linking distressing work conditions with emotions

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Linking Work Conditions to Unpleasant Affect: Cognition, Categorisation and Goals

Kevin Daniels Business School Loughborough University United Kingdom

Claire Harris Manchester School of Management UMIST United Kingdom

Rob B. Briner Department of Organizational Psychology Birkbeck College University of London United Kingdom

Address for correspondence: Kevin Daniels, Business School, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, United Kingdom. Telephone +44 1509 223111: +44 1509 223961.

Acknowledgements: We are grateful for the constructive comments provided by Dr Olga Tregaskis and anonymous reviewers. Preparation of this paper has been supported by Health and Safety Executive grant no. 3927/R62.085.

Published as: Daniels, K., Harris, C., Briner, R.B. (2004). Linking work conditions to unpleasant affect: cognition, categorisation and goals. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 343-364. This is not the copy of record.

Linking Work Conditions to Unpleasant Affect: Cognition, Categorisation and Goals

Current approaches to work stress do not address in detail the mental processes by which work events cause unpleasant affect. We propose a cognitive account that incorporates: 1) the distinction between controlled and automatic information processing; 2) the categorisation of emotionally relevant stimuli; 3) the role of mental models in coping choice; 4) the enactment of beneficial job conditions through coping; and 5) reciprocal influences between cognition and affect. We conclude by discussing how this account can help explain a range of findings in the work stress literature and how a cognitive approach to work stress informs practice.

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A long-standing line of organisational research focuses on the relationship between work and wellbeing. Commonly known as stress research, there is little systematic treatment of emotions in this literature (Cooper, Dewe & O’Driscoll, 2001). This is curious, since a central idea in stress research is that unpleasant affective reactions to work can be deleterious to psychological health, physical health and behaviours related to performance (Danna & Griffin, 1999). Researchers have identified many work conditions that are related to stress and emotions at work (e.g. Pekrun & Frese, 1992; Warr, 1999). Yet, although clearly an interpretative process (Lazarus, 1999), the way in which the environment influences unpleasant affect remains unclear (Parkinson, 1995). Given the successful application of cognitive principles in other areas of occupational psychology (Hodgkinson, 2003), a cognitive approach represents a promising route to clarifying the relationship between work and unpleasant affect. There is another, practical, imperative for exploring the influence of cognition on affect at work. The contemporary workplace is, more than ever, based on transfer, interpretation and manipulation of information (Sparrow, 2003). Although understanding how individuals interpret and consequently enact their work environment has always been important (Hodgkinson, 2003), it is arguably more so now (Hodgkinson & Sparrow, 2002). It is timely, then, to build upon advances in cognitive understanding of affect (e.g. Power & Dalgleish, 1997) and adapt them to understanding unpleasant affect in organisations. Here, we build a cognitive model by integrating aspects of several related areas of theory: appraisal theory (e.g. Lazarus, 1999); Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996); approaches based on cognitive information processing (Power & Dalgleish, 1997); action-control theories (e.g. Frese & Zapf, 1994); and the job demands-control-support model (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). As well as integrating other approaches, we deal with the cognitive processes by which people come to categorise work events so that these events are inferred to cause unpleasant affect. We also deal with reciprocal influences between affect and the processes that generate and modify affect. The unique contributions of the model are that it can account for a broader range of organisational phenomena and imply a broader range of interventions than other approaches. First, 2

we provide a broad overview of the model. We then elaborate upon this overview and explain specific processes in more detail. We conclude by discussing how the model adds to previous approaches, how it accounts for a range of findings in the literature, its implications for methods and how it illuminates organisational practice. A cognitive model of work events and unpleasant affect Imagine you are working toward promotion. Your boss asks you to demonstrate your potential by completing, on time, a difficult project that involves managing other professionals. The deadline is near and one of the team hasn’t yet written his part of the report. Your promotion is on the line, the report could be late and you feel angry with your colleague. Knowing her to be supportive, you approach your boss about your uncooperative colleague and your boss hauls him into her office. Consequently, your colleague works late into the night, completing his part of the report. You no longer feel angry with your colleague, but since you needed your boss to manage your colleague, you now feel anxious that you might not get the promotion after all. Now imagine you are working on a project and you are late with your work. You are called into see your boss and she shouts at you. Your boss is a middle-aged woman – much like your first boss after leaving university, who would lose her temper easily with staff, shout at them, belittle them in front of others and bully them. When you worked for your previous boss, this made you very anxious, as it threatened your image as a competent professional. Unconsciously, you make connections between the similarities of your current situation to your prior experience and you begin to feel anxious. Previously, you had worked longer hours to prove your professional commitment. Immediately after your meeting with your current boss, you feel compelled to return to your office and remain there until you have completed your work. Yet you remain unaware of why you feel so compelled to act in this way. These two scenarios illustrate two major processes by which work causes us to feel unpleasant affect. In the first process, affect is caused by an appraisal that events have implications for achieving desired goals. In the second, unpleasant affect is caused by a process 3

analogous to classical conditioning: similarities between current events and previous events stimulate feelings felt in the past. In both cases, attempts are made to reduce feelings of unpleasant affect. Our purpose, then, is to explain both these processes and how we manage, or cope with, events that cause unpleasant affect at work. In the rest of this section, we explain the major processes underlying our model, which are illustrated in figure 1. INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE The first major component of the model (box a in figure 1) places the perception of work events as the initial trigger of unpleasant affect. Work events are thought to mediate the influence of the more stable aspects of the work environment, such as the level of task demands, on affect (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). It is the cognitive interpretation - or appraisal - of these events that causes affect (Frijda, 1986; Lazarus, 1999). Cognitive interpretation is determined by categorisation (boxes b) amd f)), the process by which two or more objects or events are treated equivalently in some way (Smith & Medin, 1981). Categorisation affords induction: work events with similar properties can be predicted to behave in similar ways. Therefore, how a work event is categorised determines how information about that event is processed. In our model, there are two processes of categorisation that form the initial stages of appraisal. Each process corresponds to one of the examples given above. The first process entails controlled processing (first example above, upper half of figure 1). The second process involves automatic processing (second example, bottom half of figure 1). Controlled processing is constrained by attentional limits, but is flexible and under intentional control. Automatic processing is unintentional and involuntary. Intentions formed at this level are developed without conscious awareness (cf. how the individual behaved in the second example). Controlled processing can place greater emphasis on the characteristics of the environment, but automatic processing is effortless, faster and allows parallel execution of multiple cognitive tasks (see Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977 for further information).

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Controlled categorisation (box b) activates information so that an inference can be made concerning how an event influences progress toward personal goals (box c). Goals are cognitive representations of desired future states (Austin & Vancouver, 1996). Goals are hierarchical and more sub-ordinate goals are more concrete, have more specific time horizons (Carver & Scheier, 1990) and, to form plans, are conflated with actions to achieve goals (Frese & Zapf, 1994). A goal object is that upon which action is directed to achieve a goal (Frese & Zapf, 1994). In the first example, the relationship between promotion and completing a difficult project illustrates the hierarchical nature of goals, where the action is completing the report and the report is the goal object. To make an inference concerning goal progress and subsequent actions to cope with the event, information is assembled as a mental model. A mental model is a simplified cognitive representation of the event and what to do about the event (comprising boxes b), c) and i), see Johnson-Laird, 1989). Evidence indicates people do have integrated views on how aspects of the work environment influence goals such as work performance and how actions might regulate these aspects of the work environment and their consequences (Daniels, Harris & Briner, 2002). The mental model is assembled ‘on-line’ in working memory. Working memory is concerned with tasks such as problem solving, decision making, making inferences and reasoning (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). In the case of controlled processing, the mental model is formed by combining information perceived in the environment and from pre-existing – or latent - mental models recalled from long-term memory (box d in our model, see Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). Long term memory is a system from which information is recalled for use in working memory, and to which working memory delivers new information for long term storage (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971). The inference concerning goal progress (box c) might concern progress to higher order goals, more sub-ordinate goals, the success of plans or the status of goal objects (see the first example above). In turn, if goal progress is perceived to be impeded and slower than desired, then unpleasant 5

affect occurs (Carver & Scheier, 1990; Lawrence, Carver & Scheier, 2002). In our model, this is shown as the relationship between boxes e) and m). As we show later, specific unpleasant affects can be differentiated according to whether the inference is oriented toward the future and based on expectancies of impediments to goal progress, oriented toward the past and based inferences of loss or failure, and the extent to which controlled processing is engaged relative to automatic processing. The second example above illustrates how automatic processing causes unpleasant affect. After automatic categorisation of the work event (box f), an ‘on-line’ mental model is assembled that in turn influences affect and coping (comprising boxes f, g and j). Here, because processing is automatic, there is much greater emphasis on the recall of latent mental models stored in long term memory to construct mental models in working memory (box h in our model, see Schank, 1982). The latent mental model stored in long term memory contains information on events of a similar nature that have been learnt to reduce goal progress (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Such mental models already contain connections to the cognitive experience of affect because of past inference of goal relevance (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Akin to the process of conditioning, then, certain types of events become strongly associated with certain unpleasant affects and they elicit the experience of those affects (box m), often without conscious awareness. Indeed, evidence indicates people do have cognitive links between perceptions of the work environment and particular affects (Basch & Fisher, 2000; Daniels et al, 2002). In the second example, the boss shouting was similar enough to a previous boss shouting to remind the individual, unconsciously, how they used to feel and so that affective tone is again experienced (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Mental models also contain information relevant to coping (Daniels et al, 2002), whether the mental models are constructed through primarily controlled or automatic processes (boxes i and j respectively). Coping consists of attempts to adapt to or otherwise regulate the affective impact of an event. We distinguish coping function from coping behaviour (Lazarus, 1999). Coping function represents what an individual is trying to achieve through coping. In the first example above, the coping function was getting a colleague to complete a section of a report on time so that progress 6

could be maintained toward higher order goals. In the second example, the coping function was reducing unpleasant affect by working harder. In this example, because automatic processes elicited coping, there was no awareness why this function was chosen. Coping function, then, is the goal of coping. In turn, coping function will activate sub-ordinate plans, which attendant actions, so that coping behaviour comes to be enacted (Hacker, 1982). However, coping function does not necessarily lead to coping behaviour. The extent to which individuals can enact behaviours to fulfil the aims of coping is also dependent upon environmental resources (Schönpflug & Battmann, 1988). We concentrate upon resources specific to the work environment: namely job control and workplace social support (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). In the first example, the boss was known to be supportive. If the right kind of job control or workplace social support is available sufficiently (box k), then coping function can become coping behaviour (box l) and unpleasant affect reduced (box m). The experience of affect or successful enactment of coping function does not terminate the process. There is considerable evidence (Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1996) that affect itself influences the cognitive processes by which events are categorised and mental models are constructed in working memory (in our model, shown as the relationships between box m and boxes b, c and i and boxes f, g and j). There is also evidence (Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1994) that affect can influence social processes that influence the presence of the environmental resources that influence coping (in our model, depicted as the relationship between box m and box k). Therefore, affective reactions to prior events are amongst the factors that influence the categorisation of a work event, inferences about that event and consequent coping reactions. Since our model is a cognitive model, it deals with the cognitive or phenomenological component of affect, rather than the expressive or physiological components (see Lang, 1988). Affect comprises two major bi-polar axes labelled positive and negative affect (Watson & Tellegen, 1985). These axes differentiate the major specific elements of unpleasant affect: anxiety, anger, depression and boredom (Daniels, 2000). High negative affect is unpleasant and relates to the more 7

specific affects of anxiety and anger. High positive affect corresponds to euphoric activation and relates to more specific affects such as enthusiasm. Its opposite, low positive affect, is unpleasant and relates to the more specific affects of sadness or depression and boredom (Watson, Clark & Carey, 1988). Building upon the general principles outlined already, we explain the model in detail in the following sections. Controlled categorisation and goals Negative events relevant to goals elicit more unpleasant affect (Lavallee & Campbell, 1995). In this section, we explain how controlled processing relates to categorisation of work events and inferences concerning goal progress, and how inferences concerning goals influence affect. Goal related categories are formed in order to make inferences on progress toward goals. Such categories are dependent on situational progress toward goals (Barsalou, 1985). Therefore, they are subject to controlled processing (Goldstone, 1994). Controlled categorisation is made by applying rule-based propositions that represent perceived causal relations and that indicate how an event influences goals1 (Smith, Patalano & Jonides, 1998). Since processing is controlled, pre-existing mental models in long-term memory have only a weak influence on the categorisation of such events (Barsalou, 1983). Rules and categories can also be developed during categorisation (Smith et al., 1998). For example, consider someone with the goal of completing a task by a deadline, and completion of that task is dependent upon co-operation from a colleague. If the colleague refuses to co-operate, then the rule is instantiated ‘LACK OF CO-OPERATION’ that activates a category ‘THINGS THAT HINDER COMPLETING TASK BY DEADLINE’. Activation of this category causes an inference on the reduced rate of goal progress, which then causes unpleasant affect. The rule may already exist in long term memory, as might an abstract category of ‘THINGS THAT PREVENT ME DOING MY JOB WELL’.

Rule-based propositions represent relationships in the form of ‘IF .. THEN ..’ statements: e.g. ‘IF I am late THEN pay will be deducted’ (Eysenck & Keane, 1990). 1

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There are distinctions between different unpleasant affects (Ortony, Clore & Collins, 1988). Greatest negative affect arises when there is an inference that an event will greatly reduce the desired rate of goal progress (Carver & Scheier, 1990). Note that the referent is the desired rate of goal progress: inferences of slow goal progress will not produce negative affect where the desired rate of goal progress is equally slow (Carver & Scheier, 1990). Also, note the prospective nature of the inference, in that the inference is related to the future achievement of goals (Ortony et al., 1988). It is also possible to distinguish between the major negative affects (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Anxiety can be the outcome of inferences that an event is a source of threats to the desired rate of goal progress. Here a threat is that which is inferred to have the potential to reduce permanently the desired rate of progress toward a goal (cf. Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Anger can be the outcome of inferences that an event is a source of obstacles to desired rate of goal progress. An obstacle is that which is inferred to have the potential to produce a temporary, rather than permanent, reduction in the desired rate of goal progress (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Low positive affect can arise in two-ways: either failure or loss of the desired rate of goal progress or absence of controlled information processing about a goal. Sadness or depression results from inferences of a failure to achieve the desired rate of goal progress, or loss of the means or objects to achieve the desired rate of goal progress (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Loss and failure are oriented toward the past (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987), in that the inference is that failure or loss has already occurred and that failure or loss is perceived to be permanent. Boredom is caused by an absence of controlled information processing about current goals (Fisher, 1993; Watt & Blanchard, 1994). This may occur when actions needed to achieve a goal become so routine, through practice, low-complexity work or high-attention surveillance work (Frese & Zapf, 1994; Pekrun & Frese, 1992), that available cognitive resources exceed those necessary to direct goal-related actions and so are directed automatically (Pekrun & Frese, 1992). The importance of a goal is a significant influence on unpleasant affect (Harris, Daniels & Briner, in press). More important goals are more closely tied to higher order goals (Austin & 9

Vancouver, 1996) and so changes in the rate of progress toward such goals have greater influence on affect because of the congruence with higher order goals (e.g. Maier & Brunstein, 2001). Higher levels of anxiety, anger and sadness result respectively from inferences concerning threats, obstacles, loss or failure of progress toward important work goals. Inferences concerning different forms of goals have divergent effects on affect, depending on whether it is easier to think of ways in which the goal can be achieved or ways of failing to achieve the goal (Higgins, 1997). Consider a goal oriented toward achieving something (i.e. an approach goal) such as completing a report before a deadline. This might be achieved by assigning other work tasks a lower priority, not taking breaks or enlisting the help of colleagues. In the case of approach goals, then, information processing is directed toward factors contributing to goal progress (Brockner, Paruchuri, Idson & Higgins, 2002). A goal oriented to avoiding failure (i.e. an avoidance goal), such as not being late with a report, directs information processing toward the many possibilities for failure (e.g. Brockner et al., 2002) such as interruptions, computer faults and unreliable colleagues. Here, factors contributing to goal impediments are more likely to be processed. Hence, unpleasant affect is more closely associated with avoidance goals (e.g. Coats, Janoff, Bulman & Alpert, 1996; Elliot, Sheldon & Church, 1997; King, Richards & Stemmerich, 1998; Roney, Higgins & Shah, 1995), although perceived impediments to both approach and avoidance goals can cause unpleasant affect. Automatic categorisation Work events need not necessarily have implications for current goals to cause unpleasant affect. During automatic processing, categories of events that have been learnt to have implications for goals produce anxiety, anger and sadness without inferences about goal progress (Power & Dalgleish, 1997), and events that have been learnt to have no implications for engaging controlled goal-related processing produce boredom. These event categories are represented in long-term memory and, because of automatic processing, have a strong influence on the categorisation of any given event in working memory (Sloman, 1996). Once activated in working memory, these 10

categories also activate the cognitive representation of the experience of the unpleasant affect that has been learnt to be associated with that event (Bower, 1981), which in turn causes that affect to be experienced (Power & Dalgleish, 1997). Categorisation of aversive work events proceeds through judgements concerning the similarity between the event and one or a few concrete and specific events that are believed to be exemplary members of a given category of aversive work events (Smith & Medin, 1981). These judgements are based on a limited number of defining features for exemplars of a given category (Goldstone, 1994). Categorisation is graded (Smith & Medin, 1981), and we consider events that share more defining features with an exemplar will be considered as more typical examples of that category of events. In the example of automatic processing given at the beginning of the paper, the exemplary event was a specific example of the previous boss shouting. The similarity of this exemplar to the current situation was judged by the features ‘BOSS’, ‘MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN’ and ‘SHOUTING’. We propose that greater similarity of a perceived event to an exemplary member of a category of aversive work events leads to greater similarity in the experience of affect to that affect elicited originally by the exemplar. Coping People try to regulate the impact of work events on unpleasant affect. This is known as coping and consists of: coping function, environmental resources and coping behaviour (Latack & Havlovic, 1992; Lazarus, 1999). Coping function is the target of coping, such as a changing the nature of the event. Environmental resources are aspects of the work environment, such as social support, which allow coping function to become enacted as coping behaviour. We propose on-line mental models contain information relevant to coping and therefore influence coping behaviour. We consider that the automatic generation of on-line mental models of coping always follows the automatic categorisation of events, since automatic categorisation is less accessible to conscious processes. However, controlled categorisation of events can proceed on the basis of controlled processing of

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coping information or automatic processing, as certain aspects of coping can become automatic with repetition (Frese & Zapf, 1994). For controlled processing, we propose that coping behaviour is influenced by coping functions that are considered to be effective and capable of being executed (Catanzaro, Wasch, Kirsch & Mearns, 2000). We expect that information processing will be directed toward specific problems with the desired rate of goal progress, and so focus on the sub-goals and plans that comprise the means to achieve that goal (Lord & Levy, 1994). We consider there to be three major influences on coping contained in on-line mental models: categorisation of an event which facilitates recall of latent mental models containing information on coping functions and associated actions that are effective for events of a similar kind; resources perceived to be available; and the importance of the goal being pursued. We propose that on-line mental models enable at least three inferences during controlled processing to motivate coping behaviour (after Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). These are: a) whether the goal being pursued is sufficiently important to commit the resources available; b) whether the coping function will be effective for the category of event experienced; c) whether the resources available are capable of sustaining the actions required to enact the coping function. For automatic processes, we expect habitual coping behaviour to influence situational coping behaviour (Catanzaro et al., 2000), mediated through mental models stored in long-term memory and activated in working memory. This process stems from strongly learnt associations between certain coping functions and reduction of unpleasant affect (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000). Automatic processes generally, but not always, decrease the chances of effective coping. This is because less attention is paid to the availability of environmental resources or the details of the situation during automatic processing. That is, a coping function influenced by automatic processes has less chance of becoming enacted in the first place. Even where it is enacted, there is less chance of enacting an environmental resource that is appropriate to the circumstances of the event. Environmental resources are important for coping function to become coping behaviour (Schönpflug & Battmann, 1988). The best known example of environmental resources is social 12

support (House, 1981), although job control may also foster effective coping (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). Coping needs to be enacted as coping behaviour: without the resources to do so, coping function can not influence unpleasant affect. For example, even if a person can see how exercising control may help reduce unpleasant affect at work, if the work is machine paced there is no opportunity to enact the required coping behaviour. There is an additional point regarding environmental resources: The nature of the resource must be specific to the coping function and the event (de Jonge & Dormann, 2002; Frese, 1999; Sargent & Terry, 1998). Social support and job control are multidimensional (House, 1981; Jackson, Wall, Martin & Davids, 1993). For example, emotional support from a colleague may be useful for coping targeted at affect, while instrumental aid from a manager may be more useful for coping targeted directly at the event. There are three major targets of coping function: behaviour, cognition and affect (Latack & Havlovic, 1992). There are also approach and avoidance functions, respectively oriented toward controlling or changing the situation, thoughts or ventilation of affect or oriented away from the event, thoughts or feelings associated with it (Latack & Havlovic, 1992). Taking into account behavioural, cognitive and affective functions, and mindful that coping functions can reflect approach or avoidance, we define six classes of coping function: behavioural approach, behavioural avoidance, cognitive approach, cognitive avoidance, emotional approach and emotional avoidance. Behavioural approach coping is concerned with behavioural efforts to eliminate the perception of an aversive event by preventing the event from persisting. It can also be directed to other aspects of the environment to attempt progress toward goals. Behavioural approach coping directed at goal progress is relevant only for controlled processes, since controlled processes are goal related. Hence, behavioural approach coping directed at progressing goals can only be effective during controlled processing. This does not mean that behavioural approach coping under automatic direction cannot be effective for preventing the occurrence of an aversive work event. Behavioural avoidance coping entails removing the individual from the source of the event, so it is no longer perceived. Since it does not involve preventing the effect from occurring, the event 13

may continue or re-occur at a later point, thus causing unpleasant affect when next perceived. However, behavioural avoidance entails removal from the immediate environment associated with unpleasant affect. Hence, accurate identification of the event is not necessarily needed. Cognitive approach coping is the means by which individuals re-appraise the impact of an aversive event. Following the controlled categorisation of an event, re-appraisal of the impact of that event can be achieved by reconsidering the importance of affected goals, the impact of an event on goal progress or the desired rate of goal progress (Carver & Scheier, 1990; Edwards & Baglioni, 1993). Following automatic categorisation of an event, cognitive approach coping can be focused on reconsidering the impact of that event on unpleasant affect. However, since there is a strong influence from well-learnt mental models stored in long-term memory that are difficult to change, cognitive approach coping is less likely to alter affect following automatic categorisation of an event. Cognitive avoidance coping involves suppression or denial that an event has implications for goals or affect. This entails re-categorising an event, so that there are no subsequent inferences concerning disrupted goal progress or unpleasant affect. Cognitive avoidance coping too is more effective during following controlled categorisation, since previously learnt aversive event categories do not influence categorisation strongly during controlled processing. During automatic processing, we expect a continuation of intrusive and aversive thoughts (Horowitz, 1979), as the event continues to be categorised as aversive by involuntary, automatic processes. Affective approach coping is directed at the reduction of unpleasant affect through the cathartic expression of affect. Affective avoidance is concerned with suppression of the experience of affect. While suppression may serve to break the experience of unpleasant affect into smaller manageable doses (Bonanno, Keltner, Holen & Horowitz, 1995), affective suppression may also preserve progress toward some goals, particularly social goals. Unpleasant affect induces unpleasant affect in others (Gurtman, Martin & Hintzman, 1990), which may in turn reduce social support from others (Staw et al., 1994). Affective avoidance may then help preserve progress toward goals that affective approach would hinder. This can occur even if the goals are not being pursued at the time of the 14

event, and so affective avoidance can be equally effective during the controlled or automatic categorisation of events. Table 1 shows examples of coping function, with associated coping behaviours and environmental resources in the work context. INSERT TABLE 1 HERE The influence of affect on cognitive and social processes Anxiety is related to threats to goal progress and anger to obstacles to goal progress. Threats and obstacles reside in the current or future work environment. Therefore, it is adaptive for anxiety to direct the allocation of attention toward processing information about potential threats and for anger to direct attention toward potential obstacles (Dalgleish & Watts, 1990; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Evidence indicates that such biases are automatic (MacCleod, 1991). Therefore, we expect high levels of negative affect to bias information processing toward the categorisation of work events as events that induce negative affect. This increases the chances that negative affect will be maintained beyond the immediate experience of the aversive work event. Sadness is concerned with loss or failure of goals. Since sadness is, then, focused on the past, it influences the process of recall (Matt, Vazquez & Campbell, 1992), so that automatic recall of negative information is more likely (Hartlage, Alloy, Vazquez & Dykman, 1993). Consequently, the experience of sadness is likely to suppress goal related processing and shift information processing toward automatic recall of well-learnt mental models of specific events that have caused sadness in the past. This increases the chances of the maintenance of sadness. Boredom too is associated with suppressed controlled processing (Watt & Blanchard, 1994). Both major classes of unpleasant affect influence automatic processing. Therefore, both increase the chances of feature-based categorisation of aversive work events and the chance of coping choice being influenced by habitual coping behaviour. However, automatic processing is not an inevitable consequence of unpleasant affect if there is motivation to use controlled processing. This motivation occurs when important goals are activated (Lassiter, Koenig & Apple, 1996). 15

Unpleasant affect reduces environmental resources. Unpleasant affect leads to reductions in social support, especially the form of support that facilitates coping (Daniels & Guppy, 1997). In the discussion of affective avoidance coping above, we noted that expressing unpleasant affect might induce unpleasant affect in others and hence reduce the level of social support received. Additionally, individuals whom express unpleasant affect may also be perceived as incompetent (Staw et al., 1994). It is the perception of incompetence that may lead to a reduction in job control, as managers may be less willing to allow such individuals discretion over their work (Jex, 1998). Implications INSERT TABLES 2 AND 3 HERE We have presented a cognitive model to provide a detailed explanation of unpleasant affect in work environments. Table 2 summarises the main predictions of the model, while table 3 captures the main similarities and differences between this model and several other approaches prominent in the literature. The model builds on other major models in several ways. Affective Events Theory (AET, Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) acknowledges the importance of appraising events in mediating between work and affect. However, like classical appraisal theories (e.g. Lazarus, 1999), AET does not detail how appraisals come to be made in the first place (Parkinson, 1995). Our model sets out the cognitive processes underpinning appraisal. To do this, we drew upon information processing approaches (e.g. Power & Dalgleish, 1997) that indicate appraisal can subsume both controlled, goalrelated processing and automatic processing. However, information-processing approaches do not deal with how goal-related inferences themselves influence well-being, how individuals choose coping responses or how events come to trigger the appraisal processes. By focusing on comparisons between the perceived rate and the desired rate of goal progress, differentiating approach from avoidance goals, and explaining the links between cognition and action, action-control theories (e.g. Carver & Scheier, 1990; Frese & Zapf, 1994) are able to deal with the first two of these limitations in information processing approaches, but not the third. To address how events trigger the processes of 16

appraisal, we drew on categorisation theory. Action-control theories assume that action is driven by the volitional pursuit of goals (Frese & Zapf, 1994: 272). We relaxed this assumption, and allowed action to be driven also by purely automatic processes. In this way, coping could be considered to be influenced by both conscious controlled processing as well as by purely unconscious automatic processing. Central to action as coping behaviour is the notion that the work environment offers certain resources that enable coping behaviour, namely job control and support as implied by the demands-control-support model (JDCS, Karasek & Theorell, 1990). However, the JDCS model is relatively vague on how control and support foster coping. Our model, by drawing on action-control theories, deals with these processes in more detail. Finally, we incorporated feedback loops into our model, so that both cognition and environmental resources could be depicted as being influenced by affect. Our model builds upon other approaches (as summarised in tables 2 and 3) in a manner that ensures the strengths of each compensate for weaknesses in others. Uniquely, our model gives greater prominence to the role of categorisation processes and the influence of affect on cognitive and social processes in the workplace. The model itself is bounded in a number of ways: it is a model of the cognitive experience of unpleasant affect only; it does not deal with how the work environment produces aversive events; it does not deal with how goals are selected, how their importance is determined nor does it deal with multiple and conflicting goals; and we do not specify how mental models of work events come to be stored in long term memory. While these are issues relevant to processes surrounding the model, consideration of these processes would not change our predictions. There are also novel implications arising from the model. First, we discuss how the model can account for an additional range of findings in the literature that other approaches do not always address. These relate to situations in which support and control accentuate the effects of aversive work events on unpleasant affect, the role of individual differences and change and stability of unpleasant affect in work settings. We also discuss the implications of the model for research methods, and, at the end of this section, the novel implications for practice. 17

Control and support can accentuate the impact of aversive events. We have indicated that the nature of the environmental resource must be suited to the coping function and the event. In studies of job control, not only is there is some evidence to support this, but also that where the nature of job control does not match aversive events then job control leads to greater unpleasant affect (Mullarkey, Jackson, Wall, Wilson & Grey-Taylor, 1997; Sargent & Terry, 1998). Such negative or reverse buffering has also been observed for social support (Buunk & Hoorens, 1992; Kaufman & Beehr, 1986). There is evidence that negative effects of support are related to reductions in self-esteem and competence (Blaine, Crocker & Major, 1995). This indicates the provision of support can impede progress toward other goals, such as competence goals. Indeed, we suggested one purpose of affective avoidance coping is to protect progress toward such goals. Individual differences in affect. Wofford and Daly (1997; Wofford, Goodwin & Daly, 1999) have offered a cognitive explanation of how individual differences, such as negative affectivity, locus of control and type A behaviour, moderate the influence of work characteristics on affect. Such traits are taken as indicators of latent mental models in long-term memory. As in our model, aversive events activate these mental models that, in turn, activate the phenomenological experience of unpleasant affect. However, there is inconsistent evidence for individual differences as moderators of the link between aversive work events and unpleasant affect (Moyle, 1995; Zellars, Perrewé & Hochwarter, 1999). Individual difference explanations assume a strong influence of mental models related uniquely to personality, but the empirical evidence suggests mental models of aversive work events are influenced by more than personality. For example, the nature of the work environment itself and attitudes closely related to socialisation into different work cultures might also play a role (Daniels et al., 2002; Ettner & Grzywacz, 2001). We would suggest, like Wofford and Daly, that a cognitive approach can help explain how individual differences moderate the influence of work conditions on affect. However, to the extent that mental models are more than manifestations of individual differences and reflect prior experience with aversive events and wider socio-cultural

18

influences, we expect that future studies that focus purely on individual differences will continue to show inconsistent moderator effects. Contribution to explaining change and stability in affect. In our model, change in affect can occur in several ways. First, since automatic processing is faster than controlled processing, more deliberative processing of goal-related information can alter an initial automatic affective reaction. Second, during controlled processing, on-line mental models are influenced by the environment. Therefore, as an event proceeds, goal-related inferences and, hence, affect can change. Third, coping processes can alter affect. Fourth, other events can happen concurrently or sequentially. Therefore, an affective reaction generated by processing of one event can influence the processing of another event. The influence of affect on cognitive processes can explain stability in the experience of unpleasant affect (Depue & Monroe, 1986). Individual differences play a role in the maintenance of unpleasant affect through the automatic activation of latent mental models (Williams et al., 1996). Our account acknowledges these processes by the inclusion of reciprocal influences of state affect on the automatic activation of mental models stored in long-term memory. Unpleasant affect is maintained by directing information processing toward the categorisation of events as aversive, rather than objective changes in the work environment. Indeed, the influence of the work environment on job satisfaction might be reduced for people with high state unpleasant affect (Payne, Wall, Borrill & Carter, 1999). Implications for methods. A prediction of our model is that mental models of work events are a major influence on unpleasant affect. Cognitive mapping methods are now well established for representing mental models, and include methods potentially capable of distinguishing automatic from controlled processes (Daniels, Johnson & de Chernatony, 1995; Hodgkinson, Maule & Bown, in press). Such methods need to be adapted to capture short-term variability, as mental models in working memory change in response to the progression of events. Event sampling methods, such as daily diaries, may be particularly useful for tracking short-term changes in mental models, as well as identifying sources of stability. Other considerations also indicate diary methods are appropriate. 19

These are that affect and coping behaviour too are dynamic (Parkinson, Briner, Reynolds, & Totterdell, 1995; Smith, Leffingwell, & Ptacek, 1999), and that affect is most strongly influenced by recent events (Suh, Diener, & Fujita, 1996). Implications for practice Our approach, like others, indicates a practical role for job design interventions to prevent the occurrence of aversive events or to promote effective coping through the provision of environmental resources (cf. Karasek & Theorell, 1990). Where our approach differs though is in the initial assessment of aversive work conditions as a diagnosis for intervention. Our model indicates individual or lay categories of aversive work events influence unpleasant affect. Consequently, our model indicates that assessments of aversive work events should be made on the basis of the categories and language used to describe those categories common to a given organisation, occupation or work group, rather than imposing an external or theoretical classification by the means of standardised measures. Our model, then, provides a theoretical basis for findings from practically oriented research that assessments tailored to specific work contexts using the language of people in those contexts provide a better basis for intervention (Cox et al., 2000). Our model also indicates benefits from work conditions that promote goal progress and resources to enable goal directed behaviour (Frese & Zapf, 1994). In additional to changes in job design, we propose that performance management systems focused on identifying goals and the means to achieve those goals (Armstrong, 2001) have implications for affect at work. We expect systems oriented toward approach goals to reduce unpleasant affect more than systems oriented to avoidance goals (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). We would add that selection and socialisation systems designed to ensure congruence between organisational processes and the pursuit of personal goals might also minimise the experience of unpleasant affect (cf. Schneider, 1987). The automatic generation of affect implies that goal-oriented approaches may have partial success. Automatic processing implies that programmes directed at developing more effective coping might too have limited success, as the influence of newly acquired coping knowledge on coping 20

behaviour could be swamped by automatic processes. However, an understanding of mental models of aversive events might help direct interventions targeted at improving coping. People more readily attend to information concerning aversive events when that information is consistent with existing mental models and the information provides advice on what people can do (rather than can not do) about those events (see Daniels, 1996). It follows, therefore, that assessing mental models from a sample of those exposed to aversive work events might be useful in developing more effective communication strategies to deal with aversive events and address workers’ concerns about those events (Daniels et al., 2002). For example, a group of workers might associate tight deadlines with anxiety. In this case, communication should first acknowledge that association and, then, describe proactive strategies for ensuring a long lead- time to complete projects. While there might be other implications for interventions, the above represent some examples of how our model could be used to take steps to reduce unpleasant affect at work. Summary and conclusions We have presented a model of the influence of work environments on unpleasant affect predicated upon basic cognitive processes, such as automatic and controlled information processing, categorisation and the generation of mental models in working memory. By analysing affective processes at this level, our account can explain a broader range of phenomena than other approaches, and also implies a wider range of interventions than other approaches. To the extent that theoretical approaches such as the one presented here are able to inform new avenues of research and intervention, research questions - and attendant methods - should reflect the kinds of cognitive processes we have described. Yet, as we have indicated, researchers should not ignore the role of the work environment and individual behaviour in shaping the cognitive processes we have outlined (cf. Cooper et al., 2001). We believe that to neglect such detailed processes will be to the detriment of understanding affect, and ultimately compromise our ability to inform interventions targeted at reducing unpleasant affect in work environments (see also Briner & Reynolds, 1999). While other theories have provided some explanation of the 21

links between work and affect, we believe that the cognitive model proposed here makes a contribution to unpacking the ‘black box’ of appraisal and coping, so that we are better able to understand the links between work and affect.

22

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Table 1. Examples of coping function, environmental resources and coping behaviour. Coping function

Potential target

Example combination of environmental resources and behaviours

Behavioural approach

Perception of event

Enact job control by altering task to reduce exposure to event

Behavioural approach

Goal progress

Enact social support by asking colleague to help with aspects of a task

Behavioural avoidance

Perception of event

Enact job control by rescheduling activities to avoid aversive event

Cognitive approach

Goal importance

Enact job control by taking break to reconsider importance of goal

Cognitive approach

Perceived probability event Enact social support to discuss whether event will impede goal progress impedes goal progress

Cognitive approach

Desired rate of goal progress Enact social support to discuss new time frames for achievement of goals

Cognitive approach

Perceived probability event Enact social support to discuss whether event causes unpleasant affect in is linked to unpleasant affect others

Cognitive avoidance

Categorisation of event

Enact job control to work at a faster pace to distract from processing information of event as relevant to goals or affect

Affective approach

Affect

Enact support by expressing feelings to others for catharsis

Affective avoidance

Affect

Enact support to talk to others about shared experiences to distract from unpleasant affect

Affective avoidance

Goal progress

Enact job control to work on a difficult task to suppress unpleasant feelings and show professional competence

30

Table 2. Major predictions of a cognitive model of the production of unpleasant affect at work. Controlled processing

Automatic processing

Influence of events Influence of work events on unpleasant affect is mediated

Influence of work events on unpleasant affect is mediated

by rule-based categorisation processes that provide

by feature-based categorisation processes

inferences on the rate of goal progress

Weak influence of pre-existing mental models

Strong influence of pre-existing mental models

on rule-based categorisation of aversive work events.

on feature-based categorisation of aversive work events.

Anxiety results from inferred probability of threat to goals.

Anxiety results from similarity judgments made between events and exemplars of events that cause anxiety at work.

Anger results from inferred probability of obstacles to goals

Anger results from similarity judgments made between events and exemplars of events that cause anger at work.

31

Table 2. Continued Sadness results from inferred loss or failure of goals.

Sadness results from similarity judgments made between events and exemplars of events that cause sadness at work.

Boredom results from absence of controlled information

Boredom results from similarity judgments made

processing about goals

between events and exemplars of events that cause boredom at work.

More inferences of impediments to goal progress for avoidance goals. Coping Choice of coping function influenced by the importance

Choice of coping function is influenced by habitual coping

of the goals considered to be affected, latent mental models

behaviour, and less by specifics of current circumstances.

indicating the effectiveness of that function and perception of the environmental resources available. Behavioural approach targeted at event or goal progress

Behavioural approach targeted at event only

Cognitive approach and avoidance more effective

Cognitive approach and avoidance less effective.

32

Table 2. Continued Influences of affect Low positive affect suppresses controlled processing. For

High negative affect accentuates automatic processing, such

sadness, this increases probability of recall of information

that work events are more likely to be categorised as causes

about work events that have previously caused sadness.

of negative affect.

Coping relationships unaffected by controlled or automatic processing. Coping effectiveness influenced by availability of suitable social support or job control. Affective avoidance can prevent escalation of unpleasant affect by maintaining progress toward some goals during both controlled and automatic processing. Affect influences unaffected by controlled or automatic processing. Expression of unpleasant affect leads to reduced social support and job control.

33

Table 3. Summary of convergence and divergence of approaches.a Affective

Appraisal

Information

Action-

Demands-

events

theories

processing

control

control-

theories

support

theory

Current approach

Theoretical comparison Categorisation of work events

X

X

X

X

X



Affective processing can precede goal-based

X

X



X

X



Influence of goal progress









X



Differentiation of approach and avoidance

X

X

X



X



Cognitive influences on coping behaviour

X



X



X



Matching environmental resources to coping

X

X

X

X

X



Differences in coping effectiveness according

X

X

X

X

X



appraisal

goals

to controlled or automatic processing

34

Table 3. Continued Influence of affect on information processing



X



X





Influence of affect on environmental

X

X

X

X

X



Stable individual differences



?





X



Change and stability in unpleasant affect

X





X





Job design













Assessment of lay categories of work events

X

X

X

X

X



Selection

?

?

?

?

X



Socialisation

?

?

?

?

X



Performance appraisal

?

?

?

?

X



Assessing mental models for communication

X

X

?

X

X



resources

Implications for practice

a

Action-control theories might have implications for socialisation, performance appraisal etc., in areas outside of their application to

stress and well-being.

35

d) Latent mental model

Controlled information processing c) Perceived impact of event on goal progress

b) Categorisation of event

i) Coping

e) Perceived goal progress

m) Unpleasant affect

a) PERCEPTION OF EVENT

l) Coping behaviour

f) Categorisation of event

Automatic information processing

g) Perceived past influence of event on affect

j) Coping

h) Latent mental model

Figure 1. Model of work events and unpleasant affect. 36

k) Environmental resources