Processes of Emotion and Stress in the Workplace

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Processes of Emotion and Stress in the Workplace

• Thinking and Feeling

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Emotion in the Workplace

• Traditional Approach
• Human Resources / Human Relations

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Emotion

• Organizational life is typically governed by
  logic and rationality
• Since the 1990s, more attention has been paid to
  emotion in the workplace.
• Stress and Burnout

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Emotion in the West

• Privilege of rationality
• Need to think on your feet
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Keep emotion out of it
• Scientific Method
• Separate spaces for emotional expression

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Feeling at Work

• Individual experience
• Emotional Labor
• Stress Burnout
• Relational experience

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Individual Experience- Emotional Labor

• Genuine managed emotions
• Service with a smile
• Emotional labor
• Surface Acting Displaying an emotion for the
  sake of the job (i.e. servers in a restaurant
  smiling at the customer)
• Deep Acting Displaying an emotion on the job
  that one does not feel internally. This can lead
  to emotional dissonance.

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Implications of Emotional Labor

• Commodification of emotions
• Feeling rules
• Professionalism
• Mind-body dualism

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Bounded Emotionality

• An alternative mode of organizing in which
  nurturance, caring, community, supportiveness
  interrelatedness are fused with individual
  responsibility to shape organizational
  experiences (Mumby Putnam, 1992)
• Challenges to bounded rationality emotional
  labor
• Mind-body dualism
• Devaluation of physical labor
• Co-optation of emotional experience

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Bounded Rationality Bounded Emotionality

• Organizational limitations
• Reduction of ambiguity
• Hierarchy Means-end chain
• Mind-body dualism
• Fragmented labor
• Gendered occupational feeling rules

• Intersubjective limitations
• Tolerance of ambiguity
• Heterarchy of goals values
• Integrated self-identity
• Community
• Relational feeling rules

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Relational Experience-Feeling at Work

• Emotion as Part of Workplace Relationships
• Workplace bullying
• Tension between public and private
• Emotional buzzing
• Conflicting allegiances
• Emotion Rules Emotional Intelligence
• Knowing when and how to implement a particular
  emotional response in a given situation
• Stress Burnout

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Stress, Burnout, Social Support

• Stress stressors create strain on the individual
  (burnout), which can lead to negative
  psychological, physiological, organizational
  outcomes

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Stressors

• Workload
• Role conflict
• Role ambiguity
• Stressors outside the workplace
• Communication
• Emotional labor

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Burnout

• Emotional exhaustion
• Lack of personal accomplishment
• Depersonalization

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Outcomes of Burnout

• PhysiologicalStroke, Heart Attack, High Blood
  Pressure
• AttitudinalSense of depersonalization, Feeling a
  lack of accomplishment
• OrganizationalAbsenteeism, Turnover

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Empathy, Communication and Burnout

• Research conducted on human service work (e.g.
  healthcare, social work, teaching)
• People oriented careers feel a high degree of
  empathy for others.
• Two kinds of empathy
• Emotional contagion (parallel feelings towards
  how others are feeling)
• Empathic concern (nonparallel emotional response)
• Emotional contagion hinders communication (i.e.
  emotional exhaustion)
• Empathic concernhelps communication

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Coping with Burnout

• Problem-focused coping
• Appraisal-focused coping
• Emotion-centered coping
• Social support

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Burning Out

• Mary goes home late in the evening after a long
  day of work time after time. Her work as a nurse
  at the health clinic is beginning to take its
  toll on her. Her health is worsening, her sleep
  is fitful, and her fuse is short. Sure, she
  wants to stay with her clinic, but she is not
  sure how many more non-stop days she can take.

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How can Mary Cope?

• Problem-focused

• Work with supervisor to reduce hours
• Delegate work
• Work with colleagues to schedule breaks

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How can Mary Cope?

• Emotion-focused

• Seek counseling
• Relaxation-techniques

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How can Mary Cope?

• Appraisal-focused

• Reframe as helping people out
• Think of herself as a rare breed of civil servant

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Social Support Coping
Emotional Informational Instrumental
Supervisors
Co-Workers
Friends Family