Emotions at Work

Beginning in the 1980s, interest in studying emotions in organizational psychology has been on the rise. Prior to 2003, however, researchers in organizational psychology and organizational behavior tended to focus on only one or two levels of analysis. Ashkanasy argued that emotions are more appropriately conceived of as spanning all levels of organizational analysis, and introduced a theory of emotions in organizations that spans five levels of analysis. Level 1 of the model refers to within-person temporal variations in mood and emotion, which employees experience in their everyday working lives. Level 2 refers to individual differences in emotional intelligence and trait affectivity (i.e., between-person emotional variables). Level 3 relates to the perception of emotions in dyadic interactions. Level 4 relates to the emotional states and process that take place between leaders and group members. Level 5 involves organization-wide variables. The article concludes with a discussion of how, via the concept of emotional intelligence, emotions at each level of the model form an integrated picture of emotions in organizational settings.