Category Archives: Emotions
Do customers make you mad? You have permission to vent
Publication: Journal of Management (FEB 2013)
Article: Alleviating the burden of emotional labor: The role of social sharing
Authors: McCance, A. S., Nye, C. D., Wang, L., Jones, K. S., & Chiu, C.
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin
If you’ve ever worked in the service industry, you know that some customers can be incredibly frustrating. You get angry, your blood pressure rises, you try really hard to hold your tongue, and then you complain to your coworkers later. And you feel better.
It turns out that venting to your coworkers really does make a difference. In a recent lab study, Silke McCance and her colleagues subjected participants to both neutral and difficult “customers.” Not surprisingly, participants who had to deal with a difficult customer were more likely to be angry and use surface acting (in other words, they hid their true feelings).
Social sharing is just what it sounds like – sharing an experience with others. Three different types of social sharing assessed in this study were the sharing of feelings, facts, and positive experiences. The authors found that all three types of social sharing were beneficial in reducing anger caused by difficult customers. Although anger decreased over time for all participants, those who were able to share their experiences with others showed an even greater decrease in anger.
The results from this study have pretty big implications if you work in the service industry. A lot of companies discourage employees from venting about negative situations with customers, but this study suggests that social sharing is very helpful in dealing with these types of situations. Allow your employees break time to talk about their negative encounters with customers; you’ll be doing your employees, and your company, a favor.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Business_People_g201-Close_Up_Of_Shouting_Adult_Lawyer_p91466.html
Get Ahead by Getting Emotional (IO Psychology)
Topic: Leadership, Emotions
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2012)
Article: Looking Down: The Influence of Contempt and Compassion on Emergent
Leadership Categorizations
Authors: S. Melwani, J.S. Mueller, J.R. Overbeck
Reviewed By: Ben Sher, M.A.
Do you want people to think of you as a leader? Do you want to cultivate and mobilize hordes of dedicated minions in pursuit of world domination? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you are in the right place. New research by Melwani, Mueller, and Overbeck (2012) has provided new insight into why certain people are perceived as leaders. Unlike past research, which has focused mainly on personality traits, this study found that certain emotions can be influential as well.
In three separate studies, the researchers found that people who display two types of emotions are more likely to be perceived as leaders. These two emotions are contempt and compassion. Even though contempt seems like a bad emotion and compassion seems like a good one, these two emotions have something in common. Both involve making a downward social comparison. This means that someone who displays these emotions appears to be better off than the target of the emotions. For example, you might show contempt for someone who has failed in some way that you have not. Similarly, you might show compassion for someone when some element of their life is worse than yours.
But even if people who display contempt and compassion look better by comparison, why does this make people view them as leaders? The researchers found that displaying contempt and compassion make people look smarter by comparison. Why has the other person failed at something and you have not? Perhaps it is because you are smarter. Why has something bad happened to the other person and has not happened to you? Perhaps it is because you are smarter. This fits with past research that shows that people who seem to be smart are also identified as leaders.
So there you have it: If you want to gain influence over others, you need to display the right kind of emotions. It doesn’t matter if they are good emotions like compassion or bad emotions like contempt. As long as your emotions make you seem better than the target of your emotions, you have a chance to affect the way people think of you and increase your perceived leadership abilities. As devious as this sounds, this study gives us greater understanding about how leaders emerge. Armed with this knowledge, we are in a better position to select and train leaders who will be successful at earning the respect of followers.
Melwani, S., Mueller, J.S., & Overbeck, J.R. (2012). Looking down: The influence of contempt and compassion on emergent leadership categorizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), 1171-1185.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
