Does it matter why we try? How goal-focused extrinsic emotion regulation influences co-worker's relational outcomes

Abstract

At work and in everyday life, people regulate each other's emotions (i.e., extrinsic emotion regulation). To date, research on workplace extrinsic emotion regulation has focused primarily on the outcomes of regulation and less on why people regulate others' emotions (i.e., emotion regulation goals) and how they do it (i.e., the emotion regulation strategies used). In this paper, we investigate how regulation goals influence the regulation strategies people use to regulate their co-workers' emotions, and how these relate to co-worker relationship quality (conflict and team-member exchange). Across three studies using experimental and field study designs (Study 1: N = 216; Study 2: N = 471; Study 3: N = 277 co-workers regulated by N = 143 employees) we find that employees with pro-hedonic goals are more likely to use the strategy of receptive listening (allowing co-workers to talk about their problems), which is associated with lower relationship conflict. Employees with instrumental goals, specifically keeping up appearances at work, are more likely to use expressive suppression (asking co-workers to suppress expressions of emotion), which is associated with higher relationship conflict and lower team-member exchange. These results extend theoretical insights into extrinsic emotion regulation and have important practical implications for promoting high-quality interactions between colleagues as well as interventions for building positive workplace cultures and emotion regulation norms within organizations.