Emotions at Work

Emotions at Work

1. Introduction
2. Measurement
3. Effects on Team Processes
4. Ripple Effect
5. Organizational Culture
 Emotions at Work

1. Introduction
• Emotions: Reaction to significant objects or events, with subjective, behavioral,
physiological elements
• Emotional Contagion - A pervasive phenomenon dealing with the sharing of
emotions
• is comprised of emotions and generalized mood
• can occur at the automatic/subconscious level
• can take place within small groups or organizations etc.
• and as a product of conscious emotional comparison
 Emotions at Work

1. Introduction (Cont’d)
• Conscious Emotional Comparison
• people compare their moods to others
• people can intentionally influence others with their own moods
• Both moods and emotions can serve as content for the emotional
contagion process
• Positive Emotional Contagion
• greater group-level cooperativeness, less group-level conflict
• greater perceived individual-level performance (both self and others)
• Contagion Susceptibility
• Higher positive/negative trait - More susceptibility to similar trait
• Self-monitoring trait - More susceptibility to both
 Emotions at Work

2. Measurement
• Experimentally manipulating emotional contagion
• Self-reported dispositional susceptibility to emotional contagion
• Self-reported moods and emotions at the time contagion is occurring (at Time
1 and Time 2)
• Outside coder ratings of affect by trained coders (facial expression, body
language, verbal tone etc) or other people in the group
• Computer coding of emotions and automated facial coding software
• Organizations use push buttons chosen by workers (smiley or frowny face etc)
• Some organizations hire technology consultants for tracking of moods
• Nascent research involving physiological (heart rate, galvanic skin
conductance, autonomic nervous system responses), neuroscientific, and
computer simulation measures
 Emotions at Work

3. Effect on Team Processes and Outcomes

• Team dynamics
• Group emotion is created
• Collective mood could influence the individual moods
• Evidence of mood convergence in teams like cricket teams etc.
• Leadership
• Leaders influence their constituents
• Leaders transfer emotions which impacts processes (group performance, coordination and effort
etc)
• Leaders transmit positive moods to followers - positive impact group coordination
• Leaders transmit negative moods to followers - positively impact the expenditure of group effort
• Powerful position susceptible (such as teacher)
• Decision-making
• Recipients tend to “catch” emotions of sender, changing their attention, memory, and ratings of
stimuli
• Initial emotional contagion impacts attention and attitudes toward subsequent unrelated tasks
 Emotions at Work

3. Effect on Team Processes and Outcomes

• Employee attitudes
• Healthcare employees catch negative emotions, causing emotional exhaustion
• Salespeople were most vulnerable to emotional exhaustion
• Emotive Effort
• Customer attitudes and satisfaction
• Positive emotional contagion between service providers and customers positively
impacts customer attitudes
• Frontline employees can catch customers’ strong negative/positive emotions
 Emotions at Work
4. Ripple Effect
• Introduction
• Emotional contagion exist.
• One person's emotions and behaviors can affect emotions and behaviors
in other people.
• The processes of interaction and affects are complex and important to
understand
• This study focuses on effect of emotional contagion on,
• Group dynamics such as cooperation and conflict
• Individual attitudes such as satisfaction and perception of
performance in group
• Problem Statement
What is required - A causal test for
• How emotional contagion processes operate
• Effect on group dynamics such as cooperation and conflict
• Effect on individuals such as satisfaction and perception of performance
 Emotions at Work
4. Ripple Effect (Cont’d)
• Experiment Design
• This study uses hypothesis testing to evaluate
• Effect of Valence (pleasantness/un-pleasantness of emotion)
• Effect of energy with which emotion is conveyed
• Two Studies (with and without a confederate)
• A group engaged in managerial task, LGD (leaderless group discussion)
• A 2 x 2 Emotion Circumplex design (Pleasant/unpleasant and Hi/Low
Energy)
• Results measured through questionnaires and video-coders
 Emotions at Work
4. Ripple Effect - Results
ID Hypothesis Study 1 Study 2 Remarks
H1 Occurrence of Emotional YES YES  
Contagion
H2 Valence - Unpleasant emotions NO -  
more mood contagious than
pleasant emotions
H3 Energy – High Energy more NO - Results are
Contagious than Low Energy suggestive
H4 Positive Emotional Contagion lead YES YES  
to more cooperation (individual & Partial
group level)
H5 Positive Emotional Contagion lead YES YES  
to less group conflict
H6 Positive Emotional Contagion lead YES YES Not supported by
to more highly rate task Partial others perception
performance (self & others)
 Emotions at Work
5. Organizational Cultures - Models
Two Most Common Models
• Cognitive Culture
• Conveyed verbally
• This culture sets the tone for how employees think and behave at work
• For example, how customer focused, innovative, competitive they are or
should be
• Emotional culture
• Conveyed through nonverbal ways such as body language and facial
expression
• Research showed that emotional culture influences employee satisfaction
• Positive emotions are consistently associated with better performance
• Negative emotions e.g. anger, sadness etc. outcome with poor performance
• Photos of employees laughing or action figures perched on walls can signal a
culture of joy
• Signs with lists of rules and consequences for breaking them can reflect a
culture of fear
 Emotions at Work
5. Organizational Cultures – Examples
• A Culture of Joy
• “Have fun” is listed as a company value and modeled by CEO of company,
• CEO had ice water dumped on his head and then jumped fully clothed into a
pool. About 250 executives and other employees followed his lead.
• A culture of companionate love
• In organizations where employees felt and expressed companionate love
toward one another, people reported greater job satisfaction, commitment,
and personal accountability for work performance
• A culture of fear
• Submarine employees working under extreme stress and fear. New
commander took over and changed that emotional culture by using classic
“high involvement” management techniques, such as empowering crew
members to make decisions.
• The employees improved from low performing to award-winning, and 10 of his
top 20 officers later went on to become submarine captains.
 Emotions at Work
5. Creating an Organizational Emotional Culture
Three most common methods to create Emotional culture
• Harness what people already feel
• Model the emotions you want to cultivate
• Get people to fake it till they feel it
 Emotions at Work
• Conclusion
• People do not live on emotional islands. Emotional Contagion exist - It
changes people mood, judgments and behaviors
• Moods Ripple Out. Influences group members' emotions, group dynamics
and individual cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors as well
• Subtle Process in terms subjects awareness - powerful and possibly
problematic
• Leaders and managers positive moods can positively effect employees
work performance
• For Organizational Culture - Implementation at All Levels Matters
• Top management sets the first example and establishes the formal rules
• Front line supervisors ensure that the emotional values are consistently
practiced
 References
1. S. G. Barsade, C. G. V. Coutifaris, and J. Pillemer, “Emotional contagion in
organizational life,” Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 38, pp. 137–
151, 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.riob.2018.11.005.
2. S. Barsade and O. A. O’Neill, “Manage Your Emotional Culture,” Harvard
Business Review – Leadership &Managing People, Juanuary – February
2016 Issue pp15
3. S. G. Barsade, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence
on Group Behavior,” Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 4, p.
644, Dec. 2002, doi: 10.2307/3094912.