High Educ (2012) 64:891–909

DOI 10.1007/s10734-012-9535-2

Exploring emotion in the higher education workplace:

capturing contrasting perspectives using Q methodology

Charlotte Woods

Published online: 19 May 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This article presents an original application of Q methodology in investigating

the challenging arena of emotion in the Higher Education (HE) workplace. Q’s strength
lies in capturing holistic, subjective accounts of complex and contested phenomena but is
unusual in employing a statistical procedure within an interpretivist framework. Here Q is
used to capture the emotional tone of the working lives of academic and support colleagues
in one UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). Research design and data analysis were
underpinned by the concept of appraisal, which has an established history in stress and
emotion scholarship across a range of disciplines. Four distinct illustrative workplace
accounts are presented and analysed in terms of their relevance for individual emotion and
wellbeing. The utility of this application of Q methodology in surfacing and comparing
differing experiences of university life is discussed and the implications for institutional
research and practice are considered.

Keywords Workplace
Emotion
Health
Wellbeing
Q methodology
Identity

Introduction

This article presents a study, employing Q methodology, of emotion in the higher edu-
cation (HE) workplace. Its main purpose is not to explore the study findings in detail, as
space allows only an illustrative sample, or to provide an introduction to Q methodology,
as this is available elsewhere. Rather, the purpose of the paper is to outline an original
application of Q methodology for exploring employee perspectives on the higher education
workplace. To exemplify the approach it presents summaries of four distinct accounts of
working life derived empirically from a study of academic and support colleagues in a
university in England. Verification by participants indicates that the study design was
successful in capturing perspectives on university life in ways that research on emotion

C. Woods (&)
School of Education, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
e-mail: charlotte.woods@manchester.ac.uk

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indicates have relevance for individual wellbeing. The potential role of the approach in HE
research and practice is discussed.
A wealth of theory and research has been developed on feelings and emotions in
organisational life in recent decades, yet scholarship on emotion in university life is
relatively insubstantial with the overwhelming majority focusing on the student rather than
the employee experience (Woods 2010). From the theoretical standpoint adopted, emotion
both (i) lies at the heart of employee motivation and commitment and (ii) is closely linked
to their physical and mental health. Thus conceived, emotion is a key factor in the
effectiveness of individual and institutional functioning and therefore of considerable
relevance to HE scholarship.
Emotion scholarship is a truly multidisciplinary endeavour and differences in the way
that emotion is understood and studied create difficulties in furthering collective under-
standing. There have been consistent calls from emotion researchers in different fields for
studies that do not sit within the confines of traditional disciplinary approaches, for greater
openness among members of the academic community to disciplinary perspectives other
than their own and for studies employing non mainstream research methods (Ashkanasy
2011; Hartel and Zerbe 2000; Russell and Barratt 2009). The study described was
developed with a genuine commitment to respond to these calls.
Conceptually, the study is grounded in the notion of appraisal, which has an established
history and is widely referred to in work on stress and emotion across a range of disci-
plines. In this study appraisal concerns how perceptions of the work environment are
mediated by individuals in light of their personal and professional priorities and concerns.
Chief among these concerns are questions of selfhood, and especially the social self. The
study may therefore speak to HE researchers with an interest in identity or in social
relations in the workplace.
Methodologically, the study employs an approach that is one that resists being
pigeonholed within traditional broad classifications of research such as positivist or in-
terpretivist, quantitative or qualitative. Q is a methodology developed for small-scale
research with the aim of capturing and contrasting subjectivity. It has a natural home
among interpretivist approaches and is growing in popularity among qualitative and critical
researchers (Watts and Stenner 2005). It is also an approach that accommodates ambiv-
alence and contradiction (Brown 1997; McKeown and Thomas 1988; Stainton Rogers
1995; Stephenson 1980), which makes it an ideal fit with emotion. Employing Q, which
falls outside the methodological mainstream, responds to calls for emotion in organiation
researchers to take the professional risk of ‘doing it differently’ (Fineman 2000a, p 13).
Researching the human emotions is challenging methodologically and ethically. Among
other difficulties, mainstream approaches within the social sciences relying on self-report,
such as questionnaire survey and participant interview, suffer from (i) the fact that people
have been shown to be poor at recognising both which emotions they are experiencing and
their intensity and (ii) the types of distortion that can occur via participants’ conscious and
unconscious attempts to present themselves in a particular light. In contrast, the physio-
logical approaches popular within the medical and human sciences, though developing
rapidly, are as yet limited to indicating the presence or absence of emotional arousal in
general but are as yet unable to show which emotions are at play. As wide a range of
alternative approaches as possible are required to further understanding of emotion in the
HE workplace. This study takes an existing, non- mainstream methodology-Q—and
applies it in an original way. Rather than asking participants directly about workplace
attitudes, opinions and feelings, the approach involves identifying the relative importance
of individual professional and personal priorities and the extent to which the work

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environment allows these priorities to be attended to. Analysis of these data step-by-step
against the different components of appraisal allowed inferences to be drawn about the
likely broad emotional tone of the workplace for each participant, and its relevance to their
wellbeing, for subsequent discussion and verification at interview.
The article contributes to the field of HE scholarship in at least three respects. First, the
study draws attention to a methodology that is not widely used in either workplace emotion
studies or HE research (though see Lecouteur and Delfabbro 2001). Q is readily applicable
in diverse domains of HE research and, as something of a quantitative/qualitative ‘hybrid’,
has potential to speak to an interdisciplinary readership. Second, the article offers, in
summary form, examples of shared perspectives on working life in HE that have been
shown empirically to exist within the study population and which emotion research,
supported by participant testimony, suggests have relevance for employee wellbeing. In
this way, the research approach differs from previous work in offering what can be viewed
as an emergent typology, not of different emotions per se (cf Lazarus 1991), or of
workplace events that ‘trigger’ emotions (cf Basch and Fisher 1998), but of differing ways
of experiencing the university workplace in general with implications for emotion and
health. The workplace perspectives presented are more consistent with contemporary
understandings of emotion than classifications in the workplace emotion literature either
(i) of individual characteristics (e.g personality traits, emotional resilience, emotional
intelligence or (ii) of workplace features alone. It is evident that people are not all the
same. Everyday experience makes clear that one employee will thrive in a workplace
environment where another will not and, moreover, that individual experience of the
workplace will vary over time. Emotion, and its implications for human flourishing, can
only be understood in terms of the interaction between individual perception and envi-
ronment. Providing a means for deriving a typology of such interactions empirically is thus
a valuable starting point in developing more nuanced understandings of workplace emo-
tion. Third, the research design presented contributes an adaptable procedure for capturing
perspectives on the social environment at work with applications both within HE research
and practice.
The paper continues by placing the study in the context of recent scholarship on
emotion in organisations and clarifying how emotion and appraisal are to be understood in
the article. Next it introduces Q methodology and outlines the unique way in which it was
employed within the research design. Example summary accounts of the workplace per-
spectives that emerged from the study follow. These accounts incorporate theoretically
derived analyses of their implications for emotion and health subsequently verified at
interview. The appropriateness of the study design and applications in institutional practice
and research within higher education are discussed.

Conceptualising emotion in the HE workplace

Reflective of a wider cultural turn to emotion and the self, recent decades have seen a
marked increase in research on feelings and emotions within the humanities and social
sciences and work on emotion in organisational life is now extensive. However, it has been
argued that ‘emotion’ can sit uneasily in academic work on universities, traditionally
viewed as sites of ‘pure rationality devoted to the dispassionate and objective search for
truth’ (Leathwood and Hey 2009, p 429), and theory and research pertaining specifically to
emotions in the HE workplace are relatively rare (Woods 2010).

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In selecting an appropriate conceptualisation of emotion in studying the HE workplace

with an interest in employee health, much organisation research has limitations. First, there
is a large volume of work that emphasises the role of individual characteristics (e.g on
personality or emotional intelligence). An interest in employee performance has tradi-
tionally appeared to motivate much of this research, underplaying the importance of
workplace factors in employee performance, or showing little regard for employee well-
being Fox and Spector (2002). Fineman (2000b), meanwhile, has problematised the
widespread use of emotional intelligence, characterising it as a means of harnessing
employee emotion in the organisational interest. Second, investigations adopting a
sociological, interpersonal, group or organisational perspective on workplace emotion can
neglect the role of individual commitments and temperament in their analyses (Layder
2004; Stets 2010; Williams 2000). In addition, within studies exploring emotion by
focussing on the social context of the workplace, an interest in employee well-being is
often implied rather than being a significant focus (Briner 2005). Third, much organisa-
tional research applies emotion in customer service or business contexts, which can imply a
somewhat restrictive idea of what ‘work’ involves (Basch and Fisher 1998; Wegge et al.
2006). University employees inhabit very diverse roles and the short-term customer
encounters of the university call centre worker and the long term, often solitary, activities
involved in research and publication are very different in nature in ways that will be highly
significant for emotion.

Appraisal

‘Appraisal’ was adopted as central in the conceptual underpinning of the study and has the
benefit of addressing the three limitations set out above. First, this account of appraisal
(i) holds emotion to be derived from individual and contextual features in combination, (ii)
is based on constructs that lie at the heart of abiding individual motivations and concerns
(need for achievement, need for affiliation) and thus can accommodate very diverse
accounts of workplace experience and over different timescales and (iii) explicitly links
emotion to individual health.
Emotion scholarship beyond the organisation flourishes within many disciplines from
philosophy to neuroscience, giving rise to competing versions of what ‘emotion’ means
and heated debate over questions of theory and method. Though understandings of
appraisal are contested (e.g. Frijda 2010; Kagan 2010), the concept has an established
history, first within the literature on stress (Lazarus 1966; Lazarus and Folkman 1984) and
then within emotion scholarship (Frijda 1993; Smith and Ellsworth 1985; Tran et al. 2011).
Essentially appraisal represents a means of understanding how individual factors (per-
sonality, commitments, mood, hopes, dreams and fears etc.) interact with conscious and
unconscious perceptions of the environment in emotion.
Lazarus (1991) was a useful source in developing the main research tool (the Q sample)
used in the study because, within this lengthy volume, appraisal is broken down concep-
tually into different domains and each is discussed in detail. A further strength of this
account of appraisal is that the link between appraisal and health has been consistently
explored in this and related work over time (e.g. Lazarus 1966, 1991, 1999; Lazarus and
Folkman 1984). Though this article can only provide a brief sketch of this territory, based
on a lifetime of scholarship, the volume offers a rich, interdisciplinary foundation and is
widely referred to in more recent research (e.g Lin and Leung 2010; Tran et al. 2011).
In Lazarus (1991), appraisal is understood to have two components: primary and sec-
ondary. Primary appraisal concerns an individual’s (often unconscious) perception of the

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goodness of fit between current circumstances and what matters to them. It is broken down
conceptually into various components and sub-components that reflect the fact that pre-
serving a sense of self and social esteem; the goals people aspire to; the values and ideals
they hold dear and the wellbeing of loved ones are all central in emotion. Primary appraisal
determines the strength of emotion experienced and whether positively or negatively toned,
with favourable circumstances associated with positive emotions and unfavourable cir-
cumstances with more negative emotions. The stronger the attachment to individual
commitments or beliefs, and the more favourable or unfavourable the circumstances are in
relation to them, the stronger the emotions involved.
Contrasting two HE colleagues with different priorities but in similar circumstances
might serve as an illustration of primary appraisal.1 Colleague A is a careerist with a strong
competitive streak. For such an individual news that an application for promotion has been
successful would represent an excellent match between what is most important to them and
current workplace circumstances. Appraisal would predict a powerful cocktail of strong,
positively toned emotions (e.g. pride, happiness, relief). For Colleague B with a less clear
cut set of priorities (e.g. managing poor health; caring for an dependent), the same news
might be associated with a mix of favourably and unfavourably toned emotions (e.g. pride
and happiness tinged with anxiety and guilt).
It is secondary appraisal that determines which emotion(s) result(s) from an event or
situation. This includes factors such as (i) who (e.g. selfs or others) should be given credit
or blame for favourable or unfavourable circumstances, (ii) perceptions of how readily the
individual can manage the situation (iii) expectations about how circumstances might
change over time for better or worse. The ability of the individual to alter or adapt to their
circumstances effectively (coping) in turn will depend on factors such as whether or not
they have a supportive work climate, their current work demands, how much control they
have over their situation, whether or not their work and personal lives provide emotional
outlets. For readers with an interest in specific emotions, the elements of appraisal set out
in Table 1 allow for the mapping of pathways associated with particular ‘families’ of
related emotions (e.g. love/affection; guilt/shame; envy/jealousy) (Lazarus 1991). How-
ever, it is the emotional tone of the workplace as a whole (favourable, unfavourable,
mixed) that is of interest in this paper, rather than specific emotions.
Table 1 offers a schematic representation of the two types of appraisal described.
Though primary and secondary appraisal are differentiated conceptually, in practice they
do not occur in sequence but rather both are constantly at play and mutually influential. In
this sense, emotion is best understood as a system rather than as a mere response to events.
First, rarely will only one emotion be involved in circumstances with strong personal
relevance. Second, via appraisal, previous experience and beliefs about the future both
colour the interpretation of current circumstances in ways that influence emotion. For
example, prior circumstances would influence the strength and combination of emotions
experienced on achieving promotion for the HE colleagues referred to above. Whether and
how many previously unsuccessful attempts had been made, level of support received,
effort invested and so on would all be relevant to the emotional experience of success, as
would beliefs about the future (health concerns, predicted rewards, potential impact on
future relations with co-workers etc.).

1
Woods (2010) provides a detailed explanation of the systemic qualities of emotion and an illustration from
the HE workplace of how similar circumstances might be associated with markedly different emotional
experiences via appraisal depending on individual priorities and concerns.

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Table 1 Appraisal components

Primary appraisal
Secondary appraisal
Personal and professional concerns and priorities
(power/achievement; affiliation; job satisfaction/enjoyment etc.)
Extent to which work environment matches these priorities
Credit or blame for circumstances
Coping options (whether there is any action the individual can take
to influence their situation and what the potential future
consequences might be)
Perceived likelihood that circumstances will change over time

Emotion and health

As understood here, emotion is taken to share common ground with ‘stress’ (Lazarus 1991,
1999), and appraisal is common to contemporary understandings of both phenomena.
Emotion is central to human flourishing and unfavourable emotional responses to the
environment over time can inhibit human abilities that are of extreme importance for
individual and organisational life, such as memory, concentration and social functioning.
They can also contribute to pathologies such as chronic anxiety and depression (Arnsten
1998; Izard 2009; Lazarus and Folkman 1984). Further, over time emotions are widely
accepted as being significant for health through influencing the immune system (Miller
et al. 2009).
To continue with the example of Colleague A, for whom high status within their
profession is central to their identity, the strong favourable emotions associated with
achieving promotion would tend to be (broadly speaking) protective of mental and physical
health. On the other hand, repeated failure to obtain promotion for such a person might be
associated with powerful negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, shame and envy. If
what matters remains out of reach, especially where consistent effort has been made, a
tendency to ruminate may result and give rise to a self-perpetuating cycle of negative
emotion. If allowed to continue over the longer term, such emotions are widely accepted as
harmful both psychologically and physically.
Though colleague A is a caricature, the example should serve to illustrate how
understanding the relative strength of individual commitments, alongside their perceptions
of aspects of the workplace relevant to these key priorities, can provide an indication of the
strength and general tone (positive, negative, mixed) of emotion that characterise their
working life.
The study described below captured the relative strength of individual workplace
commitments and perceptions of aspects of working life relevant to these commitments
using Q methodology. These data allowed for (i) written characterisations of the individual
participant’s worklife to be prepared and (ii) the implications for emotion and health to be
drawn using appraisal as an analytic tool, for subsequent verification at interview.

Study design and conduct

Many proponents of Q methodology recommend two forms of data collection: the Q sort
procedure and follow up participant interview. Though the study described involved both,
this article focuses on the former as the principal and less common research procedure. It is
not the purpose here to present a thorough description of Q methodology in general, but

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rather an outline of a specific application of it. However, brief background on Q is provided

below to provide context.2
Q was developed by William Stephenson in the 1930 s because he was disenchanted
with the positivist orthodoxy and concern with measurement and large-scale work that
dominated thinking in psychology at the time (Brown 1997). Q offers a means of
employing statistical operations within an interpretive approach. Statistically, Q employs
factor analysis, though Q’s purpose is entirely different from the way factor analysis is
most commonly applied in processing data from specialist tests or questionnaires. Such
instruments typically aim to measure individual traits, qualities or attitudes (e.g. emotional
intelligence, personality factors) of which the study participant may have little conscious
awareness. The specialist knowledge required by the researcher is different in kind from
the day-to-day experience that is generally explored via Q. Stephenson believed in a social
idea of communication: ‘communicability’ refers to the self-referencing sharing of
knowledge in a culture, in contrast to the informational sharing of facts (Stephenson,
1980). ‘I love the rain’ is an example of the first, and ‘it is raining’ of the second. The
purpose of Q is to enable the participant to represent his or her subjective viewpoint in such
a way that it can be held ‘constant for inspection and comparison’ (Brown 1997, p 8). In
gathering the kind of specialist knowledge revealed by tests and questionnaires, it has been
argued that the participant is measured (passive) (Brown 1997). In contrast, in Q, the
participant has a more active role in that they measure or scale a sample of material in a
highly individualised way.
In using the methodology, individual perspectives on the matter being researched are
captured via a ‘Q sort’. This task requires the participant to order a set of relevant items
(e.g. statements, words or pictures) according to a set of criteria (e.g. how far they agree
with statements or how like or unlike themselves the items are believed to be). Often
participants are asked to arrange the items into a configuration resembling a quasi-normal
distribution (as illustrated in Table 1), as was the case in the study described here.
Figure 1 illustrates a possible configuration for a Q sample of 67 items, with each
rectangle representing a single item (e.g. statement, word, picture).
The number of permutations available to the participant sorting a fairly ‘normal’ sized
Q sample of 40-60 items is vast, so the resulting configuration is a quite unique (Watts and
Stenner 2005). The resultant Q sort also offers a holistic expression of their perspective:
while traditional factor analysis is concerned with breaking wholes into parts (analysis),
‘keeping parts together’ (Brown 1997, p 3) is what Q factor analysis does.
Through being asked to rank, as opposed to merely rate items on a five point scale in a
questionnaire, the Q sort procedure requires the participant to engage with the sample
items in a non superficial way and make fine-grained judgements about where individual
items in the sample sit in relation to one another from their personal point of view. In
essence, via the sorting process in the study reported here, the sorter was indicating those
few aspects of working life that they felt particularly strongly about (represented in those
items placed at either end of the configuration), those which they had firm opinions about
but were perhaps less attached to (agree/disagree) and those (towards the middle), about
which they felt ambivalence or indifference. As explained above, within the conceptu-
alisation employed in the study, emotion will only be in play when circumstances are
significant for the individual employee’s core commitments and beliefs. A particular
strength of Q in this study was its ability, through the ranking of items via the sort, to bring

2
Fuller accounts of Q are widely available. See, for example ( Brown 1997; McKeown and Thomas 1988;
Stainton Rogers 1995; Stephenson 1980; Watts & Stenner 2005).

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Strongly Disagree Disagree Depends Agree Agree Strongly

disagree on the / on the agree
whole Not sure whole

Fig. 1 Example Q sort configuration

to light the relative salience of aspects of working life for the individual and thus indicate
which are most likely to implicate powerful emotion.
Specialist Q software allows the unique configuration of Q sample items produced by
each study participant to be entered into a statistical package. Via the statistical analysis,
each sort is compared with all the other sorts and what emerges is a set of ‘factors’, or
distinct ways of viewing the topic being researched. The software prepares a composite
‘model’ Q sorts for each viewpoint, which offers the best representation of it. It also
indicates in statistical terms how, and the extent to which, the Q sort of each participant is
similar to or different from each of the model sorts representing the different perspectives.
Typically the Q sorts of some of the participants will match one particular viewpoint
(factor) quite closely, while the sorts of other participants may be more mixed and contain
elements from two or more perspectives. The perspectives represented by each of the
model sorts are usually then interpreted by the researcher and written up in the form of a
verbal summary.
The detailed description of the different components and sub-components of appraisal
set out in Lazarus (1991) and outlined in Woods (2010) was used to develop the initial
concourse of statements from which the final sample was drawn. The aims were to
ensure adequate coverage of the various components and, in the interests of shared
‘communicability’, to produce statements that would be readily understandable by a
diverse group of study participants. A range of previously validated survey instruments
(e.g. Karasek et al. 1998; Patterson et al. 2005) were consulted and HE research and
professional experience brought to bear in this process. Through piloting, the concourse
was refined to a set of 67 statements (see appendix) which provided the ‘representative
condensation of information’ required in a Q sample (Watts and Stenner 2005, p 75).
Table 2 gives examples of the wording of items employed and how they fit with the
different elements of appraisal as set out in Lazarus (1991). Via the Q sort, participants
were required to rank these statements according to how strongly they agreed or dis-
agreed with them (see Fig. 1).
Analysis of the data proceeded in several stages. First, the completed Q sorts were
analysed statistically using specialist freeware.3 Second, staying close to the wording of the
Q sort items and the participants’ level of agreement with them, detailed verbal

3
Information about such freeware is available via the QMethod page available at http://www.lrz.
de/*schmolck/qmethod/.

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Table 2 Illustrative examples of Q sample items and their links to individual appraisal components
Appraisal Example Q sample items
form

Primary What matters to the Having colleagues I feel close to is important to me

appraisal individual
(Goal relevance)
Goodness of fit with
workplace environment
(Goal congruence)
Secondary Blame or credit for outcome
appraisal
Coping potential
Future expectancy
(affiliation)
• Getting regular promotion is important to me
(power/achievement)
• I like to learn new things and keep up to date in my job
(personal growth)
• I like to keep very busy at work
(stress tolerance)
• I need to feel a sense of excitement about my work
(job satisfaction/enjoyment)
• The people I work with take a personal interest in me
(affiliation)
• I am happy with the progress I have made in my career
(power/achievement)
• Sometimes I’ve had to do things I feel uncomfortable with
(values)
• I never have enough time to get the job done
(stress tolerance)
• My job involves a lot of repetitive work
(job satisfaction/enjoyment)
• My colleagues can be quick to blame others when things
go wrong
• My colleagues sometimes take credit for other people’s
work
• It is not uncommon for people to talk behind each other’s
backs
(social support)
• I usually manage to complete work tasks without too
many interruptions (job demands)
• I have little freedom to decide how I work
(control and autonomy)
• My job is a common topic of conversation with friends
and/or family (outlets)
• If things are difficult at work, I tend to keep my head
down
(‘emotion-focused coping’—changing the way the situation
is perceived)
• If something’s troubling me at work, I can usually find a
way to put it right
(problem-focused coping—taking action to alleviate a
problem)
• People here talk a lot about how much work they’ve got to
do
(workplace climate)
• My job security is good
• People here don’t seem very optimistic about the future

descriptions of around 700-800 words were prepared for each of the factors identified. In a
third stage of analysis these factor accounts, or different perspectives on the workplace,
were analysed separately using the appraisal framework, and the likely implications of
work life for individual emotion and health were considered. This involved reviewing the
accounts for evidence of (i) strongly felt individual beliefs, concerns etc. and their degree

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of congruence with working life (primary appraisal) and (ii) relevant data about elements
of secondary appraisal such as perceptions of the future, of social support and of control.
This third stage of analysis allowed for predictions about the emotional tone of
workplace experience likely to be associated with each factor. For example, via appraisal,
very strong agreement with both the statements ‘Getting regular promotion is important to
me’ and ‘I am happy with the progress I have made in my career’ would predict favourable
emotion. On the other hand, very marked agreement with the item ‘Having colleagues I
feel close to is important to me’, coupled with very strong disagreement with the statement
‘The people I work with take a personal interest in me’ would suggest a less favourable
emotional tone for the individual. Where there is a good match overall in a factor between
what is most important for the Q sorter and what their workplace provides, primary
appraisal would predict a generally favourable emotional tone, while negative emotion
would be significant where strong mismatches exist. In terms of health, particularly
worrisome would be factors where strong negative emotions are predicted via primary
appraisal and the secondary appraisal elements suggest a work environment that is not
supportive of successful coping (e.g strong agreement with items such as ‘It is not
uncommon for people here to talk behind each other’s backs’, ‘I’m exposed to hostility
from my supervisor’).
Follow up interviews were conducted as recommended (Stainton Rogers 1995; Watts
and Stenner 2005). The participant whose Q sort most closely matched the composite
‘model’ sort extracted by the software for each factor was interviewed. This involved (i) the
participant reviewing and commenting on a draft of the relevant verbal account paragraph
by paragraph and (ii) a set of objective questions related to the participant’s general health,
life outside work and outlook. This allowed for comparison between respondents’ reported
perceptions of the emotional tone of their working lives and their wellbeing, and the
predictions made beforehand based on the theoretical analysis of their factor accounts.
Finally, information obtained at interview was incorporated into factor accounts.
Approximately 100 employees were invited to take part in the study by a university
administrator using a participant selection grid to ensure a cross-section in terms of gender,
role and seniority. This resulted in 27 sorts, a sufficient number for Q, which is not suited
to large numbers of cases (Brown 1997; Stainton Rogers 1995; Stephenson 1980). From
these four factors were identified by the software (F1-4).4 Each of these represented a
distinct pattern of perception of the workplace with emotional resonance shared by two or
more people.

Illustrative workplace accounts

Presented below are brief summaries of four example factor descriptions along with
comments on the implications for emotion and health of each derived through (i) mapping
the Q sort data against the the appraisal components as outlined earlier and (ii) verification
of interpretations via participant interview. Consistent with the idea that strong emotions
arise only in relation to things that really matter to the individual, the summaries focus on
those statements that the participant showed strong agreement or disagreement with. Four
accounts shared by two or more participants are presented, two favourably toned and two
more mixed.

4
Eigenvalues for the four factors ranged from 1.44 to 9.6.

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Factor 1 Reaping the rewards

Three participants were associated with (loaded on) this factor: two males with senior
administrative roles and one senior female academic.
Summary account
They enjoy the challenge their job offers and the opportunities for professional learning
and creativity. They are happy with their career progress to date, consider their salary to be
fair and believe their job security to be good. They tend not to have close relationships with
work colleagues, but nor is affiliation a priority for them. They have the respect of co-
workers and are not subject to conflict or hostility in the workplace. They enjoy a high
degree of autonomy in setting their own work agenda, consider themselves to be far from
‘powerless’ and are usually able to take action to alleviate workplace difficulties. They are
in agreement with the strategic direction the organisation is taking, believe their own job to
be worthwhile and are not required to do things that they feel uncomfortable with. Their
job allows them adequate time to indulge hobbies and outside interests.

Analysis of implications for emotion and health

There is a good match between what matters to these individuals and what their job
provides, suggesting that primary appraisal will tend to engender mainly favourable
emotions. Effective coping via secondary appraisal would be enabled by a high level of
control, lack of conflict and outlets to ward off workplace worries and pressures.
The accuracy of the account and analysis of the health implications were supported at
interview. The positive emotional tone was also true of their life more generally. No health
problems of the kind commonly associated with unfavourable work life were reported.

Factor 2 One of the family

Seven participants loaded on this factor: two male administrative/support staff with
middle and two with senior positions; two female administrative support staff, one junior
and one senior, and one junior female academic.
Summary account
These participants enjoy their work and agree with the strategic direction the University
is taking. Having the respect of colleagues and having close working relations are
important. Their line manager is approachable and they are not exposed to hostility at
work. Levels of trust within the work group are high and colleagues are supportive of one
another.
This social climate enables these participants to overcome difficulties when they arise.
Other favourable features of working life are (i) the fact there is a clear sense of shared
goals and purpose (ii) that they have a good deal of freedom to decide how they work and
(iii) that their job allows them free time for outlets.

Analysis of implications for emotion and health

There is a good match between what matters to these participants and what their job
provides, suggesting that predominantly favourable emotions will feature through primary
appraisal. Coping, via secondary appraisal, is supported by the control they have over their
work, social support and time for outlets.
The interviewee representing employees sharing this perspective confirmed the accu-
racy of this account. No symptoms indicative of unfavourable work life were reported.

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Factor 3 Conscientious to a fault

Two participants loaded on this factor, one senior and one mid-career, both working in
the administration of research activity.
Summary account
Work is very important to these participants’ sense of ‘who they are’. They appreciate
the challenge, opportunities to learn and for creativity that their job provides. The work-
place climate appears to be one of reasonably high trust and optimism.
These participants seem to take their responsibilities seriously, and are apt to feel
anxious, or guilty, if they do not manage to complete work tasks to their satisfaction. The Q
sort reveals that they are subject to a good many interruptions and feel they never have
enough time to ‘get the job done’. Though they have considerable latitude in deciding how
they work, they do not enjoy the level of work pressure that their current role requires and
feel strongly that their job allows them too little time for hobbies and other outlets.

Analysis of implications for emotion and health

There is a reasonable match between what matters to these participants and what their job
provides, suggesting favourably toned emotions would feature in the experience of
working life of individuals loading on this factor. However, a source of unfavourable
emotion lies in the disparity between these participants’ goal of avoiding anxiety and
perceptions that their workload is unmanageable.
This assessment of the emotional implications of working life was confirmed at inter-
view, when it also emerged that the interviewee was made more vulnerable to the effects of
negative emotion in their working life because they had relocated to take up their job. They
were therefore lacking social support outside the workplace and outlets to ward off
workplace pressures that might otherwise have enabled effective coping. The interviewee
reported severe sleep problems, feeling ‘worn out’, lonely, quick to anger and that they did
not have control over the things in life that are important to them.

Factor 4 The square peg

Two male participants loaded on this factor, a senior administrator and a junior
academic.
Summary account
They have a strong commitment to the University’s mission and enjoy the opportunities
for challenge and professional development it offers. However, their work groups are
characterised by low trust and pessimism, with people commonly talking behind each
other’s backs. They believe that their line manager is not concerned about their welfare and
is unapproachable. People often talk about their workload and do not seem very optimistic
about the future. These individuals are sometimes expected to do things they feel
uncomfortable with and the inharmonious atmosphere of the workplace does not suit these
participants, who dislike conflict. They feel strongly that they should forget about work
when they go home but do not consider that they have much time for outside interests and
work is a common topic of conversation with friends and family.

Analysis of implications for emotion and health

This account indicates a mixed picture of workplace emotion with some aspects of the job
implying favourable and others unfavourable emotion via primary appraisal. Further,
coping would tend to be hindered by factors such as (i) the absence of a supportive work

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climate, and especially a poor relationship with the line manager; (ii) perceived lack of
control and (iii) work pressures impacting on the quantity and quality of leisure time.
The interviewee confirmed the accuracy of the factor account. They revealed that they
had severe sleep problems; felt ‘worn out’; lonely, and that people were unfriendly. The
interviewee believed that they did not have control over the things in life that are important
to them. Overall, the interviewee considered their life to be ‘very stressful’ and had been
receiving counselling for stress through the employer’s occupational health service.

Discussion

The workplace accounts produced suggest the study design was successful in yielding data
that, as verified by study participants, captured something of the broad emotional tone of
their working lives with relevance for wellbeing. This section presents additional obser-
vations arising from the research.

Conceptual basis for the study

Experience of conducting the study confirmed that the version of appraisal adopted pro-
vided a credible framework both in guiding the development of the research tool and in
data analysis. First, in terms of instrument development, reactions of participants to the Q
sample give credence to the idea that the concepts that lay behind it effectively got to the
heart of questions of individual concern and the relevance of workplace experience to
these.5 Second, in analysing the factor accounts, the conceptualisation of appraisal proved
valuable in interpreting implications for individual emotion and health. Those factors for
which systematic mapping against the model of appraisal indicated a work environment
featuring significant negatively toned emotion were also those whose representatives were
most prey to signs of ill-health of the kind often linked to damaging long-term stress (F3
and F4). In contrast, no such symptoms were reported by participants representative of
those accounts reflecting a workplace environment revealed via appraisal to be more
favourable (F1 and F2).
The world of work globally has been transformed in recent decades. Universities
internationally have been transformed in an increasingly global HE marketplace (Bartell
2003; Blackmore 2002) and far-reaching changes in the sector have been widely reported
in HE scholarship both in England and elsewhere (Becher and Trowler 2001; Blackmore
2002; Bocock and Taylor 2003; Smyth 1995). Both academic and support staff have been
expected to maintain, or enhance, quality in teaching, research and administration in the
context of diminishing resources, higher student numbers, a more diverse student body and
a growing administrative burden. The damaging impacts of the revolution in working life
are now acknowledged to be of concern internationally (ILO 2010). Though universities
have a track record of successful adaptation in the face of environmental pressures, studies
have also shown that this success has not been without emotional turbulence and costs in
terms of the wellbeing of academic and support colleagues (Kinman et al. 2006; Tyther-
leigh et al. 2005). An explicit interest in the health implications of emotion within HE
workplace research is therefore appropriate.

5
Comments included: ‘Where did you get these from? They’re really good’; ‘God. Some of these really
resonate, you know?’

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Study design

The research contributes to the field a design that is distinctive in various respects. First, it
brings Q methodology, which is little used in either HE or in emotion at work research, to
the attention of scholars with an interest in these areas. Second, it provides an indirect and
relatively unobtrusive means of learning about the health implications of the work envi-
ronment. Research on the physiological aspects of emotion is burgeoning (Niedenthal and
Maringer 2009; Heaphy and Dutton 2008). However, knowledge of the physiological bases
of emotion is rudimentary (Ashkanasy 2011) and measurement can be obtrusive, making
study within workplace contexts problematic. Third, in conducting the Q sort procedure,
participants in the study were not required to talk about or label their emotions explicitly.
This is an important methodological point because significant objections have been made
in the literature to the naming of emotions on the grounds that conscious awareness of
emotional experience is far from reliable (Frijda 1993) and that the meaning of individual
emotion labels varies widely between individuals and cultures (Kagan 2010).
Additionally, what Q enables the researcher to do is to take holistic individual per-
spectives and apply statistical operations to them in order to establish precisely how far and
in what ways these perspectives are similar to and different from one another. Important in
Q is the notion of ‘finite diversity’ (Stainton Rogers 1995:182). The assumption is that
there will be variation in the subjectivities captured in relation to the phenomena under
investigation but that this variation will not be infinite: a number of ‘patterns’ in ways of
perceiving the world will exist in the population. The notion of ‘finite diversity’ suggests
that the particular application of Q reported here holds out potential for establishing a
novel, empirically derived typology of common ways of experiencing working life in HE
with relevance for emotion and wellbeing. In integrating both individual and organisational
factors, these perspectives on working life are both nuanced and consistent with a theo-
retically robust account of emotion.
Experience of conducting the study also raised awareness of practical and ethical
benefits of the approach. Given the highly sensitive nature of emotional experience, the
Q sorting process had the benefit of not requiring participants to put into words and thus
‘re-live’ emotionally charged incidents or describe problematic features of working life.
One participant gave support for this idea in saying ‘while I was doing it [the Q sort], I
kept thinking ‘‘I’m so glad this isn’t an interview’’’. In addition, in giving their assent for
a follow up interview, the Q sorters had already been made aware of the content of the
study through the statements included in the sample. Thus, in agreeing to the interview,
they were giving their assent to the discussion of sensitive topics from an informed
position.
A practical advantage of Q in investigating workplace emotion ‘in the round’ relates to
‘efficiency’ when conducting exploratory work. While using open-ended data gathering
techniques, such as qualitative interviews, might be effective in a study with a relatively
narrow focus, it could take considerable time to begin to explore the potential relevance of
the many different aspects of working life included in the Q sample. Furthermore, before
sensitive areas could be broached via a qualitative interview, time would be needed to
establish adequate levels of trust. In all but two of the 27 cases, the Q sort took less than
30 min to complete and had the advantage of pinpointing which items of the sample had
greatest salience for each participant for subsequent exploration at interview. Given the
time constraints HE employees often work within, the question of time efficiency is not a
trivial one.

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Applications within HE practice

What was evident in the study findings, and that can be obscured by survey approaches that
make generalisations across populations, was that employee perspectives on their work-
place will be highly situated and individual. For instance, participants whose perspectives
were captured in Factor 1 did not enjoy close relationships with their colleagues. However,
in contrast with participants representing Factor 2, for whom good social relations at work
were of high importance, neither was this a priority for them and this absence did not
therefore impact negatively on their perceptions of university life. Further, a number of
study participants strongly agreed with the Q sample item ‘I like to keep very busy at
work’. These employees might therefore be expected to flourish in a pressured or unpre-
dictable work environment in a way the interviewee for Factor 3 might not.
Though developed as a research tool, comments by participants pointed to possible uses
of the Q sample in organisational practice. Regardless of its purpose, the potential of the
procedure to reveal emotional dissonance means it requires sensitivity on the part of the
administrator. However, conducted either alone or within the context of a professional
supporting relationship, the decision-making process required in sorting the Q sample
developed for the study offers a means for the individual participant to clarify their
thinking about where their priorities lie and where these might be congruent or incongruent
with their working life.6 In this way, the process offers a starting point for addressing
inaccurate individual perceptions and obstructive workplace factors. For example, in the
case of the participant interviewed for F3, Q could identify sources of anxiety, which might
then be addressed through job re-design, by challenging unrealistic expectations, helping
establish priorities, re-assigning tasks, and so on.
The general approach of using appraisal as a conceptual underpinning in gathering and
interpreting data using Q is a flexible one. A Q sample could be developed for use within a
high trust work group or team, based on the components of primary and secondary
appraisal that they consider relevant to their working lives. This could provide a means of
surfacing and sharing perspectives in negotiating priorities, guiding behaviour and
strengthening cohesion. Nor is the approach one that need be restricted to HE employee
perspectives on their workplace. The constructs illustrated in Table 2 are also ones that are
central in learning (affiliation, stress tolerance, need for achievement etc.). This suggests
that the approach has potential to play a research role in exploring student perspectives on
universities as places of learning.

Conclusions

This paper has presented a unique, theoretically grounded means of exploring the con-
ceptually, methodologically and ethically difficult territory of emotion in the HE work-
place. By acknowledging fully that emotion involves an interaction between the individual
and their environment, the study design deters from drawing simplistic conclusions, such
as assuming experiences of working life in universities are more widely shared than they
actually are, or attributing work performance as almost wholly dependent on individual
factors such as personality traits and individual resilience. The study design recognises that
human responses to similar circumstances differ widely with implications for wellbeing

6
One participant stated that, based on their recent experience of working with a University counsellor, the
Q sort could provide a valuable diagnostic tool to establish relevant foci for discussion.

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and performance. There can therefore be no recipe for the ‘ideal’ workplace, nor a template
for the model employee, or a set of individual characteristics or organisational policies or
procedures that will guarantee a ‘happy and productive workforce’. If we are to meet the
challenges facing the sector, and safeguard the health of the workforce, there is a need to
understand and harness the varied commitments of HE employees fulfilling wide ranging
work roles and at all organisational levels. The study presented in this article offers a small
contribution in this major endeavour.
Researching emotion in the HE workplace requires conceptually and methodologically
sophisticated research designs. The research approach described provides a method for
revealing individual experience of the workplace ‘in the round’ and its implications for
emotion and health, and further offers a means of comparing individual workplace per-
spectives statistically. Illustrative examples of shared perspectives on working life derived
from the study have been presented together with analyses in relation to emotion and
health. In concert with other forms of research, the application of Q methodology described
provides a distinctive approach to assist in this worthwhile area of scholarship.

Appendix: Q sample

Having colleagues I feel close to is important to me

I am exposed to hostility or conflict from my supervisor
Getting regular promotion is important to me
I am subject to hostility or conflict from students, parents or other customers/clients
My work is an important part of ‘who I am’
This is a usually quite a fun place to work
Having the respect of my colleagues matters to me
People here often think of quitting
I like to think I’m open to new ideas and to people who are different from me
The work can be really interesting and/or challenging
I like to learn new things and keep up to date in my job
My job allows me plenty of time to explore my outside interests
It bothers me when a colleague is having a hard time
My job involves a lot of repetitive work
It matters to me that the University makes a contribution to society
My job allows me to be creative
I don’t like it when work colleagues have disagreements
I have little freedom to decide how I work
I like to keep busy at work
Managers involve people when decisions are made that affect them
You should try to forget about work when you go home
Sometimes I feel powerless to change my situation
I don’t expect to have fun at work—I look for enjoyment elsewhere
My line manager is friendly and easy to approach
I need to feel a sense of excitement about my work
If things get difficult for you at work, you’re on your own
I don’t mind if work eats into my leisure time—you expect that
People here trust one another
My job security is good
My line manager is concerned about the welfare of those under him/her

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The people I work with take a personal interest in me

People here talk a lot about how much work they’ve got to do
It is not uncommon for people to talk behind each other’s backs
It’s hard to make decisions because you don’t know what’s round the corner
I think my salary is fair
I don’t have much time for hobbies or outside interests
My work is valued by my colleagues
If things are difficult at work, I tend to keep my head down and wait for it to pass
I am happy with the progress I have made in my career
My job is a common topic of conversation with friends and/or family
It is easy to identify my contribution to the success of my work group/unit
I tend to keep my feelings to myself at work
People are generally very respectful of one another, regardless of age, gender, race etc.
People don’t mind if you let off steam at work
I don’t think many of my colleagues are very clear about the aims of the University
If something’s troubling me at work, I can usually find a way to put it right
Sometimes I’ve had to do things I feel uncomfortable with
There are people I can talk to at work if something is troubling me
I feel my job is worthwhile
If someone does something that annoys me, I’ll usually confront them
I am not comfortable with the direction the University is taking
When things don’t go well for me at work, I usually blame myself
Most people’s workloads here are quite manageable
Poor management is usually at fault when things don’t go well
My job requires working very hard and/or fast
I usually manage to complete work tasks without too many interruptions
My colleagues can be quick to blame others when things go wrong
I never have enough time to get the job done
My colleagues sometimes take credit for other people’s work
If projects I’m working on go well, it’s usually down to me
I am exposed to hostility or conflict from the people I work with
Without my colleagues, my job would be much harder
People here are generally treated fairly
When things go wrong, it’s usually the fault of more than one person
Working here is improving over time
People here don’t seem very optimistic about the future
My prospects for career development and promotion are good

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