The effects of anger in the workplace: When, where, and why observing anger enhances or hinders performance

Perceived overall injustice and organizational deviance-Mediating effect of anger and moderating effect of moral disengagement

Introduction

This study is dedicated to exploring the influence of perceived overall injustice on employee anger and deviant behavior. Based on fairness heuristic theory and cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, a model was developed to investigate the relationship between perceived overall injustice, anger and organizational deviance. Based on social cognitive theory, the moderating role of moral disengagement was proposed.

Methods

The data were collected from three Chinese manufacturing corporations with a total effective sample size of 264. SPSS 26 and Mplus 8.3 were adopted to analyze data. Confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics analysis and correlation results were illustrated. Hierarchical regression was used to test the model.

Results

Statistical results showed that there is a significant positive relationship among perceived overall injustice, anger and organizational deviance. The moderating effect of moral disengagement on the relationship between perceived overall injustice and organizational deviance is significant, while that on the relationship between anger and organizational deviance is insignificant.

Discussion

This study built a model to discuss the emotional and behavioral influences of perceived overall injustice. The findings suggest that individuals feel more anger as the level of perceived overall injustice increases, which thus lead to higher level of organizational deviance. Morally disengaged employees are more likely to engage in organizational deviance after being treated unfairly. However, the moderating effect of moral disengagement on the relationship of anger and organizational deviance was insignificant. The reason might be because anger is an aggressive emotion and individual experiencing anger may lead to impulsive behavior regardless of moral rules. Implications and limitations have been discussed.

The Influence of Employee Emotion Fluctuation on Service Performance: An Experience Sampling Data Analysis

Research on the relationship between emotions and job performance is ubiquitous, yet few scholars have examined the combined effects of different emotions. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that employees’ daily emotion fluctuations (positive emotions vs. negative emotions) will affect their service performance in opposite directions. Furthermore, we propose these effects will be moderated by psychological [i.e., regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE)] and physiological (i.e., sleep quality) characteristics of the employees. Based on the experience sampling method (ESM), data (N = 810) obtained from 187 frontline employees of 35 bank branches over 18 consecutive days supports our hypotheses.

The influence of culture on care receivers' satisfaction and aggressive tendencies in the emergency department

Introduction

Reducing aggressive tendencies among care receivers in the emergency department has great economic and psychological benefits for care receivers, staff, and health care organizations. In a study conducted in a large multicultural hospital emergency department, we examined how cultural factors relating to ethnicity interact to enhance care receivers’ satisfaction and reduce their aggressive tendencies. Specifically, we explored how care receivers’ cultural affiliation, individual cultural characteristics, and the cultural situational setting interact to increase care receivers’ satisfaction and reduce their aggressive tendencies.

Method

Data were collected using survey responses from 214 care receivers. We use structural equation models and the bootstrap method to analyze the data.

Results

Care receivers’ openness to diversity (an individual cultural characteristic) was positively related to their satisfaction that was associated with lower aggressive tendencies, only when they were affiliated with a cultural minority group and when the cultural situational setting included language accessibility.

Conclusion

Our results demonstrate that cultural affiliation, individual cultural characteristics, and cultural situational setting can affect care receivers’ satisfaction and aggressive tendencies in a multicultural emergency department context. In particular, high cultural openness of care receivers, and making information accessible in their native language, increased satisfaction and reduced aggressive tendencies among cultural minority care receivers in our study.

Emergent Strategy from Spontaneous Anger: Crowd Dynamics in the First 48 Hours of the Ferguson Shooting

The fatal August 9, 2014, officer-involved shooting of a Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked a series of local protests that culminated in a national social movement: Black Lives Matter. In this study, through a minute-by-minute analysis of crowd dynamics, I find that the eventual social movement strategy emerged from spontaneous acts of anger in protest crowds within the first 48 hours of the shooting. This finding is surprising in light of social movement scholarship, in which strategy is thought to follow from rationality and decision making within formal organizations, not emotionality and spontaneous action within informal crowds. By coupling a historical analysis of protest and policing practices with a comparison of prominent theories of crowds, emotion, and strategy, I theorize how strategy can emerge from spontaneous acts of anger as part of a distributed sensemaking process in crowds, rather than conflating strategy with rationality and deliberate planning in organizations. Taken in sum, this study challenges prevailing ideas about the wisdom of crowds and exemplifies the immanent potential for change, in which our seemingly “micro” actions are not trivial but can influence even the most “macro” of strategic outcomes.

Unhappiness Intensifies the Avoidance of Frequent Losses While Happiness Overcomes It

The implication of spontaneous and induced unhappiness to people's decision style is examined. It is postulated that unhappy individuals have a greater tendency to avoid frequent losses because these can have depleting effects, and unhappy individuals are more sensitive to such effects. This is evaluated in Study 1 by using an annoying customer call manipulation to induce negative affect; and by examining the effect of this manipulation on choices in an experiential decision task (the Iowa Gambling task). In Study 2 we examined the association between self-reported (un)happiness and choices on the same decision task. In Study 1 the induction of negative affect led to avoidance of choice alternatives with frequent losses, compared to those yielding rarer but larger losses. Specifically, this pertained to the advantageous alternatives with frequent vs. non-frequent losses. In Study 2 unhappiness was similarly associated with less exposure to frequent losses; while extreme high happiness was associated with no tendency to avoid frequent losses when these were part of an advantageous alternative. The findings clarify the role of happiness in decision making processes by indicating that unhappiness induces sensitivity to the frequency rather than to the total effect of negative events.

Effects of habitual anger on employees' behavior during organizational change

Organizational change is a particularly emotional event for those being confronted with it. Anger is a frequently experienced emotion under these conditions. This study analyses the influence of employees' habitual anger reactions on their reported behavior during organizational change. It was explored whether anger reactions conducive to recovering or increasing individual well-being will enhance the likelihood of functional change behavior. Dysfunctional regulation strategies in terms of individual well-being are expected to decrease the likelihood of functional change behavior-mediated by the commitment to change. Four hundred and twelve employees of different organizations in Luxembourg undergoing organizational change participated in the study. Findings indicate that the anger regulation strategy venting, and humor increase the likelihood of deviant resistance to change. Downplaying the incident's negative impact and feedback increase the likelihood of active support for change. The mediating effect of commitment to change has been found for humor and submission. The empirical findings suggest that a differentiated conceptualization of resistance to change is required. Specific implications for practical change management and for future research are discussed.

Emotional influence at work: Take it EASI

Research on emotions in organizations has traditionally taken an intrapersonal approach, examining how an organization member’s emotions influence his or her own cognitions, attitudes, and behavior. We argue that a full understanding of the role of emotions in organizations requires a complementary focus on their interpersonal effects—that is, how one worker’s emotions influence the feelings, cognitions, attitudes, and behavior of others. We advance Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, which posits that emotional expressions exert interpersonal effects by triggering affective reactions and/or inferential processes in targets, depending on the target’s information processing and the perceived appropriateness of the emotional expression. We review evidence from four domains of organizational behavior: customer service, group decision making, negotiation, and leadership. We call for new research that examines emotions in greater detail (discrete emotions, intensity, authenticity), studies different settings (organizational change, personnel selection), and considers temporal dynamics (frequency, long-term outcomes).