The Truth Behind the Smile: Employees’ Management of Emotional Expressions in Interactions with Leaders and Peers

Xiaoxiao Hu

Advisor: Seth Kaplan, PhD, Department of Psychology

Committee Members: Lois Tetrick, Richard Klimoski

April 16, 2012, 02:30 PM to 11:30 AM

Abstract:

Emotional expression management has been widely studied in organizational research due to its impact on organizational behaviors and outcomes. This research almost exclusively has focused on employees’ interactions with external parties such as customers, clients, and patients. The purpose of this study was to extend this literature to employees’ interactions with internal members of organizations by developing and testing a model of employees’ management of emotional expressions within organizations. Data was collected from 40 work groups (129 focal participants, 40 leaders, and 40 peers) from a large real estate agency company located in Beijing, China. Results suggested that employees’ emotional expression management was partially determined by their own and their interaction partners’ personality. Employees’ agreeableness and conscientiousness and leaders’ neuroticism appeared to be the major personality predictors of employees’ emotional expression management. Results also showed that employees’ emotional expression management influenced their psychological well-being and behaviors as well as their interaction partners’ perceptions and attitudes. In addition, the present findings revealed that the antecedents and consequences of employees’ emotional expression management differed for different types of interaction partners, namely leaders versus peers. The meaning and implications of these results for theory and practice are discussed.