Search

Researchers have consistently shown the detrimental effects that workplace bullying has on employee well-being. While there have been many studies examining moderating factors that worsen or mitigate bullying’s effects, the field lacks a common theoretical framework to integrate and explain these diverse moderators. The aim of this systematic review is to identify, categorise, and evaluate variables that have been tested as moderators of the relationship between workplace bullying and well-being using the job demands resources model. Searches of the literature were carried out in the PsycINFO, Web of Science and Scopus databases. Sixty-eight studies met the inclusion criteria, which reported on 209 tests of moderation. Using an established taxonomy, the moderators were categorised into home demands/resources (n = 2), personal demands/resources (n = 136), job demands/resources (n = 4), social demands/resources (n = 24), and organisational demands/resources (n = 43). Analysis revealed that social resources, such as co-worker support, and organisational resources, such as supportive organisational climates, consistently buffered the harmful effects of bullying. In contrast, personal resources had little influence as moderators. Further cross-cultural and longitudinal research is needed to understand whether the influence of these moderators extends across time and different cultural contexts.

As greater numbers of people have worked at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers, organisations and policy makers have begun considering the benefits of a sustained move towards homeworking, with workers' satisfaction with homeworking often cited as a key driver. But is satisfaction with homeworking that relevant to workers' overall job satisfaction? In this study, we examine whether job and homeworking satisfaction are predicted by different demands and resources, namely, those well established in the job design literature (workload, job autonomy and social support) for the former and those specific to the context of homeworking (loneliness, work–nonwork interference, work–nonwork interference and adequacy of homeworking environment) for the latter. We also explore whether homeworking satisfaction mediates the relationship between homeworking demands and resources and job satisfaction. Findings of a study of university workers during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 753 in Phase 1, 471 in Phase 2) support our expectations about the domain-specific nature of the predictors of job and homeworking satisfaction, autonomy is positively related to job satisfaction, while loneliness, nonwork-to-work interference and inadequate homeworking environment are negatively related to homeworking satisfaction. Results also support the argument that satisfaction with homeworking mediates the relationship between homeworking factors and job satisfaction, reinforcing the value of differentiating the two concepts.

Workplace mistreatment regularly occurs in the presence of others (i.e., observers). The reactions of observers toward those involved in the mistreatment episode have wide-reaching implications. In the current set of studies, we draw on theories of perspective-taking to consider how this form of interpersonal sensemaking influences observer reactions toward those involved in a witnessed incident of workplace mistreatment. We find that observers' blame attributions and empathic concern for the individual whose perspective is taken explain the positive effects of perspective-taking on observer attitudes toward and performance evaluations of both the target and instigator of a witnessed incident of mistreatment. We also find that the effect of perspective-taking on observer reactions is stronger when the witnessed mistreatment is more severe. Finally, we find that although observer perspective-taking in the context of mistreatment can be encouraged, the effect seems to benefit instigators' performance evaluations rather than targets'. Implications for targets, instigators, and organizations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened uncertainties in people’s lives—and was itself a source of fresh uncertainty. We report a study of homeworkers on whether such uncertainties, and particularly those related to their work environment, are associated with lower levels of well-being and whether this association is exacerbated by prior poor well-being. We focus on five uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and employment—the virus, the job quality, workload, logistics of work lives, and support from the employer. Our empirical tests show that uncertainties around the virus, employer support, and their job quality have the strongest negative associations with well-being. These are based on data collected over three time periods in the first year of the pandemic from a sample of university staff (academics and non-academics) and well-being is measured on two continua, anxiety–contentment and depression–enthusiasm. The effects of uncertainties around workload and logistics are less pronounced, but more apparent among employees with better (not poorer) past well-being, at various times of the recession. The study adds to our understanding of the pandemic and highlights the need to link uncertainty to mental health more than it has in the past.

Abstract. Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to the actions of influencing other people’s feelings. We apply this construct to the context of leadership to determine whether leader IER may explain followers’ performance. Drawing on emotions-as-social-information theory, we argue that leader strategies to improve or worsen followers’ feelings would be related to followers’ affect and thereby to their performance. We tested these proposals using a multisource field study involving 31 leaders and 157 followers. Results from multilevel modeling supported a mediation model in which leaders’ attempts to improve their followers’ feelings enhance followers’ task performance via the followers’ experience of positive affect. In contrast, leaders’ use of affect-worsening actions was associated with the experience of followers’ negative affect, but not related to task performance. These findings contribute by expanding knowledge on the affective underpinnings of the leader–follower relationship and informing the development of leadership interventions aimed to foster employee performance.

Many workers are subjected to incidents of rudeness and ignorance at work. Emerging evidence suggests that exposure to such incivility has an immediate impact on people’s well-being and commitment. In this article we contribute to this nascent area of enquiry by investigating the role of discrete emotions in explaining how exposure to incivility translates into detrimental daily consequences, and by examining whether the role of emotions varies depending on whether incivilities occur during face-to-face versus online interactions. In a diary study of 69 workers, we find that face-to-face incivility has a pronounced daily impact on workers’ exhaustion and turnover intention, and that this impact is mediated by increased feelings of sadness and anger, but not fear. In contrast, cyber incivility only affects workers’ emotional exhaustion as a result of increases in sadness. Our findings provide insight into the mechanisms of daily effects of workplace incivility and the divergent daily effects of face-to-face versus cyber incivility.

Workplace bullying has negative effects on targets' well-being. Researchers are increasingly aware that bullying occurs within social contexts and is often witnessed by others in the organization, such as bystanders. However, we know little about how bystanders' responses influence outcomes for those exposed to bullying. In this multilevel study, involving 572 employees within 55 work groups, we explore how bystanders' passive (e.g., inaction) and active constructive (e.g., defending the target) responses to bullying can affect targets' somatic symptoms and work engagement. Drawing from Job-Demands Resource theory, we propose that passive and active constructive bystanders can worsen or buffer bullying's effects on these well-being outcomes, respectively. Specifically, we propose that passive bystanders can act as further demands for targets to cope with, leading to demand accumulation, while active constructive bystanders can act as resources. We found that exposure to workplace bullying was associated with somatic symptoms and low work engagement. The number of passive and active constructive bystanders in the target's work group moderated the relationship between exposure to bullying and engagement. In particular, with larger numbers of passive bystanders, the negative relationship of bullying exposure with engagement strengthened. Conversely, with a higher number of active constructive bystanders, bullying's negative relationship with engagement was mitigated. However, there was no moderating effect for somatic symptoms. This study contributes as the first empirical test of whether bystander behavior shapes the consequences of bullying for targets and provides a novel, group-level perspective to the bullying bystander literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments encouraged or mandated homeworking wherever possible. This study examines the impact of this public health initiative on homeworkers’ well-being. It explores if the general factors such as job autonomy, demands, social support and work–nonwork conflict, which under normal circumstances are crucial for employees’ well-being, are outweighed by factors specific to homeworking and the pandemic as predictors of well-being. Using data from four-week diary studies conducted at two time periods in 2020 involving university employees in the UK, we assessed five factors that may be associated with their well-being: job characteristics, the work–home interface, home location, the enforced nature of the homeworking, and the pandemic context. Multi-level analysis confirms the relationship between four of the five factors and variability in within-person well-being, the exception being variables connected to the enforced homeworking. The results are very similar in both waves. A smaller set of variables explained between-person variability: psychological detachment, loneliness and job insecurity in both periods. Well-being was lower in the second than the first wave, as loneliness increased and the ability to detach from work declined. The findings highlight downsides of homeworking, will be relevant for employees’ and employers’ decisions about working arrangements post-pandemic, and contribute to the debate about the limits of employee well-being models centred on job characteristics.

Societal and political changes mean that individuals are working until later in life, leading to interest in whether older workers' effectiveness differs from that of younger workers. An important predictor of work effectiveness is ‘interpersonal emotion regulation’, that is, the management of others' feelings. However, little is known so far about whether there are age-related changes in interpersonal emotion regulation ability. In this article, I apply theoretical evidence about aging to a model of the composite tasks involved in interpersonal emotion regulation, in order to form predictions about age-related differences in the management of others' feelings. I further review the existing empirical evidence base, to highlight areas where predictions are supported and areas where further research is needed. It is hoped that this article will guide future empirical work in this important area, in order to broaden the evidence base on age and emotion regulation.

An important part of many job roles – such as coaches, instructors, and leaders – is trying to improve the performance of others. In this paper we examine whether affect-improving interpersonal affect regulation (i.e., deliberate attempts to improve the emotion and mood of another person) plays a positive role in this process. We develop a model which proposes that the positive relationship between the receipt of interpersonal affect regulation and task performance is mediated by positive mood. Results of two dyadic studies (one with academics and doctoral students, N = 78, the other with driving instructors and learner drivers, N = 100) support the hypothesized model, and show that the effects of interpersonal affect regulation are over and above the effects of emotional contagion. Our findings extend theoretical understanding of the effects of interpersonal affect regulation by illustrating a core mechanism through which it influences others’ task behaviour. Our research also provides new evidence on the relational and affective processes through which people holding key organizational roles (e.g., coaches, instructors, mentors, leaders) are able to improve others’ task performance.

This article aims to (a) explore the impact of witnessing workplace bullying on emotional exhaustion, work-related anxiety, and work-related depression and (b) determine whether the resources of trait optimism, coworker support, and supportive supervisory style buffer the effects of witnessed bullying. In a two-wave study involving 194 employees, we found that witnessing bullying undermined employees' well-being (work-related depression and anxiety) 6 months later, but only if the employees were low in optimism (personal resource) and lacked supervisor support (contextual resource). Strong coworker support weakened the relationship between witnessing bullying and well-being (emotional exhaustion and work-related depression). Our findings demonstrate for the first time some of the factors that protect against the impact of witnessing workplace bullying. Future research should focus on the development of workplace interventions that foster feelings of social support and optimism among employees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

A considerable amount of research has been published on career plateau since its first appearance in the careers literature in the 1970s. There is therefore a need to summarise what is known about the field in its entirety and what remains unanswered. This paper presents a review of career plateau research published between 1977 and 2017 and includes 72 empirical sources. Focusing on hierarchical and job content plateau, the review adopts a social exchange perspective in explaining why the two types of plateau are linked with various unfavourable work outcomes, what the mechanisms and moderators of these relationships may be, and the possible antecedents of career plateau. The 72 sources included in the review revealed that career plateaued individuals generally report unfavourable affective outcomes (e.g., poorer satisfaction and well-being) as well as other undesirable work outcomes (e.g., poorer job performance and organisational commitment, and enhanced turnover intentions), and that these outcomes can be explained by the fact plateaued individuals perceive a lack of support from their organisation. Furthermore, our review suggests that the effects of career plateau are moderated by several key factors, namely, the extent to which both the organisation and individual adopt strategies to counteract plateau, and the extent to which individuals care about being promoted. In terms of antecedents of plateau, proactivity and additional responsibilities given by the organisation are negatively related to career plateau. Based on these findings, our review offers managerial implications and suggestions of future research directions.

How do we explain the behaviour of employees who encounter workplace bullying but fail to intervene, or sometimes even join the perpetrator? We often assume that bystanders witnessing bullying will restore justice, but empirical research suggests that they may also behave in ways that continue, or worsen, its progression. Recent theories have attempted to explain the process of bystander behaviour in response to general mistreatment, but the range of acknowledged behaviours is limited, and their scope is restricted to isolated incidents rather than complex, dynamic phenomena like workplace bullying. We offer a new model of bystander behaviours in workplace bullying. We use sensemaking theory to explain how appraisals of severity, victim deservingness and efficacy influence bystanders to enact a range of possible behaviours, and how post-hoc sensemaking utilizing moral disengagement affects how bystanders appraise and respond to future bullying. We explain the influence of the social context on sensemaking and the reciprocal influence that individual bystanders have on the social context. Our model explains how bystander behaviours change over time in response to repeated incidents and how bystanders’ responses affect other bystanders’ appraisals and the bullying process, therefore providing a dynamic perspective on the role of bystanders in workplace bullying.

Where do individual differences in emotion regulation come from? This review examines theoretical and empirical evidence describing the role that personality traits play in shaping individuals' intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation styles. We define and delineate personality traits and emotion regulation and summarize empirical relations between them. Specifically, we review research on the Big Five personality traits in relation to each stage of Gross' (2015) extended process model of emotion regulation. In doing so, we document evidence concerning the relationships between personality traits and three key stages of emotion regulation, namely, identification (i.e., choosing which emotions to regulate), selection (i.e., choosing a broad regulatory approach), and implementation (i.e., adopting specific regulatory tactics). Finally, we make recommendations for future research that we hope will guide researchers in building a systematic understanding of how personality traits shape intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Attempts to improve others' feelings have positive consequences, while attempts to worsen others' feelings have negative consequences. But do such effects depend on the motives underlying these attempts? In an experimental study, we tested whether leaders' apparent motives influence the effects of their interpersonal emotion regulation on followers. We found that the positive effects of using affect-improving (vs. affect-worsening) strategies on relational outcomes and discretional performance outcomes were largely enhanced when the leader exhibited prosocial motives but diminished when the leader exhibited egoistic motives. Our findings add nuance to our understanding of the effects of interpersonal emotion regulation at work.\ud \ud \ud \ud Practitioner points\ud \ud When leaders try to influence their followers' emotions, the consequences not only depend on the type of strategy used (improving vs. worsening), but also the leaders' apparent motives.\ud \ud If egoistic (vs. prosocial) motives underpin leaders' interpersonal emotional regulation, the positive effects of affect-improving (vs. affect-worsening) on leader–follower relationship quality and follower discretional performance are significantly reduced.\ud \ud Leaders should be aware of the behaviours they use during interactions with their followers as well as how their motives might be perceived.

Leader affective presence is the tendency of leaders to elicit feelings that are consistent among other individuals, and has been supported as a relevant personality trait for understanding teamwork. Drawing on a model that integrates personality and emotion regulation, this study aimed to expand research on affective presence by proposing team members’ perceptions of leader interpersonal emotion regulation as a process that explains how leader affective presence is related to team member behaviour. In the model, teamness—the perception that interdependence and reflexivity are required in the team—is presented as a boundary condition to the effects of affective presence via emotion regulation. Results of a study conducted with 99 teams showed that team member ratings of leader positive affective presence were linked to their perceptions that leaders had used affect-improving emotion regulation which in turn was associated with greater team citizenship behaviour. Contrariwise, team member ratings of leader negative affective presence were associated with perceived use of affect-worsening emotion regulation by leaders which in turn was associated with lower levels of team citizenship, but only when teams were low in teamness. These findings contribute to understanding how leaders’ individual differences are related to teamwork through affective processes.

Why do people try to influence the way others feel? Previous research offers two competing accounts of people’s motives for attempting to regulate others’ emotions. The instrumental account holds that people use interpersonal emotion regulation to benefit their own goal pursuit. Conversely, the prosocial account holds that people use interpersonal emotion regulation to benefit others’ goals. This article juxtaposes these accounts across two studies. Study 1 demonstrates that when given the chance to benefit themselves through their interpersonal emotion regulation, people choose to do so, even when this involves making a friend feel unpleasant. Yet when given the chance to benefit a friend through interpersonal emotion regulation, with no personal gains, people also choose to do so. Study 2 reveals no overall tendencies towards either motive when people can choose between benefitting themselves or a friend through their interpersonal emotion regulation. However, people’s motives can be reliably predicted by their values: individuals with high values of care and concern for others show a greater tendency to regulate a friend’s emotions prosocially and a lower tendency towards instrumentality.

Interpersonal emotion regulation is an important psychological function in social behavior. However, this construct has still been scantly explored in work psychology and organizational settings, meaning that the effects of interpersonal emotion regulation on core aspects of work performance are as yet unknown. In order to address this omission, our article seeks to provide insight into how, in the context of teamwork in organizations, leaders can enhance team effectiveness by using interpersonal emotion regulation to capitalize on the important role that affect plays in team innovation. Using a multisource field study, we tested and supported a model in which leaders’ attempts to improve their team members’ emotions were positively related to team innovation via team positive affective tone. Conversely, leader affect-worsening regulation was negatively related to team innovation via team negative affective tone. Our findings indicate that interpersonal regulation of emotions within teams matters for shared affect and team performance and informs practitioners that assessing and training leaders in interpersonal emotion regulation could benefit team effectiveness.

Integrating insights from the organizational social networks and workplace affect literatures, the authors propose a dynamic model of relationships, focusing on the affect experienced within dyadic work relationships to predict their trajectory over time: either improving, declining, or static. The feelings each partner typically experiences within an ongoing relationship (trait relational affect) can be distinguished according to their hedonic tone and activation level, and the combination of both dyadic partners' trait relational affect is predictive of the relationship trajectory. Furthermore, the emotions each partner experiences during specific interactional episodes (state relational affect) can alter and disrupt this relationship trajectory, either temporarily or permanently, to the extent that they diverge from the trait relational affect that is typically experienced. A given relationship trajectory over time leads to the development of different types of informal work ties (strong, negative, or weak), which are associated with a wealth of organizational consequences including effort, motivation, performance, and innovation. The model addresses criticisms that organizational social network research neglects the role of affect and views networks as static entities. The model further provides affect researchers with a novel framework that considers affect as a relational rather than individual phenomenon.

Affective presence is a novel, emotion-related personality trait, supported in experimental studies, concerning the extent to which a person makes his or her interaction partners feel the same way (Eisenkraft & Elfenbein, 2010). Applying this concept to an applied teamwork context, we proposed that team-leader-affective presence would influence team members' communication of creative ideas. Multilevel modeling analysis of data from a survey study conducted with teams from a consultancy firm confirmed that team-leader-affective presence interacted with team-member creative idea generation to predict inhibition of voicing their ideas. Specifically, withholding of ideas was less likely when team members generated creative ideas and their team leader had higher positive affective presence or lower negative affective presence. These findings contribute to emotion research by showing affective presence as a trait with interpersonal meaning, which can shape how cognition is translated into social behavior in applied performance contexts, such as teamwork in organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Managers’ abuse of subordinates is a common form of unethical behaviour in workplaces. When exposed to such abuse, employees may go absent from work. We propose two possible explanations for employee absence in response to managerial abuse: a sociological explanation based on perceptions of organizational justice and a psychological explanation based on psychological strain. Both are tested using data from a sample of 1472 mental health workers. The occurrence, duration and frequency of absence are investigated using a hurdle model. Managerial abuse is found to be associated with the occurrence of absence through both perceptions of organizational justice and psychological strain. Distributive justice and depression are especially significant in explaining the relationship between abuse and absence. Once absent, duration of absence is not further affected by managerial abuse but is still linked to depression and distributive justice, whereas frequency of absence is linked to bullying and depression.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is likely to become the major tool for studying the neural underpinnings of organizational behavior. It is a technique for brain imaging that, according to advocates, provides information about which areas of the brain are activated during organizational processes (e.g., leadership, decision-making). In this article, we take a critical look at this tool from a technical perspective. In particular, we take the reader through the assumptions that must be made at the three main steps of the research process (study design, data capture, and interpretation of results) in order to draw conclusions about organizational phenomena from fMRI research. Applying this analysis to three case studies demonstrates the gap between what fMRI can actually tell us and the claims often made about the contribution of fMRI to understanding and improving organizational behavior. Our discussion provides researchers with a series of recommendations oriented towards optimizing the use of fMRI to help it live up to its potential in the field of organizational behavior, and consumers with a means of evaluating fMRI research in order to draw appropriate and warranted conclusions.

Career plateau is often associated with undesirable outcomes, but the reasons for this association remain unclear and the evidence for the effects of plateau has mainly been cross-sectional. The current study adopts a three-wave longitudinal design to explore a potential mechanism of the negative effects of career plateau on job attitudes. Drawing on the psychological contract and careers literature, we hypothesised that unmet expectations would mediate the effects of two key forms of career plateau, namely hierarchical plateau and job content plateau, and that these mediated effects would vary by age. Regression analysis on 110 individuals over an 8-month period revealed only two main effects, with job content plateau associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions. However, there were indirect effects of both types of plateau on job satisfaction and turnover intentions, and indirect effects of hierarchical plateau on organisational commitment, via unmet expectations. Although the experience of career plateau was positively related to workers' age, the mediated effects of career plateau on job attitudes were observed irrespective of workers' age. This study contributes to the field by offering a new explanation as to why plateaued individuals develop unfavourable job attitudes, by offering evidence of the longitudinal links between career plateau and job attitudes, and by suggesting that organisations need to be mindful of the damaging effects of career plateau for employees of all ages.

Presenteeism refers to the phenomenon whereby employees continue to attend work while unwell. Existing research suggests that presentee workers may suffer consequences to their health and mental strain. In this paper, we investigate whether such consequences also have downstream effects in terms of the errors people make at work. We studied the effects of presenteeism among a large sample of pharmacists (N = 1205), an occupation in which errors made can be safety-critical, with implications for patient health. Seventy-six percent of the pharmacists in our sample were classed as presentee, having attending work while unwell enough to have taken time off on at least two occasions over the previous year. Presentee pharmacists made significantly more minor errors and serious mistakes, such as dispensing errors, compared to non-presentee pharmacists. They also experienced greater feelings of anxiety and depression. Mediation analyses suggested that higher anxiety rates explained why presentee employees made more errors at work. Presenteeism therefore has significant health costs for both workers and their beneficiaries, and can be classed as an important work-related stressor.

This research explored the role of hope and optimism in facilitating task adaptivity, individuals’ positive behavior response to change affecting their core task. Study 1 explored the relationship of hope and optimism with task adaptivity in a short longitudinal study of insurance company employees in the UK (N = 43). Study 2 was conducted in a UK police force and utilized supervisor ratings of task adaptivity (N = 111). In Study 3 (N = 299), we investigated whether hope and optimism predicted objective performance of insurance agents in China via their effect on task adaptivity. In Study 1, hope, but not optimism, was positively related to later task adaptivity. In Study 2, employees’ levels of hope but not optimism were positively related to supervisor ratings of employee task adaptivity. In Study 3, hope had a significant indirect effect on insurance agents’ commission via task adaptivity, while the indirect effect of optimism was not significant. Our findings highlight the importance of hope, an individual factor that is open to development, and provide preliminary support for the idea that organizations might encourage constructive responses to change in their workforce by increasing levels of hope through training or mentoring. They further provide support for the importance of task adaptivity for objective performance. This is one of the first papers to investigate the relationship of hope and optimism with task adaptivity. Three studies in different organizational settings highlighted the unique role of hope in supporting individuals’ continuous adaption to change.

Summary We examined the performance in a constant foreperiod task in two samples screened for either high or low scores on the core burnout dimension emotional exhaustion. In line with our expectations, participants scoring high on emotional exhaustion exhibited a specific deficit with respect to maintaining a high level of response readiness at longer foreperiods. This demonstration of a modulation of constant foreperiod performance by burnout adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that exhaustion is related to deficits in basic cognitive mechanisms underlying the fine-tuning of cognitive resources according to task demands. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

People in organizations often try to change the feelings of those they interact with. Research in this area has to date focused on how people try to regulate others’ emotions, with less attention paid to understanding the reasons why. This paper presents a theoretical framework that proposes three overarching dimensions of motivations for interpersonal emotion regulation at work, relating to the extent to which regulation is motivated by autonomy (intrinsic vs. extrinsic), relatedness (prosocial vs. egoistic), and competence (performance- vs. pleasure-oriented). Combining these dimensions suggests eight possible categories of motives that underlie interpersonal emotion regulation. The framework enables new predictions about how motives influence the types of emotions elicited in others, the strategies employed, and the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation in organizations.

Humor, a social communication intended to be amusing (Cooper, 2005), is ubiquitous at work. Although research on humor in organizations has increased in recent years, existing work heavily focuses ...

Workplace aggression poses a significant challenge to organizations due to its potential impact on employees' mental and physical well-being. Using two studies, this article investigates whether emotion regulation could alleviate the negative effects of exposure to workplace aggression on employees' experience of strain, among social workers (N = 77) and emergency services personnel (N = 70). As predicted from coping theories of emotion regulation, Studies 1 and 2 showed that using the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal during interactions with individuals from inside the organization (e.g., coworkers or managers) attenuated the workplace aggression–strain link. Conversely, but consistent with emotional labour theories of emotion regulation, engaging in reappraisal and suppression during interactions with legitimate outsiders (e.g., clients or patients) strengthened the workplace aggression–strain link. The findings have implications for both theory and practical interventions regarding workplace ...

Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigated the hypothesis that the extent to which people's blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.

Two dyadic studies investigated interpersonal worry regulation in heterosexual relationships. In Study 1, we video-recorded 40 romantic couples discussing shared concerns. Male partners' worry positively predicted female partners' interpersonal calming attempts, and negatively predicted female partners' interpersonal alerting attempts (i.e., attempts to make their partners appreciate the seriousness of concerns). Video-cued recall data also indicated that changes in partner A's worry over time positively predicted partner B's motivation to reduce partner A's worry, and that this effect was stronger when B was the female partner. Study 2 was a dyadic survey of 100 couples. Individual differences in partner A's negative affect were positive predictors of partner B's interpersonal calming, and individual differences in partner A's expressive suppression were negative predictors of partner B's interpersonal calming. Further, individual differences in male partners' expressivity were significant positive predictors of female partners' interpersonal calming, and individual differences in male partners' reappraisal were significant positive predictors of female partners' interpersonal alerting. These findings suggest that interpersonal worry regulation relates to partners' expression and intrapersonal regulation of worry, but not equally for men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record

Affective presence is a novel personality construct that describes the tendency of individuals to make their interaction partners feel similarly positive or negative. We adopt this construct, together with the input-process-output model of teamwork, to understand how team leaders influence team interaction and innovation performance. In 2 multisource studies, based on 350 individuals working in 87 teams of 2 public organizations and 734 individuals working in 69 teams of a private organization, we tested and supported hypotheses that team leader positive affective presence was positively related to team information sharing, whereas team leader negative affective presence was negatively related to the same team process. In turn, team information sharing was positively related to team innovation, mediating the effects of leader affective presence on this team output. The results indicate the value of adopting an interpersonal individual differences approach to understanding how affect-related characteristics of leaders influence interaction processes and complex performance in teams. (PsycINFO Database Record

In this article, we investigate the impact of engaging in ruminative-style thoughts after exposure to workplace violence. Rumination is a form of self-focused thinking characterized by abstract and passive negative thoughts. In an experimental study in which student volunteers were exposed to simulated violence using a video manipulation, the unpleasant affect of participants instructed to ruminate about the violence persisted, while the affect of participants in a distraction condition was quickly repaired. In a field study of violence experienced by social workers in their everyday working lives, employees who had a high tendency to engage in ruminative thinking exhibited a stronger negative relationship between exposure to violence and poor well-being and health complaints compared with those who had a low tendency to ruminate. Together, our findings suggest that ruminative thinking may exacerbate the negative effects of workplace violence. Practitioner Points * Being subjected to violence at work can have negative implications for employees' health and well-being, but it is not always possible for organizations to prevent violent attacks (e.g., from members of the public). * Our findings indicate that the negative consequences of violence may be intensified when the victim engages in rumination, a negative type of thinking about the self that involves passive, abstract thoughts about what happened and the effects on one's life. * Organizations should therefore seek to discourage ruminative thinking among victims of workplace violence. Language: en

The aim of this study was to investigate whether employees experience emotional drain when they witness unpleasant interactions between coworkers. This was tested in a sample of staff in a UK hospital department, which included nurses, doctors, specialists and administrative staff. The study used a diary method in which participants recorded their reactions to over 1000 interpersonal interactions between coworkers across 15 work days. Multilevel analyses indicated that staff felt significantly more emotionally drained after witnessing unpleasant interactions compared to pleasant ones. This effect was mediated both by what the staff felt in response to what they witnessed and by the extent to which they controlled their feelings. Staff felt more emotionally drained when they took the perspective of the target to a greater extent and when they witnessed interactions directly (first-hand) rather than indirectly (hearsay). Witnesses appear to be vulnerable to emotional depletion because they experience an affective reaction and self-regulate their own emotional response to what they have seen or heard. This third-party effect on the witnesses of unpleasant interactions has the potential not only to have a negative effect on the individual but to pervade the organisation.

Individuals in a variety of social contexts try to regulate other people's feelings, but how does this process affect the regulators themselves? This research aimed to establish a relationship between people's use of interpersonal affect regulation and their own affective well-being. In a field study, self- and other-reported data were collected from prisoners and staff members in a therapeutic prison using two surveys separated in time. In a laboratory study, a student sample reported their affect before and after attempting to influence the feelings of talent show contestants in a role-play task. The results of both studies indicated congruent associations between the use of affect-improving and affect-worsening interpersonal affect regulation and strategy agents' affective well-being. Our findings highlight that, when performing interpersonal affect regulation, people may not be immune from the effects of their own actions.

This symposium focuses on the intersection of relational and social network research with a socio-functional view of emotions, which argues that affective exchanges actively shape relational dynami...

How do we explain the behaviour of employees who encounter incidents of suspected maltreatment directed towards a colleague, but fail to report the perpetrators, fail to help victims, or even activ...

External emotion regulation is a process in which people influence social interactions by regulating and changing the emotions of other people. According to Gross (2013), the process of external em...

We examine how the use of mobile information and communication technologies (ICTs) among self-employed homeworkers affects their experience of work, focusing particularly on where work is carried out, how the work/non-work boundary is managed, and people's experiences of social and professional isolation. Positively, their use enhanced people's sense of spatio-temporal freedom by allowing them to leave the home without compromising their work availability. This also helped reduce people's feelings of social isolation. More negatively, their use enhanced people's sense of 'perpetual contact', creating a sense that work was difficult to escape from. However, the extent to which mobile ICTs were used, and the extent to which their impact on people's experiences of work were understood, were found to vary significantly, highlighting the agency that users have with regard to technology use. The findings are framed by combining Nippert-Eng's boundary work theory, with an 'emergent process' perspective on socio-technical relations. Highlights diverse attitudes to work-related mobile ICT use by self-employed homeworkers.Work-related mobile ICT use enhanced levels of spatio-temporal freedom.Work-related mobile ICT use helps reduce isolation through allowing people to leave home while remaining available for work.

Building relationships is crucial for satisfaction and success, especially when entering new social contexts. In the present paper, we investigate whether attempting to improve others’ feelings helps people to make connections in new networks. In Study 1, a social network study following new networks of people for a 12-week period indicated that use of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies predicted growth in popularity, as indicated by other network members’ reports of spending time with the person, in work and non-work interactions. In Study 2, linguistic analysis of the tweets from over 8000 Twitter users from formation of their accounts revealed that use of IER predicted greater popularity in terms of the number of followers gained. However, not all types of IER had positive effects. Behavioral IER strategies (which use behavior to reassure or comfort in order to regulate affect) were associated with greater popularity, while cognitive strategies (which change a person’s thoughts about his or her situation or feelings in order to regulate affect) were negatively associated with popularity. Our findings have implications for our understanding of how new relationships are formed, highlighting the important the role played by intentional emotion regulatory processes., Frontiers in Psychology, 6, ISSN:1664-1078

Studies investigating the neurophysiological basis of intrapersonal emotion regulation (control of one's own emotional experience) report that the frontal cortex exerts a modulatory effect on limbic structures such as the amygdala and insula. However, no imaging study to date has examined the neurophysiological processes involved in interpersonal emotion regulation, where the goal is explicitly to regulate another person's emotion. Twenty healthy participants (10 males) underwent fMRI while regulating their own or another person's emotions. Intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation tasks recruited an overlapping network of brain regions including bilateral lateral frontal cortex, pre-supplementary motor area, and left temporo-parietal junction. Activations unique to the interpersonal condition suggest that both affective (emotional simulation) and cognitive (mentalizing) aspects of empathy may be involved in the process of interpersonal emotion regulation. These findings provide an initial insight into the neural correlates of regulating another person's emotions and may be relevant to understanding mental health issues that involve problems with social interaction.

During and outside of work, the ways in which people manage their own and others’ emotions and moods can impact on their own and others’ well-being. For example, in relation to managing one’s own affect, constantly having to present a happy face towards customers can result in emotional exhaustion, particularly if this expression of emotion is not consistent with one’s internal affective state. Likewise, with respect to managing others’ affect, if a team member were to joke with a colleague who was feeling anxious about an upcoming deadline, this could reduce the tension experienced by the colleague, and also make the team member feel better. Over the last 25 years, there has been a great deal of research regarding the management of one’s own affect. However, research concerning the management of other people’s affect is still in its infancy. It is important to recognise the interpersonal aspects of affect regulation, for both theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretically, researchers interested in emotions are increasingly suggesting that emotions are social in nature, with interpersonal functions such as communication (e.g., Leach & Tiedens, 2004; Manstead, 1991; Mowday & Sutton, 1993; Parkinson, Fischer & Manstead, 2005). Practically, it is evermore important to understand relationships in the workplace, owing to the changing nature of work (e.g., the rise in service jobs) and the changing structure of organisations (e.g., increases in team working). As Barsade, Brief and Spataro (2003) put it, “the workplace is comprised of many people working together, and it is very helpful to understand how the social aspects of affect influence work life” (p. 19). In this chapter we seek to integrate the available literature on the effects of both intra- and interpersonal affect regulation processes on well-being at work. We discuss evidence for links between both types of affect regulation and well-being in organisational contexts, and suggest possible mechanisms for these effects.