Chapter 8: Emotional Displays and Social Identity: Emotional Investment in Organizations

Emotions are internal physiological events with somewhat predictable social consequences. The functions of the internal experience of emotion are generally to signal motive readiness with respect to observed events and their appraised importance to motives, including motives associated with values. In this chapter we will describe a model of emotive responding to value-relevant organizational events, and the inferences regarding motive that can be drawn depending on the nature of the emotions displayed. We will distinguish between emotional displays that signal conformity to group expectations and those that signal self-determined values. Implications will be drawn for organizational theory and practice.