HUMAN RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIC PLAN | RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP
Exploring the roots of dark emotions in the workplace
March 4, 2026 ·
Contributed by: Julienne Isaacs
Meena Andiappan, an associate professor of Human Resources and Management, studies the intersections of ethics, emotions, technology and health.
Recently, she spoke to us about her long-term research study examining unethical behaviours of dock workers in France. It’s a niche topic, but it holds implications for every industry, everywhere.
Why do people do unethical things in the workplace? And how can managers reverse those trends?
What drew you to look at dark emotions and behaviours in the workplace?
During my PhD I was drawn to topics of organizational justice and ethics. I started looking at psychological influences of unethical behavior; the underlying motives driving workers’ behaviors. Basically, why are people doing bad things at work? And is it all under their control?
Often when people talk about why they engage in certain behaviours there is an emotions piece — as in, ‘I don’t feel fairly treated, so I always take a longer lunch break than I should,’ or ‘My supervisor is so difficult to work with, I’m so frustrated,’ or ‘She asked me to stay late every day and still didn’t value my contributions, so I’m just going to do the minimum from now on.’
When I started this work many years ago, there wasn’t a lot of research on this piece of the puzzle — these very critical negative emotions and their impact. That’s why I became interested in it. And then with the longshoremen, my co-author and I saw this story of ostracism and stigmatization come up repeatedly.
Tell us about your latest research on stigma in the longshore profession.
Historically, longshore work was very dirty, very physically arduous labour. These workers faced a lot of stigmatization in terms of the dirt and the danger involved in their work and the fact that they were not highly educated. And they were known for being violent, even against the police and their employers, and would engage in violent labour action.
As the profession became cleaner (they stopped transporting goods in sacks and started using cargo containers and forklifts), these workers had to learn to use various digital tools and software. It became an increasingly white-collar job. But they didn’t see it that way — and curiously, they didn’t want to be seen that way by outsiders either.
As most industries become cleaner, they become destigmatized. But longshoremen in our study seem to want to hold on to the stigmatization because they built their values and derived their identity through that process of being stigmatized over generations.
This is quite unusual because most stigmatized professions strive to become destigmatized. You want to move away from stigma and you don’t want to be ostracized by the rest of society.
Tell us about your findings on longshoremen and gender.
In most blue-collar occupations, when the work becomes cleaner, the occupation becomes more open to women, and more women enter into those jobs. But for the longshore industry we actually found the opposite: that there were some women when the occupation started in the 1940s, but as time went on, there were fewer and fewer women in the occupation. And now, in France, there are no women who work in the longshore profession.
How does this negative workplace identity among longshore workers in France help to exclude women from the profession?
Longshore workers have instituted filiation in their industry — essentially, you only hire people in your own family. First of all, you can’t enter the profession unless your family’s already in it. And then second, you could ask, “well, why wouldn’t they want to give the job to their daughters?” In interviews with the men, they say, ‘I wouldn’t want my daughter to do this. It’s too dirty. It’s too hard. It’s too psychologically stressful.’ They used to argue that job was too physically difficult for women to do, and now they claim this is too mentally arduous for women to do because it’s so stressful. The employers we spoke to acknowledged that women could do the job, but they also say, “I’d rather fight with one woman than 50 men,” so in the end, they’ve managed to keep women out of the occupation.
Can employers reverse negative workplace emotions and behaviours?
This issue doesn’t get as much attention as it should, because it’s so hard to talk about. Often employees don’t feel comfortable talking about these types of emotions, and managers don’t feel comfortable hearing about them.
Bosses don’t want to talk about immoral behaviours or why your employees are engaging in bad behaviours. You don’t want to talk about being sad at work, or feeling ostracized, or feeling jealous – and how those feelings lead to those negative actions.
It’s great, as a manager, to say, ‘I want my employees to be happy,’ and that’s what we’re striving for. But I think even before getting to that point, managers need to take a step back. Are your employees unhappy? A lot of people are unhappy at work, right? When you look at what happened post-pandemic in terms of employee turnover rates and quiet quitting across a wide range of industries, the signs are all there. And so as both academics and professionals, it’s thinking about why? Why are so many employees unhappy at work and what can we do to help?
To learn more about helping an unhappy employee, check out this book recommendation: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
What does good leadership look like vis-à-vis dark behaviours and emotions in the workplace?
Effective leadership requires truly listening and being open to criticism. It means having the courage to engage in difficult conversations and the humility to be vulnerable — accepting that mistakes will happen along the way. For example, a leader might unintentionally overlook an employee’s feelings when announcing a promotion. However, when we acknowledge missteps openly and take responsibility for them, we create opportunities for growth, to perhaps mitigate those negative emotions and the associated negative behaviors, and ultimately help employees feel heard and valued.
