The Effects of One Members' Anger on Team Emotion Anat Rafaeli Arik Cheshin Roy Israely

2 Emotion Contagion Time 1 Time 2 (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

3 What Creates Emotion Contagion? An unconscious process based on mimicking of others’ non verbal cues. (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; Neumann & Strack, 2000) Non verbal cues include: Tone of voice, Facial expression, Body language, and so on.. (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

4 Research Question  So what happens in teams where non verbal cues are not present? Will emotion of one member spread to rest of the group? (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

5 SHAPE FACTORY TASK  Simulates an interdependent team of 4 players (shapes)  Each player can produce and sell a shape  Team members have to fill orders for shapes  Reward based on individual and group performance (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

6 Experiment Time Line PANAS Instructions ~1 min~ 20 min Task 3 R X 12 min DV Payment ~10 min~3 min Arrival ~3 min N=49 groups (25 happy) 51% female Average age 24.7 Practice R 12 min (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

7 Manipulation  Confederate acted Angry or Happy; based on past research. (Kopelman, Rosette, Thompson, 2006; Van Kleef et al, 2004; Barsade, 2002) Angry Use words that express anger: “Your offer makes me really ANGRY!" Be tough: “Always ask for higher sell price and lower purchase price.” Happy Use words that express happiness: “It’s a pleasure doing business with you :-)” Be flexible: “Accept any offer as long as not below your production cost” (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

8 Manipulation Check To what degree did express anger? T (145) = 6.0 p< To what degree did express happiness? T (145) = 6.9 p< Angry Confederate Happy Confederate (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

9 Individual Emotion PANAS F (1, 145) = P<0.01 Repeated Measures NA F (1, 145) = P<0.06 Repeated Measures PA (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

10 Group Emotion Aggregated Anger Ratings T (47) = 6.46 p<0.001 Angry R WG =0.83 Happy R WG =0.9 Aggregated Happy Ratings T (47) = 4.19 p< G E (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

11 Mimicking?? Number of negative messages sent T (145) = 6.30 p< Number of positive messages sent T (145) = 5.57 p< Cohen’s Kappa =0.78 (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

12 Discussion Emotion contagion occurs without non verbal cues! Emotions spreads in virtual teams without face-to-face communication. How far do these effects go? (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

13 Performance  The Episodic Process Model - emotional episodes at work influence performance as they distract workers (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermind, 2005).  Mixed results regarding performance and emotion, but more evidence that positive affect improves performance (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

14 Anger and Group Performance? + _ Group Performance Happy/ Angry Research Question: Will anger expressed by an individual member of a work team influence performance of other team members and of the team as a whole? Individual Performance Happy / Angry + _ (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

15 Performance T (145) = 4.22 p< T (47) = 2.97 p<0.001 Group Performance Individual Performance (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

16 Summary  Emotion of ONE member spreads to group with minimal or no non-verbal cues Emotion of ONE member effects performance of other members and of the team.  What is “a happy” vs. “angry” member? Need to distinguish between behavior (flexible / rigid) and emotion (anger / happy) (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

17 Current Directions  Emotion and Behavior separated to create: Angry / Flexible Happy / Flexible Angry / Resolute Happy / Resolute (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at

18 Thank you!!! (c) Technion, Slides and Paper available at