In recent years, there has been a growing interest in understanding how individuals differ in the dynamics of their affective experiences. Indeed, fluctuations in people's emotional states over time may reveal information about their psychological functioning and well-being (Koval & Kuppens, 2012). In this regard, recent studies have focused on temporal dependency of emotions, namely emotional inertia. Emotional inertia refers to the rate of change in emotional experiences and it is generally operationalized as the autocorrelation of an emotion (Kuppens et al., 2010). Evidence indicates that high emotional inertia is related to a number of markers of psychological maladjustment such as neuroticism (Suls, Green, & Hillis, 1998), depression (Koval & Kuppens, 2012; Koval, Sütterlin, & Kuppens, 2015), low self-esteem (Kuppens et al., 2010) and rumination (Brose et al., 2015). In the light of these results, the present research project aim at expanding existing literature on emotional inertia by investigating its association with emotional exhaustion among a sample of Italian workers, which will be assessed six times per day for five working days. In accordance with the principles of COR Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), we expect that emotional exhaustion will be associated with higher emotional inertia. In particular, we hypothesize that individual high in emotional exhaustion may lack the resources to adapt their emotions to external events. Our hypothesis will be tested using multilevel modeling. To our knowledge, this will be the first study exploring emotional inertia in the work setting and its link with emotional exhaustion, the core dimension of burnout syndrome.
Emotional inertia is a relatively recent construct and it represents a form of psychological inflexibility, which is linked to several forms of psychopathology (Kashdan, 2010; Koval et al., 2012).
Empirical studies showed that high emotional inertia in negative emotions is related to maladaptive regulatory mechanism (Kuppens et al., 2010; Suls et al., 1998; Wang, Hamaker, Bergeman, 2012), which in turn is associated to several health outcomes. Specifically, neuroticism has been found to positively predict higher levels of emotional inertia (Suls et al., 1998; Wang et al., 2012). Emotional inertia has also been shown to be associated with depression (Kuppens et al., 2012), rumination (Koval et al., 2012) and perseverative thoughts (Brose et al., 2014). In addition, the meta-analysis conducted by Houben, Van Den Noortgate and Kuppens (2015) showed that inert emotions are related to lower psychological wellbeing.
Interestingly, recent evidence suggests that emotional inertia is related to both current and future health. Indeed, higher levels of emotional inertia may increase the risk of depression (Kuppens et al., 2012; van de Leemput et al., 2014) and health problems (Wang et al., 2012).
All in all, previous studies seem to underline the importance of investigating the patterns of changes and fluctuations in individuals' emotional sates (Koval & Kuppens, 2012). However, given the novelty of the construct, studies on emotional inertia are quite scarce and they have generally involved samples of university students or young adolescents.
Since results from previous studies indicate that emotional inertia is linked to reduced wellbeing and that it is positively associated with neuroticism and depression, it seems reasonable that it may also be associate with emotional exhaustion. Yet, we are not aware of previous studies that have examined emotional inertia at work and its relation with emotional exhaustion. To address the gap in the literature, this project aims at investigating the relation between emotional inertia and emotional exhaustion in the workplace. Thus, affective states will be assessed exclusively during working hours, six times per day, for five working days. Since emotional exhaustion is generally associated to workers who deal directly with recipients, this study will involve a sample of workers who work directly with the public (Schaufeli & Buunk, 2003).
More specifically and consistently with the principles of COR Theory (Hobfoll, 1989), we expect that emotional inertia at work will be positively related with emotional exhaustion. Indeed, emotional exhaustion results from the resources loss ingenerated by a prolonged exposure to work stress (Hobfoll, 2001). For this reason, individuals reporting higher levels of emotional exhaustion, being depleted by the resources necessary to regulate their emotions, may adopt a defensive posture and progressively become unable to flexibly adapt their emotional states to the environmental circumstances. This way, higher levels of emotional exhaustion may lead to higher emotional inertia. Stated differently, the resources impairment may affect emotional functioning, by decoupling emotions from their adaptive function and creating a condition of psychological vulnerability (Kuppens et al., 2012).
In sum, this research project could make a number of important contributions. First, it may contribute to the understanding of emotional dynamics related to emotional exhaustion. Secondly, it may advance the literature by exploring for the first time the emergent construct of emotional inertia in the work environment and its relation with emotional exhaustion. Finally, if our hypothesis will be supported, this study could provide new insights about the emotional experiences that are common to individuals high in emotional exhaustion.