Ch. 7: Managing Stress & Emotions

Information overload

Can be defined as "occurring when the information processing demands on an individual's time to perform interactions and internal calculations exceed the supply or capacity of time available for such processing."

Cognitive dissonance

A term that refers to 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.

Psychological Capital (PsyCap)

A personal resource that is useful for stress management consisting of four independent traits: efficacy (the belief that one has the ability to accomplish goals), optimism (having a positive outlook toward life), hope (having goal-directed energy and changing one's path as needed), and resilience (the ability to bounce back from negative events).

Persona

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

Affective Events Theory (AET)

A theory which argues that specific events on the job cause different kinds of people to feel different emotions. These emotions, in turn, inspire actions that can benefit or impede others at work.

Procrastination

A very poor way of managing your time.

Burnout

An ongoing negative emotional state resulting from dissatisfaction and which is characterized by low energy and feelings of emotional exhaustion.

Affect-driven behavior

Behavior that occurs when emotions trigger you to respond in a particular way.

Emotions

Defined as a short, intense feeling resulting from some event.

Role overload

Defined as 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.

Time management

Defined as the development of tools or techniques that help to make us more productive when we work.

Stress

Defined by psychologists as the body's reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental, or emotional adjustment or response. In other words, this your body's response to an environmental demand, and it is a force strong enough to move your body and mind out of alignment. One important aspect of this definition is its subjective nature. What moves you out of your balance and what you perceive as a serious demand on your mind and body will likely be different from what will be stressful to your manager, your colleagues, or your family members.

Stressors

Events or contexts that cause a stress reaction by elevating levels of adrenaline and forcing a physical or mental response. The saying "the straw that broke the camel's back" applies to these. Having a few of them in our lives may not be a problem, but because stress is cumulative, having many of them day after day can cause a buildup that becomes a problem.

Negative emotions

Examples include anger, fear, and sadness and can result from undesired events.

Positive emotions

Examples include joy, love, and surprise resulting from our reaction to desired events. These may lead to feeling peaceful, content, and calm.

Self-awareness

Exists when you are able to accurately perceive, evaluate, and display appropriate emotions.

Self-management

Exists when you are able to direct your emotions in a positive way when needed.

Relationship management

Exists when you are able to help others manage their own emotions and truly establish supportive relationships with others.

Social awareness

Exists when you are able to understand how others feel.

Emotional intelligence

How people can understand each other more completely by becoming more aware of their own and others' emotions.

Type A personalities

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

Deep acting

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. The children's hairdresser may empathize with the toddler by imagining how stressful it must be for one so little to be constrained in a chair and be in an unfamiliar environment, and the hairdresser may genuinely begin to feel sad for the child.

Positive reappraisal

Involves finding meaning in a seemingly negative life event. An example is to think of losing one's job as an opportunity to make a career change.

Psychological detachment

Involves leaving work at work. In other words, this method of recovery requires not thinking or worrying about work until the next day, and mentally focusing on non-work activities. You can think of this as mentally switching off.

Putting into perspective

Minimizing the perceived importance of a situation. Upon losing one's job, remembering that one's spouse is still employed and one does not have debt is an example.

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.

Work-life conflict

Occurs when the demands from work and non-work domains are negatively affecting one another.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

Often offered to workers as an adjunct to a company-provided health care plan. Small companies in particular use outside programs, because they don't have the needed expertise in-house.

Challenge stressors

Refer to demands and circumstances that cause stress but that also promote individual growth, such as high work pressures, high levels of responsibility, or having a lot of (high-quality) work to do.

Hindrance stressors

Refer to stress caused by factors that detract us from our goals and prevent personal growth, such as stress caused by interpersonal conflict, work-life conflict, and daily hassles such as your computer malfunctioning and being cut off in traffic.

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.

Mindfulness

Refers to paying complete attention to one's own feelings without reaction or judgment. Experiencing this state involves experiencing the present moment without thinking about the past or future. The ability to focus in the moment helps reduce the negative effects of rumination, allows one to focus, and helps with recovery following stressful events.

Anticipatory stress

Refers to stress caused by visualizing events that may (or may not) happen in the future. A stressor such as job insecurity is an example - the worry that one might lose one's job is not a certain event, but the possibility that it could happen is enough to cause stress. When we worry about an upcoming presentation, we are likely worrying about not being able to answer questions, technology malfunctions, being publicly criticized, or forgetting about our material.

Emotional labor

Refers to the regulation of feelings and expressions for organizational purposes.

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 this.

Workaholism

Refers to working excessively and compulsively. Simply working long hours does not qualify. It is the attitudes toward work and not the number of hours that sets it apart. Individuals characterized by this are always in a hurry, try to do multiple things at a time, and work long after their colleagues go home. Despite working so much, they feel as if they have not worked enough.

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. Being able to work away from the office is one option that can decrease stress for some employees.

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.

Flow

The concept of total engagement in one's work, or in other activities; a state of consciousness in which a person is totally absorbed in an activity and feels strong, alert, and in effortless control. Work that does this contains the following: 1. Challenge: the task is reachable but requires a stretch 2. Meaningfulness: the task is worthwhile or important 3. Competence: the task uses skills that you have 4. Choice: you have some say in the task and how it's carried out

Rumination

The inability to let go of past events and obsessively thinking about them, which also causes stress.

Sabbaticals

These (paid time off from the normal routine at work) have long been a sacred ritual practiced by universities to help faculty stay current, work on large research projects, and recharge every five to eight years. However, many companies such as Genentech Inc., Container Store Inc., and eBay Inc. are now in the practice of granting paid ________ to their employees.

Wellness programs

These corporate programs promote employee health and may include gym memberships, free health screenings, weight loss programs, and smoking cessation programs. Many of these programs offer financial incentives to stay healthy, while others have penalties for not participating.

Type B personalities

Those who are calmer by nature. They think through situations as opposed to reacting emotionally.