Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape

Although red tape has a long history in public administration research, the emotional consequences of bureaucratic procedures for citizens have received little attention in the literature. Within the framework of behavioral public administration, this article investigates how varying conditions of administrative delay, administrative burden, and rule dysfunctionality in citizen-state interactions spark discrete emotional reactions. Physiological measurements of emotions (e.g., facial coding, electrodermal activity, heart rate) from 136 participants in a laboratory study show that bureaucratic red tape evokes significant negative emotional responses, especially confusion, frustration, and anger. Experimental evidence also indicates that delay is less stirring than burden, while rule functionality has little placatory effect, regardless of the favorability of outcomes. These results support the conceptualization of red tape as an affective rather than a cognitive phenomenon. They also suggest that negative emotions of citizens are linked to the modus operandi of public administrations.     

Turning everywhere,getting nowhere: experiences of seeking help for mortgage delinquency and their implications for foreclosure prevention

The growing literature on financial, demographic, and institutional aspects of the foreclosure crisis largely neglects the experiences and actions of homeowners. This in-depth account of homeowners' responses to mortgage delinquency and the success of the strategies they employ to prevent foreclosure is based on focus groups conducted in 2006 with low- and moderate-income homeowners, and nonprofit housing professionals in five US cities. The events precipitating mortgage delinquency often set off a cascade of trouble placing multiple demands on homeowners' financial, emotional, and social resources. Homeowners pursued foreclosure prevention assistance from a variety of sources including their lender, social welfare agencies, and nonprofit homeownership organizations, but encountered many obstacles to resolving mortgage delinquency. Their unsuccessful attempts to secure assistance contributed to financial and emotional strain and sometimes worsened prospects of preventing foreclosure. Despite the numerous federal policies developed to address the problem of foreclosure, the experiences described by participants in this study continue, indicating the need for more systematic, enforceable, and preventive policies to address foreclosures in the future.     

Strength of belief and risk

The purpose of this paper is to review work on subjective probability and strength of belief, in particular with reference to situations involving a high degree of risk. Work concerned mostly with cognitive limitations and shortcomings is discussed and some implications for societal responses to risky technology are offered. It is concluded that there is, in the literature on subjective probability, a lack of work on small probabilities and on the emotional influence of belief formation to be expected in situations that are related to large social values.This study was supported by a grant from the Committee for Future Oriented Research, Stockholm, Sweden.     

Lock them up! Punitive aggression and populism as political vigilantism

Populist leaders and movements are incredibly diverse, but one factor that most share is the tendency to pick fights. Populists often stir up conflict and use aggressive rhetoric that would destroy the reputation of mainstream politicos. Furthermore, many of these fights have little material benefit for base-level supporters, and often actively harm them. Yet populist militants generally reward combative behavior. Why is populism so conflict prone? And why do populists so often escape negative consequences for provoking damaging dustups? I argue that these sorts of conflict are driven by an emotional impulse that lies at the heart of populism: punitive aggression. Populists view political problems as the result of malign actions by hostile outgroups, and they perceive the state as either negligently allowing or actively abetting these actions. The failure of the state to punish the guilty breeds an intense and deep-seated desire to harm those seen as violating norms and values, regardless of the cost. Observational and experimental data are consistent with the hypothesis that, while the never-ending conflict typical of populism may harm its adherents’ interests, it continues because it satisfies much more basic emotional and psychological needs. This paper suggests that confronting and challenging populists may be difficult because forceful responses will reinforce the bond between the leader and his or her followers.     

情绪工作研究的理论综述

情绪工作是近20多年来西方组织行为学研究中一个新兴的研究领域。文章主要介绍了情绪工作的概念,情绪工作的维度与测量工具、情绪工作的影响因素,并进一步分析了情绪工作的未来研究趋向,以期为深入研究情绪工作提供理论基础。     

What really matters is which camp goes dirty: Differential effects of negative campaigning on turnout during Swiss federal ballots

Using individual data on Swiss federal ballots (VOX data) and an original dataset on the evolution and content of political campaigns, this article elucidates how negative campaigning influences individual turnout during Swiss federal ballots. It hypothesises that the effect of negativism on turnout depends on ‘which camp goes dirty’ and, specifically, on the direction of the political campaign (‘status quo’ versus ‘policy change’ campaigns). A series of multilevel models provide strong support for the hypotheses, by showing that high negativism in ‘status quo campaigns’ decreases individual turnout, whereas high negativism for ‘policy change campaigns’ increases it. It is argued here that this could depend on the emotional responses triggered by negativism in political campaigns.     

Emotions in Management and the Management of Emotions: The Impact of Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Politics on Public Sector Employees

Readers are invited to a rendezvous with the meaning of the heart and emotions in public administration. Despite the growing interest in recent years in emotional intelligence within the managerial literature, too little has been written about emotional intelligence within the public sector. This is surprising in light of New Public Management voices that stress flexibility, responsiveness, and a focus on the needs and demands of citizens. The functionality of the heart in a mind‐oriented bureaucracy is analyzed, and a model is suggested for exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence, organizational politics, and employees' performance in public agencies. This model is empirically tested in two Israeli municipalities. The results support a moderating role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between organizational politics and emotional commitment, as well as between organizational politics and employees' absenteeism. Other direct mediating effects of political perceptions and skills are noted. Implications for theory development, future empirical studies, as well as practical recommendations are suggested.     

Public Opinion, Risk Assessment, and Biotechnology: Lessons from Attitudes toward Genetically Modified Foods in the European Union

Proponents of biotechnology argue that citizens' opposition to innovations such as genetically modified (GM) foods is rooted in emotionalism, media and nongovernmental organizations' distortions of good science, and scientific ignorance. Critics charge that this "risk management discursive" is too reductionist, exaggerates scientific capacity, inappropriately privileges scientific values over social and political values, and inaccurately captures how citizens evaluate biotechnology. This article uses ordered logit analysis applied to the responses of Europeans to a 2005 Eurobarometer survey to test the validity of these competing perspectives in the area of GM foods. Our analysis supports the arguments of those calling for the inclusion of broader discursive social, political, and cultural elements in deliberations over GM foods. Analysis also shows that citizens are less emotional in evaluating GM foods than proponents claim and supports this "new politics of knowledge" perspective, but citizens also cling more tightly to hopes that science can resolve debates with objective analysis.     

Gender and Emotional Labor in Public Organizations: An Empirical Examination of the Link to Performance

Scholars of public organizations have begun to emphasize emotional labor in studies of gender in the workplace, finding that the skills women bring to organizations are often overlooked and undercompensated even though they play a vital role in the organization. Emotional labor is an individual's effort to present emotions in a way that is desired by the organization. The authors hypothesize that employers with greater emotional labor expectations of their employees will have more effective interactions with clients, better internal relationships, and superior program performance. This article tests the effects of emotional labor in a bureaucratic workforce over time. Multiple regression results show that organizations with more women at the street level have higher overall organizational performance. Additionally, emotional labor contributes to organizational productivity over and above its role in employee turnover and client satisfaction.     

幼儿面部表情识别能力培养的实验研究

为了考察幼儿情绪识别能力培养的效果,我们对50名儿童进行情绪识别培养,结果发现:幼儿情绪识别能力培养效果明显;不同年龄段培养的效果差异显著,3岁效果最明显,3岁也是正性情绪培养的关键期;正性情绪识别能力培养存在性比差异,女生比男生快;幼儿负性情绪识别能力培养3、4岁都有质的改变。结果提示:幼儿情绪识别能力发展迅速,培养效果明显。不同类型情绪培养效果有分离,正性、负性培养作用明显。     

Racial attitudes and emotional responses to the 2016 Republican candidates

ABSTRACT

We argue that both Obama ‘08 and Trump ‘16 benefited from unusually high enthusiasm generated during their respective campaigns, and these emotions conditioned underlying racial attitudes – albeit in different ways – to pave the way to the White House. Racial animosity is usually studied in the context of minority candidates, but in the 2016 election, Donald Trump (a white candidate) frequently made direct attacks on immigrants and foreigners. This study examines how emotions generated during the campaigns and racial resentment, which we consider a preexisting attitude, shaped voter evaluations of the 2016 presidential candidates in the general election and Republican primaries. Drawing on original telephone survey data from the highly salient GOP Iowa caucuses and national opinion data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we find that racial resentment interacted with positive emotions (enthusiasm) to increase support for Trump. The effect of racial attitudes in predicting favorable evaluations of Trump disappeared or diminished to a quarter of its original size when emotional responses to the candidate were measured. The study generalizes a framework about the interactive effect of existing racial attitudes and campaign-generated emotions to apply to both white and minority candidates.     

Political radio and television advertisements in a young democracy: the 2009 South African national election campaign

It is argued that political parties in a developing democracy should contribute to sustaining democracy through their informational and motivational functions during election campaigns. Rather than debating the merit of issue messages, it is argued that cognitive and emotional campaign messages should be integrated, in order to not only attract voters' attention but also to inform the voter, to foster democratic values, to stimulate debate and to motivate voters to vote. It was found that in the 2009 South African general election, South African political parties did not effectively integrate emotional and cognitive messages, but references to democratic values were integrated with the emotional messages. Few of the parties encouraged voters to participate in the election for the sake of sustaining the democracy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions

Politicians routinely appeal to the emotions of voters, a practice critics claim subverts the rational decision making on which democratic processes properly rest. But we know little about how emotional appeals actually influence voting behavior. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that political ads can change the way citizens get involved and make choices simply by using images and music to evoke emotions. Prior research suggests voters behave differently in different emotional states but has not established whether politicians can use campaigns to manipulate emotions and thereby cause changes in political behavior. This article uses two experiments conducted during an actual election to show that: (1) cueing enthusiasm motivates participation and activates existing loyalties; and (2) cueing fear stimulates vigilance, increases reliance on contemporary evaluations, and facilitates persuasion. These results suggest campaigns achieve their goals in part by appealing to emotions, and emotional appeals can promote democratically desirable behavior .     

Playing with Emotions: The Effect of Moral Appeals in Elite Rhetoric

This study argues that moral appeals in political advertising—and political rhetoric in general—are a form of emotional appeal that political elites use strategically. In particular, the study shows that moral appeals in political ads elicit a strong emotional response from voters and that it is precisely through an adjustment in their use of moral appeals that candidates signal their moderation as they pivot from the primary to the general election. To make these arguments, the study uses a content analysis of 3462 unique political advertisements from the 2008 Presidential, Senate, House, and gubernatorial primary and general elections, as well as individual-level survey data from the 2012 YouGov/Vanderbilt Ad Rating Project.     

“非虚构写作”在网络舆情事件中的情感动员功能与表达逻辑

社交媒体时代,舆论生态的“后真相时代”特征日益鲜明,情感与信念成为网络舆情事件的主要动力。“非虚构写作”作为将纪实报道与文学创作结合起来的写作手法,在网络舆情事件中发挥着强大的情感动员功能。通过将悲情叙事、身份标签、戏谑表达等传统的网络情感动员表达逻辑与“文史合一”、忧患意识等“非虚构写作”本土概念巧妙嫁接,“非虚构写作”引发了一系列重大网络舆情事件,呈现出社会学观察、原型叙事、文化冲突三种表达逻辑。“非虚构写作”在舆情表达、舆论监督、社会观察等方面发挥着积极作用。同时,带有深刻情感色彩的“非虚构写作”也蕴含着网络民粹主义、网络暴力、网络虚假信息等诸多风险因素。如何实现“非虚构写作”批判与建设、解构与建构、破与立等方面的平衡,这为互联网生态建设提出了新的内容和新的问题。     

Citizenship on paper or at heart? a closer look into the dual citizenship debate in Europe

This article seeks to promote an integrated approach to the study of citizenship policies, which pays due attention to their potential impact on migrants whose self-recognition are formally delimited by legal definitions. Through a novel approach that makes use of naturalisation processes as an empirical entry point into the narratives of citizenship embraced by Turkish migrants, this article investigates the role of dual citizenship policies in three European countries: Spain, the Netherlands and the UK. The evidence from the sample group displays a process of ‘self-bargaining’ prior to the naturalisation decision, which calls into question the link established between legal and emotional bonds of citizenship. The Dutch example demonstrates how Turkish migrants cope with the ban on dual citizenship by downplaying the identity-conferring role of citizenship status. This leads to a decoupling of legal and emotional aspects of citizenship and thereby to the adoption of a thin sense of citizenship. While Spain represents an in-between case that has a tolerant implementation despite a de jure ban, the British example shows how the process of ‘self-bargaining’ can result in the widening of emotional landscape, when dual citizenship is allowed. A thick sense of citizenship is therefore not only preserved but it can also be extended to the citizenship of the country of residence.     

Work redesign in development perspective: An empirical study of multitasking among civil servants in Malawi

Civil servants in many developing countries are increasingly faced with multitask situations at work to improve the efficiency of public sectors. Although multitasking might boost employee productivity, its potentially negative impact on other areas of employees’ lives has been ignored. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, our research aims to investigate whether, how, and when multitasking at work decreases the subjective well-being of employees in the public sector. Using a two-wave survey of 164 civil servants in Malawi, our findings showed that multitasking at work was positively related to employees’ negative affect and negatively related to their satisfaction with life and positive affect through emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the study found that polychronicity, which refers to one's preference to handle more than one task at the same time, moderated the relationship between multitasking and emotional exhaustion, such that the association described above was weaker when an employee's polychronicity was higher. Finally, the indirect impact of multitasking on positive affect through emotional exhaustion was also moderated by polychronicity. These findings provide some theoretical and managerial implications for public sector in developing countries on how to focus on employee well-being while using multitasking work design.     

The Social Value of Self-Esteem

This essay reflects upon the current cultural skirmishes over the parenting practices of Americans, which have pitted “Helicopter Parents” against “Free-Range Kids”; “Tiger Mothers” against “Panda Dads;” and at-risk communities “Waiting for Superman” against privileged students in the “Race to Nowhere.” Despite the exaggerated claims of difference in these and other popular representations of the parenting wars, a common theme of building children’s self-esteem is evident as a cornerstone of contemporary American parenting practices. Through different means, the relatively privileged parents who write child-rearing memoirs (or confessionals) pursue a similar end: to build and enhance their children’s self-concept and emotional competence. In particular, professional-class parents who are anxious about their own prospects for continued success in a risky economy turn toward emotional capital as a necessary supplement to educational and extra-curricular success to ensure inter-generational transmission of advantage. The goals of emotional competence and self-esteem replicate the mechanisms of control to which elite parents are subjected in professional careers and therefore represent an important form of cultural capital in the reproduction of class advantages.     

Emotions and sentiment: An exploration of artist websites

Artists of all genres express their emotions through their creations and market their works online. We argue that in marketing their work online, it is important to understand not only the emotional responses of the artistic works themselves but also that the sentiment evoked on their websites matters. Developing the correct website sentiment can have favorable consequences. It can increase the interest of potential consumers, assure that appropriate expectations are set for the actual consumption experience, and lead to increased sales and word of mouth marketing. Online sentiment that is ill-aligned to the emotions the actual offering evokes can have adverse consequences, including disappointment with the actual offering and buyer's remorse. To better understand the online sentiment of artists' websites, we begin by briefly revisiting the interplay between art, emotions, and the issue of online “sentiment.” Then, we describe a study of a sample of artists' websites that had the objective of gauging both the nature of and the extent of the emotions present in its text, as well as gaining an indication of the sentiment of the website. We describe the use of a relatively new content analysis tool to do this. Following this, we explore the data gathered, with the specific purpose of determining whether the emptions expressed on artists' websites can significantly predict sentiment, if so, which emotions tend to be the strongest predictors. We conclude by discussing some managerial implications of the results and by identifying avenues for future research.     

Working hard on the outside: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of The Biggest Loser Australia

The Biggest Loser (TBL) is a reality television weight-loss programme that positions itself as a response to the so-called “obesity crisis”. Research on TBL has thus far focussed on audience responses and its effect on viewers’ beliefs about weight loss. This article focuses instead on how meaning is constructed in TBL. We conducted a multimodal critical discourse analysis of a key episode of TBL (the 2012 Australian season finale) to examine how the textual, visual and auditory elements combine to construct meanings beyond the ostensible health messages. Although the overt message is that all contestants have worked hard, turned their lives around and been “successful”, examination of editing choices, lighting and colour, clothing and time spent on contestants allows us to see that the programme constructs varying degrees of success between contestants and provides accounts for these differences in outcomes. In this way the programme is able to present itself as a putative celebration of all contestants while prescribing narrow limits around what constitutes success. TBL reinforces an ideology in which “success” is a direct result of “the work” of weight loss (both physical and emotional), which can apparently be read straightforwardly off the body. TBL’s “celebration” of weight loss thus reproduces and strengthens the widespread view of fat bodies as physical manifestations of individual (ir)responsibility and psychological dysfunction, and contributes to the ongoing stigmatisation of obesity.