Sigal Barsade

University of Pennsylvania | UP · The Wharton School

Leader emotional expressions have profound implications for team members. Research has established that how frequently leaders express positive and negative emotional expressions shapes team member performance through conveying critical social-functional information about team member social worth. Yet, this social-functional approach to emotions ha...

What little prior empirical research that investigated the effects of mindfulness meditation on negotiation performance was conducted in Singapore and the UK and finds benefits. This research reports a mini meta-analysis of ten studies (N > 1100) we conducted in the US on the effect of a brief mindfulness meditation induction on negotiation outcome...

Emotion understanding (EU) ability is associated with healthy social functioning and psychological well-being. Across three studies, we develop and present validity evidence for the Core Relational Themes of Emotions (CORE) Test. The test measures people’s ability to identify relational themes underlying 19 positive and negative emotions. Relationa...

Rationale Anxiety is an increasingly common problem in society, including at work, yet the effects of an emotional culture of anxiety remain unexplored. We offer a new lens on anxiety in the workplace, examining its collective enactment in the form of an emotional culture of anxiety. Objective This study examines the implications of an emotional c...

People gain more happiness from purchasing experiences than material objects. We examine whether this intriguing psychological effect also occurs for the employees who provide those experiential and material goods to customers. Evidence from a field survey of employees across multiple jobs and industries (Study 1) and three experiments (Studies 2-4...

Research Summary: We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions-group fear and group hope-in entrepreneurial team decision-making. We are interested in which emotion will be more strongly related to whether entrepreneurial teams escalate their commitment to a currently failing venture versus terminating that venture. Using a longitudinal sta...

RESEARCH SUMMARY We examine the influence of two conflicting emotions—group fear and group hope—in entrepreneurial team decision making. We are interested in which emotion will be more strongly related to whether entrepreneurial teams escalate their commitment to a currently failing venture versus terminating that venture. Using a longitudinal star...

Leveraging the wealth of research insights generated over the past 25 years, we develop a model of emotional contagion in organizational life. We begin by defining emotional contagion, reviewing ways to assess this phenomenon, and discussing individual differences that influence susceptibility to emotional contagion. We then explore the key role of...

This symposium focuses on the intersection of relational and social network research with a socio-functional view of emotions, which argues that affective exchanges actively shape relational dynamics. The aim of the present symposium is to provide further insight into the dynamic interplay between emotions, relationships and social networks, taking...

This research investigates the link between workplace loneliness and job performance. Integrating the regulatory loop model of loneliness and the affect theory of social exchange, we develop a model of workplace loneliness. We focus on the central role of affiliation in explaining the loneliness–performance relationship, predicting that despite lon...

Although multiple disciplines have been applied to the study of organizations, organizational research is rarely interdisciplinary in the sense of two or more disciplines being linked in the joint analysis of organizational phenomena. The articles in this special issue illustrate the kinds of insights that can be gained by moving from a purely disc...

Over two decades of research has indicated that group affect is an important factor that shapes group processes and outcomes. We review and synthesize research on group affect, encompassing trait affect, moods, and emotions at a collective level in purposive teams. We begin by defining group affect and examining four major types of collective affec...

We examine the social perception of emotional intelligence (EI) through the use of observer ratings. Individuals frequently judge others' emotional abilities in real-world settings, yet we know little about the properties of such ratings. This article examines the social perception of EI and expands the evidence to evaluate its reliability and cros...

Over two decades of research has indicated that group affect is an important factor that shapes group processes and outcomes. We review and synthesize research on group affect, encompassing trait affect, moods, and emotions at a collective level in purposive teams. We begin by defining group affect and examining four major types of collective affec...

Abstract In this longitudinal study, we build a theory of a culture of companionate love— feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others—at work, examining the culture’s influence on outcomes for employees and the clients they serve in a long-term care setting. Using measures derived from outside observers, employees, family m...

This research experimentally investigated the influence of state mindfulness via a single 9 or 15 minute focused breathing meditation on subsequent state affect and both objective and subjective outcomes in a dyadic, face-to-face multi-issue negotiation. Study 1 found that state mindfulness reduced state anxiety, anger, and negative affect, but did...

Companionate love is a basic human emotion that has been largely neglected within the domain of organizational behavior. In this longitudinal study, we build a theory of a culture of companionate love, examining the culture’s influence on outcomes for employees and the clients they serve in a long-term care setting. Using outside observer, employee...

In this longitudinal study, we build a theory of a culture of companionate love— feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others—at work, examining the culture’s influence on outcomes for employees and the clients they serve in a long-term care setting. Using measures derived from outside observers, employees, family members, a...

In the research reported here, we investigated the debiasing effect of mindfulness meditation on the sunk-cost bias. We conducted four studies (one correlational and three experimental); the results suggest that increased mindfulness reduces the tendency to allow unrecoverable prior costs to influence current decisions. Study 1 served as an initial...

Affective phenomena are increasingly central to scholars’ understanding of groups and teams. Recent years have seen a narrowing of researchers’ focus on a limited set of constructs – namely, group positive and negative mood – at a single level of analysis. The purpose of this symposium is to broaden scholars’ perspectives on the effects of affect i...

This research investigates the debiasing effect of mindfulness meditation on the sunk cost bias. Four studies, one correlational and three experimental, suggest that increased mindfulness reduces the tendency to allow prior unrecoverable costs to influence current decisions. Study 1 served as an initial correlational demonstration of the positive r...

We review and synthesize the research literature examining group affect and its consequences, focusing on groups who interact together to accomplish a task. We use a definition of group affect that incorporates the mutual influence of a group’s affective context and affective composition (the amalgamation of group members’ state and trait affect)....

Guided by a social function of emotions perspective, the authors examined a model of the psychological, interpersonal, and performance consequences of contempt in a series of 3 experiments that tested the outcomes of being a recipient of contempt in the work domain. In these experiments, participants engaged in a business strategy simulation with a...

Research on the interpersonal functions of emotions has focused primarily on steady-state emotion rather than on emotional transitions, the movement between emotion states. The authors examined the influence of emotional transitions on social interactions and found that emotional transitions led to consistently different outcomes than their corresp...

We studied employee loneliness, a prevalent workplace emotion that has received very little theoretical or empirical attention within the organizational behavior field. Drawing on emotion, ego depletion and social exchange theories we developed a model of workplace loneliness in which we predicted that the withdrawal responses that result from bein...

Our goal is to integrate the construct of implicit affect—affective processes activated or processed outside of conscious awareness that influence ongoing thought, behavior, and conscious emotional experience—into the field of organizational behavior. We begin by offering a definition and review of implicit processes, including implicit cognition,...

We examine the social perception of emotional intelligence (EI) through the use of observer ratings. Individuals often judge others’ emotional abilities in real-world settings, yet we know little about the properties of such ratings. This paper examines the social perception of EI and tests the hypothesis that close observers in the environment can...

Emotional intelligence (EI) involves the ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought. We discuss the origins of the EI concept, define EI, and describe the scope of the field today. We review three approaches taken to date from both a theoretical and methodologica...

The influence of organizational respect on emotional exhaustion was examined in a longitudinal field study in the human services industry. Of a sample of 108 Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) working in a long-term health care facility for the elderly, those CNAs who reported greater organizational respect at Time 1 experienced less emotional exh...

Leading by Even More Than Wandering Around Leading by Doing: Better Communication across Hierarchies Leading by Doing: Managerial Learning about the Organization Leading by Doing: Feelings of Greater Trust, Credibility, and Positive Affect between Leadership and Employees Greater Commitment from Employees and Leaders Creating Positive Emotional Con...

Executive Overview Interest in and research about affect in organizations have expanded dramatically in recent years. This article reviews what we know about affect in organizations, focusing on how employees' moods, emotions, and dispositional affect influence critical organizational outcomes such as job performance, decision making, creativity, t...

This study explored how affect relates to creativity at work. Using both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data from the daily diaries of 222 employees in seven companies, we examined the nature, form, and temporal dynamics of the affect-creativity relationship. The results indicate that positive affect relates positively to creativity in o...

This study examines positive affective diversity, differences in positive affective personality among group members, to understand how this diversity influences individual attitudes, group processes, and group performance. We develop a Positive Affective Diversity Model, and test it on a sample of 62 U.S. CEOs and their top management teams (TMTs)....

Recent research has focused on organizations as continuously confronted by forces for change. These forces may cause organizations to rethink their deeply held cultural values and beliefs in order to survive in the changing landscape. Using the long-term care industry as an exemplar, we argue that effective change requires understanding what organi...

Recent research has focused on organizations as continuously confronted by forces for change. These forces may cause organizations to rethink their deeply held cultural values and beliefs in order to survive in the changing landscape. Using the long-term care industry as an exemplar, we argue that effective change requires understanding what organi...

Group emotional contagion, the transfer of moods among people in a group, and its influence on work group dynamics was examined in a laboratory study of managerial decision making using multiple, convergent measures of mood, individual attitudes, behavior, and group-level dynamics. Using a 2 times 2 experimental design, with a trained confederate e...

Affective influences abound in groups. In this article we propose an organizing model for understanding these affective influences and their effects on group life. We begin with individual-level affective characteristics that members bring to their groups: moods, emotions, sentiments, and emotional intelligence. These affective characteristics then...

Emotional contagion, the transfer of emotion between individuals, and its influence on work group dynamics was examined in two managerial simulations using multiple, convergent measures of emotions and group dynamics. The studies tested hypotheses on differential contagion effects due to the degree of pleasantness of the emotion, and the energy wit...

In this study we develop a model of how diversity in positive affect (PA) among group members influences individual attitudes, group processes, and group performance. We test the model on a sample of 62 U.S. top management teams. Greater affective fit between a team member and his or her group is related to more positive attitudes about group relat...

Diversity and teamwork are two themes that characterize the writing about the future of organizations. We explore the effects of age, tenure, sex, and race/ethnicity on teamwork. Results show that the more different an individual is from the group, the less teamwork. Further, there are important differences in sex and race/ethnicity in this pattern...

Drawing from self-categorization theory, we tested hypotheses on the effects of an organization's demographic composition and cultural emphasis on work processes and outcomes. Using an organizational simulation, we found that the extent to which an organization emphasized individualistic or collectivistic values interacted with demographic composit...

Although the escalation literature has grown steadily over the past 20 years, there has been very little research bridging the gap between laboratory experiments and qualitative field studies on escalation. What has been missing are quantitative tests of escalation hypotheses in their natural context. This study helps fill such a gap by testing the...

Reviews the demographic diversity on group conflict and innovation and points out some of the complexities involved in unpacking the effects of diversity in tenure, age, sex, and race–ethnicity on the work force. A study is presented that tested the relations between work group diversity, group conflict and both creativity and implementation. 189 m...

Deriving predictions from congruence theory, we explored the personal and situational sources of cooperation by contrasting behavior under conditions of personality fit and misfit with culture in an organizational simulation. We assessed MBA students' disposition to cooperate and randomly assigned them to simulated organizations that either emphasi...

This study provides a comparative test of two psychological theories concerning the relationship between affect and performance. Managerial simulations are used to test whether people who are positive in disposition perform better or worse on both decisional and interpersonal tasks. Results are consistent in supporting the happier-and-smarter as op...