectives that satisfy the following two
conditions were then selected: (1) the factor loading on the target factor is above .50,
and (2) the factor loadings on other factors are less than .40. The Cronbach’s alphas of
the five traits were Neuroticism .76, Extraversion .82, Openness .77, Agreeableness
.85, and Conscientiousness .93.
EI Emotional intelligence was measured by the 16-item WLEIS (Law, Wong, & Song,
2004) over 4 dimensions: (1) self-emotion appraisal, (2) others’ emotion appraisal, (3)
regulation of emotion, and (4) uses of emotion. The Cronbach’s alpha values for the
four dimensions were .83, .83, .84, and .91, respectively.
Job satisfaction We used Andrews and Withey’s (1976) 6-item scale to evaluate em-
ployees’ job satisfaction. Participants were asked to rate their overall feeling about the job,
coworkers, the job itself, equipment, information, good supervision, physical surroundings,
the hours, and the pay and fringe benefits. The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .75.
Group leadership The 8-item scale of Zimmerman and Zahniser (1991) was used.
Items included: BI am often a leader in the groups,^ BI would rather someone else took
over the leadership role when I am involved in a group project (Reverse),^ BI would
prefer to be a leader rather a follower,^ or BI can usually organize people to get things
done.^ The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .72.
Self-efficacy The 8-item self-efficacy scale of John (1986) is used. This scale is close
to the work context. For example, BI do not anticipate any problems in adjusting to
work in this organization,^ or BI feel confident that my skills and abilities equal or
exceed those of my future colleagues.^ The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .74.
Life satisfaction Life satisfaction was measured by the SWL Scale (Dienner, Emmons,
Larsen, & Griffin, 1985; Lucas, Diener, & Suh, 1996). The 5-item scale includes BIn
most ways my life is close to my ideal^ or BThe conditions of my life are excellent.^
The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .74.
Organizational commitment It was measured by the 7-item scale developed by

Porter, Steers, Mowday, and Boulian (1974). It included: BI feel very little loyalty to
this organization,^ BI would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep
working for this organization,^ or BI am proud to tell others that I am a part of this
organization.^ The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .73.
Group relationship conflict The 4-item ICS (intra-group conflict scale) (Jehn, 1995;
Pearson, Ensley, & Amason, 2002) is used to measure the group relationship conflict,
including BThere is much friction among members in my work unit,^ BThere is much
tension among members in my work unit,^ and BThere is much emotional conflict
among members in my work unit.^ The Cronbach’s alpha of the relationship conflict
scale was .90.
Results
Two-dimensional construct of ES
The two-dimensional construct of ES was examined by CFA (confirmation factor

analysis). The factor loadings (λ) of items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 on the dimension of
emotion recovery were larger than .5. Items 7, 8, 9, and 10 have higher factor loadings
(λ) on emotion threshold (shown in Table 2). The model fits well (shown in Table 3).
RMSEA (root mean square error of approximation) is .049; NFI (normed fit index) is
.96; NNFI (non-normed fit index) is .98; CFI (comparative fit index) is .99; and GFI
(goodness of fit index) is .96. We refer to the model used here as M0. The dimensions of
Table 2 Factor loadings of 10 items on two dimensions of ES in Study 2
Dimensions
Item M SD Recovery (λ) Threshold (λ)
1. Can you recover from unhappiness 2.13 .99 .67

quickly and not be influenced by it?
2. Can you calm down quickly from 2.54 1.10 .67
anxiety and not be influenced by it?
3. Can you recover from upset quickly 2.40 1.06 .81
and not be influenced by it?
4. Can you recover from panic (or scare/ 2.33 1.05 .77
fear) quickly?
5. Can you recover from negative emotions 2.30 1.03 .73
quickly?
6. Can you recover from distress (or worry) 2.37 1.02 .56
quickly?
7. Do you feel as if you are facing imminent 2.16 1.33 .55
disaster easily? ®
8. Do you get panicked (or scared/afraid) 2.24 1.23 .61
easily? ®
9. Do you get anxious easily? ® 2.76 1.36 .63
10. Do you get upset easily? ® 2.72 1.30 .55
Note: All correlation coefficency among the items is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). The correlation
between ESR and EST is .65
recovery and threshold have .65 correlations. When the correlation co-efficiency is
constrained as 1 (denoted as M1), the model is poorly fit. RMSEA fell to .104, while χ2
increased to 51.5. So, M1 was rejected. The analysis supported that recovery and
threshold are two dimensions of ES. They are correlated but discriminant from each
other.
Convergent and discriminant validity
The correlations among ES, EI, and Big Five are shown in Table 4. ES has a higher
correlation with neuroticism (−.55) than with the four other traits of Big Five, for
instance, extraversion (.36), openness (.39), agreeableness (.36), conscientiousness
(.40), indicating that ES is convergent but also discriminant with neuroticism, which
supports H1a. At the same time, ES is highly correlated with EI (r=.66, p<.001),
supporting H1c that ES is converged with EI.
Table 3 Model comparison between one-dimensional and two-dimensional ES models
χ2 df Δχ2 /Δdf RMSEA NFI NNFI CFI GFI
M0 53.56 34 .049 .96 .98 .99 .96

M1 105.06 35 51.5** .104 .93 .93 .95 .90
Table 4 Correlation matrix among ES, EI, and Big Five
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Neuroticism 1.00
2. ES −.55** 1.00
3. EI −.36** .63** 1.00
4. Extraversion −.30** .36** .38** 1.00
5. Openness −.12 .39** .52** .51** 1.00
6. Agreeable −.24* .36** .30** .63** .37** 1.00
7. Conscientiousness −.25** .40** .37** .45** .35** .78**
M 3.71 1.94 1.27 2.94 3.22 1.98
SD .62 .72 .32 1.17 .94 .77
* p<.05; ** p<.001
Further CFA was conducted to examine the trait discriminant validity between ES
neuroticism, and EI. The base model M0 (the correlation matrix between ES, EI, and
Big Five) has an acceptable model fit (RMSEA=.071; NFI=.93; CFI=.94) as shown in
Table 5. After the correlation co-efficiency between ES and neuroticism was
constrained to 1 in M1, χ2 significantly increased to 74, showing that M1 is
significantly different from M0. M0 is a parsimony model, so M1 was rejected, which
supports H1b, that is ES could be differentiated from neuroticism. On the basis of M0,
when the correlation co-efficiency between ES and EI was constrained to 1 (denoted as
M2), the model fit of M2 is not as good as M0. χ2 significantly increased to 66. So ES is
a different trait to EI, supporting H1d. These results demonstrated that the newly
developed ES has good trait convergent and discriminant validity.
MTMM (Multi-traits-Multi-methods)
Different with the traditional method to examine MTMM, CFA could quantify the
degree to which the traits converge and discriminate over multiple ratings (Bagozzi &
Yi, 1991; Schmitt & Stults, 1986). Among the CFA MTMM models, the CTUM
(correlated traits uniqueness method) model had been examined with stable and proper
solutions (March & Bailey, 1991). It was used to test the convergent and discriminant
validity of ES over multiple ratings.
Table 5 Model comparisons
χ2 df Δχ2 /Δdf RMSEA NFI NNFI CFI
M0 2,012 968 .071 .88 .93 .94

M1 2,086 969 74** .075 .88 .93 .93
M2 2,078 969 66** .074 .88 .93 .93
M0: Correlation matrix of ES, Neuroticism, EI, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeable, and Conscientiousness
M1: As M0 but with PH between ES and Neuroticism constrained to 1
M2: As M0 but with PH between ES and EI constrained to 1
The results from CTUM (see Fig. 2) indicate that the model fits well
(RMSEA = .052; NFI = .96; NNFI = .97; CFI = .98; GFI = .97; df = 15; χ2 = 24.38;
p=.0995), which means that the predicted and observed results are sufficiently alike
in supporting the MTMM model. However, the trait factor loading was not balanced
(see Table 6). For example, on the trait recovery, the factor loading of recovery from
self-rating is .22, whereas peer rating gives .70, and supervisor rating .36. The
convergent validity among different methods on a specific trait in terms of their shared
trait (Alwin, 1974; Marsh & Grayson, 1995) is lower (shown in Table 6), ranging from
.08 to .28. The lower traits variance indicates that each trait (recovery, threshold, and
group leadership) has a lower convergent validity over the ratings. The CTUM model
provides quantified analysis on MTMM data, but it is impossible to tell what kinds of
rating sources are more valid. Therefore, the criteria proposed by Campbell and Fiske
(1959) were utilized to qualify which rating method is better (shown in Table 7).
According to these criteria, the correlations among the traits in each heterotrait-
homomethods triangle demonstrated different patterns. Recovery and threshold are
from the same construct, so they should have highest correlation than any other
correlations. In the self-rating triangle, the correlation co-efficiency between recovery
and threshold is higher (.66) than the others (recovery and group leadership=.29;
threshold and group leadership=.40), which is consistent with the conceptual relation-
ships. But in the peer rating triangle the correlation between recovery and threshold is
low (r=.29, p<.01) and lower than the other correlations, which means recovery and
threshold were not perceived as one construct by peers. The correlation co-efficiency
pattern is different from the theoretical construct. The pattern of supervisor rating is as
same as it of self-rating; however, the supervisor rating could not discriminate between
recovery and threshold because the correlation between the two dimensions (r=.88,
Fig. 2 CTUM model analyses on multiple rating sources. Note: ESR, EST, and LC are self rating recovery of
ES, threshold of ES, and leadership; PEST, PESR, and PLC are peer ratings of the three traits; SESR, SEST,
and SLC are supervisor ratings
Table 6 Trait loadings in different methods
Rating sources Traits (λ)
Recovery Threshold Group leadership
Shared traits Self—Peer ratings .22×.70=.15 .20×.39=.08 .25×.69=.17

Self—Supervisor ratings .22×.36=.08 .20×.62=.12 .25×.40=.10
Peer—Supervisor ratings .70×.36=.25 .39×.62=.24 .69×.40=.28
* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001
p<.01) is too high to be discriminated. In this specific research, peer ratings and
supervisor ratings generated two biases. Peer ratings cannot reflect the theoretical
construct, or peers wanted to distort the real observations to the target employees
intentionally because of their competitive nature in organizations; whereas supervisor
ratings cannot discriminate the similar construct and they may feel that the subordinates
should have a higher emotion threshold if they are perceived as having fast emotion
recovery especially when one supervisor has to rate multiple subordinates. The findings
indicated that self-rating of ES is more valid than peer rating and supervisor rating,
which is consistent with recent findings on the issue of whether we put too much
emphasis on other ratings (Barr & Baju, 2003; Craig & Kaiser, 2003; Penny, 2003;
Yammarino, 2003).
Criterion validity of ES
Hypotheses 2a to 2d concern the criterion validity of ES. Consistent with our hypoth-
eses 2a, 2c, and 2d (shown in Table 8), ES is a positively related with job satisfaction
Table 7 Results of 3 traits×3 methods MTMM analyses
* p<.05; ** p<.01
Table 8 Intra-correlations among latent variables
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Construct of emotional stability
1. Job satisfaction 1.52 .30 1.00

2. Neuroticism 3.71 .62 −.28** 1.00
3. EI1: Self emotion appraisal 1.27 .46 .11 −.33*** 1.00
4. EI2: Others’ emotion appraisal 1.85 .63 .16 −.34*** .51*** 1.00
5. EI3: Regulation of emotion 1.83 .56 .16* −.28*** .56*** .49*** 1.00
6. EI4: Use of emotion 2.06 .81 .03 −.20* .42*** .33*** .45*** 1.00
7. Relationship conflict 1.34 .98 −.33*** .15 −.14 −.27*** −.19* −.09 1.00
8. Life satisfaction 3.38 .74 .14 −.23** −.14 −.17* −.16* −.13 .32*** 1.00
9. Self efficacy 1.98 .57 .12 −.29*** .44*** .47*** .56*** .24** −.18* −.09 1.00
10. Commitment 2.32 .80 .37*** −.20* .16 .23** .30*** .22** −.41*** −.08 .11 1.00
11. Group leadership 2.84 .49 .08 −.12 .30*** .28** .42*** .35*** −.33*** −.30*** .59*** .26** 1.00
12. Emotional stability 1.94 .72 .38*** −.63*** .29*** .63*** .40*** .22** −.28*** −.05 .41*** .35*** .39*** 1.00
13. Recovery 1.94 .70 .41*** −.60*** .36*** .66*** .47*** .29*** −.24*** −.05 .39*** .31*** .31*** .63***
14. Threshold 2.07 .85 .29** −.59*** .20* .36*** .29*** .18* −.37*** −.09 .42*** .28** .51*** .62***
* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001

17
(r=.38, p<. 001), job self-efficacy (r=.41, p<.001), and commitment (r=.35,
p<.001). Consistent with Judge’s paper (Judge & Bono, 2000), neuroticism has no
significant relationship with group leadership (r=−.12, p>.1). H2b was not supported,
no significant relationship has been found to link ES to life satisfaction. It might be
attributed to the SWLS scale mainly measures the cognitive evaluation on life satis-
faction (Pavot & Diener, 1993), not the emotional satisfaction with life.
Incremental validity
The incremental validity can provide evidence on whether a newly developed scale has
a greater ability or power to predict outcomes than the previous scales or construct
(Sechrest, 1963). According to the method (Hunsley & Meyer, 2003), hierarchical
multiple regression was conducted, and the entry order and demographic characteristics
(such as age, gender, educational level, marital status, and employment status) were
also controlled to examine whether the newly developed ES scale provides incremental
validity in prediction than the similar construct neuroticism. The findings show that ES
has incremental validity in predicting leadership (ΔR2 =.07, p<.01), job satisfaction
(ΔR2 =.06, p<.01), commitment (ΔR2 =.02, p<.05), and job self-efficacy (ΔR2 =.06,
p<.001) except life satisfaction (ΔR2 =.03, n.s.), after controlling neuroticism (shown
in Table 9). But when ES was controlled at first, neuroticism did not show
significant effects on these outcomes except on life satisfaction (Shown in
Table 10).
The moderating effect of ES on the relationships between group relationship

conflict and commitment
The moderating effect of ES was investigated by hierarchical multiple regression, with

the control variables (marital status, gender, age, education, title, tenure in the organi-
zation, and working hours every week) entered at step one. At step two, group
relationship conflict was entered. ES and the interaction term between ES and group
relationship conflict were entered at step three and four correspondingly.
In Table 11, ES and group relationship conflict (GRC) have interaction effects on
organizational commitment (βES×GRC =.15, p<.05). The interaction effect was plotted
(shown in Fig. 3). It shows that group relationship conflict does not influence the
commitment of employees with higher ES (Shigh =−.01, p>.1), but as group relational
conflict increases, employees’ commitment is significantly decreased for the lower ES
individuals (Slow =−.31, p<.001); this result supports H3.
Discussion
Summary of the main findings
A two-dimensional construct of ES based on self-organization theory was developed

and supported empirically in the two studies. It found that recovery and threshold as
two dimensions of ES are converged and discriminant from each other. This newly
developed construct is also convergent and differentiated from EI and the traits of the
Construct of emotional stability
Table 9 Incremental validity of ES comparison with neuroticism (Order 1)
Group leadeleadership Job satisfaction Commitment Life satisfaction Self efficacy
β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2
Step 1: CV .04 .10* .04 .10* .04

Step 2: Neuroticism −.12 .01 −.20** .04** −.16** .02** −.25*** .06*** −.22** .05**
Step 3: ES .31* .07** .27** .06** .17** .02* .19 .03 .27** .06***
CV Control variables
* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001
19
20
Table 10 Incremental validity of ES comparison with neuroticism (Order 2)
Group leadership Job satisfaction Commitment Life satisfaction Self efficacy
β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2 β R2 ΔR2
Step 1: CV .04 .08 .04 .10** .04

Step 2: ES .30** .09*** .31** .09** −.20** .04** −.04 .00 .31*** .09***
Step 3: Neuroticism .01 .00 −.08 .01 −.08 .01 −.33** .08** −.11 .01
CV Control variables
* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001
Y. Li, D. Ahlstrom
Table 11 Interaction of group relational conflict and ES in predicting commitment
Independent variable Organizational commitment
β R2 ΔR2
Step 1: Control variables .04

Step 2: Group relationship conflict (GRC) −.20** .04**
Step 3: ES .17* .03*
Step 4: ES×GRC .15* .02*
* p<.05; ** p<.01
Big Five. It also demonstrates incremental validity in comparison with neuroticism in

predicting group leadership, job satisfaction, commitment, and job self-efficacy.
The consensus among different raters on ES showed that self-rating is more valid
than peer rating and supervisor rating. Peer rating and supervisor rating present
different biases. Peer rating distorts the real observations, unable to reflect the theoret-
ical relationship. It might be attributed to the competitive relationship between peers.
Supervisor ratings cannot differentiate similar or medium correlated constructs.
Contributions
The findings provide important theoretical and empirical implications on organizational

research. In terms of theory, self-organization theory has been applied into emotion
research since the well-known book edited by Lewis and Granic (2000), Emotion,
development, and self-organization: Dynamic systems approaches to emotional devel-
opment. This study is the first one that has combined self-organization theory and
personality research. It contributes to the literature by initially developing the construct
and scale of ES to reflect and to measure the stability of an emotion system. Such an
approach is grounded in a dynamic and self-recovery framework, which is much closer
to a biological system and functions than previous approaches on personality study.
Surprisingly different from the initial hypothesis in Study 1 that the threshold of
emotion should be reflected by the activation of negative emotions, the result of item
analysis in Study 1 only selected four (upset, panic, anxiety, and the feeling of facing
The interaction between ES and GRC
4.5
Commitment
3 Low ES
High ES
1.5
0
LOW HIGH
Group Relationship Conflict (GRC)

Fig. 3 The moderating effect of ES on the relationship between commitment and group relationship conflicts.
Slope High =−.01 (t-value=−.15, p>.1) Slope Low =−.31**, (t-value=−4.79, p<.001)
imminent disaster) from the original ten negative emotions. According to the bifurca-
tion structure of affect (Li et al., 2010a), the four negative emotions are chaotic
emotions, which are different with anger, sadness, guilty, and hostility, these near
equilibrium emotions. When near equilibrium emotions are activated, the emotion
system works well functionally. But when chaotic emotions are activated, the system
is at an unstable state that cannot react to the event by following the extant procedures
or strategies. Therefore, the threshold to measure the stability of an emotion system
should be evaluated by the activation of chaotic emotions as the findings indicated,
rather than the negative emotion at the near equilibrium state.
On the recovery dimension, after item selection, the remaining three items with the
largest item-correlation commonly reflect the recovery speed from general negative
emotions, with no differentiation between chaotic and near equilibrium emotions. But
future study should examine whether emotional recovery exists differences between
near equilibrium emotion and chaotic emotions or both can be represented by general
negative emotions. Despite this unsettled issue, the construct of ES could be marked
specifically by the recovery speed of negative emotions and the threshold of chaotic
emotion activation. The subsequent psychometric properties support the two-
dimensional scale’s construct validity and its incremental validity in comparison to
the previous similar construct neuroticism.
As the well documented evidence on ES and organizational behavior, the newly
developed construct consistently found that ES plays an important and positive trait
effect on job satisfaction, job self-efficacy, and organizational commitment. It also found
the supposed but unfound empirical relationship between ES and leadership, which
demonstrated increased validity, indicating that the higher ES is likely to be perceived as
leaders. Its moderating effects on the organizational commitment under the group
relationship conflict manifest its buffer effect under organizational stress and difficulties.
In sum, ES reflects one person’s disposition to adapt to stressors. A higher ES
individual tends to react functionally to external and internal events—the emotion
system has higher threshold to be disturbed and it is likely to recover quickly. Such
individuals are easily perceived as leaders particularly when the groups or organizations
encounter the variety of conflicts and stresses (Li, Chun, Ashkanasy, & Ahlstrom,
2012). These findings provide important implications on organizational management.
In leader selection, organizations could promote the employees with higher ES because
they are more likely to be perceived as leaders. In stress management, organizations
should provide intervention to the lower ES employees especially when organizations
are in a stressful stage, such as acquisition and merger, innovative transformation, or
strategic change.
In spite of the well-established knowledge about ES in organizations, very little has
been established regarding its mechanisms specifically from the threshold of chaotic
emotion and the recovery speed of negative emotions. The robust two-dimensional
construct of ES based on self-organization theory contributes to research design in that
it can facilitate future studies to explore its functionality in organizations. This will be
helpful in stimulating new knowledge and provides tools to further develop the
effective management of human resources and the improvement of the performance
of entrepreneurs and organizations in Asia (Ahlstrom, Bruton, & Chan, 2001; Bruton,
Ahlstrom, & Yeh, 2004) as well as in modern and developing organizations around the
world (Pattnaik & Kumar, 2014; Pudelko, Reiche, & Carr, 2015; Young et al., 2014).
Conclusion
Taken together, this study elucidated the psychological construct of ES on the basis of
self organizational theory, which is a new approach to reveal the nature of a psycho-
logical construct. It improves on the shortcomings of previous specifications of the
construct given the weakness of the lexical approach to ES which just reflects the
description of natural language on personality or trait. The empirical findings support
that the newly developed scale has improved psychometric characters, such as incre-
mental validity and criterion validity. It also demonstrates discriminant and convergent
validity in comparison with Big Five model of personality and research on emotions
including EI. In the organizational context, it successfully predicts the positive rela-
tionship with group leadership. Furthermore, we also found that the organizational
commitment of lower ES individuals would be affected by group level relationship
conflict and it will be decreased with the increasing of group relationship conflict. It
indicates that ES is an important individual trait to cope with organizational conflict or
turbulence and as enablers to initiate followers under turbulent organizational
environments.
In addition, a better understanding of personality and related concepts such as EI and
interpersonal relations in organizational and professional settings has important impli-
cations for firm performance (Dunbar & Ahlstrom, 1995; Jordan et al., 2007; Li et al.,
2014; Pearson & Porath, 2009; Pfeffer, 1998, 2007). Such a clearer and studied
specification of the new constructs (Ahlstrom, Lamond & Ding, 2009) such as ES
can also contribute to future research in the expanding and important area of research
on affect (Abrahamson, 2008; Ashkanasy, 2011b; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, &
MacGregor, 2007). Understanding ES and its implications is likely to have a wide
range of research and practical application in the study of emotion (e.g., Davidson,
Sherer, & Goldsmith, 2003) and a variety of organizational activities including selec-
tion in human resource management and intervention in organizational change and
corporate governance. This is particularly important in the face of continued develop-
ment of firms in East Asia and other emerging economies (Liu, Ahlstrom, & Yeh,
2006) as they continue to strive to modernize and globalize (Yamakawa, Khavul, Peng,
& Deeds, 2014).
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Yan Li (PhD, The Chinese University of Hong Kong) is an associate professor at the Beijing Institute of
Technology (BIT) where she teaches management and entrepreneurship. Dr. Li studied in Italy and Australia,
as well as Hong Kong and spent several years working in entrepreneurial firms in the information technology
industry in China. Dr. Li is active in the Academy of Management, Asia Academy of Management, and the
Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management. Her research focuses on emotion, decision making,
entrepreneurship, and experimental design, and she has published several peer reviewed papers and book
chapters in those areas. She is currently on the Editorial Review Board of the Asia Pacific Journal of
Management.
David Ahlstrom (PhD, New York University) is a professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He
obtained his PhD in Management and International Business after working for nearly a decade in government
and industry, including several years in the computer industry. His research interests include managing in Asia,
innovation and entrepreneurship, decision-making, and management and organizational history. Professor
Ahlstrom has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Strategic Management Journal,
Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Academy of Management
Perspectives, Journal of Management History, Food Policy, and Journal of Business Venturing. His work
has also appeared multiple times in The Wall Street Journal. Professor Ahlstrom co-authored the textbook
International Management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World and guest edited two Special Issues
of Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice. Professor Ahlstrom has also guest edited three Special Issues of Asia
Pacific Journal of Management: Turnaround in Asia (in 2004), Managing in Ethnic Chinese Communities (in
2010), and Asia & Poverty: Closing the Great Divide through Entrepreneurship & Innovation (in 2015).
Professor Ahlstrom was Senior Editor of APJM 2007–2009, before serving as APJM’s Editor-in-Chief from
2010 to 2012, and is currently a Consulting Editor. Professor Ahlstrom is also the International Editor of
Journal of World Business.
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Emotional stability: A new construct and its implications for individual

Article in Asia Pacific Journal of Management · August 2015

Yan Li David Ahlstrom

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Economic growth and the Great Enrichment View project

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Emotional stability: A new construct and its implications

Yan Li 1 & David Ahlstrom 2

Published online: 6 August 2015

Keywords Emotional stability . Construct validity . Self-organization theory . Multi-trait-

Contemporary organizations around the world increasingly face challenges ranging

data collected in a sample of commercial organizations in China. Thus, this study

ES is a common personality trait in a range of personality approaches (e.g., Eyenck’s

Intermittent Period Intermittent Period

The validity of a new personality construct is usually demonstrated by its convergent

ES and the Big Five

In the Big Five, personality is represented by five dimensions: Extroversion, neuroti-

Hypothesis 1b ES can be discriminated from neuroticism.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has generated a prodigious amount of research in recent

Hypothesis 1c ES and EI are positively correlated.

EI places much emphasis on emotion regulation and using emotion; however,

Hypothesis 1d ES should be discriminated from EI.

Criterion validity is usually utilized to demonstrate the usefulness of an assessment in

Hypothesis 2a ES is positively related to job satisfaction.

With regard to life satisfaction, it is conceptualized as the result of overall satisfac-

Hypothesis 2b ES is positively related to life satisfaction.

In relation to self-efficacy, it is defined as Bbeliefs in one’s capabilities to organize

Hypothesis 2c ES is positively related to self-efficacy.

selection between groups rather than of individuals (Wynne-Edwards, 1962). The

Hypothesis 2d ES is positively related to group leadership.

The moderating effect of ES on group relational conflict and organizational

Relationship conflict is ubiquitous over organizations and groups. As a key group

Hypothesis 3 For the lower ES individuals, the organizational commitment will be

threshold were developed to measure whether or not individuals experience negative

Table 1 Summary of item-total correlations

Items M SD Factor 1 Factor 2 Item-total Coefficient

Sample and procedure

Organizational commitment It was measured by the 7-item scale developed by

The two-dimensional construct of ES was examined by CFA (confirmation factor

Table 2 Factor loadings of 10 items on two dimensions of ES in Study 2

1. Can you recover from unhappiness 2.13 .99 .67

Convergent and discriminant validity

Table 3 Model comparison between one-dimensional and two-dimensional ES models

χ2 df Δχ2 /Δdf RMSEA NFI NNFI CFI GFI

M0 53.56 34 .049 .96 .98 .99 .96

Table 4 Correlation matrix among ES, EI, and Big Five

Table 5 Model comparisons

χ2 df Δχ2 /Δdf RMSEA NFI NNFI CFI

M0 2,012 968 .071 .88 .93 .94

Table 6 Trait loadings in different methods

Rating sources Traits (λ)

Recovery Threshold Group leadership

Shared traits Self—Peer ratings .22×.70=.15 .20×.39=.08 .25×.69=.17

* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001

Table 7 Results of 3 traits×3 methods MTMM analyses

1. Job satisfaction 1.52 .30 1.00

* p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001

The moderating effect of ES on the relationships between group relationship

The moderating effect of ES was investigated by hierarchical multiple regression, with

Summary of the main findings

A two-dimensional construct of ES based on self-organization theory was developed

Table 9 Incremental validity of ES comparison with neuroticism (Order 1)

* p<.05; p<.01; * p<.001

* p<.05; p<.01; * p<.001