Nurse-patient emotional interaction in quality of work life. The role of empathy and emotional dissonance.

People are emotions! Our behaviors, thoughts and actions are shaped by what we feel. As William James often wondered about “What is an emotion?”, several organizational studies have been recently started thinking “what about emotions in organizations?”A changing of paradigm, in fact, has been recently developed. Workplace was thought as cold and rational; Yet it is no more emotionless than any other aspect of social life (Fisher, Ashkanasy, 2000).In the recent years we have been witnesses to a rise of organized studies of emotions in the workplace. Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) advised workplace experiences comprise many work events that can be pleasing or stressful and frustrating. Doubtless, emotions are beginning an inherent part of the workplace. This transformation plays an important role in the nursing contest. This phd dissertation would like to contribute to recognize emotions as an inherent part of everyday nurses work life, giving them the attention they deserve. Regarding the recent studies about emotions in the workplace and especially those in the nursing contest, another more specific aim has born. It’s interesting to note most reviews of the matter show a strong prevalence of the dark side of emotions. Emotional workload has been included in the large and well known arena of burn out, stress and dissatisfaction. The Hochschild’s original sociological conceptualization (1983), for example, focused on the detrimental effects of estrangement and inauthencity, has dominated the literature on emotional labor. Although there are general support and acceptation for the positive link between emotional workload and work strain, there’re some inconsistencies in these findings (Pugh, Thurau, Groth, 2011). An emerging approach to organizational psychology, in fact, encourages researches to recognize the positive aspects of work (Turner, Barling, & Zacharatos, 2001) and to give more attention to human strengths and optimal functioning rather than to their deficits (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). The idea is for psychologists to find ways of increasing the positive consequences for people as a result of investing extensive time and energy into their work.This study aims to analyze the perspective below and in particular wants to verify the role played by emotional regulation in promoting positive experiences at work. A review (Zapf, 2002) has shown emotion workload has both positive consequences (such as job satisfaction or feeling of personal accomplishment) and negative implications (such as emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, or psychosomatic complaints). This ambivalent character of emotion work suggests that focusing on specific emotional regulation strategies, rather than categories of emotions, could enhance understanding of how employees manage their emotions in the workplace (Diefendorff, 2008). Two studies has been planned in order to investigate the perspective below. Study 1 aims to test the role of empathy and emotional dissonances on positive outcomes such as job satisfaction and work engagement. Theoretical difference are also provided. Study 2 is planned from Study 1’s results and aims to test whether the negative effects of emotional dissonance can be lessened by a moderator, such as emotional support. Discussion and future implications are also provided.