The Sources of Moods Related to Jobs - Essay Example

Author’s Name] [The Professor’s Name] [The Course Title] [Date] Moods and Organizational Behaviour What is mood? Mood is a certain psychological disorder that is characterized by abnormal neuropsychological phenomenon of emotional state. In other words, mood is the state of mind that determines our actions and their impulses whether these be pleasant or unpleasant. It has been observed that many times in our daily life, we work under a constant force of our inclined mood which sometimes is reflected in our bent of mind or under some emotional factors internal or external. In all its forms, mood determines encouraging and discouraging stimuli for our actions. The Structures of Moods Related To Jobs Emotions are elicited by events. Although most emotion theories use these events as the starting point for emotion generation, the events we experience are not entirely externally caused or random. We make decisions that expose us to certain events. Although there are certainly events that are beyond our control, we create our own environments in which we have a greater tendency to experience certain types of events. Some events are thrust on us. Others are partly our own creation. Still, emotions are reactions to events. Not all events culminate in emotional responses. Cognitive appraisal theorists argue that events are appraised or evaluated along a number of dimensions, and these appraisals are the proximal cause of emotional responses (Smith & Kirby, 75-92). These appraisal theories generally posit two types of appraisals in emotion generation. Primary appraisal is usually seen as an assessment of “concern relevance.” As a result of the first appraisal process, both the valence and intensity of the emotion are determined (Lazarus, 119-24). Negative/ Positive Moods and the Sources of Moods Related to Jobs Emotions are known to disrupt ongoing activities and interfere with performance tasks, partly through the interference effects of rumination and intrusive thought. (Hertel, 441-72) Numerous discussions of emotions, cognitive interference, and rumination have been published in the past few years (Sarason, Pierce, & Sarason, 139-52, and Martin & Tesser, 1-47). All indicate the importance of cognitive interference for understanding the performance consequences of emotions. (See Fig 1 in Appendices) In this area, Sarason and his colleagues have developed a measure of individual differences in the tendency to engage in interfering thoughts during task performance, the Thought Occurrence Questionnaire (Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes, & Shearon, 215-26). This disposition appears to be a prime candidate for understanding differences in the work performance consequences of emotional states. Finally, both Larsen (2000: 129-41) and Parkinson and Totterdell (1999: 277-303) have recently offered classification schemes for affect-regulation strategies. Larsen has suggested that such schemes readily lend themselves to dispositional analyses of regulatory processes. Company policies and procedures have been linked to both job satisfaction and perceptions of injustice. For instance, both organizational constraints (O'Connor, Peters, Rudolph, & Pooyan, 418-28) and work schedules have been linked to lower job satisfaction (Ralston, 369-73). Organizational justice studies are concerned with investigating the perceived fairness of procedures and outcomes in organizations. As such, it is usually divided into two categories: procedural justice, who is concerned with the perceived fairness of the procedures used to determine organizational outcomes, and distributive justice, which is concerned with perceptions of the fairness of the outcomes themselves. Perceptions of injustice are by definition caused by workplace policies and procedures. Research examining which types of policies and procedures can give rise to perceptions of injustice has burgeoned in recent years and includes procedures relating to selection and staffing, performance appraisal, compensation, and layoffs (Gilliland & Chan, 143-165). Affective Events Theory If it is of relevance and beneficial for one's goals and well being, the valence of the emotion will be positive. If it hinders attainment of one's goals, the emotion will be negative. The more important the goal is, the more intense the emotion is. As Weiss and Cropanzano (1996: 1-76) noted, people will be focusing on different aspects of their goal hierarchies at any particular time. This focus will influence the judgments made regarding the relevance and importance of the event to one's goals. An event that helps an individual achieve an important goal will produce a strong, positive emotion. Whereas primary appraisal determines the valence and intensity of the mood experienced, secondary appraisal determines the particular discrete emotion experienced. Although different theorists propose different appraisal dimensions, all of them agree that the event is evaluated in relation to several attributes, and the pattern of attributions results in the elicitation of the particular emotion. (Smith and Ellsworth, 813-38, or Lazarus, 119-124) Although we have emphasized the discrete, transient nature of emotional states, Frijda (381-401) has discussed the concept of “emotion episode,” that is, emotional reactions extended over time. In these emotion episodes, people experience a dynamic flow of emotional reactions over an extended time. Sometimes these discrete emotions are different emotions, but all cohere around a single underlying theme. The emotion episode is characterized by a heightened arousal and attention with the same underlying theme as the instigating event. During this time, people are trying to deal with the emotions, and their behaviours are controlled by the emotion. To understand the affective process fully, we must recognize the characteristics of these emotional episodes. For example, it is the peak and end of the emotional experience that appear to be remembered when looking back on an event (Fredrickson, 577-606). The Influence of Emotions and Moods on Job Performance and Satisfaction Emotion processes do not stop with emotion elicitation. Moods and discrete emotions have behavioural consequences that are of great relevance to organizational functioning. Mood states bias judgments and decisions. They influence helping behaviours. They change the nature of cognitive processing (Weiss, 20-63). Discrete emotions are accompanied by particular behavioural tendencies and also have processing implications (Tagney, 210-15). In addition, emotion and mood regulation processes accompany affective states as people try to manage their emotions, sustaining positive experiences and coping with negative ones. From neuropsychological perspective, scientists are exploring hormonal activities in serotonin neurons which, according to them, regulate mood. (See Fig 2 in Appendices)These regulatory processes generally put demands on cognitive resources. They influence attentional processes that have an impact on task performance and involve particular and individualized strategies. To simplify the explanation, the affect process starts with the appraisal of emotion-relevant events and ends with a variety of emotion-caused responses. Intervening is a host of mediational processes. At any point along the way, personality may make a difference. The Impacts of Emotion and Mood on both Organization and the Individual The observation that affective states are generally reactions to specific events suggests that the first place to look for a connection between personality and affect is in the experience of and reaction to events. In this regard, two links are particularly relevant. First, aspects of personality may influence events themselves. Second, and perhaps more important, aspects of personality may influence reactivity to events. Personality may actually influence the events we experience, or, more precisely, the behavioural manifestations of personality traits may influence the nature of these events. For example, people who present a generally positive demeanour may be more likely to have positive things happen to them. Other people like them and enjoy being around them. Conversely, negative affective expressions may elicit negative events. If performance feedback, both external and internal, can have affective consequences, then conscientiousness may enter into an affect generation process. Specifically, those who are more conscientious do a good job and receive positive feedback, which leads to positive emotional reactions; those who are less conscientious do not do such a good job, resulting in negative feedback and negative emotional reactions. Frequently found relationships between trait extraversion and neuroticism and aggregate mood states can also be explained by differential reactivity to positive and negative events. In a series of studies, Larsen and colleagues (Larsen & Ketelaar, 132-40; Rusting & Larsen, 367-72; Zelenski & Larsen, 1999: 761-91) have shown that extraversion predicts responsivity to positive but not negative mood inductions, and neuroticism predicts responsivity to negative but not positive mood inductions. An alternate personality structure, one coming from investigations into the physiology of affective reactions, also supports the logic of individual differences in reactivity to affective events. Gray (1987: 69-71) proposed two physiological systems, one reacting to positive stimuli and the other negative stimuli. These behavioural approach and behavioural inhibition systems are thought to integrate motivational, emotional, and personality findings. Much research has been conducted under this framework. It has been sometimes observed that during working hours, the employee will feel a mood of self assurance because the management team is really showing a caring feeling for the wants and needs of each individual. As this is recognized in the workforce they will become more loyal and dedicated to results with a reason. Commitment to the company’s goals and objectives from the employee increases because loyalty is being established from internal motivation. The more employees within a company with internal drive from self-motivation; helps the manager to hold each individual accountable for their actions. As a study shows, “There are, of course, positive and negative moods. Positive moods include feeling attentive, interested, alert, excited, enthusiastic, and proud. Negative moods include feeling afraid, guilty, hostile, or distressed” (Burke, Brief, George, Roberson, & Webster, 1091-1102) Moods are not just an individual phenomenon. Inn corporate business set up, work groups and organizational climate can generate moods, such as general fervor or grief, that affect the individuals in these groups or organizations. This factor is elaborated by Forgas, Bower, & Moylan in these words, “Mood affects attributions. People in a negative mood make more internal and stable attributions for failures than for successes, whereas people in a positive mood make more internal and stable attributions for successes than for failures” ( Forgas, Bower, & Moylan, 809-19). Works Cited Burke, M. J., Brief, A. P, George, J. M., Roberson, L., & Webster, J. (1989) "Measuring affect at work: Confirmatory analyses of competing mood structure with conceptual linkage to cortical regulatory systems". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1091-1102. Forgas, J. P, Bower, G. H., & Moylan, S. J. ( 1990). "Praise or blame? Affective influences on attributions for achievement". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 809-819. Fredrickson, B. L. (2000). Extracting meaning from past affective experiences: The importance of peaks, ends, and specific emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 14, 577–606. Frijda, N. H. (1993). Moods, emotion episodes, and emotions. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 381–404). New York: Guilford Press. Gilliland, S. W., & Chan, D. (2001). Justice in organizations: Theory, methods and applications. In N. Anderson, D. S. Ones, H. K. Sinangil, & C. Viswesvaran (Eds.), Handbook of industrial, work and organizational psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 143–165). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gray, J. A. (1987). The psychology of fear and stress (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 69-71 Hertel, G., Neuhof, J., Theuer, T., & Kerr, N. (2000). Mood effects on cooperation in small groups: Does positive mood simply lead to more cooperation? Cognition and Emotion, 14, 441–472. Larsen, R. J. (2000). Toward a science of mood regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 129–141. Larsen, R. J., & Ketelaar, T. (1991). Personality and susceptibility to positive and negative emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 132–140. Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press. 119-24 Martin, L. L., & Tesser, A. (1996). Some ruminative thoughts. In R. S. Wyer Jr. (Ed.), Ruminative thoughts: Advances in social cognition (Vol. 9, pp. 1–47). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. O'Connor, E. J., Peters, L. H., Rudolph, C. J., & Pooyan, A. (1982). Situational constraints and employee affective reactions: A partial field replication. Group and Organizational Studies, 7, 418–428. Parkinson, B., & Totterdell, P. (1999). Classifying affect-regulation strategies. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 277–303. Ralston, D. A. (1989). The benefits of flextime: Real or imagined? Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 10, 369–373. Rusting, C. L., & Larsen, R. J. (1999). Clarifying Gray's theory of personality: A response to Pickering, Corr, and Gray. Personality and Individual Differences, 26, 367–372. Sarason, I. G., Pierce, G. R., & Sarason, B. R. (1996). Domains of cognitive interference. In I. G. Sarason, G. R. Pierce, & B. R. Sarason (Eds.), Cognitive interference: Theories, methods, and findings (pp. 139– 152). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Sarason, I. G., Sarason, B. R., Keefe, D. E., Hayes, B. E., & Shearon, E. N. (1986). Cognitive interference: Situational determinants and trait like characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 215–226. Smith, C. A., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1985). Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 813–838. Smith, C. A., & Kirby, L. D. (2001). Affect and cognitive appraisal processes. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Handbook of affect and social cognition (pp. 75–92). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Tagney, J. P. (1999). The self-conscious emotions: Shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. In T. Dalgleish & M. J. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion. New York: Wiley. 210-15 Weiss, H. M. (2002). Conceptual and empirical foundations for the study of affect at work. In R. G. Lord, R. J. Klimoski, & R. Kanfer (Eds.), Emotions in the workplace: Understanding the structure and role of emotions in organizational behaviour (pp. 20–63). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes, and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in Organizational Behaviour, 18, 1–74. Zelenski, J. M., & Larsen, R. J. (1999). Susceptibility to affect: A comparison of three personality taxonomies. Journal of Personality, 67, 761–791. Appendices Fig 1: Performance Typology Map Fig: 2. Hormonal activities in serotonin neurons which regulate human mood Read More