Analysis and Critique of: “Managed Hearts and Wallets: Ethical Issues in Emotional Influence By and Within Organizations”

Molly Wagner November 29, 2012 Business Ethics: PL 311 Tuesday Thursday 12:30-1:45

The ethics of advertising and emotional appeals by businesses grows into a hotter topic as the United States falls deeper into a world completely pervaded by ads. While the pure inescapability of ads and appeals creates enough controversy, emotional aspects add further to the debate. In the past, most companies managed their advertising so that it reached the local people, and informed them that the company carried a product and the use of the product. Their advertising tended to be informational and, in general, inherently true. Now with a worldwide market, companies must employ emotional and associative ads and appeals to create a competitive advantage. Ingrid Smithey Fulmer and Bruce Berry discuss in their article, “Managed Hearts and Wallets: Ethical Issues in Emotional Influence By and Within Organizations,” the emotional appeals by businesses internally to employees and stakeholders, and externally to customers. A critical analysis of Fulmer and Barry’s article points out that, while the issues are many and not wholly backed up, they are logically believable and concisely argued. The article begins by defining important terms such as “mood” and “affect,” and describing the origins of emotion and logic. This provides a nice background to increase the understandability of their arguments, and it also illustrates the differences in words such as “mood” and “emotion.” Fulmer and Barry then highlight research on how emotions can be shaped and how they can affect organizational settings. This research sets up the arguments on why organizations use emotion and emotional appeals. Finally, the authors delve into their central question of, “What ethical principles should guide the use of goal-directed emotional influence by organizations” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 157). “Managed Hearts and Wallets,” states that emotion affects companies in two different way and ethical issues arise from both situations. The company forces emotions on employees, and the company imposes emotions on consumers through advertising.
A company makes emotional appeals to its employees explicitly and implicitly through “unconscious message-based processes and through interpersonal processes such as emotional contagion” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 159). Why is this unethical? The article argues that it unethical because the employees are not aware of the emotional appeals occurring, creating a change in them that they may not know they should be preventing, and that it also goes against employee rights. The article demonstrates this unconscious change by citing research that found that hearing a recording in a sad tone or happy tone was “sufficient to induce a congruent mood in the listener, and with subjects unaware that their mood had been altered as a result” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 163). This becomes unethical because it creates a loss of autonomy in employees when management is trying to change the mindset of them without them being aware of it. Lippke supports this by stating that a loss of autonomy occurs when there is an undermining of the “development of the abilities, attitudes, and knowledge that are necessary for us to understand and shape our own lives”(Lippke, 1989, p. 521).
Critiques of why this is not unethical appear. The first is the fact that, although companies can influence their employees’ lives, if they influence it positively (by being positive and happy), does it not become beneficial to society? This critique argues that it depends on what emotion you are trying to influence your employees to obtain. This argument falls short because the influence is still affecting the employees’ autonomy of attitudes and knowledge. The argument breaks apart even more when research found evidence that proves the “individual experience of positive mood or emotion can also reduce one’s likelihood of engaging in detailed critical thinking” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 173). This can create more groupthink and fewer occurrences of employees questioning illegal activities by management because they are caught up in positivity or charisma. Therefore, while it may be less emotionally taxing on employees to spread positivity versus negativity, it can be just as harmful in the long run to the autonomy of the individual employee. Another issue occurs when a company spreads false positivity or negativity. It could harm workers by causing them to buy stocks in the company when it is failing (example: Enron), not take another other job offer, etc. Therefore, any emotion that is trying to be pushed onto employees creates a less autonomous atmosphere in the workplace.
Another reason it can be argued that it is not unethical to use emotion is because management may not realize they are trying to influence the employees with emotion, but the influence can still occur. The article does not acknowledge or respond to this critique, but it can be said that unknowingly influencing your employees can be ignorant or foolish, but not always unethical. Unethical behavior comes into play when a company uses known strategies to manipulate the workforce. There are more and more advances on what affects the human brain in what way, and as companies understand it better, they have more of an advantage to take advantage. The second part of the argument involving companies forcing emotions on employees deals with the company forcing employees to keep their emotions in some sort of control. The article describes this as “emotional labor.” Some critics may think this is just one of the things that comes with the job. What it comes down to is the market conditions, the awareness of the employee, and the health of the employee. “In a perfect world, people would self-select into jobs where the emotional expression requirements of the job overall matched their innate emotional tendencies and desires for expression (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 164). Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and sometimes people are required to take jobs they do not like. DesJardins discusses these unethical market failures for jobs and the rights of employees and proposes a mixture of a solution between a feasibility and contractual approach (DesJardins, 2011, p. 141). The health of the employee is important in cases of emotional labor because it is found that it can cause “burnout, decreased satisfaction, and physiological symptoms” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 165). Employees can form a habit of overly controlling their emotions and start losing their true personality. While it may not be ethical to take away an employee’s personality, some may argue that it is necessary to run a good business. Positivity creates consumers to think more positively about the company and to buy more from the company. This belief can go only go so far, because for a lot of Americans, they do not need any more positivity to buy. Customers are not entitled to treat employees in a rude or arrogant manner, and still receive good service, just because they are the customers. Unfortunately, for many in the service and restaurant industry, this is the case though. If the emotional labor is going to harm the employee, they must be aware of it, and have the right to negotiate better conditions.
When emotional control is only used for increasing profit, overall, it cannot be considered ethical. It goes back to DesJardins cost-benefit approach. The company weighs the cost of the mental health of the employee to the increase of profit. The problem with the cost-benefit approach is that is hard to identify the exact costs. This is especially true of emotional costs compared to physical costs. The other problem with the cost-benefit approach is that the company would still be able to survive if it allowed for less emotional labor from employees. It causes employees to have to act and repress feelings when some customer is shouting in their face just so they can make that extra sale. This is not an argument for allowing employees to punch out customers who annoy them, but instead to allow them to get their point across to the customer, even if it is negative, without the fear of being fired.
Another critique of emotional labor is that the relationship previously discussed between the management and the employee is renewed in the relationship between the customer and the employee. The employee is trying to manipulate the customers’ feelings so that they stay positive about the company and about buying their product. According to Fulmer and Barry, this gives “rise to potential issues related to violation of personal autonomy of customers, and other ethical issues that mirror those applicable to emotion management through consumer advertising (2009, p. 176). If it is proven that it is unethical for the management to emotionally influence the employee, then the same must be said about employees manipulating consumers’ emotions. The last argument in “Managed Hearts and Wallets” deals with companies forcing emotions on consumers through advertising and marketing using emotion. In class, we discussed this as associative advertising. Many times consumers associate a particular feeling with an ad. The article points out that not much research has been done since the creation of “neuromarketing,” which is advertising strategies that have been developed by looking at how the different techniques and campaigns affect the brain through MRI technology. There is such a deep manipulation into people’s inherent and innate characteristics that they are preying upon in “neuromarketing.” The two main reasons marketing is unethical is the unawareness by consumers and a loss of autonomy. Fulmer and Barry point out that unawareness is just a stepping-stone. Unawareness, alone, could mean ignorance, stupidity, or foolishness on part of the consumer. Consumers must be able to “accurately gauge the degree to which the stimulus actually biases his or her perception, and be both motivated and able to correct the biased perception” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 169). Unawareness must go along with the inability to be aware. This occurs in subliminal messages or subconscious ideas. The other idea is that people need to be able to stop the effects of advertising. One of the major reasons it is unethical is because people can do nothing about it. It is pervasive and the biases they create cannot often be changed. Some may argue that it is the consumer’s responsibility to be knowledgeable of all the influences an ad may have on them, but many times they influence are small or subconscious. Although small, they are repeated enough times to cause big damage. Those who are less vulnerable, can be seen as outcasts from society or fall behind in the workplace for not having a smart phone, email, computer, latest fashion trends, etc.
Advertising creates a society where we have second-order desires, but only ones created by advertising and not by ourselves. This creates a society full of followers. Consumers lose their autonomy, and as advertising starts at a younger and younger age as time goes on, people may not have any substantial or unique second order desires that they came up with by themselves. Advertising also created “emotional states that may cause people to focus more on the short-term emotional effects of their decisions than on their long-term interests” (Fulmer & Barry, 2009, p. 168). This is occurring when consumers have inconsistent first and second order desires. The effects of this can easily be seen in the obesity problem of the American people. While it is not true for all, compared to 100 years ago, Americans are fatter, less motivated, and dumber (compared to the amount of knowledge obtainable). The far-reaching affects of emotional advertising that are easily seen today make it obvious that is unethical and problematic for the future of late-term capitalist markets. Overall, it is unethical for companies to use emotions to manipulate and influence people. This includes the manipulation of the company’s employees and the manipulation of consumers. The main arguments for both cases stem from autonomy, ability to control the influence, awareness, and worker’s rights. “Managed Hearts and Wallets” offers new insights on the effects of influencing emotion throughout all aspects of business, while reinforcing previous ideas on the unethical aspects of advertising.

Works Cited
DesJardins, J. (2011). An Introduction to Business Ethics (4th Edition ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fulmer, I. S., & Barry, B. (2009). Managed Hearts and Wallets: Ethicical Issues in Emotional Influence. Business Ethics Quarterly , 19 (2), 155-191.
Lippke, R. L. (1989). Advertising and the Social Conditions of Autonomy. Business and Professional Ethics Journal , 8, 521-526.