How Emotions Move Us: An Integrative Framework for Incidental Emotions and Decision Making at Work

Abstract

Incidental emotions—emotions elicited outside a decision context—can affect decisions at work. Extant theory emphasizes that incidental emotions affect decisions through the emotion's associated appraisals or interpretations of the environment. A related but conceptually distinct component of emotions is action tendency, or the drive to execute an action for a particular goal. We address prior theoretical ambiguities and disparate findings, introducing an Integrative Framework for Incidental Emotions and Decision Making in which these complementary but conceptually distinct components (i.e., the informational and the motivational pathways) of emotions can each affect decision making at work. We present contextual moderators for whether an incidental emotion's appraisals or action tendencies influence subsequent workplace decisions, including drive satisfaction, appraisal override, situation feasibility, and task compatibility. Finally, we outline implications for future theory development and methodology, as well as practical implications for managing incidental emotions’ effects on decision making at work.

Plain Language Summary

How emotions spill over into our decisions: through what we think and how we feel driven to act

We often experience emotions that have nothing to do with the decisions we are making. For example, a manager could be angry upon learning about non-compliance with a safety protocol on the plant floor and is next faced with an unrelated decision, such as to choose among vendors for a part. These incidental emotions can influence our choices in ways we may not fully realize. Understanding how this happens is important for everyday organizational decision-makers. Most past research explains these effects by focusing on how emotions influence our thoughts. For instance, feeling fearful might make a decision-maker see the world as less controllable, leading them to take fewer risks. This perspective focuses on how emotions shape our interpretation of the environment, what we call the informational pathway. But emotions are not just about thoughts; they also involve urges to act. For example, anger may make someone want to confront others, while shame may trigger a desire to hide. These urges, called action tendencies, can also influence decisions, even when the original source of the emotion is no longer present. This paper introduces a new framework that considers both how emotions shape our thoughts and how they push us to act. We call this the Integrative Framework for Incidental Emotions and Decision Making. We also identify when each pathway is more likely to influence our decisions. For example, whether or not the workplace situation allows someone to act on their emotional impulse can affect whether the emotion changes their decision. By better understanding these two pathways, we can more accurately predict when and how emotions affect decision making, and learn how to manage the effects of lingering emotions on decision making.