Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

A representative emotion inventory
for Spanish-speaking population research
Espinoza, José Antonio
CENTRUM Católica – Pontificia Universidad Católica el Perú
Av. Daniel Alomía Robles125 – Surco – Lima 33, Peru +5116267137
ABSTRACT
In order to build a basic set of emotions for research
in a Spanish Speaking working setting a sample of
697 professionals pursuing an Executive MBA was
surveyed. They expressed a total of 4,441 emotions
that occur in the workplace. Emotions were
analyzed by the frequency of their mention, the
relative speed with which they were remembered,
and the gender and age of the subject. The 32 most
named emotions were identified and its analysis
suggests to be a useful set of emotions, gender
influence free, to be used in Spanish speaking
settings. The relative speed with which emotions
were reminded and the influence of age also
revealed interesting insights in terms of the
emotions perceived by X and Millennial generation
individuals.
BODY
Introduction
The last 30 years have seen a notorious shift in
behavioral sciences to the study of emotions and
their impact on attitudes and decision making in
work settings. It has been shown that emotions can
influence behaviors via attitudes and reactions
[1][2] [9][14][16].
One framework frequently used in these studies is
the Affective Events Theory [18]. This theory
asserts that the characteristics of the work
environment propitiate certain types of events that
generate some positive and some negative emotions.
These in turn affect behaviors immediately, or are
forming attitudes that stimulate attachment or
uprooting of the organization. Certain personality
traits may moderate the relationships between
variables [17]. A basic point for those investigations
is to have an inventory of the emotions that are
going to be reported at work. This set must have an
extension not too large to facilitate the reports of the
subjects. Although there are a large number of these
inventories, they present some limitations because
they were defined using samples from students, not
necessarily workers [15].
Additionally, there are limitations for using these
emotions inventories in Spanish-speaking countries.
It has been demonstrated that the identification and
appreciation of many emotions are influenced by
culture in general and by language in particular
[6][7][11][12]. It is not enough to translate them
back and forth [7][10].
The approach used in this research was to work with
professionals with work experience to write down
the emotions that, at their opinion, happen in a work
environment. In order to discriminate them better,
they were first asked to write down emotions in a
general context for one minute. After this priming
they were asked to write down a new list, but now
specifically job related. They could repeat from the
previous list. When the minute finished they were
asked to write down their age and their sex. The
sample comes from professionals with a university
degree who are studying a part-time MBA. That is,
sharing post degree studies with their work
activities.
There are numerous positions as to the definition of
what is an emotion, or a feeling, or a mood
[3][4][5][13]. In the present study, we have not
intended to choose any particular model but to take
what individuals understand by emotions [3].
Characteristics of the sample
Valid data were received from 697 people. Not all
reported age and / or gender. In the case of age n =
424, mean = 34, mode = 30, std.dev = 5.6, min = 23,
max = 59. See Table 1.
The emotions expressed as adjectives were
converted to nouns and a filter was applied to only
take the emotions declared for the job.
RESULTS
General
Emotions were analyzed and classified as to their
frequency of occurrence. There were 390 different
emotions. The 25 most mentioned were taken
(general ranking) covering 56% of the total
mentions. The same analysis was then made, but
discriminated by gender (M, F, ND). The results
were compared with the overall ranking. There were
emotions in the ranking by gender that were not in
the general ranking. For this reason, the general
ranking was expanded to consider all emotions
occupying a place equal or less than 25th in any of
the categories (H, M, ND). This led to expand the
set to 32 emotions. See Table 2. This set represented
2,694 reported emotions, being the 60% of the total
number (4,441).
The emotions that appear first in the lists made by
the subjects were alegría (28%), satisfacción (10%),
frustración (7%), felicidad (6%), and estrés (5%)).
When the selection expanded to consider the 2nd
and 3rd places the same emotions were repeated.
By gender
Each emotion was qualified by its relative position
(from most frequent to less frequent) in each one of
the categories (H for men, M for women, ND for
not reported gender). A correlation analysis was
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