Emotion regulation and scripts5

EMOTION SCRIPTS IN ORGANIZATIONS: A MULTI-LEVEL MODEL
DONALD E. GIBSON
Dolan School of Business
Fairfield University
North Benson Road
Fairfield, CT 06611
(203) 254-4000, x2841
dgibson@mail.fairfield.edu

Emotion Scripts Organizations: A Multi-Level Model
A paradox of emotions is that they are simultaneously in our control and out of our
control. “In our control” implies that emotions tend to follow particular patterns and are thus
amenable to prediction and regulation; “out of our control” suggests that they are idiosyncratic,
difficult-to-predict states. Experientially, this paradox is seen in the fact that strong feelings of
anger may elude our control, but even in a fury we rarely break our most precious objects
(Frijda, 1988). Our theorizing about emotion also illustrates this paradox. Emotions have been
conceived as interruptions (Mandler, 1985), as ineffable bodily states (James, 1884), and as
largely automatic responses out of our conscious control (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Damasio,
1994), yet emotions also follow predictable patterns, even “laws” (Frijda, 1988), and current
theories now focus on emotion regulation, emphasizing how commonplace emotion control is in
daily life (see Gross, 1998). It is my contention that this in-control / out-of-control paradox can
be fruitfully examined by conceiving of emotions as scripted responses. Emotions exhibit a
script-like structure. They are seen, experientially (by laypeople) and conceptually (by
researchers) as sequences of events based on an if-then goal-directed logic. At the same time,
social norms, individual differences, and differing contexts produce infinite variations in these
scripts. Thus, the existence of scripts suggests that control is possible, but variation sets limits on
that control.
This article examines emotional experience and expression from the perspective of script
theory. I present a model integrating a variety of script approaches as a multi-level model (see
Figure 1). The purpose of the model is to integrate various viewpoints, to accentuate connections
between disparate strands of literature rather than to add new strands. Script theory is useful in
this purpose because scripts reveal both the descriptive content of what “typically” happens
2

when emotions are felt and expressed, and they also offer clues into what ought to happen, the
normative content of what we expect to occur and what we regard as appropriate.
I will assert here that examination of emotion scripts is especially helpful in
understanding the nature of emotion in organizations. Organizations are boundedly rational
structures that constrain individuals’ experience and expression of emotion (Mumby & Putnam,
1992). In this context, many interactions have a scripted quality; for example, researchers have
analyzed performance appraisals (Gioia, Donnellon & Sims, 1989), selection interviews (Poole,
Gray & Gioia, 1990), and sales calls (Leigh & McGraw, 1989) as representing cognitive and
behavioral scripts. At the same time, the complexity of the variables involved—phenomena at
the individual, group, and organizational level—adds to the variation in scripts. Anger may not
be (and typically is not) expressed in the same way in two different organizations, in two
different groups, even with two different target individuals. However, as researchers begin to
refine their work in emotions and seek to demonstrate the utility of their theories to practicing
managers, they are drawn to identifying antecedents and outcomes of emotions. Script theory
offers a template against which to compare and contrast this complexity and variety. It applies
the logic of sequences of events to discovering how emotions might play out in organizational
situations.
As this Research Companion will attest, there are myriad ways of viewing and
researching emotion. Often, these varied approaches are set up as opposing dichotomies. The
“biological” and “cognitivist” perspectives are said to be “competing conceptualizations in the
literature” (Forgas, 1996: 278), while the “universalistic approach” (that there are basic
emotional responses characterizing all global cultures) is competing with the “cultural relativity
approach” (that cultures significantly shape the experience and expression of emotions), and this
competition is seen as a “major controversy” (Scherer & Wallbott, 1994, p. 310). One purpose of
3

this article is to show how these dichotomous views are interrelated, and in fact, can be thought
of different levels of emotion scripts rather than as competing explanations. As evidence for the
usefulness of scripts in integrating different levels of analysis, researchers have concluded that
scripts offer a way to reconcile the universalistic versus cross-cultural variation approaches to
understanding emotion meaning (Russell, 1991b; White, 2000).
I begin by defining how emotion scripts have been used in the extant emotions literature.
I then show how scripts have been evoked at a variety of levels: the biological level, the
cognitive level, the social level, the relational level, and the organizational level. I emphasize that
understanding emotion scripts at the organizational level depends on understanding scripts at the
preceding levels, and explore how the emotion script approach offers a methodology and
conceptual framework that can heighten our understanding of emotions in organizations.
Definitions: Scripts, Schemas, and Related Phenomena
Scripts are a type of knowledge structure; they are individuals’ structured ideas about
how thoughts, feelings and actions are carried out in particular situations. More formally,
schemas will be defined here as “organized representations of past behavior and experience that
function as theories about reality to guide a person in construing new experience” (Baldwin,
1992, p. 468). A cognitive script is a type of schema representing individuals’ ideas about the
appropriate sequences of events that occur in specific situations (Schank & Abelson, 1977;
Baldwin, 1992). Well-known examples include the “restaurant script,” depicting individuals’
ideas about the stereotypical order of events in ordering food in a restaurant (Schank & Abelson,
1977). Scripts for social situations are seen as characterized by 1) declarative or descriptive
knowledge that helps the perceiver describe what behavior tends to be followed by what
responses (“asking for the menu in a restaurant is typically followed by the person ordering
food”), and 2) procedural knowledge that offers a guide to the perceiver’s behavior (e.g., “If I
4

respond negatively to this person, they are likely to respond negatively back to me.” See
Baldwin, 1992; Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1985).
Scripts are goal driven. Scripts represent a temporally based hierarchical structure
consisting of “in-order-to” relationships between action elements (Lichtenstein & Brewer, 1980).
That is, an activity is performed in order to accomplish subsequent activity which is higher up in
the hierarchy. Selection of food on the menu, for example, is done in order to reach the goal of
eating in a restaurant. Effective performance appraisal interviews are structured as a specific
sequence of events as a way as to achieve the goal of providing useful feedback to an employee.
This structure implies that scripts are organized as goal-subgoal hierarchies, characteristic of
human goals in general, and add structure to both memory and behaviors (Austin & Vancouver,
1996; Lord & Kernan, 1987). In addition, scripts are adaptable; they are easily elaborated upon
to incorporate new experiences (Abelson, 1981; Bower, Black, & Turner, 1979), a phenomenon
called “tagging” (Lord & Kernan, 1987, p. 267). Having shared scripts—common
understandings of goal-directed behavior chains in well-known situations—is functional in that it
facilitates interactions and reduces ambiguity. Researchers suggest that in the organizational
context when employees share the same script this is beneficial because it “creates convergence
of knowledge and action, offering a strategy for reducing conceptual divergence among
individuals and teams confronted with the same situation” (Zohar & Luria, 2003, p. 841).
Emotion Scripts
This article will focus on a particular type of script, an emotion script, which refers to an
individual’s knowledge of emotion episodes and the prototypical sequence of events
characterizing particular emotions. As with cognitive scripts, emotion scripts contain both
descriptive elements (e.g., the ability of individuals to describe what causes feelings of anger and
5

what anger expressions look like) and normative elements (e.g., the ability of individuals to
identify contextual expectations and sanctions attached to anger expressions) (Fischer, 1991).
I will refer to the contents of an emotion script as a person’s specific ideas about what
occurs, for example, when one feels and expresses emotions such as anger or fear or surprise.
Abelson expresses this idea succinctly when he argues that, “A sizeable set of inferences can be
made from the knowledge that, say, ‘John is angry.’ A negative thing has happened to John; he
blames it on someone; he regards it as unjust; he is aroused, flushed, and prone to swear or lash
out; he may seek revenge on the instigator, and so on” (1981, p. 727). Emotion script theory
suggests that individuals’ knowledge structure for emotions is scriptlike; emotions are best
thought of as prototypical sequences of events that comprise an episode (see Fehr & Russell,
1984; Lazarus, 1991; Russell, 1991b; Shaver et al., 1987). An emotion episode is typically
comprised of four primary elements: 1) an antecedent or triggering event; 2) a physiological
reaction, and an awareness of “feeling” the emotional reaction; 3) expression or behavior or
effortful regulation of expression or behavior, and 4) an outcome, which may include the
individual’s own reaction to the episode as well as the reactions of others. I depict the general
contents of four typical emotion episodes in Table 1 (derived from Shaver et al., 1987). The
script concept is useful in that, when elicited, it helps to show how social reality is constructed,
and also indicates how “constructions of reality translate into social behavior through action
rules” (Abelson, 1981, p. 727).
Two further distinctions are in order. First, emotion scripts differ in the degree to which
there is agreement among individuals as to the specific contents of the script. When there is
substantial agreement about the antecedents and consequences for a particular emotion in a
particular setting, this is considered a strong script. A weak script is one exhibiting less
agreement on common antecedents and consequences (Abelson, 1981). For example,
6

individuals’ understanding of what happens when an employee expresses anger in a staff
meeting may be substantially shared: there may be substantial agreement that such expressions
are inappropriate and will elicit sanctions from the leader of the meeting. However, employees’
understanding of what happens when anxiety is expressed may be less elaborated; there may be
less common agreement on what the causes and consequences of this emotion expression are.
Second, emotion scripts vary to the degree to which they originate from idiosyncratic or
shared experiences (Fischer, 1991; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994). Individuals may have their own
emotion scripts developed on the basis of their own upbringing and family experiences. Other
scripts are widely shared based on cultural norms, for example the norm to feel sadness and cry
at funerals and feel happiness and smile at weddings (Hochschild, 1979). A person may use this
emotion script knowledge to their advantage. For example, an employee may be aware that in
professional roles the expression of extreme emotions is typically sanctioned (e.g., Gibson,
1997), but may have an individually developed script suggesting that expressions of extreme
emotions may, at times, generate the desired effect in others (see Pierce, 1995).
In line with the idiosyncratic approach, Tomkins (1979) developed a script theory
suggesting that individual personalities are made up of more or less salient scripts, driven by
emotions. He argued that individuals form scripts based on three criteria: 1) when they
experienced the most “intense and enduring affect” (1979, p. 223); 2) when affect changed
during an event suddenly (from positive to negative or the opposite); and 3) when sequences of
affect were repeated (e.g., an individual experiences a change from positive to negative affect
every time an event happens). While I acknowledge the existence of idiosyncratic scripts, the
emphasis in this article will be on the extent to which biological, cognitive, social, relational, and
organizational normative forces constrain and shape these idiosyncratic scripts.
7

A Multi-Level Model of Emotion Scripts
Given this basic idea, that emotions can be conceptualized as scripted sequences of
events, researchers have turned to the question, “Where do emotion scripts come from?” The
answer this chapter provides is that scripts emerge at multiple levels. These levels are depiected
in this model (from bottom to top) in terms of the relative effect of context and script specificity
(see Figure 1). The first level, the biological script, is considered the most basic and operates
primarily automatically and unconsciously (see LeDoux, 1996; Plutchik, 1980). Biological
scripts provide the basic map on which the succeeding layers operate. The second level, the
cognitive script, emphasizes the degree to which emotions arise from individuals’ appraisal of
specific situations. Cognitive scripts are more specific than biological scripts in that particular
antecedents (for example, the accomplishment of an important task) are predicted to lead to
specific emotions (for example, joy). They are not regarded as culturally specific, however;
cognitive scripts are assumed to operate intrapsychically to explain the connection between
cognitions and emotions. The third level, social scripts, suggest the degree to which emotions are
socially constructed and driven by power relationships and cultural norms (see Kemper, 1990;
Russell, 1991b; Scherer & Walbott, 1994). The fourth level, relational scripts, involve emotion
scripts enacted primarily in dyadic relationships (see Baldwin, 1992; Fehr et al., 1999; Fitness,
2000). The fifth level, organizational scripts, are characterized by substantial complexity
(involving multiple individual and group relationships; power and gender effects, among others),
and specificity: organizations are seen as providing relatively specific scripts for the feeling and
expression of emotions (see Fitness, 2000; Gibson, 1995, 1997; Hochschild, 1983).
This model is not meant to be comprehensive in the sense of including all possible levels
of scripts. Depending on one’s perspective, additional layers could be added and their listing re-
ordered. Rather, I illustrate this multi-level model as a way of providing a foundation for
8

understanding the focus of this chapter: the emergence of emotion scripts in organizations. It is
my assertion that we cannot understand the intricacies of scripted emotion experience and
expression in organizations without first understanding what drives and anticipates these scripts.
Biological Scripts
From this view, emotions are considered basic and hard wired, and our tendencies to act
are largely pre-programmed. This view has emotions driven by biology; they are primarily
adaptive responses to aid survival of species. While complex emotional responses exist and
cultural and social forces shape emotional responses, the biological view emphasizes that human
emotional responses, prior to the intervention of conscious cognition and cultural overlays, have
a basic quality that is largely universal: all humans respond to needs in their environment with
relatively similar emotional expressions representing relatively similar feelings (see Ekman,
1992, 1994; but see critiques in Russell, 1994; Wierzbicka, 1994).
In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Darwin (1872/1998) argued that
while the developing anatomy of a species could be explained as adaptive responses to an
organism’s environment, Darwin also realized that evolution applied not only to anatomy, but to
an animal’s mind and expressive behavior as well. Darwin viewed emotions, and specifically
their expression, as functional responses by animals to survive in their environment. Expressed
emotions acted as signals and as preparations for action, and communicated information to others
about intentions. Thus, there is an evolutionary connection between an animal baring hits teeth
and the snarl of a human being, the similarity in laughing expressions by monkeys and humans,
and the universal tendency for one’s hair to stand “on end” in conditions of anger and fear.
Darwin emphasized that many, but not all, emotional expressions are unlearned or innate.
He showed, for instance, that emotional expressions appear in very young children in the same
form as adults, before much opportunity for learning has occurred, and some expressions appear
9

in similar form in widely distinct races and groups of humans. Darwin’s contribution is the
notion that emotional expressions are largely universal, and thus have a biological basis, rather
than being culturally bound. Since emotions serve evolutionary functions, they must exist,
though modified, in observable patterns throughout the world.
The evolutionary view is supported by more recent lines of research. Ekman (1972, 1992)
drew on and extended Darwin’s ideas by showing that people from widely ranging cultures can
relatively accurately recognize emotion expressions for six basic emotions: surprise, happiness,
anger, fear, disgust, and sadness. Ekman argued that “there are distinctive movements of the
facial muscles for each of a number of primary affect states, and these are universal to mankind”
(Ekman & Friesen, 1969, p. 71). However, he also cautioned that while the movement of facial
muscles shows universal tendencies, the evoking stimuli, subjective feelings, emotional “display
rules” and the behavioral consequences “all can vary from one culture to another” (1969, p. 73).
His research, then, is largely consistent with a “dual-phase” model in which biological affects are
primary, and cultural or cognitive processes are a secondary, though critically important, overlay
(White, 2000, p. 32).
Plutchik (1980) in a “psychoevolutionary synthesis” argued that because all organisms
face “common survival problems,” including “finding food, avoiding predators and locating
mates” (1980, p. 130), emotions serve as behavioral patterns that help organisms adapt to these
problems by providing internal preparations for action as well as external behavior appropriate to
controlling the environment. Thus, anger successfully prepares the body by increasing the heart
rate and heightening attentiveness, and seeks to control environmental forces through facial
expression (e.g., snarling, hair raised) and action (aggressive approach) designed to elicit fear in
others. Viewing emotions from this evolutionary functional approach, Plutchik argues that there
are eight basic emotions (anger, fear, anticipation, surprise, acceptance, disgust, joy and sadness)
10

corresponding to the needs of any organism to respond to existential crises, including protection,
exploration, and reproduction.
Recent neurological research has provided some support for the evolutionary point of
view. Summarizing his own and other research examining fear centers in the brain, LeDoux
expressed his view as: “I believe that the basic building blocks of emotions are neural systems
that mediate behavioral interactions with the environment, particularly behaviors that take care
of fundamental problems of survival” (1996, p. 125). He also argued that different “basic”
emotions rely on unique centers and pathways in the brain rather than indicating an “emotional
center” for a variety of responses. He concluded that human brains are largely programmed by
evolution to respond in certain ways to significant situations, so there is a large dose of
automaticity in our emotional responses. Determining significance is a combination of
evolutionary history and our own memories of past experiences. While much of our initial
reactions are automatic, when we become conscious of this neural activity, we can be said to
“feel”—we can have the strong subjective reactions we think of as emotions. Emotions, then, are
“unconscious processes that can sometimes give rise to conscious content” (1996, p. 269).
What are the implications of the biological approach for emotion script theory? First,
biological approaches provide support for the notion that emotions can be considered as
sequences of events beginning with sensing the environment for survival clues, reacting in
patterned physiological ways, and ending in behaviors or intended behaviors. Second, biological
approaches, by emphasizing the existence of relatively discrete “basic” emotions, suggest that
there are identifiable, and relatively strong emotion scripts surrounding a certain small number of
feeling states. The fact that researchers using the biological approach have not been able to agree
on the identity or number of basic emotions has been critiqued (see e.g., Russell, 1994). While
this lack of agreement hinders the development of universalistic scripts, the proposal of basic
11

emotions has provided a foundation to allow script researchers to explore families of scripts,
especially those for anger and fear (see Fehr & Russell, 1984).
What the biological view means for thinking about emotion scripts is that at its primary
level, our emotional responses are following biological scripts. Even researchers who emphasize
cultural differences note the importance of a biological “core”; for example, Russell (1991b, p.
437) states about emotional expression, “There is a core of emotional communication that has to
do with being human rather than with being a member of a particular culture.” As biological
scripts play out in real interactions, they are typically interrupted by consciousness and by willful
self regulation (Frijda, 1986). The level of regulation depends on the significance of the event
(how fearful one is, for example), and on the strength of the conscious scripts that are invoked to
alter the basic biological script. We examine these more conscious scripts next.
Cognitive Scripts
While the biological and evolutionary approaches emphasize the relative automaticity of
basic emotional responses, cognitive approaches emphasize the degree to which cognitions
impinge on nearly every aspect of feeling and expressing emotions. From a cognitive
perspective, how a person interprets or appraises a meaningful event and how emotions are
conceived as knowledge structures influence how different emotions are perceived, understood,
labeled and expressed (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993). Two research streams, one focused on
emotions as prototypes and one focused on cognitive appraisals of emotion, exemplify the
cognitive perspective on emotion scripts.
The prototype approach suggests that individuals conceive of emotions as “fuzzy sets” of
attributes. Emotions have been notoriously difficult for researchers to classically define because
there is not a set of conclusive necessary and sufficient features (such as would be true about the
category of even numbers, for example—see Shaver et al., 1987). Indeed, the difficulty
12

researchers have had in defining emotions (see Averill, 1983; Buck, 1990), combined with the
fact that laypeople have a strong intuitive sense of what emotions are and how they operate,
speaks to the applicability of the prototype approach (Fehr & Baldwin, 1996). According to this
approach, individuals categorize emotions based on whether they bear a resemblance to what
they think of as prototypical instances of emotion (see Rosch, 1975). Thus, just as “chair” is a
prototypical subcategory of “furniture,” “anger” and “fear” are considered by laypeople to be
prototypical subcategories of “emotion.” Shaver et al. (1987), found, for example, that when 135
emotion terms were subjected to hierarchical cluster analysis, five “basic” level emotion words
emerged: love, joy, anger, sadness and fear. They concluded that a large number of emotion
lexical terms could be tied to a small number of prototypical emotions. The variability in
emotion words tend to specify either the intensity of a basic emotion (i.e., rage being more
intense than annoyance; jubilation being more intense than satisfaction) or the antecedent
context in which the emotion arises (i.e., disappointment tends to be preceded by differing
antecedents than grief). Consistent with a prototype approach, these findings suggest a hierarchy
in which a range of emotion words (such as grief, annoyance, jubilation) are subordinate to a
basic level (love, joy, anger, sadness, fear) which is subordinate to a superordinate level
(emotions). The hierarchical structure of these prototypes has been supported in several studies
(see summary in Cropanzano et al., 2003).
In examining individuals’ knowledge structures of emotions, researchers further
discovered that these structures conceive of emotions as containing prototypical sequences of
events. That is, if asked, individuals not only provide good examples of what they think an
emotion is (e.g., “I felt really angry when my supervisor accused me of being late!”), they also
conceive of anger in terms of whether it fits a likely sequence of events (“When he accused me, I
felt tense and sweaty—I had the urge to yell at him, but managed to control it.”). As noted above,
13

individuals conceive of emotional feeling and expressions in terms of event sequences, or scripts.
As Fehr and Russel (1984) and Russell (1991a) depict these structures, emotions are categorized
depending on their prototypical features. These features are organized cognitions and “knowable
subevents: the causes, beliefs, feelings, physiological changes, desires, overt actions, and vocal
and facial expressions” of emotions. They are ordered “in a causal sequence, in much the same
way that actions are ordered in a playwright’s script” (Russell, 1991b, p. 442).
Similarly, Shaver et al. (1987) characterize laypeople’s emotion scripts as episodes
beginning with an interpretation of an event as good or bad, helpful or harmful, consistent or
inconsistent with a person’s motives (see also Roseman, 1984). Depending on whether a
situation is perceived as being motive consistent or inconsistent, the individual then assesses
whether action is necessary. Based on an individual’s appraisal of the event (Is this a threat to
me? Am I justified in taking action? Does this event make me feel good?) a pattern of possible
responses is initiated. These action responses (including action tendencies, cognitive biases, and
physiological patterns) are seen as arising fairly automatically. However, individuals tend to also
simultaneously engage in self-control efforts, which can be initiated at any point in the emotion
process and directed at any of the components (appraisal, physiological response, and emotion
expression (see Frijda, 1986; Gross, 1998).
Closely related to the prototype approach, the cognitive appraisal approach focuses on
one aspect of this prototypical sequence: how an individual’s appraisal of the situation leads to
specific emotional responses (Lazarus, 1991). These researchers argue that it is an individual’s
evaluation or interpretation of events, rather than the events per se, that determine whether an
emotion will be felt and which emotion it will be (Roseman, 1984). The particular emotion felt
by an individual depends on their appraisal of the situation based on several dimensions. For
example, Roseman (1984) identifies an individual’s appraisal of perceived power (weak versus
14

strong), the probability of an outcome (uncertain versus certain), and his or her motivation state
(seeking to avoid punishment versus seeking to attain reward), among others (Roseman, 1984).
For example, anger is seen as resulting from the absence of a reward or presence of a punishment
that is caused by other people when a positive outcome is deserved (see Roseman, Spindel, &
Jose, 1990). Cognitive appraisal theorists differ from biologically-oriented theorists in their
emphasis that emotions are not primarily hard-wired unthinking processes, but rather, based
primarily on cognitive interpretations (appraisals) of situational cues (Lazarus, 1991).
Social Scripts
The notion of universal, evolutionary bases of emotion have come under attack (Scherer
& Wallbott, 1994; White, 2000). Sociologists and anthropologists argue that culture is not simply
an overlay to biological and cognitive patterned responses; it is fully integrated and essential to
emotional experience and behavior. Social constructionist psychologists (e.g., Averill, 1982;
Gergen & Davis, 1984) contend that while emotions have physiological components, they are
largely a result of social processes, especially expectations and norms for how and when people
are expected to feel and express emotions (Parkinson, Fischer & Manstead, 2005). Geertz
(1973:81) concisely summarizes the point of social constructionists by arguing that “Not only
ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artifacts.” Hochschild (1979, p. 552) proposes a two step
process in the social experience of emotion, one in which factors in the structure of the situation
(such as how much power we have, or whether we are appreciated as part of a group) arouse
primary emotional responses (we are angered when a boss yells at us) that are then “managed”
by secondary acts. These secondary acts are cultural and organizational norms, described as
“feeling rules,” that stipulate how we ought to feel in given situations.
Social constructivists thus put relatively more importance in the effect of societal norms
on how we conceive of emotions rather than on biological responses. One such example is the
15

Japanese feeling and expression of amae. Amae means to presume upon another’s love or
indulge in another’s kindness; it is a sense of helplessness in which one is a passive love object
(see LeDoux,1996). While the script for amae is well known in Japan and considered an
essential part of the Japanese personality structure, there is essentially no strong equivalent for
this script in the western tradition, indeed no comparable word for it in European languages.
Social constructivists use examples such as these to show that emotions are typically culturally
determined rather than essentially hard-wired.
From an emotion script approach, I argue that while evolutionary psychologists provide
the neurological and biological “rules” that govern emotional feeling and expression, sociologists
such as Hochschild provide the social rules that shape and guide these basic physiological
responses (see also Kemper, 1990). There is a layer of biological responses that form the
foundational script for emotional response. Overlaid on that script is a more refined social script
that provides the connection between these basic responses and the needs and expectations of
social situations.
Russell (1991b) uses a script theory of emotions to reconcile the universalistic and
cultural relativity approaches. He argues that those cultures which have languages containing
fewer emotion categories have more general emotion scripts. These scripts have fewer specific
features and cover a broad range of phenomena (we have termed these “weak” scripts above).
Cultures with languages with many emotion categories have more specific scripts—each script
“would have more features and cover a narrower range of phenomena” (1991b, p. 443). In this
way, scripts vary to the degree they are universal or specific, depending on the culture. Within
the script, antecedents of particular emotions will also vary from universal to specific, as will
action tendencies (Frijda, 1986), facial or vocal expressions (Ekman, 1972), and physiological
16

changes (Ekman, Levenson & Friesen, 1983). But the nature of emotions-as-scripts exists across
cultures.
Relational Scripts
The previous work cited has primarily been at the neurological and intrapsychic level—
emphasizing a focal person’s thoughts, physiological changes, and reactions. However, most
emotions are felt in response to and in relation with other people, and thus emotion scripts should
include an interactional or relational component (Fehr et al., 1999; Parkinson et al., 2005). The
approach of researchers employing relational scripts is that, based on past experience,
individuals develop cognitive structures representing their expectations around how their actions
are likely to lead to reactions by another person (Baldwin, 1992). In terms of emotion, this
approach holds that we learn over time how other people are likely to react to our expressions of
particular emotions. If I have learned that expressing my anger to my partner increases the
chances that he or she will react with defensiveness and avoidance, for example, this experience
pattern will affect my current expectations around what expressing anger means and others’
likely responses, shaping the patterns of my new relationships (see Baldwin, 1992).
Work in the area of relational scripts has focused on determining whether there are
normatively held interpersonal scripts for emotional expression, and then examining the specific
contents of those scripts. Gergen and Gergen (1988) cite a series of studies in which they gave
participants a scenario in which an emotion was expressed, then provided a series of possible
responses. For example, they had participants read a scenario about a young married couple. In
the first scene, the husband mildly criticized the wife’s cooking. The participants then rated a
range of behavioral options that the wife could take in response (from embracing and kissing to
physically striking). Following their choice of an option, the participant then read that the wife
had escalated the hostility—she had responded by criticizing her husband. The story is again
17

interrupted, and participants are asked to rate the husband’s probable reactions, along with their
desirability and advisability. Through this methodology Gergen and Gergen (1988) found
predictable patterns of escalation based on whether primarily aggressive or conciliatory tactics
were used in early stages of anger expression.
Fitners and Fletcher (1993) examined love, hate, anger and jealousy in marital
relationships. They first examined whether respondents, in outlining their experiences of these
emotions, showed evidence of prototypical knowledge structures. They found, using profile
analysis, that respondents cited cohesive elements for each emotion, allowing researchers to
construct summary prototypes. In second and third studies they also showed that by presenting
prototypical emotion elements, respondents could differentiate and identify specific emotions
based on the nature of the event and the appraisals offered by protagonists. The more information
provided in the vignette (the more complete the script), the more accurate was their identification
of the emotion.
Anger has been the most common focal emotion in studies of emotion scripts in
relationships; this is not surprising, given its prototypicality ratings (Fehr & Russell, 1984;
Shaver et al., 1987). Fehr et al., (1999) studied anger in close heterosexual relationships. Rather
than having respondents generate their own experiences of anger episodes, they provided
respondents with basic elements of an anger script and explored whether common patterns
emerged. They were particularly interested in whether there would be gender differences in the
understanding and implementation of anger scripts. Based on previous research and pilot testing,
they presented respondents five causes of anger (e.g., betrayal of trust, negligence, unwarranted
criticism—each with specific examples), six possible anger reactions they could anticipate
engaging in (e.g., avoid, aggress directly, talk it over/compromise), and responses they would
anticipate from their partner (e.g., avoid, deny responsibility, mock or minimize). Analyzing
18

these responses, they found that betrayal of trust was the most anger-provoking elicitor in these
close relationships, and that respondents anticipated that they and their partners would react to an
anger-provoking situation by talking things over rather than expressing aggression (similar to
previous research; see Averill, 1982). They also discovered gender differences: women found the
events to be more anger provoking overall, and were more likely to say they would express hurt
feelings and behave aggressively, if necessary. These responses arose more frequently in
instances in which there was negligence (e.g., forgetting a birthday, or personal criticism).
An important finding of this study, however, was that while men and women held similar
anger scripts in some situations (e.g., when an angered person chooses to express anger in a
positive way), under other conditions men’s and women’s anger scripts were different.
Specifically, when an angered person chose to react in a negative way, such as aggressing
directly, women were more likely than men to expect that their partner would deny
responsibility; men were more likely to expect that their partner would express hurt feelings,
avoid them or reject them. This study, then, showed both that individuals hold similar scripts for
the expression and reaction to anger, but that other variables such as gender can shape the
content of the script and script selection.
Fehr and Harasymchuk (2005) found that emotion scripts differed in the context of
relationships between friends versus romantic partners. They found that people’s emotional
reactions were based on the responses they expected from a romantic partner or friend when they
expressed dissatisfaction. Specifically, they found that when a romantic partner expressed
dissatisfaction and received a response of neglect (a passive, destructive response) they
responded in a much more intense and negative way than when a friend responded to
dissatisfaction with neglect. Their study showed that the same event had different meanings in
19

the context of different relationships, and produced different types of emotional behavior (see
Whitesell & Harter, 1996).
Overall, these studies of emotion scripts in close relationships provide substantial support
for the idea that interpersonal expectations for emotional expression can be empirically
examined, and the findings suggest that relational scripts for emotions are cognitively
represented as if-then contingencies between self and other (Fehr & Harasymchuk, 2005). This
work adds further complexity, however, by emphasizing that individual differences such as
gender shape the expectations and contents of emotion scripts.
Organizational Scripts
The notion that emotions may best be represented as scriptlike phenomena has special
relevance to the organizational context, which constrains and organizes human behavior, often
through patterned sequences, such as rituals and routines (Lord & Kernan, 1987). Cognitive
researchers have applied script concepts to organizational behavior, arguing that scripts perform
two functions: to serve as guides to appropriate behavior; and to provide a means for making
sense of the behavior of others (Gioia & Poole, 1984). From a cognitive schema approach,
organizations themselves can be seen as “systems of shared knowledge and meaning composed
of repertoires of schemas that guide comprehension and action” (Poole et al., 1989, p. 272).
Schemas provide a system for individuals to aid in understanding the onrush of organizational
decisions, behaviors, and interactions.
In applying cognitive schema models to organizations, however, observers argue that
emotions are often missing from the picture. Organizations are portrayed as shared systems of
meaning exemplified in routines and tacit assumptions, and scripts are portrayed as behavioral
and cognitive structures. For example, an analysis of the script for employee performance
appraisals (Gioia et al., 1989) contains little reference to likely emotional responses.
20

Sociologists of emotion, however, argue that organizations, as situations in which vertical power
relations and horizontal group cohesion play a large part, are situations likely to generate strong
emotional responses (see Collins, 1981; Gibson, 1997; Kemper, 1978). Collins (1981) argues
that organizations can be seen as “marketplaces” of emotional and cultural resources, where
resources are compared through conversational rituals and loyalties and power are negotiated.
Organizational participants “monitor what each is feeling toward the other and especially toward
those in authority” (Collins, 1981: 994).
Three studies have extended the idea of emotion scripts into the sphere of organizations.
What we find, in comparing these script analyses to the previous levels we have examined, is an
increasing level of complexity. Biological scripts indicate the degree to which particular
emotions fulfill discrete functions and exhibit unique action sequences. The prototype and
cognitive appraisal approaches more specifically identify these action sequences and focus on
antecedents and appraisals as determining the shape and structure of the emotion script.
Research on close relationships introduces at least two new variables to these existing scripts: the
reactions of a target and the critical variable of gender. In organizational contexts, a range of
additional variables must be considered, including hierarchical status and power relationships,
multiple interactants (i.e., group emotion scripts), and organizational culture.
In the first study, Fischer (1991) interviewed 56 employees reflecting on anger and fear
episodes in both “public” (organizational) and “private” spheres. In constructing scripts based on
her interviews, she examined respondents’ appraisal of the event, their action tendencies, the
perceived intensity and duration of emotional experience, the emotion words used to describe the
episode, their actual behavior, and whether they consciously tried to regulate their emotion. In
examining anger, Fischer noted that individuals tend to have a “general anger script” similar to
the prototype identified by Shaver et al., (1987). Individuals then refine this general script by
21

adding specific elements depending on the context (in this case, public versus private settings),
where these differing contexts are likely to evoke different expectations, and thus, different
scripts.
She found that the primary difference between anger scripts in private and public
situations is how one appraises the expected reactions of others. In private situations respondents
“do not wish to hurt others,” but they want to “show commitment to others by expressing their
anger” (1991: 151). In public situations, however, “one is far more concerned with how others
will evaluate one’s anger, so anger seems primarily to be used as a device to maintain or improve
one’s position” (1991: 151). She found a few gender differences in terms of likely antecedents of
anger: men were more likely to mention unjust reproaches in private situations and more likely
to refer to the negative behavior or others in public situations. Women more often got angry
because of rule violation in private situations and because they got “passed over” in public
situations.
Overall, Fischer found support for the idea of a “general anger script” driving
respondents’ knowledge structures. There were wide differences in the types of antecedents
cited, however, making anger scripts specific to particular public and private settings more
difficult to compare. An example of how anger scripts became more contingent on context is in
the expression of anger. Overall, respondents regarded expressing anger as desirable. It was
considered to promote a healthy relationship in intimate settings, and it was necessary to show
one’s commitment in professional settings. At the same time, there were limits to this script:
respondents noted that if anger was expressed uncontrollably, negative consequences tended to
result.
Gibson (1995, 1997) applied Plutchik’s (1980) evolutionary model as a way of
understanding scripts for eight emotions in organizations: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise,
22

joy, acceptance and anticipation. He constructed scripts by coding and categorizing respondents’
recollections of an emotional experience at work (n = 143 MBA students) into antecedents,
agents (who were the instigator of emotion), whether the emotion was expressed and to whom,
and the perceived consequences of emotional expression or non-expression. He found that there
was substantial agreement by respondents on scripts for particular emotions, and analyses of
variance indicated differing feeling and expression patterns across the different emotions.
Qualitatively, Gibson (1995) found, for example, that fear episodes revolved around a general
theme of uncertainty, especially about one’s actions (see Table 2). In this script, 53% of episodes
were explained by the top three categories, which included the failure of the respondent to carry
out a task appropriately (27% of antecedents), threats to survival, either personal or career (13%)
and threats to the organization itself (e.g., to merge or be bought out, 13%). Fear tended to be
caused by individuals superior to the respondent (43%) and tended not to be expressed. Anger
episodes, similar to previous findings (e.g., de Rivera, 1977; Russell, 1991a) were characterized
by a theme of perceived injustice. Criticism of the respondent characterized 16% of these
episodes, and another 16% surrounded instances when respondents’ suggestions or comments
were ignored by others. At the organizational level, respondents were angered by the company
acting in an unjust way (e.g., by laying off workers—16% of the response). Agents of anger were
primarily superiors (39%) or the company itself (22%), and were often expressed: respondents
expressed their anger to the agent in 53% of the episodes.
Gibson (1997) reported exploratory findings indicating that status of the agent made a
difference, noting that when superiors were the agent of emotions, there was less likelihood of
emotion expression than if peers or subordinates were agents. Interestingly, this occurred for
both positive (aggregating joy, acceptance and anticipation) and negative (aggregating anger,
fear, sadness, and disgust) emotions. In terms of gender, though the small sample size made his
23

findings speculative, Gibson found that women both felt and (for some emotions) expressed their
emotions to a greater degree than did men. Women, he proposed, typically had to engage in more
regulation of emotion, since they their emotions significantly more strongly than did men, yet
expressed them at about the same level.
Gibson concluded that these emotion scripts indicate that there is a small number of
emotions that are considered appropriate to express in organizations, primarily “approach”
emotions such as anger and acceptance, while many emotions—primarily those indicating
avoidance or vulnerability—are rarely expressed, such as fear, sadness, and joy. He argued that
this kind of limitation in emotion scripts could have implications for organizational decision
making and interpersonal processes. If employees’ full range of emotions are not allowed to be
expressed in organizational settings, for example, group decision-making in organizations may
be limited by a constricted set of data.
Fitness (2000) examined anger scripts in the workplace, using a sample of 175 episodes.
She explored script differences that depended on the focal person’s hierarchical status in the
organization, whether the anger was directed to a supervisor (80 respondents), to a co-worker (57
respondents), or to a subordinate (38 respondents). She elicited scripts through an interview
schedule that asked respondents to “remember a time when you felt really angry with someone at
work,” and then to describe the antecedents to their anger, how they thought and felt at the time,
how they behaved, and whether they thought the incident had been successfully resolved. As
with previous studies, there was substantial agreement over prototypical anger-eliciting events.
For example, 44% involved “being directly and unjustly treated by another.” Other prominent
antecedents included immoral behavior (23%) and job incompetence (15%). Importantly, Fitness
also found differences in antecedents depending on who was perceiving the anger; for example,
69 of the superior-instigated incidents involved directly unjust treatment, while only 28% of co-
24

worker and 16% of subordinate-instigated offences were considered to be unjust. For co-workers
who instigated anger, the primary event involved morally reprehensible behaviors, such as
laziness or dishonesty; for subordinates who instigated anger, the primary antecedent was job
incompetence.
In terms of behavior, Fitness found expected differences in whether anger was expressed
depending on status. Only 45% of respondents angered by superiors immediately confronted
them during the course of feeling anger, compared with 58% of respondents angered by co-
workers, and 71% of respondents angered by subordinates.
Fitness’ study demonstrates the importance of studying context in order to outline and
understand emotion scripts. She identified two distinct anger scripts, depending on power. That
is, high power respondents were likely to be angered by different eliciting events, likely to
express their anger to a greater degree than low power respondents, and were more likely to
think that the anger incident had been successfully resolved. She also noted that she discovered
no gender differences in this setting: rather, in the organizational context the variable of power
appeared to overwhelm gender in affecting emotion scripts.
While there are few studies specifically examining organizational emotion scripts,
numerous other studies have implications for a script approach, though they might not
specifically use the terms of script theory. For example, Sutton (1991) found that respondents in
a bill collection agency were well aware of specific norms around how to express emotions to
debtors they wanted to collect money from. There were norms, for example, to express neutrality
to angry debtors and norms to by more easy-going (at first) with distressed debtors. These
normative instructions are clearly indicative of an emotional script for these transactional dyads.
Moreover, in the negotiations literature, studies now examine how emotional expressions by
negotiators affect their targets, and vice versa (Van Kleef, DeDreu & Manstead, 2004).
25

A particularly important direction for emotion script research is the recognition that
knowledge of emotion scripts may allow participants to express their emotions strategically,
knowing that they are likely to elicit a particular response. Clark, Pataki and Carver (1996) argue
that because people share assumptions about the script (its structure, antecedents and
consequences), people can “learn to present emotions to others to accomplish specifiable social
goals” (1996, p. 248). Indeed, negotiations researchers are finding that negotiators who
strategically display particular emotions are able to affect the outcome of the negotiation
(Kopelman, Rosette & Thompson, 2006) and qualitative studies of professionals—such as
lawyers—show frequent use of strategic emotions (Pierce, 1995). As Forgas notes, this emphasis
on the strategic nature of scripts suggests that “affect is not merely a private experience, but at
the same time is a public event” (1996, p. 282).
Implications and Conclusions
This article outlines a multi-level model of emotion scripts. It provides a way of
conceptualizing scripts that helps to integrate widely divergent approaches to emotion. Scripts
are both observed sequences of events and they are understandings about how sequences of
events tend to occur. On one hand, this combination of descriptive and normative elements
accounts for their explanatory versatility across a range of widely divergent research landscapes.
On the other hand, this eclecticism may have also impeded further study into scripts. By
addressing a range of approaches, the script approach offers a metaphor and a methodology for
studying sequences of behaviors, but its very applicability and consequent lack of specificity
may also be its undoing. Compared to general cognitive appraisal approaches (e.g., Lazarus,
1991; Scherer, 2001) or sociological/normative approaches (e.g., Kemper, 1990), the
development of script research has been less well developed.
26

The fundamental outlines of prototypical emotion sequences are well developed and well
supported (see Fehr & Russell, 1984; Shaver et al., 1987). But the development of scripts in
differing contexts is much less well developed. Studies of anger predominate in script theory (see
Gibson, 1995, 1997 for an exception), while scripts for other emotions (other than fear) have
received far less attention. The issue, for the future of emotion script research, will be to develop
scripts at a level of detail that can help in understanding organizational problems while not being
so specific that they are only applicable to one context (see Fitness, 2000 for one illustration of
such meso-level scripts).
Future Directions in Emotion Script Research
Studies of additional emotion scripts. In parallel with emotions research more
generally, emotion script research needs to expand its focus from anger and fear to other critical
discrete emotions (see Gibson, 1997). While anger and fear offer a cohesive prototypical view,
they also offer only one slice of organizational life. For example, while most studies of emotion
have focused on negative emotions and moods, in fact, linkages to organizational outcomes such
as individual and group achievement, decision-making effectiveness, and creativity tend to be far
more compelling for positive emotions (Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005). While emotion
scripts have been relatively well-articulated for anger and fear, we know much less about
happiness and liking/acceptance. Studies of strategic displays of emotional expression (e.g.,
Clark et al., 1996) indicate that displaying happiness (and suppressing anger and sadness) is
related to ingratiation behavior and increasing the liking of a target, both phenomena of interest
to organizational researchers (Jones & Pittman, 1982). More refined scripts for organizational
envy (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, in press), sadness, and shame/guilt (Poulson, 2000) would also
be in line with current research inquiry.
27

Individual differences and scripts. A continuing avenue of research will be to discover
under what conditions individual differences shape the execution of scripts. Because they are
focused on sequences of events, studying scripts can uncover findings about contingencies that
would not be revealed in correlational work or work focused on intrapsychic, context-free
environments. For example, Fehr and Baldwin (1996) point out that the commonsense
understanding that women are more likely to cry in response to anger may not be the whole
story. Rather, what their findings indicate is that women may not be more likely to respond with
crying and hurt feelings whenever angry, but rather, they “are more likely to experience being
angered in situations when hurt feelings are a key element of the anger experienced (e.g., the
betrayal of trust)” (1996, p. 240). That discovery was only possible by researchers examining the
antecedents of anger, since different kinds of people may be more or less sensitive to different
kinds of instigators, may have different kinds of experience with them, may have different styles
in terms of emotion regulation, etc. Thus, script methodologies may be especially well suited to
discovering different contingencies related to individual differences, gender being a prominent,
but not the sole, example.
Degree of Script Convergence. A primary approach to determining whether
organizational participants share a script is to measure the degree to which participants cite a
particular element in their narrative of an episode. For example, Fitness (2000) found that 69%
of anger episodes in her sample were caused by superiors who unjustly treated their subordinates
(see also Gibson, 1997; Fischer, 1991). While these proportional approaches provide good
overall support for the level of agreement in terms of the existence of common scripts, more
specific and accurate measures need to be developed. Studies of cognitive scripts, for example,
have used videotaped interactions and more elaborate qualitative methods to assess the degree of
cohesiveness in organizational scripts (see Gioia, Donnellon, & Sims, 1989; Poole, Gray &
28

Gioia, 1990). Advancing methods in sequence analysis (see Abbott, 1990), and reliability ratings
(Forrest & Abbott, 1990) will provide important means of gathering these data. Measuring the
degree of convergence would represent a significant advance in understanding emotion scripts.
One application of this research would be to examine the effect of diverse versus homogenous
scripts on organizational behavior and performance. For example, Barsade et al. (2000) showed
that similarities in affective disposition in top management teams led to increased performance in
top management teams. Future research should examine organizational members’ emotional
scripts to determine whether similarity in scripts also contributes to team effectiveness, and
under what conditions.
Scripts as Methodology. I have argued that scripts offer both descriptive and normative
material for analysis. The script approach is particularly applicable to emotions, since laypeople
tend to think of emotions in terms of prototypical sequences of events (see Shaver et al., 1987).
Following this line of reasoning, in addition to identifying scripts and assessing their
convergence, script data is very useful for identifying and understanding organizational emotion
norms and culture. Recently, scholars have called for more research on the nature of
organizational cultural norms for emotion expression (see, e.g., Barsade et al., 2003). However,
gathering data on norms (without directly observing behavior), is often difficult. Having
respondents outline their perceived scripts for emotional expression may be one means to
illustrate organizational norms.
For example, Van Maanen and Kunda (1989) identified emotion norms stipulating that
employees at Disneyland express positive emotions while cloaking their dissatisfaction, and
participants in a high technology company express passion around the firm’s products. While
these authors determined these norms through participant observation, an alternative method
would have been to interview participants on the structure of emotion scripts in their
29

organization. While identifying generalized norms may be difficult for participants, experiential
learning with scripts suggests that they may more readily generate episodes of emotional
expression (Gibson, 2006) that can be useful in determining normative scripts. Similarly, while it
may be difficult for employees to discuss risky issues such as gender and power in their
organization, having them discuss emotion scripts may indirectly lead to these issues (see
Fitness, 2000). A caution here, of course, is one of social desirability: there may be a tendency
on the part of employees to provide “acceptable and warrantable public explanations” for their
behavior, rather than a faithful recollection of events (Forgas, 1996, p. 284). Forgas argues that a
wider variety of methods, including experimentation approaches (see, e.g., Clark et al., 1996)
would help to address this concern. New approaches in negotiation research (see Kopelman et
al., 2006; Van Kleef et al., 2004) apply similar methods focusing on specific emotions (e.g.,
happiness and anger) to determine more specific antecedents and consequences.
Conclusion
The explosion of emotions work in the organizational context has advanced the field in
many ways: as this research companion demonstrates, advances in the definition of emotions, its
specificity and methodologies have stripped away some of the mystery and “conceptual and
definitional chaos” that once characterized emotions research (see Buck, 1990, p. 330). I am
recommending emotion script theory as one advance that deserves more attention. While scripts
have been invoked in emotions research almost as long as we have examined emotions
themselves, work using this approach has advanced unevenly. Scripts provide clues to the basic,
biological nature of emotions, and they allow us to examine how additional levels of normative
structures inherent to relationships and organizations are laid over this basic foundation. They
provide vital clues to how we live out our emotional experiences in organizations.
30

Biological Script: Emotions primarily serving evolutionary survival functions
Social Script: Emotions created and shaped by the structure of the social
situation and cultural norms
Cognitive Script: Emotions shaped by intrapsychic appraisals of situations
and prototypical ways of responding
Relational Script: Emotions shaped by interactions with significant others
and their reactions
Organizational Script: Emotions shaped by structure (delineation of
groups, hierarchy), power, and gender
FIGURE 1
Emotion Scripts: A Multi-Level Model
Level
Individual, Group,
Organization
Dyadic
Individually
internalized social
and cultural norms
Intrapsychic
(within individual)
Neurological
Specificity
More Specific
More General
31

Table 1: Generic Emotion Scripts
(adapted from Shaver et al., 1987)
Emotions Described by Respondents
Script Elements Joy Anger Love Fear
Antecedents A desirable
outcome; getting
what was wanted
(68%)1
Task success,
achievement (54%)
Receiving esteem,
respect, praise
(33%)
Judgment that the
situation is
illegitimate,
wrong, unfair
(78%)
Real or threatened
physical or
psychological pain
(57%)
Violation of an
expectation; things
not working out as
planned (54%)
Having spent a lot
of time together,
having shared
special experiences
(33%)
P finds O attractive
(Physically and/or
psychologically)
(28%)
O offers/provides
something that P
wants, needs, likes
(22%)
Threat of harm or
death (68%)
Being in a novel,
unfamiliar
situation (43%)
Threat of social
rejection (28%)
Being alone
(walking alone,
etc.) (28%)
Behavioral
Responses
Smiling (72%)
Communicating the
good feeling to
others (or trying to)
(40%)
Positive outlook;
seeing only the
bright side (40%)
Verbally attacking
the cause of anger
(69%)
Loud voice,
yelling, screaming,
shouting (59%)
Thinking “I’m
right, everyone
else is wrong”
(38%)
Feeling happy,
joyful, exuberant,
etc. (52%)
Smiling (44%)
Feeling warm,
trusting, secure,
etc. (43%)
Feeling nervous,
jittery, jumpy
(48%)
Picturing a
disastrous
conclusion to
events in progress
(42%)
Talking less, being
speechless (31%)
Self-Control
Procedures
Suppressing the
anger; trying not to
show or express it
(20%)
Redefining the
situation (11%)
Acting unafraid,
hiding the fear
from others (23%)
Comforting
oneself, telling
oneself everything
is all right, trying
to keep calm
(22%)
32

1
Percentages indicate the percentage of 120 subjects mentioning that feature. Subjects could identify multiple
categories; thus these percentages do not sum to 100%.
33

Table 1: Organizational Emotion Scripts
(adapted from Gibson, 1997)
Emotions Described by Respondents
Script Elements Joy Anger Liking Fear
Antecedents Theme: Personal
Success
Job or Project
completed (47%)*
Respondent
receives
recognition or
promotion (24%)
Job or Project
beginning (12%)
82% explained by
top 3 categories
Theme: Injustice
Criticism of
respondent (16%)
Suggestions
ignored by Agent
(16%)
Company initiates
layoffs (16%)
48% explained by
top 3 categories
Theme: Bonding
Camaraderie in
groups (53%)
Positive
relationship with a
particular other
(40%)
Respondent
receives
recognition or
promotion (7%)
100% explained by
top 3 categories
Theme:
Uncertainty
Failure by Self
(27%)
Threats external to
the organization
(13%)
Lack of corporate
support for
respondent (13%)
53% explained by
top 3 categories
Agents Work itself (38%)
Superiors (25%)
Superiors (39%)
Company (22%)
Team/peers (67%) Superiors (43%)
Self (21%)
External agents
(13%)
Expression/
Behavior
Expressed to agent
(19%)
Did not express
(81%)
Expressed to agent
(53%)
Did not express
(47%)
Expressed to agent
(60%)
Did not express
(40%)
Expressed to agent
(20%)
Did not express
(80%)
Consequences None listed (47%)
Bonding with
group or peers
(24%)
Nothing; no one
cared (21%)
Outcome favorable
(21%)
Outcome
unfavorable (16%)
Bonding with
group or peers
(47%)
Positive feedback
from agent (27%)
Respondent
receives
sympathy,
emotional support
from others (33%)
Nothing; no one
cared (27%)
1
Percentages indicate the percent of respondents mentioning each script element. Sample size for Joy was n = 16,
Anger, n = 19, Liking, n = 15, Fear, n = 15.
34

References
Abbott, A. (1990). A primer on sequence methods. Organization Science, 1, 375-392.
Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 36,
715-729.
Austin, J. T., & Vancouver, J. B. (1996). Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and
content. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 338-375.
Averill, J. R. (1982). Anger and aggression: An essay on emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Averill, J. R. (1983). Studies on anger and aggression: Implications for theories of emotion.
American Psychologist, 38, 1145-1160.
Baldwin, M. W. (1992). Relational schemas and the processing of social information.
Psychological Bulletin, 12, 461-484.
Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American
Psychologist, 54, 462-479.
Barsade, S., Brief, A., & Spataro, S. (2003). The affective revolution in organizational behavior:
The emergence of a paradigm. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Organizational Behavior: The State
of the Science, pp. 3-52. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Barsade, S. G., Ward, A. J., Turner, J .D .F., & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (2000). To your heart’s content:
A model of affective diversity in top management teams. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 45, 802-836.
Bower, G., Black, J., & Turner, T. (1979). Scripts in text comprehension and memory. Cognitive
Psychology, 11, 177-220.
Buck, R. (1990). Mood and emotion: A comparison of five contemporary views. Psychological
Inquiry, 1, 330-336.
Cantor, N., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1985). Social intelligence: The cognitive basis of personality.
Review of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 15-33.
Clark, M. S., Pataki, S. P., & Carver, V. H. (1996). Some thoughts and findings on self-
presentation of emotions in relationships. In G. J. O. Fletcher & J. Fitness (Eds.),
Knowledge structures in close relationships: A social psychological approach, pp. 247-
274. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
35

Cohen-Charash, Y. & Mueller, J. S. In press. Does perceived unfairness exacerbate or mitigate
interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors related to envy? Journal of Applied
Psychology.
Collins, R. (1981). On the microfoundations of macrosociology. American Journal of Sociology,
86, 984-1014.
Cropanzano, R., Weiss, H. M., Hale, J. M. S., & Reb, J. (2003). The structure of affect:
Reconsidering the relationship between negative and positive affectivity. Journal of
Management, 29, 831-857.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York:
Avon.
Darwin, C. (1872/1998). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. New York: Oxford
University Press.
de Rivera, J. (1977). A structural theory of emotions. New York: International Universities Press.
Ekman, P. (1972). Universal and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotions. In J. K.
Cole (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation 1971 (pp. 207-283). Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169-200.
Ekman, P. (1994). Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: A reply to Russell’s
mistaken critique. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 268-287.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins,
usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98.
Ekman, P., Levenson, R. W., & Friesen, W. V. 1983. Autonomic nervous system activity
distinguishes among emotions. Science, 221, 1208-1210.
Fehr, B., & Baldwin, M. (1996). Prototype and script analyses of laypeople’s knowledge of
anger. In G. J. O. Fletcher & J. Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge structures in close
relationships: A social psychological approach, pp. 219-246. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Fehr, B., Baldwin, M., Collins, L., Patterson, S., & Benditt, R. (1999). Anger in close
relationships: An interpersonal script analysis. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 25, 299-312.
Fehr, B., & Harasymchuk, C. (2005). The experience of emotion in close relationships: Toward
an integration of the emotion-in-relationships and interpersonal script models. Personal
Relationships, 12, 181-196.
Fehr, B., & Russell, J. A. (1984). Concept of emotion viewed from a prototype perspective.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 464-486.
36

Fischer, A. (1991). Emotion scripts: A study of the social and cognitive aspects of emotion.
Leiden, NL: DSWO-Press.
Fitness, J. (2000). Anger in the workplace: An emotion script approach to anger episodes
between workers and their superiors, co-workers and subordinates. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 21, 147-162.
Fitness, J., & Fletcher, G. J. O. (1993). Love, hate, anger, and jealousy in close relationships: A
prototype and cognitive appraisal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social
Forgas, J. P. (1996). The role of emotion scripts and transient moods in relationships: Structural
and functional perspectives. In G. J. O. Fletcher & J. Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge
structures in close relationships: A social psychological approach, pp. 275-298.
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Forrest, J., & Abbott, A. (1990). The optimal matching method for studying anthropological
sequence data: An introduction and reliability analysis. Journal of Quantitative
Anthropology, 2, 151-170.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Frijda, N. H. (1988). The laws of emotion. American Psychologist, 43, 349-358.
Frijda, N. H., & Mesquita, B. (1994). The social roles and functions of emotions. In S. Kitayama
& H. R. Markus (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence, pp.
51-88. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Geertz, C. 1973. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Gergen, K. K, & Davis, K. (1984). The social construction of the person. New York: Springer.
Gergen, K. K., & Gergen, M. M. (1988). Narrative and the self as relationship. In L. Berkowitz
(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 21, pp. 17-56). San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Gibson, D. E. (1995). Emotional Scripts and Organization Change. In F. Massarik (Ed.),
Advances in Organization Development, Vol. 3, pp. 32-62. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Gibson, D. E. (1997). The struggle for reason: The sociology of emotions in organizations. In R.
J. Erickson & B. Cuthbertson-Johnson (Eds.) Social Perspectives on Emotion, Vol. 4, pp.
211-256. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Gibson, D. E. (2006). Emotional episodes at work: An experiential exercise in feeling and
expressing emotions. Journal of Management Education, 30, pp. 477-500.
37

Gioia, D. A., Donnellon, A., & Sims, H. P., Jr. (1989). Communication and cognition in
appraisal: A tale of two paradigms. Organization Studies, 10, 503-530.
Gioia, D. A., & Poole, P. P. (1984). Scripts in organizational behavior. Academy of Management
Review, 9, 449-459.
Gioia, D. A., & Sims, H. P. (1986). Cognition-behavior connections: Attribution and verbal
behavior in leader-subordinate interactions. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 37, 197-229.
Gross, J. J. 1998. Antecedent and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences
for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74(1): 224-237.
Hochschild, A. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of
Sociology, 85, 551-575.
Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 9, 188-205.
Jones, E. E., & Pittman, T. S. (1982). Toward a general theory of strategic self-presentation. In J.
Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self, Vol. 1, pp. 231-262. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kemper, T. D. 1978. A social interactional theory of emotions. New York: Wiley.
Kemper, T. D. (1990). Social relations and emotions: A structural approach. In T. D. Kemper
(Ed.), Research agendas in the sociology of emotions, pp. 207-237. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Kopelman, S., Rosette, A. S., & Thompson, L. (2006). The three faces of Eve: Strategic displays
of positive, negative and neutral emotions in negotiations. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 99, 81-101.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
Leigh, T. W., & McGraw, P. F. (1989). Mapping the procedural knowledge of industrial sales
personnel: A script-theoretic investigation. Journal of Marketing, 53, 16-34.
Lichtenstein, E. H., & Brewer, W. F. (1980). Memory for goal-directed events. Cognitive
38

Lord, R. G., & Kernan, M. C. (1987). Scripts as determinants of purposeful behavior in
organizations. Academy of Management Review, 12, 265-277.
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does
happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
Mandler, G. (1985). Cognitive psychology: An essay in cognitive science. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Mumby, D. K., & Putnam, L. L. (1992). The politics of emotion: A feminist reading of bounded
rationality. Academy of Management Review, 17, 465-486.
Parkinson, B., Fischer, A. H., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2005). Emotion in social relations:
Cultural, group, and interpersonal processes. New York: Psychology Press.
Pierce, J. L. (1995). Gender trials: Emotional lives in contemporary law firms. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. New York: Harper & Row.
Poole, P. P., Gioia, D. A., & Gray, B. (1989). Influence modes, schema change, and
organizational transformation. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 25, 271-289.
Poole, P. P., Gray, B., & Gioia, D. A. (1990). Organizational script development through
interactive accommodation. Group & Organization Studies, 15, 212-232.
Poulson, C. F. (2000). Shame and work. In N. M. Ashkanasy, C. E. Hartel, & W. J. Zerbe (Eds.),
Emotion in the workplace: Research, theory, and practice, pp. 250-271. Westport, CT:
Quorum.
Roseman, I. J. (1984). Cognitive determinants of emotions: A structural theory. In P. Shaver
(Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology, Vol. 5, pp. 11-36. Beverly Hills:
Sage.
Roseman, I. J. (1991). Appraisal determinants of discrete emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 5,
161-200.
Roseman, I. J., Spindel, M. S., & Jose, P. E. (1990). Appraisals of emotion-eliciting events:
Testing a theory of discrete emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59,
899-915.
Rosch, E. (1975). Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 104, 192-233.
Russell, J. A. (1991a). In defense of a prototype approach to emotion concepts. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 37-47.
39

Russell, J. A. (1991b). Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological Bulletin, 110,
426-450.
Russell, J. A. (1994). Is there universal recognition of emotion from facial expression? A review
of cross-cultural studies. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 102-141.
Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. F. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Scherer, K. R. (2001). Appraisal considered as a process of multilevel sequential checking. In K.
R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory,
methods, research, pp. 92-120. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Scherer, K. R., & Wallbott, H. G. (1994). Evidence for universality and cultural variation of
differential emotion response patterning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
66, 310-328.
Shaver, P., Schwartz, J., Kirson, D., & O’Connor, (1987). Emotion knowledge: Further
exploration of a prototype approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52,
1061-1086.
Sutton, R.I. 1991. Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: The case of bill collectors.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 245-268.
Tomkins, S. (1979). Script theory: Differential magnification of affects. In R. A. Dienstbier (Ed.)
Nebraska symposium on motivation 1978, Human Emotion, (pp. 201-236). Lincoln, NB:
University of Nebraska Press.
Van Kleef, G. A., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2004). The interpersonal effects of
anger and happiness in negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86,
57-76.
Van Maanen, J., & Kunda, G. (1989). ‘Real feelings’: Emotional expression and organizational
culture. B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, Vol.
11, pp. 43-103. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
White, G. (2000). Representing emotional meaning: Category, metaphor, schema, discourse. In
M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions, 2nd
ed., pp. 30-44. New
York: Guilford.
Whitesell, N. R., & Harter, S. (1996). The interpersonal context of emotion: Anger with close
friends and classmates. Child Development, 67, 1345-1359.
Wierzbicka, A. (1994). Emotion, language, and cultural scripts. In S. Kitayama & H. R. Markus
(Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence, pp. 133-196.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
40

Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2003). Organizational meta-scripts as a source of high reliability: The
case of an army armored brigade. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24, 837-859.
41

Emotion regulation and scripts5

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (6)

Semelhante a Emotion regulation and scripts5

Semelhante a Emotion regulation and scripts5 (20)

Último

Último (20)

Emotion regulation and scripts5