Emotions play an important role in the lives of human beings and, without doubt,
emotions form an inherent part of the workplace (Ashkanasy, Zerbe, Charmine & Hartel,
2002). Studying emotions within the South African context is relevant for applied
psychology. South Africa comprises eleven official languages which are representative of
the general population in the working environment. As a result, knowledge and
understanding of emotions is useful since it forms part of social interaction at work. The
understanding of one’s own as well as others’ emotions and the ability to deal with those
emotions contribute to the productivity and cooperation among employees in the working
environment.
The objective of this research was to determine the conceptualization of emotion and
culture according to the literature study, to determine the different and representative
emotion words within the isiNdebele speaking group, to determine the relevant and
representative prototypical emotion words that have been encoded in this group, to
determine the cognitive emotion structure of this group and lastly, to determine the interrater
reliability of the raters and reliability of the measurement instrument as well as the
dimensions of emotion structure in the isiNdebele speaking group in Mpumalanga
province.
A survey design with convenience sample was used to achieve the research objectives in
a series of three independent studies. The study population of the first phase (N=126)
consisted of a convenience sample of the isiNdebele speaking group who have metric and
are working in the South African Police Service in Mpumalanga province.
The study population of the second phase consisted of a convenience sample of Language
Experts with degrees and diplomas (N=51) in isiNdebele language from different
occupations. The study population of the third phase consisted of a convenience sample
of the experts (educators) in isiNdebele speaking group (N=183) from different schools in
the former KwaNdebele homeland in Mpumalanga province.
In this study, free listing, prototypicality and similarity rating questionnaires were
administered by a qualified psychometrist. Statistical methods and procedures
(Multidimensional Scaling and Descriptive Statistics) were used and Cronbach alpha
coefficients were determined to analyse the results of the isiNdebele speaking group.
The results of the free listing task indicated the words with the highest frequency as cry
(lila), happy (thaba), laugh (hleka), angry (kwata), disappointed (swaba), confused
(hlangahlangana), depressed (gandeleleka), pain (ubuhlungu), tired (dinwa), and abused
(hlukumezeka). The results of this phase also indicated the basic emotion concepts of
happiness (thaba) and angry (kwata) as the only emotion terms which mostly came to
mind to the isiNdebele speaking group.
The results of the prototypicality rating task indicated the emotion terms ranked as the ten
(10) most prototypical emotion terms for the isiNdebele speaking group (N=51) were
“ukuthaba khulu” (exhilaration), “itukuthelo/ ukukwata” (anger), “ithabo elikhulu”
(euphoria), “ukuthaba” (cheerfulness), “ithabo” (happiness), “ukudana” (dejection),
“ukutlhuwa/ ukudana”(glumness), “ukuthaba” (joviality), “ukulila/isililo” (cry),
“ithabo” (joy).
A multi– dimensional scaling was conducted to determine the cognitive structure of
emotion concepts whereby a two– dimensional structure (evaluation and power) was
identified to the isiNdebele speaking group.
Recommendations for future research to the organisation as well as recommendations for
future research were suggested. / http://hdl.handle.net/10394/7044 / http://hdl.handle.net/10394/7044 / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/7044 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Masombuka, Johannes Sipho |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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