Affect Influence In Work Place

Question: Discuss about the Report for Affect Influence In Work Place. Answer: Introduction Affect is a broad range of feelings that individuals experience, including feeling states to examine the importance of affect in organization life as affect has a critical or significant association with organization life and its outcome. Studies have been done to determine how understanding feelings can help researchers, managers, and employees themselves, explain and predict attitudes and behavior in organizations from turnover to decision making to leadership and address how research is seen through the lens of affect causing people to think differently, examine specific relationships between affect and decision making, creativity, group dynamics, and individual behaviors such as turnover, helping behavior, negotiation, and leadership among individual, groups and in organization, determine if there challenges that is brought by affect in organizations and if present what kind of challenges people face in day to day operation at work place or in organization that will help in drawi ng conclusions on the way forward in dealing with affects in organization (Barsade Gibson, 2007). Theoretical base Affect has been viewed as an umbrella encompassing a broad range of feelings that individuals experience, where human affective experience is summarized in an affective circumflex based on two factors pleasantness and energy. In cooperating empirical test of state versus trait affective measures where dispositional affect is more easily measured than mood, and much easier than measuring discrete emotions, and emotional intelligence model that is founded in four factors: Perceiving Emotions, this is the extent to which a person is able to attend to their emotion and being able to read emotions of others, putting emotions into practice by using emotions that promotes cognitive affectivity, being knowledgeable and well informed on emotions through understanding all complicated and dynamic emotions and managing emotions by being able to regulate and control owns and others emotions (Barsade Gibson, 2007). Literature review Literature on creativity that have been made for the influence of positive against negative affect states and traits on creativity (James, Brodersen, Jacob, 2004) it states that positive affect leads to a more complex, flexible thinking, allowing a broader choice of elements to come together and increasing chances of people putting together all of the cognitive elements that are available at that particular moment, Psychological literature that explains how positive mood is associated with helping behavior in general (Salovey, Mayer, Rosenhan, 1991) It states that workers who possess positive moods at work are more likely to engage in Prosocial behavior both in terms of what their job requires and even outside their job description by either engaging in community work or helping peers, Literature of affect in psychology, that deepens understanding on affect has on expansion of affect via the study of discrete emotions, the affective circumflex, emotional labor, emotional contagion, and emotional intelligence. Lastly is Literature on cost to masking authentic emotions that emphasizes on acting on feeling that arent there but one can fell like there actually present, that lead to experiences of emotional dissonance and lose touch with our authentic selves (Barsade Gibson, 2007).. It also suggests that employees would be better off if they could engage in less emotion regulation and that employees need organizations where they can express themselves more in their desired state. Underpinnings Affect is based on emotional intelligence which is the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions and being able to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions (Salovey Mayer, 1990). It is also involved with Emotion Regulation and Emotional Labor that deals with degree to which employees manage or regulate their emotional expression towards others to comply with normative which can be a mechanism for increasing performance. It is also involved with emotional contagion which is a process of transferring emotions from one individual to other group members (Hatfield, Cacioppo, Rapson, 1994). Positive affect is a significant predictor of effective decision-making, interpersonal performance and ratings of managerial potential where employees who overcomes work obstacles in a positive affect tend to reap more favorable outcomes and benefits an there work place. Methods There is a strong relationship between trait positive affect measures and various measures of work performance. These measures are: job satisfaction and surveys but due to complexity in this measure more methods are required, these are; controlled mood inductions, diary studies, daily experience sampling research, coding of behavior in situations and video coding (Barsade Gibson, 2007). Applicability Affect can be applied by managers at work place in different capacity: Decision making; managers affect influence decision making in either in a positive or negative manner altering the outcome, creativity where Positive affect influences creativity positively by leading to a state of cognitive processing, turnover/Absence positive affectivity is associated with reduced absence and intention to turnover where else negative affectivity is associated with increased absence (George Jones, 1996), prosocial behavior where employees who experience positive affects at work are more likely to engage in Prosocial behavior beyond their job description. Negative affect make anti-social behaviors (George, 1991), leadership where positive affectivity is useful in transformational leadership behaviors that can be applied in an organization by the leaders, and performance positively associated with customer evaluations of service quality (Pugh, 2001). The leaders positive mood influence group coor dination and effort (Sy, Saavedra, 2005). Negotiation and Conflict Resolution in the sense that managers with positive mood will be at better position to resolve any conflict occurring at work place this is through induced innovative conflict resolving strategies. Collective affect and team behavior that can be done through two ways; diversifying the degree of difference in affective traits that exists between group members to influence outcome and affective composition of the various affective attributes of the groups members in order to influence emotions and outcome. Contribution Affect has sparked new research on ignored constructs such as attachment relationships and their influence on individuals behaviors in organizations and life. It has focused on conscious feelings and expressions by tracing them to their source to regulate them. It induces particular emotional expressions to influence others (Gibson Schroeder, 2002), and it has an ability to conduct rigorous empirical research to better understand how these phenomena occur (Glassman Andersen, 1999). Impact on our conscious feelings and behavior by developing research on affective processes on subconscious or unconscious emotions levels include the automatic mimicry of others emotions characterizing emotional contagion, automatic emotion regulation and emotional unconscious that explains the state at which an individual is aware of his or her current emotional state, but not being aware of the source of that state that can come from current or previous experience. Lastly, it shape current behaviors c onsciously or even people are unaware of changes in their emotions and feelings. Conclusion In conclusion Affect influences critical organizational variables as when expressing positive emotions and moods tends to enhance performance at individual, group, and organizational levels. Also negative affect influence is complex, where this can poison organizations culture by negatively influencing leaders perception leading to violence. Measurement for work related affect has really changed by becoming more sophisticated, Affective experiences arise through face-to-face interactions with little occurring through text however text-based technology on emotions must be explored this is because most of communications in organizations takes place through messages or text based means to express nonverbal emotions and tones. Lastly Affect is instrumental because employees are emotionally active as they bring themselves to work together with their traits, moods, and emotions, and their affective experiences and expressions which at long run influence others either positively or negative ly, making it worthwhile studying and understanding how these affective experiences and expressions operate as they influence organizational outcomes. Reference Barsade, S. G., Gibson, D. E. (2007). Why does affect matter in organizations? The Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(1), 36-59. George, J.M., Jones, G.R. (1996). The experience of work and turnover intentions: Interactive effects of value attainment, job satisfaction, and positive mood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(3), 318325. Gibson, D.E., Schroeder, S. (2002). Grinning, frowning, and emotionless Managing Emotions in the Workplace (pp. 184211) Glassman, N. S., Andersen, S. M. (1999). Activating transference without consciousness. 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