This paper is a discussion of the ways in which the social organization of the corporate workplace attempts to regulate and control the moods of its workers in order to encourage a productive work environment. According to research gathered by Robert E. Thayer in his book, The Origin of Everyday Moods, the sustained feelings that constitute moods are tied to an individual's relative physical and psychological health, as well as his or her sense of safety. His studies indicate that human beings are most productive when they are calm and energized, but most workplaces encourage workers to feel greater tension. By discouraging behaviors that might make workers less tense and by encouraging actions, including caffeine consumption, that build stress, the typical corporation induces an overall mood that is actually less likely to produce productive activity. Ironically, taking some of the pressure off the business setting is likely to make workers more efficient - and is unlikely to happen in a corporate America fixated on the stress of competition.
Robert E. Thayer (1996) defines mood "as a background feeling that persists over time" (p. 5). He argues that moods can all be plotted along two continuums, one which measures energy and the other which measures tension. At any given time, an individual can be rated along the energy scale somewhere between tiredness and high energy and along the tension scale somewhere between calm and very tense. The first scale indicates the individual's relative physical and psychological health, while the second is an indication of how safe or threatened he or she perceives the current situation to be.
Thayer argues that mood, the point on the scale at which an individual is at any given time, is also a measure of time of day and a person's individual circadian rhythms. A person who is dealing with a stressful problem, for instance, is more likely to be able to deal with the problem and consi...