Know Your Emotions

Looking to Make a Sale or Get Promoted? Emotions Will Help Determine the Outcome
Article Abstract
Source: Knowledge_at_Wharton

Can your emotional state impact your effectiveness as an economic developer? If economic developers are at all like business managers and executives, then the answer is definitely yes they can.

High emotion contributes to great opera. It does not, however, serve us well when making judgments about others. This is the argument advanced in "Feeling and Believing: The Influence of Emotion on Trust," a new paper by Maurice E. Schweitzer, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and Jennifer Dunn, a PhD student in the department.

The two researchers conducted five experiments to determine the influence of emotional states -- happiness, gratitude, anger, and guilt -- on trust. Each experiment confirmed that incidental emotions (emotions from one situation that influence judgment in a following, unrelated situation) affect how willing we are to trust others. For example, our anger over a speeding ticket is likely to affect how we judge someone later in the day. The researchers conclude that despite feeling we are rational beings who make clear, lucid judgments, in reality we all walk around in a sea of emotions that are likely to influence how we act in both business and social contexts.

A second key finding in the study is that if people are aware of their emotional state, then the emotional state does not generally bleed into their judgments of others. Misattributed emotions are a problem, the authors point out, particularly for people working in high-stress, fast-paced jobs, who have to make quick judgments about people. Because they move from one incident to the next without the luxury of time to sit back and gauge their emotions, they are more likely to misattribute emotional states. Again, awareness and correct attribution of emotional states can help manage this process, they suggest.

A good read in this area is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.