Hochschild (1) comes up with an emotion management mechanism that illuminates the self, interaction, and structure. Emotion is always regulated by the act of management. Emotion management is wholly embedded in the interactive aspects of emotion. Emotion management enables close-range inspection of the relations among feelings, rules, ideology, emotion management, and emotive experience.
Emotions play an important role in creating and maintaining identity. Lam (1), in his fiction, shows how careers impact relationships. Depending on the nature of the problem, we are at times expected to show care both physically and emotionally. He underscores the need for putting aside our differences in the process of crisis management. Many times we act to reinforce our identities and by doing so, we end up creating a scenario where perceived meanings are synergized with the identity standards. Role identity accounts for alterations in situational meanings and therefore enhances parity at the level of identity standard. Identity verification contributes to elements of orderliness in the social structure where identity emanates. When people you interact with effortlessly notice the personal identity you are trying to convey, your feeling of self-worth tends to increase. Individuals, therefore, become filled with positive emotions. Positive emotions are also enhanced when those close to you keep on reassuring you of your identity. Reassurance makes an individual develop a certain sense of security when executing their actions. These people are therefore able to predict the responses that may come from others. On several occasions, an individual may feel free to express themselves in any way they wish. Positive emotions, therefore, become so prominent in such people. When our identity matches our understanding of identity, positive emotions tend to increase. The feeling of positive emotion makes people feel at peace with themselves and create some sense of happiness. However, individuals are more likely to encounter negative emotions than positive emotions mainly because of misunderstanding of an identity one displays. This is brought about by unavailability of point of convergence between input and output, inability to comprehend the identity under scrutiny, too much focus on one identity, and inadequate exposure to an identity. Negative emotions come into play when a person’s identity is misconstrued. The individuals becomes angry and infuriated because of what they feel is a misinterpretation of their identity. When an individual does not bother themselves so much with the type of identity they wish to showcase, its reception will not be overwhelming. This is because much of their attention is directed to other aspects of their identity leading to neglection of other aspects. The neglected facets are kind of suppressed; therefore do not receive attention as the individual would have expected. This creates some sense of anger in an individual. When one expends too many resources towards controlling certain aspects of their identity, they expose themselves to negative feelings. This is due to relatedness of aspects of personality. When one facet of personality is not construed as expected, the other aspects of personality will not be showcased. This may lead to realization of identity crisis. This is personified in panic and a feeling of nervousness. If individuals show the identity they wish to display, they will have a sense of negative feeling as people closer to such individual will not relent in showing disappointment in the individual’s character. Show of disapproval eventually makes a person to lose sense of self worth. This may culminate into hostility. Frustrations in an individual are also prompted by irregular responses. If people in your closer social circles are very close to you, they keep on reassuring you of your identity and you will likely develop extreme positive emotions. Nevertheless, criticizing somebody’s identity make them develop negative emotic feelings. Observations made by people closer to you hold so much than those made by those not in your inner circles.
Emotion is sometimes talked of as a dynamic process that coordinates individual relation to the ever changing social world. Emotions embody establishing, maintaining or interfering with the relationship between life forms and the environment on matters of importance to individual. Social and psychological misdeeds recur and occur solely because of interactions occurring between many individuals over time. Emotions are the major agents of interactions. Emotions of one person have a bearing on emotions, perceptions and behavior of others. Emotions are organized into networks that involve the input of different people geared towards instigation of reciprocal influence. Ones feeling are normally evidenced in their facial features, hand gestures, the way they stand, their intonations and myriad physical features. Expression of feelings differs from cultures to cultures and is showcased in different dimensions from facial expressions to gestures. People are sensitive to others feelings and are in a position to decode what these expressions stand for. However, somebody’s expression does not necessarily show his or her actual state. Your feelings may have effect on other people’s emotions, how people perceive you, other peoples conduct, relationships and levels of participation between agent and other people. Ones feeling not only affect him or her as an individual but also affect those able to decode his or her feelings. Emotions can also affect larger social settings like group or team. Emotions are messages that generate feedback mechanisms to the initiator of message. Mechanisms by which ones feeling can evoke emotions in others are Emotion Contagion and Emotion Interpretation. Emotion contagion implies ability of people to mimic non verbal expressions unconsciously. Emotion interpretation enables one to think of another person as having a particular emotion and react in conformity to the persons feelings.
Emotions also play central role in negotiating interactions. In an effort to develop a deeper understanding on the role of emotions in negotiations, it is imperative that we first comprehend the intrapersonal and the interpersonal effects. Intrapersonal effects imply the effects of the arbitrator’s emotions on his or her own negotiation skills. Interpersonal effects mean effects of arbitrator’s emotions on other negotiators prowess. Intrapersonal effects have unfortunately overshadowed interpersonal effects in emotional negotiations. In negotiation an aggrieved person elicits empathy. This may make them to be more cooperative during the problem solving exercise. Emotions portray ones feeling about a situation and their orientation towards other people. Emotions are therefore a valuable way of approving or disapproving of others behavior. This help negotiator to know which of their behaviors will be acceptable to the parties that they intend to pacify. Negative emotions can be remedied by mental or behavioral change where as positive emotions inspire one to continue staying on course. Therefore negative emotions can be used in emotional negotiation to register dissatisfaction with specific state of affairs. This may be perceived by your foe as a frustration to agreement hence development of conciliatory behavior amongst the parties. Positive emotions may be misconstrued to mean that no further negotiations are needed. This may make the opponents to shy away from settling their differences. Positive emotions are thought to enhance negotiators effectiveness and negative emotions decrease effectiveness of the negotiator. Studies conducted involving intrapersonal and interpersonal effects have shown that anger is very important in distributive negotiations. Happiness is imperative in integrative negotiation. In a distributive bargains anger may enhance ones performance where as in negotiation of integrative nature, aspects of positive emotions such as happiness provide platform for collaborative problem solving. Researches that have been conducted on the role of emotions on negotiations have delved into general positive effects and negative effects. Research is currently being conducted on discrete emotions on negotiations which will help in developing a deeper understanding of specific emotion in successful negotiations. Further studies should answer questions relating to whether those with high emotional intelligence are prone to or influenced by opponents emotions. Honest manifestation of emotions in negotiations occasioned by anger, delight, a feeling of anxiety, sense of frustration and sadness is coherent with stakes involved and social relation being practiced.
Emotions can be suppressed immediately after they have been exhibited in negotiations. The length of time that it takes for an emotion to be expressed and the status of mood keep on changing and establishing their presence from inception to the end is pretty difficult. This makes it almost difficult for the researcher to come up with impact of specific effect on particular aspects of negotiation. Emotions are known to interfere with the negotiators ability to arrive at amicable agreements. This is because people’s attentions are normally diverted from tackling substantive issues to engaging in myopic discussions. When we are upset, our judgments are always subjective and are clouded by our emotions. Most of the times we feel that we must respond to acts that we fee are outrageous to us with equal measure of force. Our emotions may reveal the side that we have taken. This may expose one to a lot of manipulation. Our reaction when something happens makes people to know whether we have been disgusted or have been impressed. This may be used by deductive observers to extract information from us. Thinking is subordinated by our feeling. For somebody to fall in love, emotions have to be involved but precise thinking during a negotiation process is complicated by emotional involvement. Unless utmost care is taken emotions can dominate our faculty of thought and interfere with our ability to make wise decisions. To those people who advocate against involving emotion in negotiation process, a negotiator has all the reasons to fear the power of emotions. In negotiation process, emotional involvement is seen as an impediment to a negotiators delivery. However, realistically, it becomes impractical to dispense with emotions in such situations. Negotiators often feel sense of emotions that may be positive or negative reactions to issues of personal significance. Negotiators should not suppress emotions as this may risk worsening the situation. When you suppress resentment the negative emotional experience remain rooted in our system. This may one day blow out of proportion and translate into ugly incidences. Emotion indeed enables on to reach their negotiation goals.
Works Cited
Hochschild, Russell. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. The American Journal of Sociology. 85.3(1979): 551-575.
Lam, Vincent. Bloodletting and Miraculous cures. New York: Picador, 2006. Print.