Recent research on the early development of knowledge about emotions shows that young children's use and comprehension of emotion language develops from an initial emphasis on expressive/behavioural referents to situational terms towards referents emphasising the sub] ective/experiential nature of emotions. Gender, the type of emotion, the discourse context of the emotion talk and individual differences in strategies to regulate negative emotions are some factors that are shown to moderate the development of emotion language abilities. However, as most of the data comes from early language users there are significant limitations to our knowledge of emotion language development and its implications for emotion regulation. This thesis examines emotion language in early to middle adolescence. It develops a theoretically derived classification model to study the representational and causal structure of emotions evident in the emotion language of 13 to 17 yearolds. Study 1 uses a group format to sample descriptive accounts of emotions and their causes from a normative sample of 303 adolescents in response to emotionally relevant vignettes prototypical of anger and fear. Study 2 compares the lepresentational structure and quality of emotion language between 21 adolescents diagnosed with extemalising disorders (Conduct disorder, Oppositional Defiant disorder), 18 with internalising disorders (Depressive disorders, Anxiety disorders) and 16 without a disorder. It broadens the types of emotion eliciting material by including autobiographical events and an actual emotional challenge as well as the vignette stimuli. In addition, the second study uses an individual participant-interviewer procedure. Results of Study 1 indicated increase in the range and complexity of emotion referents and causal accounts of emotions from early to middle adolescents. Despite an increase in internalist/subjective causal accounts of emotions with age, there was a move towards a more externalised or situational focus in the representation of emotions for the older adolescents in response to the anger material. The findings showed that the ability to distinguish between sadness and anger and appropriately use anger and sad referents develops relatively late with some younger adolescents continuing to have difficulties with this distinction. There were a number of specific gender related differences in emotion language consistent with gender differences in display rules for emotions. In particular, boys showed a preference for expressive/behavioural emotion referents while girls preferred referents with a cognitive focus and use more inner-focused referents. Study 1 also provided initial data about differences between adolescents with extemalising problems, those with intemalising problems and non-problem adolescents. Results indicated more use of non-specific referents by adolescents with extemalising behavioural problems as well as less intensity and involvement in their emotion referents. Adolescents with extemalising problems were more likely to use non-specific referents in responses to anger material than those with intemalising problems. The results of Study 2 showed that adolescents with oppositional and conduct problems show deficits in the fluency, complexity and degree of specification of their emotion language and their causal accounts of emotions compared to non- problem youth and those with depression and anxiety problems. In addition, adolescents with intcmalising problems were less fluent in the production of causal accounts of emotions and used less specific emotion referents to fear events compared to non-problem youth. The results highlight the finding that emotion language is affected differentially for extemalising and internalising adolescents depending on the nature of the emotion-eliciting event. In particular, intemalising youth's language responses to anger events are characterised by inner-directed referents, and reduced intensity and involvement while their conceptualisation of salient fear material is dominated by cognitively focused terms and accounts. Extemalising adolescents language responses to anger events are more outer-directed and intense, and their emotion construals in a fear situation less cognitive and more affect orientated. The data from these studies highlight the need to study emotion language for specific emotion domains, and suggest that the most interesting theoretical questions are in respect of emotion understanding and emotion language abilities for specific behavioural and emotional disorders. The results also support the utility of an approach that combines knowledge about emotion language from the psychological and linguistic literature. It argues for an expansion of our knowledge about the development of the lexicon for emotions and other syntactic and pragmatic linguistic competencies that are important for conceptualising emotions in language. Such an expansion is crucial to investigating associations between early emotional competencies assessed through language and later outcomes in terms of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

Increased attention towards threatening stimuli in both the external and internal environments is thought to be a factor in the causation and maintenance of pathological anxiety. Attentional biases for threatening information have been demonstrated in anxiety disorders, however the cortical mechanisms involved remain unclear. In this investigation, an Emotional Stroop task consisting of neutral, positive, depression-related and anxietyrelated words, was used to investigate attentional biases in 14 Panic Disorder patients and 32 psychiatrically healthy controls. The standard colour-word Stroop was also performed to determine whether any general cognitive deficits exist in Panic Disorder. Steady-state probe topography (SSPT), a brain electrical activity imaging methodology, was used to investigate participants' brain activity during performance of the tasks. It was hypothesised that Panic Disorder is associated with specific biases for disorder-specific information and thus patients would exhibit increased interference for anxiety-related words only, compared to neutral words. Mean reaction times for the Standard Stroop was similar for the two groups. For the Emotional Stroop task, neither group showed an interference effect for any emotional category. However, Panic Disorder patients performed the Emotional Stroop significantly more slowly than the Controls. The SSPT data suggest that the Standard and Emotional Stroop tasks are associated with different patterns of brain activity in the Control and Panic Disorder groups despite the similarities in the reaction time data. Specifically, the Standard Stroop was marked by strong temporo-parietal excitation in the Panic Disorder group only. In addition, anterior SSVEP patterns further differentiated between the Control and Panic Disorder groups. The most striking finding for the Emotional Stroop was strong sustained bilateral temporo-parieto-occipital excitation in the Panic Disorder group. In addition, a subgroup of the Controls exhibited increased interference for anxiety-related words and therefore the brain activity for this group and the remainder of Controls who did not show interference was analysed separately. It was found that the presence of interference for anxiety-related words was associated with right prefrontal inhibition prior to response. Other time-varying changes in the SSVEP further distinguished between the subgroup of Controls who showed an interference effect and those who did not.

At work and in the family, people do emotional work to meet other people's emotional needs, improve their wellbeing, and maintain social harmony. Emotional work is unique and skilled work - it involves handling emotions and social relationships and its product is the change of feeling in others. ¶ The thesis extends the work of Erickson and Wharton (1993, 1997) and England (1992, England & Farkas, 1986) by adding a psychological perspective. Emotional work is defined in terms of behaviours. Three dimensions, companionship, help and regulation, distinguish whether positive or negative emotions in other people are the target of emotional work. Companionship builds positive emotions, whereas help and regulation repairs and regulates negative emotions. ¶ Two studies, the Public Service Study (n=448) and the Health Care Study (n=261), sample different work and family role contexts (spouse, parent, kinkeeper and friendship, manager, workmate and service roles). The Integrative Emotional Work (IEW) Inventory was developed to assess emotional work in these roles. ¶ Emotional work is not just women's work. Younger people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds also do more emotional work. In contexts where it is not rewarded, emotional work is done by those with lower status. Emotional work is responsive and increases when other people are distressed. It is an aspect of the domestic division of labour, and influenced by workplace climate. Although personality is a factor, some determinants are modifiable. People do more emotional work when they have the skills, when it is saliently prescribed, and when it is rewarded and recognised. ¶ Emotional work is costly to those who do it and combines in its effects across work and family roles. When people do emotional work they 'catch' emotions from others (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994). Handling positive emotions in others improves wellbeing. However, handling negative emotions in others relates to a wide range of psychological health problems. These health costs are mitigated when emotional work is rewarded. Emotional work's devaluation sets in train social group differences in its performance, and confers both material (England & Folbre, 1999) and health disadvantages on those who do it.

<p>One major focus of anxiety research in recent years has been the identification of cognitive factors that promote increased vulnerability to anxiety. Cognitive formulations propose that anxiety is characterised by an increased tendency to attend to negatively valenced emotional information, and that this bias may play a causal role in the development and maintenance of clinical anxiety. Evidence suggests that this anxiety-linked processing bias occurs even in conditions in which the stimuli are masked in order to prevent awareness of the content (i.e., <i>preattentive bias</i>). The present thesis focused principally on the preferential processing of threat-related information that occurs outside awareness. Two different outcome measures were used to index preferential preattentive processing of threat-related information in non-clinical populations: The emotional Stroop task was used to index <i>selective attention</i> to masked presentation of threatening word stimuli, whereas skin conductance responses were used to index <i>selective autonomic responses</i> to masked presentation of threatening pictorial stimuli. The empirical studies in the present thesis showed that elevated levels of trait anxiety promote preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, whereas elevated levels of social desirability (interpreted as defensiveness) generally prevent preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, especially among those at higher levels of trait anxiety, irrespective of outcome measure used. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that a person’s most common emotional reaction when encountering a stressful event is causally influenced by that person’s habitual tendency to selectively encode the most threatening aspects of all available information. Thus, preattentive bias (as measured with the emotional Stroop task) was used to predict the emotional responses (as seen on self-reported emotional distress and autonomic reactivity) following exposure to a laboratory stressor. This study showed that preattentive bias to negative information had significant effects on both self-reported and physiological measures in response to a laboratory stressor, but in diametrically opposite directions. Specifically, whereas preattentive bias was positively associated with self-reported negative emotional response, it was negatively associated with a physiological indicator of emotional response. The results were discussed in terms of an inability to automatically inhibit the processing of threatening cues, which seems to be a vulnerability marker for anxiety. Whether this bias is ultimately sufficient for the development of clinical anxiety remains to be examined in future research. Additionally, more information is needed before it can be established that the emotional Stroop task can be viewed as a reliable diagnostic tool for determining an individual’s anxiety status.</p>

<p> Tidigare forskning har fokuserat på emotionellt arbete i form av bland annat "surface och deep acting", emotionell dissonans och kundinteraktioner. Denna studie ämnade besvara frågeställningen: Har ålder respektive yrkeserfarenhet samband med en SJ AB anställds grad av emotionellt arbete i kundkontakter? Urvalet bestod av 65 anställda från ett flertal SJ Resebutiker i Sverige. Resultat visade att äldre anställda och anställda med längre yrkeserfarenhet hade ett starkare samband med krav och välmående på arbetet. Detta visar att det alltså är de som klarar emotionellt arbete bättre. I denna studie hade rollagerande en stor betydelse för de anställda. En kvalitativ studie skulle eventuellt kunna ge ett annorlunda och mer komplext resultat mot vad denna kvantitativa studie gjort.</p>

<p><p>The concept of emotional branding has not received much attention from the academic community. Emotional branding is a powerful and advantageous instrument. It links brand to the customers, makes customers identify themselves with the brand, adapts brand to customers’ way of life, and makes brand more reliable in customers´ eyes. Simply defined, emotional branding is about fulfilment of peoples’ needs.</p><p>This dissertation explores and analyses factors, which explain the concept emotional branding. After having reviewed the literature in the area of branding and emotions, the authors of the dissertation create an explanatory model. This model consists of four factors: Trust, Personality, Lifestyle, and Relationship. Four propositions are formulated in order to test the model. The suggested theory was tested in a laboratory experiment with a Multi-method qualitative study. The conclusion of the research conducted is that emotional branding, indeed, can be explained by four factors; Trust, Lifestyle, Personality, and Relationship.</p></p>

<p>The globalization of markets is hindering the competitive position of organizations throughout the world. On one hand, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) which have settled in a niche market face an escalating difficulty to defend their market share. On the other hand, increasing fragmentation of value chains throughout the world is turning many SMEs into powerless suppliers (Gammelgaard and Mathiasen, 2007). Consequently, SMEs are obliged to improve their competitiveness, and outsourcing is an effective tool to achieve that. However, its use is still not widespread throughout SMEs (Knowledge Wharton, 2004). In fact, SMEs are perceived to be stimulators of the local economies (Blackford as cited by Odaka and Hawai, 1999, p.58) and to be more attached to their local environment. The weight of emotional responses in decision making of outsourcing might be related to the low occurrence of it amongst SMEs. Hence, the aim of this study is to understand in which way the emotional factors affect the decision making of outsourcing in SMEs.The study follows a qualitative strategy with an explanatory research design. We did not only want to explore the impact of emotional factors, but understand the reasons behind it. Accordingly, we first identified the possible economic and emotional factor through the construction of the theoretical framework. This allowed us to know their individual relevance in the decision making, but unfortunately we could not obtain a coherent picture of their relationship. In order to accomplish these relations, the primary data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Six SMEs with headquarters in Umeå were interviewed and provided us with the necessary data. Consequently, our analysis unveiled the relationship between the factors that affect the decision of outsourcing - managing to fulfill the purpose of our study.Basically, our obtained results led us to the conclusion that the small or medium nature of the enterprise does not condition their emotional behavior. Therefore, we concluded that the fact that the enterprise being an SME does not imply that emotional factors have more weight in the decision making. In fact, we discovered that the emotional factor with the highest degree of influence in decision making of outsourcing in SMEs is the type of corporate culture of the business.The globalization of markets is hindering the competitive position of organizations throughout the world. On one hand, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) which have settled in a niche market face an escalating difficulty to defend their market share. On the other hand, increasing fragmentation of value chains throughout the world is turning many SMEs into powerless suppliers (Gammelgaard and Mathiasen, 2007). Consequently, SMEs are obliged to improve their competitiveness, and outsourcing is an effective tool to achieve that. However, its use is still not widespread throughout SMEs (Knowledge Wharton, 2004). In fact, SMEs are perceived to be stimulators of the local economies (Blackford as cited by Odaka and Hawai, 1999, p.58) and to be more attached to their local environment. The weight of emotional responses in decision making of outsourcing might be related to the low occurrence of it amongst SMEs. Hence, the aim of this study is to understand in which way the emotional factors affect the decision making of outsourcing in SMEs.The study follows a qualitative strategy with an explanatory research design. We did not only want to explore the impact of emotional factors, but understand the reasons behind it. Accordingly, we first identified the possible economic and emotional factor through the construction of the theoretical framework. This allowed us to know their individual relevance in the decision making, but unfortunately we could not obtain a coherent picture of their relationship. In order to accomplish these relations, the primary data was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Six SMEs with headquarters in Umeå were interviewed and provided us with the necessary data. Consequently, our analysis unveiled the relationship between the factors that affect the decision of outsourcing - managing to fulfill the purpose of our study.Basically, our obtained results led us to the conclusion that the small or medium nature of the enterprise does not condition their emotional behavior. Therefore, we concluded that the fact that the enterprise being an SME does not imply that emotional factors have more weight in the decision making. In fact, we discovered that the emotional factor with the highest degree of influence in decision making of outsourcing in SMEs is the type of corporate culture of the business.</p>

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

<p>This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between the emotional intelligence and burnout levels of police constables of the South African Police Service<br /> (SAPS) in the Western Cape. The field work of constables includes situations in which police officers need to make quick decisions involving life and death.</p>

One major focus of anxiety research in recent years has been the identification of cognitive factors that promote increased vulnerability to anxiety. Cognitive formulations propose that anxiety is characterised by an increased tendency to attend to negatively valenced emotional information, and that this bias may play a causal role in the development and maintenance of clinical anxiety. Evidence suggests that this anxiety-linked processing bias occurs even in conditions in which the stimuli are masked in order to prevent awareness of the content (i.e., preattentive bias). The present thesis focused principally on the preferential processing of threat-related information that occurs outside awareness. Two different outcome measures were used to index preferential preattentive processing of threat-related information in non-clinical populations: The emotional Stroop task was used to index selective attention to masked presentation of threatening word stimuli, whereas skin conductance responses were used to index selective autonomic responses to masked presentation of threatening pictorial stimuli. The empirical studies in the present thesis showed that elevated levels of trait anxiety promote preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, whereas elevated levels of social desirability (interpreted as defensiveness) generally prevent preferential preattentive processing of negatively valenced information, especially among those at higher levels of trait anxiety, irrespective of outcome measure used. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that a person’s most common emotional reaction when encountering a stressful event is causally influenced by that person’s habitual tendency to selectively encode the most threatening aspects of all available information. Thus, preattentive bias (as measured with the emotional Stroop task) was used to predict the emotional responses (as seen on self-reported emotional distress and autonomic reactivity) following exposure to a laboratory stressor. This study showed that preattentive bias to negative information had significant effects on both self-reported and physiological measures in response to a laboratory stressor, but in diametrically opposite directions. Specifically, whereas preattentive bias was positively associated with self-reported negative emotional response, it was negatively associated with a physiological indicator of emotional response. The results were discussed in terms of an inability to automatically inhibit the processing of threatening cues, which seems to be a vulnerability marker for anxiety. Whether this bias is ultimately sufficient for the development of clinical anxiety remains to be examined in future research. Additionally, more information is needed before it can be established that the emotional Stroop task can be viewed as a reliable diagnostic tool for determining an individual’s anxiety status.