Affective Events Theory 1/26/2012

Abstract
Emotions and moods are an important part of daily live and work live, and can influence our job performance and job satisfaction. The affective events theory demonstrates how employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and that their reactions can influence their attitudes and behaviors at work. The theory, which was introduced by psychologists Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano, states that negative emotional episodes in a work environment can produce shocks that then produce lasting affective reactions.

Emotions and moods are an important part of daily live and work live, and can influence our job performance and job satisfaction. The affective events theory demonstrates how employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and that their reactions can influence their attitudes and behaviors at work. The theory, which was introduced by psychologists Howard M. Weiss and Russell Cropanzano, states that negative emotional episodes in a work environment can produce shocks that then produce lasting affective reactions. Work events can include, but not limited to hassles, tasks, autonomy, job demands, emotional labor and uplifting actions. Emotional labor occurs when an employee displays the company’s desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. These work events affect employees positively or negatively. Employee mood directly affects the intensity of their reaction. This emotional response intensity therefore affects job performance and satisfaction. Forced smiles, frustration, and resentment can lead to turnovers, and employees feeling burnout.
Affective events theory or AET, studies how people feel at work, the workplace events that cause those feelings, and how those feelings influence subsequent job attitudes and behaviors. “The four main components of AET are (1) the nature, cause and consequences of emotion in the workplace, (2) what events cause emotional reactions in the workplace, (3) that emotions fluctuate over time and may be predicted, and (4) that emotional experiences are multidimensional and this dimensionality is as important as the structure of the environments in which they occur” (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).
There have been a few studies that attempted to test the AET framework. Using a scale of emotions relevant to the workplace, Fisher (2000) began with a list of 135 prototypical emotion terms used by Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O’Connor (1987) in a pilot study asking students with work experience about the relevance of these items to the workplace. Fisher then reduced the list to 16, with eight positive and eight negative terms of various levels of arousal. For example, content, pleased, happy, enthusiastic were among the 16 included in the list. Using this Job Emotions Scale (JES), Fisher (2000) then recruited 124 employed adults from 65 organizations to participate in the study. When their alarm watches rang during the day, which occurred five times a day, they completed a brief survey concerning how they felt out of the 16 emotions. Fisher found that positive emotion terms formed one main factor, whereas the negative terms could be more differentiated. Embarrassment and worry, loaded on a second factor, although for conceptual and analytical reasons she combined them into one factor of negative emotion. She found the frequency, and intensity of positive and negative emotions felt at work related to reports of global job satisfaction, supporting the AET model. Organizations are becoming increasing aware of the importance of how emotions and moods affect work performance and job satisfaction. It is important for managers to have emotional intelligence (EI), which is defined as a person’s ability to be self-aware of his/her own emotions when she experiences them, detect emotions in others, and manage emotional cues and information. Authors Ashkanasy and Daus (2002) have set out to inform practicing managers of some of the key findings in emotions research. They stress three areas of research in emotions in organizational environments that have important implications for managers. First, affective events theory tells managers that the minor hassles and uplifts that people experience at work every day determine organizational members' affective states, and these states can subsequently affect their attitudes and behaviors at work; second, work on emotional intelligence is introducing a new appreciation of the role of emotional perception, understanding, and management in organizations, popularized recently by Coleman (1995, 1998); and third, managers are now coming to appreciate the pros and cons of emotional labor in organizations, as popularized by Hochschild (1983), and the implications of these for management practice. Ashkanasy and Daus (2002) suggests “5 tips for better management of emotions listed below:
1. Rather than seeing jobs as purely rational undertakings, managers need to assess the `emotional impact' of each employee's job, and to design job assignments that take this into account;
2. Organizations are not cold places that people enter just to work. Managers need to create a positive and friendly emotional climate, and to model this through their own behavior;
3. Managers can encourage a positive emotional climate through rewards and compensation systems;
4. Selection of employees and teams needs to be based, in part, on a positive emotional attitude. Managers should select employees on the basis of their record for engendering a positive emotional attitude in their work teams; and finally
5. Managers should seek to train their employees to improve their emotional intelligence skills and to engage in healthy emotional expression at work.” Emotions can range from happiness to anger, and from love to hate. The change in emotions can be triggered by moods, and influence production at the workplace. Employees are often careful not to display their emotions verbally, which leads to emotional labor. These emotions are suppressed and if managers do not possess the emotional intelligence to recognize these signs, turnovers or burnouts will occur. The AET is a model introduced workplace events cause emotional reactions on the part of employees, which then influences workplace attitudes and behaviors. References
Ashkanasy, N. M. (2002). Studies of cognition and emotion in organisations: Attribution, affective events, emotional intelligence and perception of emotion. Australian Journal of Management, 27(03128962), 11-20.Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/200521692?accountid=13843
Coleman, D. 1995, Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More Than IQ, Bantam, New York.
Coleman, D. 1998, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam, New York.
Fisher, C. D. (2000). Moods and emotions while working: Missing pieces of job satisfaction? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 185–202.
Grandey, A. A., Tam, A. P., & Brauburger, A. L. (2002). Affective states and traits in the workplace: Diary and survey data from young worker. Motivation and Emotion, 26(1)
Hochschild, A.R. 1983, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., & O’Connor, C. (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1060–1086.
Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior: An annual series of analytical essays and critical reviews (pp. 1–74). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. | | | | | | |