Reconsidering the Role of Emotion in Work

• Emotional experiences -- active interpretations and responses to events, people, and objects in a given situation

• Emotion scripts are socially constructed, contextually-based, and contested

NPR …

• What emotions do characters in this NPR story convey in recounting and making sense of their Hurricane Katrina experiences? How do they cope with the emotional demands of their work?

Emotional Labor

• Inducing, fabricating, or suppressing emotions for commercial purposes

Instrumental role of emotional expression in achieving goals

Cultural understandings shape the emotional lives of employees

Psychological benefits & costs

Seeking Emotional Labor:When Managing the Heart Enhances the

Work Experience• Shuler & Sypher (2000), Management

Communication Quarterly

• Purpose

• Method

• Findings

• Identify occupations guided by different emotional demands than 911 dispatchers or first-responders– How do the job duties related to emotional

expectations and performances of employees?

Questions to Consider

• What are dominant societal expectations for emotional expressions in health care encounters?

• How are these expectations created and maintained?

• How do Dr. K and Dr. Pete illustrate and/or defy expectations for doctor-patient communication?

Developing Expectations for Emotional Performances

• Assimilation:– Process by which an individual becomes

integrated into the culture of an organization• Organizations socialize individuals into values and

communicative norms as well as requirements of position/role

• Newcomers influence organizational environment by bringing their own personal beliefs, skills, and attitudes

Historical Perspectives on Emotion and Work

• Relegated to private sphere (e.g., classical perspectives)• Side-effect of labor (e.g., Human Relations)• Tool of management control – arousing emotions step in

process of cultivating motivation, loyalty, and commitment (e.g., Human Resources)

• Rules for emotion management are key element of organizational cultures

• Performance of emotion might be an integral part of working (e.g., cultural and critical perspectives)