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7 - Qualitative Methods to Study Workplace Affect

Capturing Elusive Emotions

from Part I - Theoretical and Methodological Foundations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2020

By
Donald E. Gibson
Edited by
Liu-Qin Yang ,
Russell Cropanzano ,
Catherine S. Daus  and
Vicente Martínez-Tur
Liu-Qin Yang
Affiliation:
Portland State University
Russell Cropanzano
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
Catherine S. Daus
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Vicente Martínez-Tur
Affiliation:
Universitat de València, Spain
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Summary

Capturing the essence of workplace affect and its impact has always been challenging, because affect is challenging. It comes in many forms, including moods, state emotions, and dispositional traits, and occurs at multiple levels – individual, team, and organizational – that interact and change dynamically. In this chapter, I will outline qualitative approaches to studying affective phenomena. The primary emphasis will be on state discrete emotions and state moods – in the case of emotions, affective responses focused on a specific target or cause and relatively intense and short-lived, and in the case of moods, more diffuse feeling states not directed to a specific cause (see Barsade & Gibson, 2007) – because these phenomena are most difficult to capture with the tools typically available to organizational researchers. Dispositional traits and sentiments, for example, are relatively reliable and stable and may be measured effectively through a combination of self-report and observational measures (e.g. Staw & Barsade, 1993). Emotions are dynamic, often sudden, fleeting, and disruptive; moods may be a chronic, nagging, bubbling brew. Organizational researchers need appropriate methods to capture this complexity.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Workplace Affect , pp. 91 - 102
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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