A Social Interaction Model Of The Effects Of Emotion Regulation On Work Strain

A Social Interaction Model. Author(sSource The Academy of Management Review, Vol. Published by. Stable URL. Accessed. References.

520 Academy of Management Review July berg, 2000). For example, receivers who accu rately decode the emotion displays of a fearful person in need are more willing to help that person than their counterparts (Batson et al., 1997). Associations between individual differences in skills at decoding others' displays of emotion and indicators of social adjustment (Izard, 1971; Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979) imply that skilled individuals engage in more adaptive behavior than their counterparts in response to others' displays of emotion. Al though the existing research covers several emotions, the jury is still out concerning the consequence for behavior of accurately decod ing displays of some emotions such as shame and interest. Even so, the available evidence suggests that receivers emit strong responses to senders' displays of emotion when they accu rately decode these displays. To the extent that receivers' responses predict senders' strain in the social interaction model, receivers' accuracy at decoding senders' emotion displays should moderate associations between emotion regula tion and strain. At one extreme, when receivers decode senders' emotion displays perfectly, as sociations between emotion regulation and strain should be very strong. At the other ex treme, when receivers fail to decode senders' emotion displays, there should be no associa tion between emotion regulation and strain. Several specific factors may determine receiv ers' accuracy at decoding senders' emotion dis plays. A candidate individual difference charac teristic is emotion recognition ability?the . ability to accurately decode others' emotion dis plays (Rosenthal et al., 1979; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Women generally outperform men on tests of emotion recognition ability (Hall, 1978); thus, gender may also determine the accuracy of re ceivers' decoding of senders' emotion displays. A candidate dyadic characteristic is ethnic group similarity. Despite substantial cross cultural similarities (Ekman, 2003), there are subtle differences in facial expressions of dis crete emotions between cultures (Marsh, Elfen bein, & Ambady, 2003). As a result, members of an ethnic group recognize displays of emotion of persons from their own ethnic group more accu rately than displays of emotions of persons from other ethnic groups (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002). Another candidate dyadic characteristic is relative status. People with high status possess resources and can often act at will, without se rious consequences (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). People with low status, in con trast, are sensitive to the constraints of others because of impinging threats and lack of re sources (Snodgrass, 1992); consequently, they carefully attend to the actions of others. Thus, low-status receivers may pay more attention to and, in turn, decode the emotion displays of high-status senders more accurately than vice versa. The preceding discussion indicates that search on emotion regulation and strain would benefit from consideration of factors that deter mine receivers' accuracy at decoding senders' emotion displays. In particular, these factors may help researchers better predict when tion regulation has strong and weak effects strain and when emotion regulation is not lated to strain. Proposition 4: Receivers' accuracy at decoding senders' emotion displays moderates associations between emo tion regulation and strain. Associa tions between emotion regulation and strain become stronger as receivers' accuracy at decoding senders' emo tion displays increases.