the various personal consequences—psychological, emotional, physical—of modulating
emotions reported by participants. Notably, the 64% of participants who commented on this theme shared a diverse array of feelings, reactions, and outcomes, which are described below.
Several participants reflected that their management of emotions had an impact on their relationship with their spouses. For example, one participant noted that her spouse did not believe she managed her stress effectively. Another shared that she would bring home her frustration. Yet another, in relation to staying calm when being yelled at, shared:
You know, there- it takes a lot of energy out…. Even though I was cool and, um, sometimes my husband’s saying that I’m like somehow now emotionless. (laughs) That’s his thing these past couple years. (Participant V, Finance, Millennial)
Emotional modulation was described by multiple participants as leading to fatigue; for example:
I was like, you know, I just, I stayed cool but it definitely- it definitely takes a lot more energy to continue to try to understand where other people are coming from when they’re acting irrationally. (Participant V, Finance, Millennial)
As an additional way to conceptualize the energy used by modulating emotions, another participant shared that suppressing her emotions created “turmoil” inside of her. A second shared that in suppressing her emotions, she felt “like that duck that’s paddling underneath but gliding on the top” (Participant W, Pharmaceuticals, Generation X).
Suppressing emotions was also described as leading to feelings of inauthenticity, as reported by a participant who noted that her organizational context required her to suppress her anger. Another person shared that the process of suppressing frustration created more frustration in the near-term, but ultimately, she felt “great” if the issue was resolved (if it was not resolved, she felt even more frustrated than she did in the first place). A third shared that after suppressing negative emotions in response to an inappropriate comment, she was in tears and very upset. A fourth noted that suppressing her anger may actually lead to clouding in her functioning,
affecting her capacity to complete her overarching task. A fifth noted that suppressing emotions led her to feel “awful” and ultimately negatively affected her sleep. Finally, two others noted that they had received feedback from colleagues about their emotional modulation. These colleagues noted that their emotional modulation made these participants hard to read, and they were probed further about why they did not display more emotionality. These remarks suggest the potential negative outcomes related to suppressing emotions.
In terms not modulating emotions, participants reported numerous reactions after they had displayed what they were feeling: one participant shared that she openly expressed frustration, then felt guilty for embarrassing someone else (she had responded assertively to being spoken over publicly). After her frustration had been apparent to a direct report, another participant stated: “She could tell that I was not very happy. And I felt bad that she could tell that I wasn’t very happy” (Participant N, Millennial, Finance). A third reported regret that she had openly expressed anger after colleagues made a sexist comment about her:
And I got really frustrated…. I vented about it later to colleagues, and they took it over the line and called me a sex-ertary, and at that point I was just like, “You have no right to say that to me.” And I, I got very angry…. But I wasn’t proud of the anger I displayed. (Participant R, Offshore Drilling, Millennial)
Fourth, a surgeon who expressed frustration at the lack of proper operating room supplies felt as if she was overreacting (i.e., “I probably overreact to it and I don’t know that that does any good”). Next, a participant who openly showed anger stated that it led to her being unsuccessful at her job. Another participant shared that anonymous complaints were filed about her after she had openly expressed frustration, describing this period as “devastating.” Finally, one reported that when she expressed her emotions (through venting to others outside of her organization), she felt as if she was being unprofessional by talking about others “behind their backs.” Thus, the intrapersonal reactions to expressing emotions were often negative.
Finally, there was also a subset of participants who spoke to emotionally trying
experiences in the past ultimately decreasing their emotionality in the present. Several reported that they no longer felt as if they might cry at work. Others shared that they developed a type of immunity to the stimuli that had previously evoked a reaction in them. Notably, participants tended to view this as protective and helpful to their continued career growth.
In summary, in response to research question 1c, it is clear that myriad outcomes arose from modulating emotions as well as from failing to modulate emotions. The majority were negative outcomes, with a select few exceptions. Interestingly, there were some commonalities in outcomes, but there was also a great deal of idiosyncrasy in what participants reported.
Overall, this section indicates that participants modulated emotions because of wanting to appear competent, because it is important for leaders to do so, because of their gender, because some emotions are unacceptable in an organizational context, or because they wanted to leverage emotions as a tool to convey information. They used various techniques to manage emotions, including intrapersonal and interpersonal tactics, both within and outside of the workplace. Lastly, the effects of modulating, or failing to modulate, emotions ranged from feelings of
exhaustion or inauthenticity, to feeling additional emotion, to experiencing a clouding in functioning.
Warmth-Related Themes
Five themes relating to warmth and femininity were extracted from the data. These themes address the second research question and sub-questions: 2. Do women leaders in male- typed jobs modulate displays of warmth in the workplace? 2a. If so, why? 2b. If so, how? 2c. If so, what are the outcomes? They include: Theme 6: Warmth as a Component of Good
Leadership, Theme 7: Others’ Gendered Expectations About Warmth, Theme 8: Predicted or Actual Workplace Consequences of Warmth Displays, Theme 9: Warmth
Communications to Others, and Theme 10: Personal Consequences of Modulating Warmth Displays. Several subthemes were also derived, which are reported below. The themes below are ordered to first address why warmth was modulated, per research question 2a (Themes 6, 7, and 8), then how it was modulated, per research question 2b (Theme 9), and finally, what impacts arose from modulation, per research question 2c (Themes 9 and 10). (Theme 9 addresses two questions simultaneously.)
When reviewing these themes, it is important to note that participants had varied reactions to the word “warmth,” despite warmth being defined within the interview as a cluster of positive emotions that convey kindness, approachability, sensitivity, and other similar
impressions. Some participants seemed to conceptualize warmth as being stereotypically “girly,” others as displaying physical affection, and still others as making space for personal or familial issues to be brought into the workplace. For example, multiple participants made comments about being conscious of hugging others at work in relation to the warmth questions I posed, or explicitly referenced #metoo. Others made comments like “I am not warm and fuzzy” or “I am
not warm and cuddly,” seeming to differentiate themselves from their associations to the word “warmth.” While this was not formally coded, it is notable that the meaning of warmth
constructed by individual participants varied in relation to this construct.
Theme 6: Warmth as a component of good leadership. Theme 6 offers one potential