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Find research to deepen how you understand work.

Starting a habit, listening to another person, turning experience into better judgment. Explore 67 academic publications in eight fields through questions from everyday work.

What the research found → Connections to your work

Each entry includes the study’s participants, methods and conditions. “Connection to this page” is our editorial interpretation informed by the research.

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Emotion & conflict

8 studies

Research on interpreting and expressing emotions and handling differences of opinion. It also examines the difference between suppressing emotions and reconsidering a situation to choose a response.

Original experimental research1998

Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology.

Reappraisal and expressive suppression both reduced emotional expression, but their effects on unpleasant feelings and sympathetic nervous system responses differed.

Connection to this page

Provides background for considering responses beyond suppressing facial expression when emotions are stirred.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
120 participants watched an unpleasant film under reappraisal, expressive-suppression or ordinary-viewing conditions. Subjective experience, expression and physiological responses were measured.
Scope and limitations
This was a brief experiment using a particular film. It does not identify the best response to every workplace emotion.

Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 224–237

DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.224

Diary study and randomized field experiment2013

Benefits of mindfulness at work: The role of mindfulness in emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction.

In the diary study, mindful awareness was associated with less emotional exhaustion and greater job satisfaction. Changes in the same directions were observed in the field intervention group, and relationships with surface acting were examined.

Connection to this page

Provides background for distinguishing continued emotional pretense from noticing one's state while choosing how to respond.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Conducted a five-day diary study with 219 employees and a field experiment assigning 64 people to a self-guided mindfulness practice group or a control group.
Scope and limitations
The field experiment was small. Persistence of effects, occupational differences and objective work outcomes require separate examination.

Hülsheger, U. R., Alberts, H. J. E. M., Feinholdt, A., & Lang, J. W. B. (2013). Benefits of mindfulness at work: The role of mindfulness in emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 310–325

DOI: 10.1037/a0031313

Meta-analysis2011

On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research.

Discrepancies between felt and required emotions, and surface acting, were associated with poorer well-being and negative job attitudes. Relationships differed from those for attempts to change inner feelings.

Connection to this page

Provides background for checking a person's burden and work conditions, rather than requiring them to appear cheerful at all times.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Combined 494 correlations from 95 independent studies of emotional labor.
Scope and limitations
The review mainly integrates correlational research. It cannot uniformly establish that emotional labor causes poor well-being.

Hülsheger, U. R., & Schewe, A. F. (2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research.

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16(3), 361–389

DOI: 10.1037/a0022876

Original experimental research2007

Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli.

Labeling emotions produced lower responses in the amygdala and related regions, and higher activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, than other processing conditions.

Connection to this page

Offers a way to consider noticing what surprised or worried you before reacting immediately.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Used fMRI to compare labeling emotions in evocative images with other processing conditions.
Scope and limitations
The findings concern brain activity during an image task. They do not show that putting feelings into words resolves workplace conflicts.

Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli.

Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x

Original experimental research2014

Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters.

Language adopting a slightly distanced perspective on oneself showed improvements related to psychological distance, coping with stress and behavioral ratings by third parties.

Connection to this page

Relates to reconsidering how you want to proceed before giving an immediate response.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Seven studies involving 585 people compared first-person reflection with reflection using one's name or similar language, including social-stress tasks such as presentations.
Scope and limitations
The evidence mainly concerns short experimental tasks. It does not establish that continuing a particular wording improves long-term work outcomes.

Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324

DOI: 10.1037/a0035173

Meta-analysis2003

Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis.

Both types of conflict were negatively associated with performance and satisfaction on average. The negative relationship with performance was smaller when task and relationship conflict were less closely connected.

Connection to this page

Supports returning discussion to differing assumptions, decision criteria and necessary information before moving to judgments about the person.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Combined prior research on task and relationship conflict within teams and their associations with performance and satisfaction.
Scope and limitations
This does not mean every difference of opinion is harmful. Results vary with the task and the way different forms of conflict overlap.

De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 741–749

DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.741

Meta-analysis2012

The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis.

Relationship and process conflict showed consistent negative associations. The relationship between task conflict and performance varied with its connection to relationship conflict, the team and the outcome measure.

Connection to this page

Provides background for inviting views not yet voiced while keeping differences over work separate from personal conflict.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Combined 116 studies involving 8,880 groups to examine task, relationship and process conflict in relation to group outcomes.
Scope and limitations
The study does not recommend increasing task conflict for its own sake. It does not justify saying that conflict creates creativity without considering conditions.

de Wit, F. R. C., Greer, L. L., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis.

Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 360–390

DOI: 10.1037/a0024844

Original experimental research2002

The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior.

Moods were observed spreading within groups. Positive mood contagion was associated with more cooperation, less conflict and higher subjective task-performance ratings.

Connection to this page

Provides background for considering how one's responses and expressions also shape conditions for later consultations and meetings.

Participants, methods, scope and bibliography
Participants and methods
Placed a confederate expressing pleasant or unpleasant moods at different energy levels into small decision-making groups, comparing self-reports with video-based ratings.
Scope and limitations
This was a brief group task with students. The performance ratings measured cannot be equated with objective improvements in business results.

Barsade, S. G. (2002). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior.

Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(4), 644–675

DOI: 10.2307/3094912

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