powerpoint

2. Describe how you might use emotional intelligence to control mood and create a positive work environment in your branch.

3. Explain how you might change job characteristics and job demands to improve job satisfaction and performance

Show the impact emotional labor has on employees.

Every employee expends physical and mental labor by putting body and mind, respectively, into the job. But jobs also require emotional labor, an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. The concept of emotional labor emerged from studies of service jobs, but emotional labor is relevant to almost every job. The true challenge arises when employees have to project one emotion while feeling another.52This disparity is emotional dissonance, and it can take a heavy toll. Bottled-up feelings of frustration, anger, and resentment can eventually lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout.53 Emotional labor creates dilemmas for employees. There are people with whom you have to work that you just plain don’t like. Regardless, your job requires you to interact with these people on a regular basis. Separating emotions into felt or displayed emotions may prove helpful. Click the segments of this diagram for more information about felt emotions, displayed emotions, surface acting, and deep acting.

Emotional Intelligence

Contrast the evidence for and against the existence of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to (1) perceive emotions in the self and others, (2) understand the meaning of these emotions, and (3) regulate one’s emotions accordingly in a cascading model, as shown in the following figure. People who know their own emotions and are good at reading emotional cues—for instance, knowing why they’re angry and how to express themselves without violating norms—are most likely to be effective.68 Emotion regulation is part of the EI literature but has also been studied as an independent concept.84 The central idea behind emotion regulation is to identify and modify the emotions you feel. Strategies to change your emotions include thinking about more pleasant things, suppressing negative thoughts, distracting yourself, reappraising the situation, or engaging in relaxation techniques.

Intuitive Appeal

Almost everyone agrees it is good to possess social intelligence. Intuition suggests people who can detect emotions in others, control their own emotions, and handle social interactions well have a powerful leg up in the business world. Partners in a multinational consulting firm who scored above the median on an EI measure delivered $1.2 million more in business than did the other partners.72

EI Predicts Criteria that Matter

Evidence suggests a high level of EI means a person will perform well on the job. One study found the ability to recognize emotions in others’ facial expressions and to emotionally “eavesdrop” (pick up subtle signals about peoples’ emotions) predicted peer ratings of how valuable people were to their organization.74  A review of studies indicated that, overall, EI weakly but consistently correlated with job performance, even after researchers took cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and neuroticism into account.75

Biologically Based

In one study, people with damage to the brain area that governs emotional processing (part of the prefrontal cortex) scored no lower on standard measures of intelligence than people without similar damage. But they scored significantly lower on EI tests and were impaired in normal decision making, as demonstrated by their poor performance in a card game with monetary rewards. This study suggests EI is neurologically based in a way that’s unrelated to standard measures of intelligence.76 There is also evidence EI is genetically influenced, further supporting the idea that it measures a real underlying biological factor.

No Agreement on Definitions

To many researchers, it’s unclear what EI is because researchers use different definitions of the construct.78 Some have focused on emotional intelligence via tests with right and wrong answers, scoring the ability to recognize and control emotions. This is the ability-based perspective on EI. Others focus on emotional intelligence as a broad variety of constructs that can be measured by self-reports and are connected primarily by the fact that they are not redundant with cognitive intelligence. Not only are these two definitions different, but the measures used by each perspective are barely correlated with one another

EI Can’t Be Measured

Many critics have raised questions about measuring EI. Because EI is a form of intelligence, they argue, there must be right and wrong answers for it on tests. Some tests do have right and wrong answers, although the validity of some questions is doubtful. One measure asks you to associate feelings with colors, as if purple always makes us feel cool and not warm. Other measures are self-reported, such as “I’m good at ‘reading’ other people,” and have no right or wrong answers. However, these self-report measures could reflect a variety of non-ability related constructs like general self-esteem or self-efficacy. The measures of EI are diverse, and researchers have not subjected them to as much rigorous study as they have measures of personality and general intelligence

Personality with a Different Label

Some critics argue that because EI is so closely related to intelligence and personality, once you control for these factors, it has nothing unique to offer. There is some foundation to this argument. EI appears to be correlated with measures of personality, especially emotional stability.81 If this is true, then the evidence for a biological component to EI is spurious, and biological markers like brain activity and heritability are attributable to other well-known and much better researched psychological constructs. To some extent, researchers have resolved this issue by noting that EI is a construct partially determined by traits like cognitive intelligence, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, so it makes sense that EI is correlated with these characteristics

Personal Obstacles to Regulation

As you might suspect, not everyone is equally good at regulating their emotions. Individuals who are higher in the personality trait of neuroticism have more trouble doing so and often find their moods are beyond their ability to control. Individuals who have lower levels of self-esteem are also less likely to try to improve their sad moods, perhaps because they are less likely than others to feel like they deserve to be in a good mood.85

Disadvantages of Emotion Regulation

While it might seem desirable to regulate your emotions, research suggests there is a downside to trying to change the way you feel. Changing your emotions takes effort, and this effort can be exhausting. Sometimes attempts to change an emotion actually make it stronger; for example, trying to talk yourself out of being afraid can make you focus more on what scares you, which makes you more afraid.86 Emotion suppression appears to be especially difficult to do effectively and can lead to more negative emotions; reappraising situations is usually more effective in increasing positive emotions and limiting negative emotions.87 From another perspective, research suggests that avoiding negative emotional experiences is less likely to lead to positive moods than seeking out positive emotional experiences.88