بیان عاطفی و پیامدهای استرس شغلی : استفاده از پرسشنامه هوش عاطفی (EQ​​-i)

The concept of emotional intelligence was examined in relation to the latitude permitted for emotional expressiveness and adaptation to occupational culture in three groups of helping professionals: police officers, child care workers, and educators in mental health care. A total of 167 individuals were administered the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). There were no differences in the primary scales measuring various aspects of emotional intelligence between the two groups of care workers. There were differences between a combined care worker grouping and the police officers with the latter seeming more emotionally adaptable than the former. Whilst there were some overall gender differences, there were no gender by occupation interactions. There were also differences in terms of three higher order factors of the EQ-i with police officers achieving higher scores on positive affect and emotional stability than the care workers. Results are discussed in the light of differences in occupational cultures and methodological considerations.

This paper describes an application of a measure of emotional intelligence (Bar-on, 1997a and Bar-on, 1997b) to the study of occupational stress. Marsella (1994, p. 164) suggests that stress involves an emotional reaction, especially a reaction involving the negative emotional states. This represents an expansion to investigative approaches of occupational stress. Briner (1996) argues expansions are necessary if questions are to be asked about the processes producing negative emotions and individuals’ experiences of psychological distress as well as implicating work environments or situations as contributory factors of such distress. Individuals’ access to their feelings, the labelling of those feelings and use by them to guide behaviour were conceptualised by Gardner (1983) in terms of personal intelligences (comprised of “intrapersonal intelligence” and “interpersonal intelligence”). These notions were theoretical forerunners to the concepts of emotional literacy and emotional intelligence. Steiner (1984, p. 165) suggested that “to be emotionally literate we need to know both what it is that we are feeling and what the cause of our feelings are” Steiner further argued that emotional literacy is embedded in culture and is learned. Salovey and Mayer (1989/90) expand upon Gardner’s work and defined emotional intelligence as the ability to perceive and express, assimilate, understand and manage emotions. Bar-on, 1997a and Bar-on, 1997b) model of “noncognitive intelligence” appears to be the most comprehensive and inclusive conceptualisation of this construct. Noncognitive intelligence is defined as an array of emotional, personal, and social abilities and skills that influence an individual’s ability to cope effectively with environmental demands and pressures. The key factors involved in this model include intrapersonal capacity (the ability to be aware and understand oneself, one’s emotions and to express one’s feelings and ideas), interpersonal skills (the ability to be aware of, understand and to appreciate others’ feelings as well as to establish and maintain mutually satisfying and responsible relationships with others), adaptability (the ability to verify one’s feelings with objective external cues and accurately size up the immediate situation, flexibly to alter one’s feelings and thoughts with changing situations, and to solve personal and interpersonal problems), stress management strategies (the ability to cope with stress and to control strong emotions), and motivational and general mood factors (the ability to be optimistic, to enjoy oneself and others, and to feel and express positive feelings). The relevance of these conceptualisations for the present paper is based on Barley and Knight’s (1992) proposition that beliefs about emotional expressiveness are specific to particular occupational cultures. Callan (1989) states that an organisation’s culture is that “web of ideas, symbols, values and beliefs about the world which its members hold in common and with reference to which experience is given meaning and value”. Callan further suggests that occupational cultures provide both the rules which govern appropriate behaviour and theories of causation such as defining the circumstances for offering blame or praise for success or failure. Training and on the job experience socialises new members into their respective occupational cultures in such a way so as to define the latitude of acceptance of emotional expression which might expect to vary according to the underlying ethos of a particular work settings. The three groups which are the focus of the present study namely police, child care workers and mental health educators, share some similarities but they are also distinctive. Commonalties have to do with firstly the content of their work exposure which can be somewhat distressing; secondly care workers, educators and police officers are value driven having strong organisational cultures that are resistant to change (Thompson et al., 1996 and Fielding, 1994); as public sector institutions they have in recent years undergone considerable externally enforced organisational change which has introduced a business ethos into managerial practices and resulted in perceived threats to individuals’ sense of vocation (Cannan, 1994, O’Connor, 1992 and Wigfield, 1996). The occupational culture dictates the controlling of affective responses to tragic or violent circumstances, and it is in this domain where the occupations diverge. Police officers are expected to act personably not personally in dealing with distressing operational instances (Pogrebin & Poole, 1991, p. 396) with their effectiveness compromised if they fail to maintain this distinction. Emotional control is an important part of the officer’s occupational identity both in terms of the public’s expectation and demands of the informal culture. Their authority rests with the “suppression of affect” (Reisser & Geiger, 1984 p. 317). Care workers are expected to recognise, defuse and handle violence and strong emotion (Hester, 1994). There is also a gendered dimension to occupational socialisation whose influence affects men and women differently in the groups in the present study. On the one hand there is a perception that women police officers are best suited to deal with the “emotional labor” of police work which pushes them into the social services aspect of policing (Fielding & Fielding, 1992, p. 206). On the other hand, Kadushin (1976) describes the problems faced by men, as a gender minority, in social work and their apparent failure to meet expectations about caring and nurturance. The aim of the present study is to examine the dimensions of emotional expressiveness within these different occupations. Given that (a) policing is dominated by men working within an organisation having masculinised occupational values whilst care work represents a feminine occupation with women as the gender majority, then policing as an occupation might be expected to be more emotionally constrained than that of care workers; (b) women generally are more emotionally expressive than men, then some gender differences and (c) gender/occupation interactions would be expected.

This paper describes an application of a measure of emotional intelligence (Bar-on, 1997a and Bar-on, 1997b) to the study of occupational stress. Marsella (1994, p. 164) suggests that stress involves an emotional reaction, especially a reaction involving the negative emotional states. This represents an expansion to investigative approaches of occupational stress. Briner (1996) argues expansions are necessary if questions are to be asked about the processes producing negative emotions and individuals’ experiences of psychological distress as well as implicating work environments or situations as contributory factors of such distress. Individuals’ access to their feelings, the labelling of those feelings and use by them to guide behaviour were conceptualised by Gardner (1983) in terms of personal intelligences (comprised of “intrapersonal intelligence” and “interpersonal intelligence”). These notions were theoretical forerunners to the concepts of emotional literacy and emotional intelligence. Steiner (1984, p. 165) suggested that “to be emotionally literate we need to know both what it is that we are feeling and what the cause of our feelings are” Steiner further argued that emotional literacy is embedded in culture and is learned. Salovey and Mayer (1989/90) expand upon Gardner’s work and defined emotional intelligence as the ability to perceive and express, assimilate, understand and manage emotions. Bar-on, 1997a and Bar-on, 1997b) model of “noncognitive intelligence” appears to be the most comprehensive and inclusive conceptualisation of this construct. Noncognitive intelligence is defined as an array of emotional, personal, and social abilities and skills that influence an individual’s ability to cope effectively with environmental demands and pressures. The key factors involved in this model include intrapersonal capacity (the ability to be aware and understand oneself, one’s emotions and to express one’s feelings and ideas), interpersonal skills (the ability to be aware of, understand and to appreciate others’ feelings as well as to establish and maintain mutually satisfying and responsible relationships with others), adaptability (the ability to verify one’s feelings with objective external cues and accurately size up the immediate situation, flexibly to alter one’s feelings and thoughts with changing situations, and to solve personal and interpersonal problems), stress management strategies (the ability to cope with stress and to control strong emotions), and motivational and general mood factors (the ability to be optimistic, to enjoy oneself and others, and to feel and express positive feelings). The relevance of these conceptualisations for the present paper is based on Barley and Knight’s (1992) proposition that beliefs about emotional expressiveness are specific to particular occupational cultures. Callan (1989) states that an organisation’s culture is that “web of ideas, symbols, values and beliefs about the world which its members hold in common and with reference to which experience is given meaning and value”. Callan further suggests that occupational cultures provide both the rules which govern appropriate behaviour and theories of causation such as defining the circumstances for offering blame or praise for success or failure. Training and on the job experience socialises new members into their respective occupational cultures in such a way so as to define the latitude of acceptance of emotional expression which might expect to vary according to the underlying ethos of a particular work settings. The three groups which are the focus of the present study namely police, child care workers and mental health educators, share some similarities but they are also distinctive. Commonalties have to do with firstly the content of their work exposure which can be somewhat distressing; secondly care workers, educators and police officers are value driven having strong organisational cultures that are resistant to change (Thompson et al., 1996 and Fielding, 1994); as public sector institutions they have in recent years undergone considerable externally enforced organisational change which has introduced a business ethos into managerial practices and resulted in perceived threats to individuals’ sense of vocation (Cannan, 1994, O’Connor, 1992 and Wigfield, 1996). The occupational culture dictates the controlling of affective responses to tragic or violent circumstances, and it is in this domain where the occupations diverge. Police officers are expected to act personably not personally in dealing with distressing operational instances (Pogrebin & Poole, 1991, p. 396) with their effectiveness compromised if they fail to maintain this distinction. Emotional control is an important part of the officer’s occupational identity both in terms of the public’s expectation and demands of the informal culture. Their authority rests with the “suppression of affect” (Reisser & Geiger, 1984 p. 317). Care workers are expected to recognise, defuse and handle violence and strong emotion (Hester, 1994). There is also a gendered dimension to occupational socialisation whose influence affects men and women differently in the groups in the present study. On the one hand there is a perception that women police officers are best suited to deal with the “emotional labor” of police work which pushes them into the social services aspect of policing (Fielding & Fielding, 1992, p. 206). On the other hand, Kadushin (1976) describes the problems faced by men, as a gender minority, in social work and their apparent failure to meet expectations about caring and nurturance. The aim of the present study is to examine the dimensions of emotional expressiveness within these different occupations. Given that (a) policing is dominated by men working within an organisation having masculinised occupational values whilst care work represents a feminine occupation with women as the gender majority, then policing as an occupation might be expected to be more emotionally constrained than that of care workers; (b) women generally are more emotionally expressive than men, then some gender differences and (c) gender/occupation interactions would be expected.Interactions between occupation and gender were also examined and the F-tests for individual scales were all non significant (p>0.05). Moreover, emotional scale profiles did not show a significant gender by occupational group effect (Wilks λ=0.97, F(12,142)=0.43, p>0.05). Comparisons between individual primary scales and the three occupational groupings are given in Table 3. In light of the fact that the results in the above table indicate there to be no significant difference on the EQ-i scale scores between the mental health educators and the child care social workers, it was decided to combine both types of social workers for further analyses (unless otherwise specified). Based on the present study, police officers appear to be more adaptable on a daily basis than social workers. Their enhanced ability to accurately focus and size up the immediate situation (RT, F=23.77) and efficiency in dealing with problems (PS, F=12.88) serves them well in adapting to dynamically changing situations as they arise. This ability could possibly be related to a greater intrapersonal capacity based on a more accurate self regard in comparison to social workers (SR, F=8.77). Moreover, they are more assertive (AS, F=11.86) and better able to cope with stress than social workers (ST, F=8.05). Lastly, it is interesting that they appear to feel a part of and identify more with the community in which they live and work (RE, F=7.19) and are more satisfied with what they are doing (SA, F=6.98) than social workers based on the sample studied.Higher order factors derived from the primary EQ-i scales are indicated in Table 4. Three interpretable factors were extracted with eigenvalues exceeding unity. The first factor (eigenvalue=6.55, % var. 46.8) had high loadings on interpersonal relationship, assertiveness, self-actualisation, happiness, self-regard, independence and flexibility scales and seems associated with positive affect (α coefficient=0.89). The second factor (eigenvalue=1.67, % var.=12.0) was a bipolar dimension ranging from “negative impression” (FB) to problem solving, stress tolerance, impulse control and reality testing, and has been labelled emotional stability (α coefficient=0.86). A third factor interpretable as social desirability (eigenvalue=1.11, % var.=7.9) comprised the two scales, social responsibility and impression management (faking good, FG): α coefficient is relatively low at 0.44.A between occupational group (social workers vs police) using the higher order factors, positive affect, stability and social conformity was conducted. The covariates age and gender were adjusted for, since age in particular seems related to many of the primary scales. The results are displayed in Table 5.