Emotion Revolution in the Workplace

Funding Source: FAAS Foundation, Ontario Hospital Association

Team Members: Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Zehavit Levitats, Roni Reiter-Palmon

What do people feel at work? Why does this matter for individual well-being and important work outcomes? To address these questions, the project team conducted large scale nationally representative surveys of the U.S. workforce. These broad economy-wide surveys are to be followed by in-depth studies within specific organizations in the healthcare industry.

The questions examined include:

• What is the nature of passion at work (and why does it matter)?
• What are gender and power differences in how people feel at work? What impact do these differences have?
• How does emotionally intelligent behavior of supervisors create an emotional climate and predict creativity and innovation of employees?
• What are the patterns of engagement and burnout at work? Who are the workers most likely to be engaged, burned out, and both engaged and exhausted? What demands and resources predict patterns of engagement and burnout, and what outcomes are associated with these patterns?
• What does it mean to be an emotionally intelligent organization?

Publications

• Ivcevic, Z., Liu, X., Lin, S., & Brackett, M. A. (2024). Creativity and affect: A person-centered approach. Learning and Individual Differences. 113, 102481. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102481
• Ivcevic, Z., & Grandinetti, M. (2024). Artificial intelligence as a tool for creativity. Journal of Creativity, 34(2), 100079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2024.100079
• Levitats, Z., Ivcevic, Z., & Brackett, M. A. (2022). A world of opportunity: A top-down influence of emotional intelligence-related contextual factors on employee engagement and exhaustion. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.980339
• Taylor, C. L., Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., Menges, J. I., Retier-Palmon, R., & Brackett, M. A. (2022). Gender and emotions at work: Organizational rank has greater emotional benefits for men than women. Sex Roles, 86(1), 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-021-01256-z
• Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., Menges, J., & Brackett, M. A. (2021). Supervisor emotionally intelligent behavior and employee creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 55(1), 79-91. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.436
• Taylor, C., Ivcevic, Z., & Brackett, M. A. (2020). Gender and support for creativity at work. Creativity and Innovation Management, 29, 453-464. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12397
• Moeller, J., Ivcevic, Z., White, A. E., Taylor, C., Menges, J. I., Caruso, D., & Brackett, M. A. (2019, August 7). Passion for work: What is it, who has it, and does it matter? [Preprint]. Available on Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/xhbu7
• Moeller, J., Ivcevic, Z., White, A. E., Menges, J. I., & Brackett, M. A. (2018). Highly engaged but burned out: Intra-individual profiles in the US workforce. Career Development International, 23(1), 86-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-12-2016-0215

• Madrid, H. P., Ibaceta, M., & Ivcevic, Z. (2024, August). Negative affect and creativity: The role of creative process engagement and attentional deployment [Paper presentation]. International Conference on Emotions and Organizational Life, Chicago, IL.
• Lin, S., Ivcevic, Z., Cipriano, C., Li, C., Wood, M. Brackett, M. A. (2023, April). Mixed affect among educators during the COVID-19 pandemic: A network analysis. In C. Cipriano (Chair), Managing emotions in times of uncertainty and stress: Findings from a free national course for educators 2020-2022 [Symposium]. American Educational Research Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.
• Gupta, A., Levitats, Z. S., McKay, A. S., Alwine, C., Ivcevic, Z., & Lin, S. (2022, August). Self, follower, and ability ratings of leader emotional intelligence and follower outcomes [Paper presentation]. Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
• Gupta, A., Levitats, Z. S., McKay, A. S., Alwine, C., Ivcevic, Z., & Lin, S. (2022, August). "Do you feel me? Because I don't": Leader self-follower ratings of emotional intelligence (EI) and leader EI ability on follower outcomes [Paper presentation]. Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
• Ivcevic Z., & Lin, S. (2022, April). Adding context to the relationship between passion and creativity. In K. S. Nei (Chair), The context for innovation: Examining creativity in practice [Symposium]. Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, Seattle, WA.
• Murugavel, V. R., Lindquist, I., Reiter-Palmon, R., Kramer, W. S. Allen, J. A., Ivcevic Z. I., & Taylor, C. L. (2021, April). A structural equation model analysis of how organizations support employee creativity [Poster presentation]. Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, New Orleans, LA.
• Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., & Levitats, Z. (2020, August). Intraindividual profiles of engagement and burnout at work. In Z. Levitats & Z. Ivcevic (Chairs), Engagement at work [Symposium]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC (virtual).
• Murugavel, V., Reiter-Palmon, R., Allen, J., Lundquist, I., Kramer, W., Ivcevic, Z., & Taylor, C. (2020, August). Engagement as a predictor of creativity across occupations. In Z. Levitats & Z. Ivcevic (Chairs), Engagement at work [Symposium]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC (virtual).
• Kramer, W. S., Murugavel, V., Lindquist, I. A., Reiter-Palmon, R., Allen, J. A., Taylor, C. & Ivcevic, Z. (2020, April). Teasing apart turnover intentions and satisfaction: A class analytic approach [Poster presentation]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, Austin, TX.
• Ivcevic, Z., Taylor, C., & Moeller, J. (2019, August). Emotionally intelligent behavior of supervisors affects employee creativity. In C. Taylor & Z. Ivcevic (Chairs), Creativity in the Workplace [Symposium]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.
• Panero, M. E., Moeller, J., Ivcevic, Z., & Taylor, C. (2019, August). Work outcomes of engaged and burned out employees [Paper presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.
• Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., White, A. E., & Brackett, M. A. (2018, August). Creativity and emotion: Beyond positive and negative emotion dichotomy. In Z. Ivcevic & J. D. Hoffmann (Chairs), Creativity and emotion: What lies beyond the benefits of positive emotions? [Symposium]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA.
• Miller, A., White, A., Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., Stern, R., & Brackett, M. A. (2018, August). Ethics in the workplace: Differences by gender and industry. [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA.
• White, A. E., Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., & Brackett, M. A. (2018, August). An intersectional approach to differences in positive and negative workplace emotions [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC.
• Ivcevic, Z., & Stern, R. (2018, June). Emotion revolution in the workplace: Findings from the national survey of working adults and a demonstration of skill building tools [Presentation]. Mental Health America annual meeting. Washington, DC.
• Maliakkal, N., Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., White, A. E., & Brackett, M. A. (2017, August). Creativity and gender in the workplace [Poster presentation]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC.
• Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., White, A. E., Brackett, M. A., & Menges, J. (2017, August). Emotional ambivalence and creativity in the workplace. In Z. Ivcevic (Chair), Social and emotional bases of creativity [Symposium]. American Psychological Association Annual Convention, Washington, DC.
• Ivcevic, Z., Moeller, J., Brackett, M. A., & Menges, J. (2017, July). Emotions and creativity revised [Paper presentation]. International Congress on Emotional Intelligence, Porto, Portugal.

• FAAS Foundation. (2021, November 1). Understanding the current emotion revolution in the workplace—and what employers can do to embrace it. PR News Wire.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2022, May 23). Making creativity and innovation happen. Psychology Today.
• Ivcevic, Z., Stern, R., & Faas, A. (2021, May 17). Research: What do people do to perform at a high level. Harvard Business Review.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2020, August 12). Why creativity takes courage. Psychology Today.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2020, July 9). Bias in support for creativity: Another glass ceiling. Psychology Today.
• Ivcevic, Z., Menges, J., & Miller, A. (2020, March 20). How common is unethical behavior in U.S. organizations? Harvard Business Review.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2020, March 12). Managing Emotions to Innovate. Psychology Today.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2020, February 21). Emotional intelligence makes creativity happen. Psychology Today.
• Blair, L. (2019, November 11). How to avoid burnout at work - and the signs you should take a break. The Telegraph.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2019, October 21). Creativity runs on passion. Psychology Today.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2019, October 18). Gender-diverse teams are more creative. Psychology Today.
• Pringle, Z., Stern, R., & Moeller, J. (2019, August 30). The truth about burnout: It doesn’t look how we expect it to. The Hill.
• Ivcevic, Z. (2019, August 16). Taking creativity to work and making work more creative. Psychology Today.
• Herrera, T. (2018, May 6). Feeling burned out? Here are 3 things that can help. The New York Times.
• Seppälä, E., & Moeller, J. (2018, February 2). 1 in 5 employees is highly engaged and at risk for burnout. Harvard Business Review.
• Full list of media stories for the research on engagement and burnout see: https://cambridgerepository.altmetric.com/details/32124928/news

Connection to Research Agenda: Emotion Science