Emotion regulation & job systems

EMOTION REGULATION & JOB STRESS Casas Castro, Antonio & Enguídanos Alcón, Mª. Inmaculada // Psychology’s Thesis2017/18 ABSTRACT: Despite of growing interest in the consequences of emotional processes, it is not as often applied to organizational contexts as to other social scenarios. So the aim of this research is to explore the relationship between Emotion Regulation and stress, being evaluated with reliable and valid instruments at the workplace as we meant to. Results revealed covariation between them an significant differences within our sample. Emotions perform adaptive roles. They activate different response systems when individuals attend to relevant situations for their goals (Gross & Ochsner, 2005). However, sometimes they can harm us when inappropriate types, out of proportions, or long-standing without reason. At such moments, we must regulate them. 2 3 4 5 Mean(SD) Range Cog. ReapERQ ,512** -,102 -,212 -,069 16,48 (7,79) 1-30 Exp. SupERQ --- -,241* -,215 -,157 9,26 (5,58) 0-24 T. StrJSS --- ,610** ,239* 10,95 (3,31) 4-19 Anx.- JSS --- ,298** 14,34 (4,16) 7-24 Working week --- 30,94 (9,31) 15-40 Participants Instruments Correlation between constructs Differences between sexes ER & JS changes over the years Looking upon the working hours INTRODUCTION METHODS RESULTS CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION Procedure With Emotion Regulation (ER), we shape which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience or express these emotions (Gross, 1998). The most studied regulatory strategies (Sapolsky, 2006) are reappraisal, modifying how we appraise a situation to alter its emotional meaning; and expressive suppression, focused on inhibiting emotion-expressive behaviors. Researches (2005) found that while suppression limits expressive action of negative emotions not lessening unpleasant experiences or their consequences, cognitive reappraisal neutralizes negative experience fully. When it comes to Stress: psychological factors activate stress response chronically enough to suffer pathology (Sapolsky, 2014), and even initiate it in the absence of physiological stressor. - To consider last mentioned limitations: experimental design as key aspect. - Use of evolutive research design since we found a progression of Anxiety along age. - Attention to different targets when developing programms about emotional/ coping skills (differences in sex found). To sum up, emotions and thoughts makes us ill. That’s why their regulation becomes critical for well-being. Table 1. Pearson correlation coefficient for ERQ and JSS subscales and working week (N=80). Table 2. t-test results comparing young and old groups on both Emotion Regulation and Job Stress subscales. Figure 1. Comparison of means between males and females in the different subscales of ERQ and JSS. PURPOSE To test the ER-Stress relationship at workplace; & to go deeper in the analysis with few comparisons within the sample. HYPOTHESIS - We assume a significant correlation at least in a pair of the contrusts’ components, being expressive suppresion the most likely to be connected with job stress. - We won’t do any presumption in terms of comparisons. 80 40 females & 40 males randomly selected, from 19 to 40 years old, and working times from 15 to 40 h/ week. Extreme values were removed. Individual online surveys were completed. They included: explanation and description of the research, demographic questions and the scales. Data were collected automatically and treated anonymously. EMOTION REGULATION QUESTIONNAIRE (ERQ, 2013) Cognitive Reappraisal & Expressive Suppression. 10 items. Spanish version. Time stress & Anxiety. 9-Items version (1992). Translated into spanish by back process. JOB STRESS SCALE (JSS, 1983) Here the sample was divided into part-time (< 30h/week) vs full-time work (≥ 30h/week). But, this time none remarkable result was provided by t-test. There was a significant difference in the score for women and men in Cognitive Reappraisal, being higher for women (M = 18.53, SD = 7.45) than men (M = 14.43, SD = 7.67): t (78)= 2.42*, p = .018. This difference was maintained in Time stress, showing women a mean of 11.70 (SD = 3.66) versus 10.20 of men (SD = 2.77); t (78)= 2.06, p = .042. Cabello, R., Salguero, J.M., Fernández-Berrocal, P. & Gross, J.J. (2013). A Spanish Adaptation of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 29(4): 234-240. Goffman, E. (1959). Presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Overlook Press. Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: an integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299 Gross J. J. (2014). Emotion Regulation: Conceptual and Empirical Foundations. In: J. Gross (ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 2nd ed (pp. 3-20). New York: Guilford Publications Gross, J. J. & Ochsner, K. N. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(5) 242-249. Parker, D. F., & Decotiis, T. A. (1983). Organizational determinants of job stress. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 32, 160-177. Sapolsky, R. M. (2006). Stress, StressRelated Disease, and Emotion Regulation. In: J. Gross (ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 1st ed (pp. 606-615). New York: Guilford Publications. Acknowledges: Antonio Caballer, Eva Cifre, Valeria Colombo, Sophie Marshall & Esteban Villar. Young group Adult group α t Mean SD Mean SD ERQ Cog. Reap 17.09 7.88 14.00 7.11 .157 1.43 Exp. Sup 9.45 5.97 8.50 3.74 .431 .80 JSS T. Str 11.00 3.30 10.75 3.74 .789 .27 Anx. 13.88 4.15 16.19 3.81 .046 -2.02* * p < .05 // ** p < .01 Cog. Reap: Cognitive reappraisal; Exp. Sup: Expressive supression; T.Str: Time stress; Anx: anxiety * p < .05 Young group: 19-29 years old; Adult group: 30-40 y.o. Females Males 14.43 18.53 10.03 8.5 10.2 11.7 14 14.68 10 20 Cog.Reap Exp.Sup T.Str Anx Emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, job stress and anxiety.Keyword Scan this QR code to get access to the bibliography used and more info about this thesis! - Use of correlational study (correlation doesn’t imply causation). - Irregular distribution of the sample in comparison of age. - No inclusion of the labour sector for a wider perspective/ analysis. Limitations & Difficulties Future directions At the end, statistical results provided evidences supporting our hypothesis. The most remarkable and surprising one is the negative correlation between Expressive Suppresion and Time Stress. Such outcome may be explained by context (Gross, 2014), beliefs in time control or the type behavior to be suppress, among others.