Nine months of emotions: A phenomenological exploration of Cypriot academics’ emotionality

Abstract

This paper reports some of the early findings of an ongoing research project that explores the emotional experiences of Higher Education (HE) academics in Cyprus. An interpretive phenomenological approach was adopted investigating the events that influence academics’ emotions together with their outcomes. Narrative interviews were conducted with twelve male and female academics working in Cyprus. The study findings demonstrate how the workplace itself can give rise to a variety of emotion s through emotion-causing events, which are mainly caused from interactions with students, colleagues, managers and the students’ relatives. The paper describes the short and long-term consequences that these interactions have on the academics well-being. It was concluded that the academics’ emotions are cultural products, which are largely dependent on the learned social and cultural rules and context within which they are experienced. The authors also discuss the emotion rules, which influence the academics emotions and expressions in order to display organizationally-desired emotions