In 2017, the Onassis Cultural Center in New York hosted an exhibition called “A World of Emotions” (Levere, Reference Levere2017). This exhibition was publicized as “Bringing to vivid life the emotions of the people of ancient Greece, and prompting questions about how we express, control, and manipulate feelings in our own society” (Onassis USA, 2017). The historical epoch covered was from 700 BC to AD 200, very roughly from a time near the end of the classical period to the middle of the Hellenistic period. One commentary on this exhibition suggested: “These objects provide a timely opportunity to think about the role of feelings in our personal, social and political lives and help advance the relatively new field of the history of emotions” (Levere, Reference Levere2017).
While this exhibition focused on the ancient Greeks, it is important to understand that they were hardly the first people to think and write about affect – consider that the Epic of Gilgamesh and the biblical book of Exodus, among others, predated classical Greek writings. In the prologue of the Epic of Gilgamesh – which many believe to be the first surviving great work of literature – the author, Sîn-lēqi-unninni, referring to his hero, writes: “He had seen everything, experienced all emotions” (Mitchell, Reference Mitchell2004, p. 8). Clearly emotions were perceived as critically relevant to life. In Exodus, we see the Israelites groaning to God to release them from their misery (Exodus 2:23–25; 3:7). The Greek contribution to the characterization of emotion, shared by Chinese thinkers (Virág, Reference Virág2017), was that they were willing to consider “hot” affect rationally. That is, they applied the lens of reason to human feelings. To be sure, their analysis was pre-scientific; the institutions of science would not be invented for another few centuries. However, through introspection, careful thought, and dialogue, these ancient thinkers were able to arrive at ideas that were surprisingly modern or, at least, surprisingly recognizable to a contemporary audience. Plato, for example, divided the soul into three parts: reason, spirit, and appetite (for a review, see Annas, Reference Annas2003). In the healthy mind, reason, which was the smallest of the three, would mediate between the other two (Dixon, Reference Dixon2003), which roughly translate to anger/temper (spirit) and love, hunger, thirst (appetite). The Epicureans grounded their goal of a flourishing life in terms of affect. Like modern Utilitarians, they saw the best life as one that cultivated pleasure and avoided pain (Cooper, Reference Cooper2012). However, concerning emotion, perhaps the most sophisticated ancient thinkers were the Stoics. Stoic philosophers viewed negative emotion (pathē) as occurring when we give irrational “assent” to bodily feelings (Graver, Reference Graver2007). In other words, the pathē are a consequence of dysfunctional judgments (cognitions), and people can improve their well-being by controlling their thinking (Sellers, Reference Sellers2006). If the reader finds this familiar, it is likely more than a serendipitous resemblance. Stoic philosophical thought influenced the development of modern cognitive behavioral therapy (Robertson, Reference Robertson2017).
With so auspicious a history, one would think that emotion would have become a major topic in organizational psychology and organizational behavior (OB) as the disciplines developed after World War II. Sadly, this was not to be, despite a promising start in the 1930s. During that decade, researchers experimented with a diversity of ideas and methodologies. For example, in his 1932 book Workers’ Emotions in Shop and Home, Rexford Hersey tracked railroad employees’ daily moods over a period of months. He mapped mood cycle and found that negative mood (when compared to positive and neutral moods) was related to lower job performance. Reports of the Hawthorne Studies, so named because they were conducted at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Manufacturing facility, began in the 1920s and would continue into the 1950s (e.g. Baritz, 1960; Mayo, Reference Mayo1930). These studies examined, among other things, the variability of emotion over time, mutual sentiments with teams, and hostility. Of course, these older studies had a number of problems that have been identified by modern scholars (Muldoon, Reference Muldoon2017). Still, the Hawthorne studies used a number of methodologies, such as observations and test-room interventions, that showed promise (Mayo, Reference Mayo1933; Reference Mayo1945).
Despite this promising research, post-war researchers attended mostly to other concerns (Grandey, Reference Grandey, Barling and Cooper2008). It was this unwelcoming conceptual landscape that led Mowday and Sutton (Reference Mowday and Sutton1993, p. 197) to lament that employees were depicted as “cognitive stick figures whose behavior is unaffected by emotion.” About the same time, Pekrun and Frese (Reference Pekrun and Frese1992, p. 152) famously mused, “We should not have consented to write an article on work and emotion” because “in order to do a review, one needs literature that can be reviewed.” Brief and Weiss (Reference Weiss, Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002) describe this period as “the Leaner Years” (p. 279), though eventually it gave way to the “Hot 1990s” or what Barsade, Brief, and Spataro (Reference Barsade, Brief, Spataro and Greenberg2003, p. 3) would call “affective revolution.” How organizational psychology and organizational behavior got past the leaner years and into the affective revolution is a story of overcoming two challenges – the first of which was the cognitive revolution, and the second of which was a lack of a shared language.
Beginning in the 1950s, the so-called “cognitive revolution” dominated scientific psychology (Miller, Reference Miller2003). Among other things, this intellectual movement emphasized such concepts as “information, computation, and feedback” (Pinker, Reference Pinker2002, p. 31, italics in original). Whatever its merits, the cognitive revolution had a deleterious effect on affect research (Ashforth & Humphrey, Reference Ashforth and Humphrey1995). It is widely believed that the cognitive models simply displaced interest in affect, and this is somewhat true. However, it is more precise to say that during the leaner years, affect was understood in terms of cognitive processing and, therefore, the former was subordinate to the latter. For example, affect was described as contained within cognitive schemas (Sujan & Bettman, Reference Sujan and Bettman1989), tagged to a schema (Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, & Milberg, Reference Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie and Milberg1987), or resulting from a discrepancy between a real-world event and a schema (Purcell, Reference Purcell1986). In each case, the cognitive schema is the focal concept; affect is a component, an appendage, or an outcome, respectively.
The second challenge was the lack of a shared language for discussing affect. Without a common language, affect researchers were in no position to meet the trials posed by the cognitive revolution. This state of affairs existed because basic concepts – affect, attitude, mood, and emotion – had yet to be distinguished from one another. For example, “attitudes” were viewed as a type of affect. On this thinking, job satisfaction studies, of which there were many, became affect research. In an influential series of papers, Weiss and his colleagues (Brief & Weiss, Reference Weiss, Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002; Weiss, 2001; Weiss & Brief, Reference Weiss, Brief, Payne and Cooper2001; Weiss & Cropanzano, Reference Weiss, Cropanzano, Staw and Cummings1996) hammered out a solution to this problem. “Affect” is understood to be a general term that refers to people’s feelings about objects or events. A “mood” is free-floating affect, unattached to a stimulus. When compared to emotions, moods tend to be of longer duration and less intense. “Attitudes” are multifaceted constructs, which contain affect but also include characteristic cognitions and behavioral predispositions. Emotions are generally of shorter duration and greater intensity than moods, and are directed at a target, as when you feel “angry” with a coworker or “happy” with a performance review.
Eventually, this better conceptualizing of our topic would allow affect researchers to provide strong alternatives to cognitively oriented theories of work behavior. Addressing these two challenges greatly increased the volume of affect research (Grandey, Reference Grandey, Barling and Cooper2008). Having lived through this period, one gets the feeling of watching a reservoir, filled well past capacity, just as the dam breaks. When it broke there was a flood, as the number of published articles on mood or emotion more than doubled between 1972 and 2001 (Grandey, Reference Grandey, Barling and Cooper2008). These articles approached affect from a number of perspectives. Below, we consider the history of some of the major research traditions that provided structure and impetus for subsequent explorations on affect and emotions. We have chosen the areas of emotional labor, affectivity and discrete emotions (focusing on positive and negative affectivity and affective events theory), and emotional intelligence, as these areas particularly have had frequent, long-term, consistent, and far-reaching academic and applied impact.
The Sociology of Workplace Emotion: Display Rules and Emotional Labor
Perhaps because of the influence of the cognitive revolution, the revival of the study of affect first came not from psychologically oriented researchers, but from sociology. In the 1983 publication of The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling, Hochschild (Reference Hochschild1983) introduced the concepts of display rules and emotional labor to a management audience. This book was based on her earlier work, published a few years previously (Hochschild, Reference Hochschild1979). Reflecting her sociological background, Hochschild employed both observational methods and intensive interviewing.Footnote 1 She profiled the often extreme pressure felt by employees due to the perceived necessity of managing their own emotions. Flight attendants and bill collectors repeatedly reported frequent circumstances of having to “put on a show” to navigate the emotional landscape during interactions on the job. There followed a series of articles that underscored the centrality of emotional displays at work (Rafaeli, Reference Rafaeli1989; Rafaeli & Sutton, Reference Rafaeli and Sutton1987, Reference Rafaeli and Sutton1990; Sutton, Reference Sutton1991; Sutton & Rafaeli, Reference Sutton and Rafaeli1988).
Apart from research on display rules, Hochschild (Reference Hochschild1979; Reference Hochschild1983) further paved the way for future investigations of emotion regulation and emotional labor. This work highlighted two broad processes that employees could use to manage emotions: surface acting (managing the expression of, but not the felt, emotion) and deep acting (managing or modulating the felt emotion). By the late 1990s and early 2000s, emotional labor had become a major area of study (e.g. Ashforth & Humphrey, Reference Ashforth and Humphrey1993; Brotheridge, Reference Brotheridge and Miller1999; Grandey, Reference Grandey2000, Reference Grandey2003; Morris & Feldman, Reference Morris and Feldman1996), and this continues to the present. In this volume, we devote four full chapters to the topic – Chapter 11 on display rules and emotional regulation, Chapter 21 on service encounters, Chapter 22 on emotion management, and Chapter 23 on emotional labor. But here we are getting ahead of our story, for by the 1990s, researchers were beginning to stir.
The Psychology of Workplace Emotion: Affectivity and Discrete Emotions
While Hochschild (Reference Hochschild1979; Reference Hochschild1983) may have originally taken a sociological perspective on workplace emotion, her contributions go well beyond any single discipline. An analysis that emphasizes emotional displays, which Hochschild provided, demands a broader look at the causes and consequences of workplace emotion for the workers themselves and for others around them. We mention several works that bridged the passageway from emotional labor primarily being “housed” in sociology, to psychologists recognizing the critical explanatory and applied power of emotional labor concepts in the work setting, emphasizing the very personal nature and outcomes of emotional labor. For example, in 1993 the book Emotion in organizations, edited by Fineman, demonstrated this bridge. While the book contained chapters dedicated to emotional labor (James, Reference James and Fineman1993; Putnam & Mumby, Reference Putnam, Mumby and Fineman1993), and a preface by Hochschild (Reference Hochschild and Fineman1993), there was much beyond this. There were chapters on discrete emotions, including fear (Flam, Reference Flam and Fineman1993) and nostalgia (Gabriel, Reference Gabriel and Fineman1993). In like fashion, Ashforth and Humphrey (Reference Ashforth and Humphrey1995) also considered research on display rules in the workplace, which by that time was beginning to mature, but these authors added a more general analysis and critique (for a similar but more current view, see Elfenbein, Reference Elfenbein, Walsh and Brief2007). Also deserving mention is the book Emotions in the workplace, edited by Lord, Klimoski, and Kanfer (Reference Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002). Its publisher claimed it to be “the first to bring together recent findings in one place and present a solid industrial/organizational research perspective on this complex area of inquiry.” Works such as these brought the study of emotions in the workplace to the forefront of inquiry and challenged the “all things cognitive” consensus and paradigm that had primarily prevailed since the cognitive revolution.
Positive and Negative Affectivity
During the 1980s, a number of social–personality psychologists began to take a hard look at the concept of moods. When research participants rated themselves or others on words pertaining to affect, the resulting factor solution produced two dimensions. When this solution was then rotated 45°, the dimensions pertained to two hedonic types of affect – positive affect and negative affect (Tellegen, Reference Tellegen, Tuma and Maser1985; Watson & Clark, Reference Watson and Clark1992). In other words, positive and negative feelings were independent of one another (Burke, Brief, George, Roberson, & Webster, Reference Burke, Brief, George, Roberson and Webster1989). An individual could be high on both, low on both, or high on one and low on the other (Larsen & McGraw, Reference Larsen and McGraw2011; Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, Reference Larsen, McGraw and Cacioppo2001). From the vantage point of more than three decades later, we have learned to become comfortable with the positive affect/negative affect factor structure. However, at the time it was a counterintuitive breakthrough, providing a conceptual and measurement model for research in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. According to Watson and Clark (Reference Watson and Clark1984), positive affect and negative affect were characteristic of both states (temporary fluctuations in mood) and traits (long-term predispositions to feel good or bad)–positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA). With some justification, Watson and Tellegen (Reference Tellegen, Tuma and Maser1985, p. 219) were able to proclaim that “psychology has re-discovered affect.”
It is worth noting that the affective circumplex model (Russell, Reference Russell1980) complicated positive affect and negative affect research. As noted above, the separation of positive from negative affect came from a 45° rotation of affect ratings. However, if these findings were not rotated, then a different solution appeared. There were again two factors. The strong first factor was “hedonic tone” or “pleasantness” (Larsen & Diner, Reference Larsen, Diener and Clark1992; Weiss & Cropanzano, Reference Weiss, Cropanzano, Staw and Cummings1996). It ranged from highly negative, through neutral, to highly positive. The weaker second factor was “intensity” or “activation.” It ranged from low intensity to high (Judge & Larsen, Reference Judge and Larsen2001). Following from earlier work, organizational scholars have integrated these two solutions – positive affect/negative affect and hedonic tone/intensity – into the affective circumplex, suggesting that mood can be represented by either set of axes (Cropanzano, Weiss, Hale, & Reb, Reference Cropanzano, Weiss, Hale and Reb2003; Grandey, Reference Grandey, Barling and Cooper2008).
With these structural issues addressed, research on workplace affect began to build quickly. For example, Staw, Bell, and Clausen (Reference Staw, Bell and Clausen1986) found evidence for the relationship of trait affect and job satisfaction by doing a retrospective reanalysis of archival data. Using data collected over a near fifty-year timespan, they showed a small but significant relationship between affective dispositions and job satisfaction at several later points in time. Likewise, Cropanzano, James, and Konovsky (Reference Cropanzano, James and Konovsky1993) found that NA and PA predicted work attitudes, including job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This work has withstood the test of time. In one of the first meta-analyses examining affectivity and job satisfaction, Connolly and Viswesvaran (Reference Connolly and Viswesvaran2000) reported fairly strong relationships between PA and job satisfaction (.49) and NA and job satisfaction (−.33). Later meta-analyses would further document this relationship (Bowling, Hendricks, & Wanger, Reference Bowling, Hendricks and Wagner2008; Bruk-Lee, Khoury, Nixon, Goh, & Spector, Reference Bruk-Lee, Khoury, Nixon, Goh and Spector2009), as well as extending it to other work attitudes (Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren, & de Chermont, Reference Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren and de Chermont2003).
These examples, though well known, only scratch the surface. A large body of research has examined the relations between employee affect and employee performance, in a variety of forms, such as creative performance, task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior. Isen and Baron (Reference Isen, Baron, Cummings and Staw1991; see also Isen Reference Isen and Russ1999) maintained that positive affect predicts creative work behavior, an interesting finding that was later amended. George and Zhou (Reference George and Zhou2002) found that positive moods boosted creative performance among people who were high in clarity of feelings, and who also worked in environments that rewarded and recognized creativity. When employees were low in clarity of feelings, while working in environments that did not reward and recognize creativity, then positive mood was negatively related to creative performance.
Likewise, attention was devoted to the relationship between affect, especially positive, and negotiator behavior. Carnevale and Isen (Reference Carnevale and Isen1986) reported that PA boosted integrative solutions while bargaining. Baron (Reference Baron1990) found that positive moods encouraged bargainers to be more cooperative and less contentious. Furthermore, George (Reference George1995) and Barsade (Reference Barsade2002) found that positive leader mood promotes leader effectiveness, a finding that is supported by contemporary research (Joseph, Dhanani, Shen, McHugh, & McCord, Reference Joseph, Dhanani, Shen, McHugh and McCord2015). There was also a flurry of interest in mood and OCB: some studies found that affectivity was a reliable predictor (George, Reference George1991; George & Brief, Reference George and Brief1992; Lee & Allen, Reference Lee and Allen2002), while others were less supportive (Organ & Konovsky, Reference Organ and Konovsky1989; Williams & Anderson, Reference Williams and Anderson1991). Clarifying these matters, a meta-analysis by Kaplan, Bradley, Luchman, and Haynes (Reference Kaplan, Bradley, Luchman and Haynes2009) found that PA was positively related to job performance ratings and organizational citizenship behaviors, whereas NA was negatively related to these criteria. NA also predicted counterproductive work behavior (for similar findings, see Dalal, Reference Dalal2005). Here we mention a few chapters in our volume specifically relevant to the discussion of affect and performance: Chapter 9 (on emotion and various forms of job performance); Chapter 10 (on affect, creativity and innovation); Chapter 13 (on affect and workplace judgment and decision-making); and Chapter 25 (Performance management and workplace affect).
By the 1990s, research on PA and NA was an important driver of the affective revival. This scholarly interest in affect is reflected throughout the present volume; see Chapters 3 (on personality and affect); 4 (workplace affect and motivation); 25 (performance management and workplace affect); 27 (gender and workplace affect); and 32 (happiness in its many forms). However, there was a dark lining to this silver cloud. In a manner of speaking, the two-factor model of affect had become too successful. Research on affect had indeed returned, but research on discrete emotions, specifically, continued to lag (Gooty, Gavin, & Ashkanasy, Reference Gooty, Gavin and Ashkanasy2009; Lazarus & Cohen-Charash, Reference Lazarus, Cohen-Charash, Payne and Cooper2001; Weiss & Brief, Reference Weiss, Brief, Payne and Cooper2001).
Affective Events Theory
Affective events theory (AET) is a general theory of workplace emotion that seeks to describe within-person changes in affective states (Weiss, Reference Weiss, Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002; Weiss & Cropanzano, Reference Weiss, Cropanzano, Staw and Cummings1996). According to AET, these fluctuations are stochastic. There are regular changes in affect, which oscillate according to describable laws (Weiss & Beal, Reference Weiss and Beal2005). They are predictable, though not perfectly so. Individual difference traits are important to AET in that they shape the distribution of affective states, which are experienced by individual workers (Cropanzano, Dasborough, & Weiss, Reference Cropanzano, Dasborough and Weiss2017). At a basic level, AET posits a conceptual mismatch within many theories of workplace emotion, in that other theories use a putatively stable feature of the work environment, such as climate or support, to account for an unstable emotional state. As a result, these theories are trying to use a rough constant to account for a predictable change (Weiss & Beal, Reference Weiss and Beal2005). A more plausible approach, at least according to AET, is to consider changing workplace stimuli (events) as precursors of affective states. Initial research into the theory was supportive (Weiss, Nicolas, & Daus, Reference Weiss, Nicholas and Daus1999; Weiss, Suckow, & Cropanzano, Reference Weiss, Suckow and Cropanzano1999), and various reviews have noted the importance of AET in inspiring investigations of workplace affect, especially discrete emotions (e.g. Ashton-James & Ashkanasy, 2002; Fisher & Ashkanasy, Reference Fisher and Ashkanasy2000). This focus on discrete emotions, mentioned in the above section as well as here, represents both a lament (on the lack of empirical attention) and an invitation (for future investigations), which we also discuss in our closing chapter.
Given its influence, it is easy to forget that AET was originally developed to better understand job satisfaction (the 1996 article was entitled “An affective events approach to job satisfaction”), placing it squarely within the 1990s research tradition. However, its generality was recognized early on and its applications rapidly expanded to such domains as performance (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, Reference Beal, Weiss, Barros and MacDermid2005), work stress (Trougakos, Beal, Green, & Weiss, Reference Trougakos, Beal, Green and Weiss2008), and leadership (Cropanzano et al., Reference Cropanzano, Dasborough and Weiss2017).
There is another aspect of AET that bears mention. Affective events theory places a great deal of emphasis on phenomenal structure. Within the organizational research literature, the distinctions among “affect,” “mood,” and “discrete emotion,” which were discussed earlier, were articulated within the context of AET (e.g. by Weiss, Reference Weiss, Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002) and extended to levels beyond the individual, as in the study of group affect (e.g. Ilies, Wagner, & Morgeson, Reference Ilies, Wagner and Morgeson2007), team mood (e.g. Totterdell, Reference Totterdell2000), and emotional climate (e.g. Härtel, Gough, & Härtel, Reference Härtel, Gough and Härtel2006).Footnote 2 Notably, AET even provided a list of basic emotions, including such states as anger, fear, joy, and the like (Weiss & Cropanzano, Reference Weiss, Cropanzano, Staw and Cummings1996). This helped create interest in discrete emotions, which is evident in the present volume (see especially Chapters 29–35). Additionally, AET emphasized the distinction between “states” and “traits,” though this was apparent in other work as well (such as that of Watson & Clark, Reference Watson and Clark1984). In these ways, AET was more than (just) a theory. Rather, the work of Weiss and his colleagues (e.g. Brief & Weiss, Reference Weiss, Lord, Klimoski and Kanfer2002; Weiss, Reference Weiss, Brief, Payne and Cooper2001; Weiss & Beal, Reference Weiss and Beal2005; Weiss & Brief, Reference Weiss, Brief, Payne and Cooper2001) helped provide the conceptual infrastructure upon which later workplace emotion research rested.
Emotional Intelligence: Science vs. Practice
A final tradition involves the tortuous history of the study of emotional intelligence (EI). This work is thoroughly reviewed in Chapter 12. For now, we consider its historic emergence over the past few decades. The construct of EI can be defined as an “ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer, Reference Salovey and Mayer1990, p. 189). Though particular models varied, academic research originally understood EI as a set of related abilities pertaining to emotions (for an illustration of early work that helped pave the way for future EI, see Beldoch, Reference Beldoch, Davitz and Beldoch1964; for early construct and definitional clarification, see Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, Reference Mayer, Caruso and Salovey1999; Mayer & Salovey, Reference Mayer, Salovey, Salovey and Sluyter1997; Salovey & Mayer, Reference Salovey and Mayer1990). To date, the most commonly utilized model is the “four branch model,” which proposes that emotional intelligence is comprised of four related but distinguishable skills: perceiving emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions, and managing emotions (Salovey & Grewal, Reference Salovey and Grewal2005, pp. 281–282).
This early research, though relevant to work organizations, was not widely known to organizational scholars until the publication of Goleman’s book Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (Reference Goleman1995). This volume and his later publications (e.g. Goleman, Reference Goleman1998; Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, Reference Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee2002) were written in an accessible and popular style, leading to the commercialization of EI (Landy, Reference Landy2005). Additionally, Goleman (Reference Goleman1998, p. 318) reconceptualized EI, expanding it to include five broad competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Despite the name, this new concept of “emotional” intelligence is about more than emotion. For instance, it includes cognition (self-awareness), behavioral regulation (motivation), and interpersonal skills (social skills). In later work, Goleman et al. (Reference Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee2002, pp. 253–256) adjusted this list somewhat to encompass self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. They then added three to six facets for each competency, creating a full eighteen dimensions. These dimensions were broad and eclectic, including such diverse things as “service,” “initiative,” “accurate self-assessment,” and “change catalyst.”
It is important to recognize that Goleman (Reference Goleman1995, Reference Goleman1998) did not simply establish a different model. Rather, this work went so far beyond the original emotional focus that Goleman had created a different type of EI, which was substantially broader than the original construct. Consequently, this new family of theories was conceptually distinct from the original EI research. This and related “mixed models” of EI (Daus & Ashkanasy, Reference Daus and Ashkanasy2005, p. 455) combined skills, competencies, and personality traits into an ad hoc mix. This approach, the mixed model, has been criticized by researchers (e.g. Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, Reference Ciarrochi, Chan and Caputi2000; Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, Reference Mayer, Roberts and Barasade2008; Murphy, Reference Murphy2006), who are more likely to favor an ability model (Daus & Ashkanasy, Reference Daus and Ashkanasy2005; Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, Reference Mayer, Caruso and Salovey2016). However, the mixed models remain popular (cf. Goleman et al., Reference Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee2002). Despite the concerns with Goleman’s (Reference Goleman1995, Reference Goleman1998) approach to EI, it does suggest an interesting historical possibility. As we have seen, organizational research was initially slow, almost unwilling, to fully incorporate affect into models of workplace behavior (e.g. Weiss & Brief, Reference Weiss, Brief, Payne and Cooper2001). Practitioners filled this lacuna. Being closer to actual workplaces, they appear to have more deeply felt the incompleteness of academic thinking. EI research may not have been perfect, but it appealed to practitioners, especially, and helped fill the theoretical void we have discussed regarding emotions in organizational life.
Regardless of its conceptual travails, emotional intelligence remains an important construct. People high in emotional intelligence have better physical health (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, Reference Martins, Ramalho and Morin2010; Schutte, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Bhullar, & Rooke, Reference Schutte, Malouff, Thorsteinsson, Bhullar and Rooke2007) and report higher well-being (Sánchez-Álvarez, Extremera, & Fernández-Berrocal, Reference Sánchez-Álvarez, Extremera and Fernández-Berrocal2016). They also appear to be more effective workers, though this depends on how EI is measured. A meta-analysis by O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, and Story (Reference O’Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver and Story2011) found that all types of EI (ability, self-report, mixed models) predicted job performance beyond the effects of cognitive ability and personality.
Conclusion
Reflecting upon our history and with knowledge of the chapters in our volume, we can thus say with some assurance that the study of affect in work organizations has finally arrived. The history and theoretical paradigms we have reviewed here are simply the tip of the iceberg regarding current scholarship on emotions in organizational life. What follows is a series of more detailed and thorough reviews. We conclude simply with an invitation to dive into our offerings and feel confident that you will find much to stimulate your research and applied imaginings.
