Researching emotions and emotion regulation among public officials through a quantitative diary study method

This paper reports on the diary study methodology that we applied to study how public officials regulate positive and negative emotions during their work (emotion regulation), and how that relates to the degree in which they complete their work related goals and private goals (goal completion and performance). We will report on the concepts and operationalization, sampling and data collection, and data analysis. We will also report first findings, and reflect on the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the study (reliability and validity). In short, we conducted a daily diary study among 290 public officials during 10 working days, resulting in 2610 observations. Concepts and operationalization We measured the degree to which respondents had felt 8 different emotions that day on a scale from 1-10. We asked respondents about the emotion that had been most intense on that day, and asked them in how far they regulated that emotion through 4 emotion regulation strategies: re-appraisal, acceptance, improving the situation, and respression/expression (Likert scale 1-7). In addition we asked several questions to measure in how far they had completed planned working tasks and planned tasks related to their private life. All scales we used were based on existing scales and adapted for the particular empirical context. Data collection For the data collection, a selection study was conducted among the panel members of Flycatcher to determine who are suitable for participation in the research. The criteria were that respondents work in the public sector and work a minimum of 32 hours per week. Out of the 1170 respondents who participated in the selection study, 549 met the selection criteria. They were invited to participate in the diary study. 457 of them filled out the baseline questionnaire, and at least one diary questionnaires (response rate = 83%). In the end, due to budgetary restrictions, we excluded respondents who filled out less than six diaries. 290 respondents who filled out at least six daily questionnaires remained (M = 9.14, SD = 0.92), resulting in 2610 out of 2900 possible observations. We started the data collection with a baseline questionnaire in which we measured our state variables as well as demographics. Then, respondents received a daily questionnaire for 10 consecutive workdays. Data analysis We carried out a multilevel regression analysis with R. By carrying out the regression of goal completion on various emotion regulation strategies each day, we will analyze the effectiveness of various emotion regulation strategies. We also analyze which emotion regulation strategies respondents use to regulate which emotions. Because we also asked whether respondents worked from home or at the office, we were also able to analyze whether our respondents feel different intense emotions at home or at the office, and whether our respondents use different emotion regulation strategies at home or at the office.