MGMT Chapter 7

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

are often offered to workers as an adjunct to a company-provided health care plan

amygdala

area of the limbic system that controls fear type responses

Cognitive dissonance

a mismatch among emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior, for example, believing that you should always be polite to a customer regardless of personal feelings, yet having just been rude to one.

affect-driven behavior

emotions trigger you to respond in a particular way

resistance phase

the body begins to release cortisol and draws on reserves of fats and sugars to find a way to adjust to the demands of stress. This reaction works well for short periods of time, but it is only a temporary fix.

exhaustion phase

the body has depleted its stores of sugars and fats, and the prolonged release of cortisol has caused the stressor to significantly weaken the individual. Disease results from the body's weakened state, leading to death in the most extreme cases.

Stress

the body's reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental, or emotional adjustment or response. Stress is an inevitable feature of life. It is the force that gets us out of bed in the morning, motivates us at the gym, and inspires us to work.

Emotional labor

the regulation of feelings and expressions for organizational purposes. Three major levels of emotional labor have been identified.

Negative emotions

such as anger, fear, and sadness can result from undesired events

Work Outcomes

Stress is related to worse job attitudes, higher turnover, and decreases in job performance in terms of both in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors

persona

a professional role that involves acting out feelings that may not be real as part of their job

flow

a state of consciousness in which a person is totally absorbed in an activity

Type A personalities

display high levels of speed/impatience, job involvement, and hard-driving competitiveness

Stressors

events or contexts that cause a stress reaction by elevating levels of adrenaline and forcing a physical or mental response

emotion

is defined as a short, intense feeling resulting from some event

emotional intelligence

looks at how people can understand each other more completely by developing an increased awareness of their own and others' emotions

Physiological (stress)

manifests itself internally as nervousness, tension, headaches, anger, irritability, and fatigue

alarm phase

outside stressor jolts the individual, insisting that something must be done. It may help to think of this as the fight-or-flight moment in the individual's experience. If the response is sufficient, the body will return to its resting state after having successfully dealt with the source of stress.

Role conflict

refers to facing contradictory demands at work. For example, your manager may want you to increase customer satisfaction and cut costs, while you feel that satisfying customers inevitably increases costs

Role ambiguity

refers to vagueness in relation to what our responsibilities are. If you have started a new job and felt unclear about what you were expected to do, you have experienced role ambiguity. Having high role ambiguity is related to higher emotional exhaustion, more thoughts of leaving an organization, and lowered job attitudes and performance

Telecommuting

refers to working remotely. For example, some employees work from home, a remote satellite office, or from a coffee shop for some portion of the workweek

Surface acting

requires an individual to exhibit physical signs, such as smiling, that reflect emotions customers want to experience. A children's hairdresser cutting the hair of a crying toddler may smile and act sympathetic without actually feeling so. In this case, the person is engaged in surface acting. (Most emotional labor)

Deep acting

takes surface acting one step further. This time, instead of faking an emotion that a customer may want to see, an employee will actively try to experience the emotion they are displaying. This genuine attempt at empathy helps align the emotions one is experiencing with the emotions one is displaying.

Affective Events Theory (AET)

theory that explores how events on the job cause different kinds of people to feel different emotions

Psychological (stress)

Depression and anxiety are two psychological outcomes of unchecked stress, which are as dangerous to our mental health and welfare as heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes.

Type B personalities

by contrast, are calmer by nature. They think through situations as opposed to reacting emotionally. Their fight-or-flight and stress levels are lower as a result.

Role overload

having insufficient time and resources to complete a job. When an organization downsizes, the remaining employees will have to complete the tasks that were previously performed by the laid-off workers, which often leads to role overload.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

hypothesis that states the stress plays a general role in disease by exhausting the body's immune system

Genuine acting

occurs when individuals are asked to display emotions that are aligned with their own. If a job requires genuine acting, less emotional labor is required because the actions are consistent with true feelings (requires least amount of Emotional Labor)

Sabbaticals

paid time off from the normal routine at work

Positive emotions

such as joy, love, and surprise result from our reaction to desired events