Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: the case of bill collectors

Administrative Science Quarterly,  June, 1991  by Robert I. Sutton

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Angry debtors. The expectation that collectors ought to convey a calm or neutral tone to angry debtors was the most frequently discussed--and struggled with--of the five contingent norms. Managers' justification for this norm was that angry debtors were too upset about the collection call, and thus the problem was to calm them so that their attention could be turned away from the debt collector and toward the debt.

For example, a supervisor recommended this approach for dealing with irate debtors: I would listen. I would say in a soft voice, "Mr. Jones, calm down. Excuse me." If you can't cut the person off, then you should just let them blow their smoke, and then when your chance comes, try and be positive with them. Say, "Look, I know you've got a problem. I hope nothing I did set you off, because neither of us is going to benefit if we don't resolve this thing." Similarly, another supervisor asserted that following this norm prevented a vicious circle of hostility between collector and debtor: If you talk softer and softer and softer, they're going to have to stop to listen or they're not going to hear anything you're saying. The louder you get, the louder they get. And if you start to tone it down, they start to tone it down. The organization went to great lengths to maintain this norm. New collectors were selected partly with this norm in mind. Those with reputations as "screamers" weren't hired from outside agencies. Newcomers who responded to nasty debtors with anger were reprimanded and, if they didn't learn to control their tempers, often were fired. My class was told repeatedly that "slamming" irate debtors was a mistake because it would only escalate their anger. During my work on the phone, a collector told me: "If they are nasty, motivation isn't the problem--then you've got to be neutral." Rewards and punishments were also used to maintain this norm among all collectors. And even experienced collectors occasionally were fired because they could not control their tempers. At the same time, however, as all seven data sources indicated, rude, loud, cussing, or insulting debtors generated anger in collectors. This pattern is consistent with findings that aggression provokes the "fight" response (Frijda, 1986) and that anger is a contagious emotion (Schacter and Singer, 1962; Baron, 1977). Moreover, anger is an especially difficult emotion to conceal from others (Ekman, 1985). These pressures may explain why I observed or was told of numerous incidents in which collectors conveyed anger to nasty debtors. My field notes describe the following incident: Something happened at the next cubicle that caused the collector to blow her top. I heard her shout very loudly, "Well, congratulations on your new card. I'm very happy for you." And then she slammed down the phone--I mean slammed it down so loud that I could feel the floor shake from where I was sitting. Then she ran around screaming about what an asshole this guy was, how nasty he had been, how he had lied continually, and so on. Then, five minutes later, I heard her talking to the guy again. He apparently had called her back to "rub in" the fact that the bank had sent him a new credit card. She started out by sitting down. But about a minute later, I saw a move out of the corner of my eye that I'd witnessed perhaps three times during my field work: She jumped into the air, which sent her chair rolling (it ended up 10 feet behind her). She then started screaming at the debtor: "You lied to me. Why did you lie to me? Don't talk to me like that. What? How dare you say that? I'm not your honey." There was a flurry of gossip among nearby collectors after this incident. They all agreed that the debtor was a "jerk," but they were critical of this collector for her loss of emotional control, for not being "tough enough" to "keep her cool." Collectors usually viewed episodes in which anger was expressed to nasty debtors as failures in others and in themselves. They were selected and socialized carefully enough--and subjected to enough sanctions--that most believed that they should convey calm to angry debtors, even if it was a struggle to do so. As a manager put it, "When collectors do lose control and start hollering back at a debtor, you usually hear them say later, 'I blew it. I lost control of that one'." Similarly, my field notes describe an experienced collector's struggle to convey the normative calm demeanor: He said that if you can control your temper, and help them calm down, then you might be able to reach the point where you can say to them, "What can we work out so that we don't have to call you any more?" He did admit that there were times when he had "lost it" because the debtor was "such an asshole that I couldn't take it any more." But he said that was a mistake. "It is better to be reasonable. There is no need to yell." Episodes in which collectors responded to angry debtors with hostility were among the most public (it is obvious when a person is standing and shouting), vivid, and widely discussed reactions to debtors. Nonetheless, I was struck by how often collectors tolerated emotive dissonance and conveyed the expected calmness. The selection, socialization, reward, and punishment practices described above helped in this regard. In addition, as in dealing with friendly and sad debtors, newcomers were taught by trainers, supervisors, and fellow collectors how to use cognitive appraisals to reduce or eliminate feelings about angry debtors that clashed with the norm. For example, after presenting a calm demeanor to an irate, insulting debtor, a collector explained to me, "I always tell myself, 'He isn't mad at me. Maybe he is just having a bad day.' Or 'He just can't take being called by one bill collector after another.' I keep reminding myself that it is nothing personal." Moreover, because pressure for emotive dissonance was so pronounced with angry debtors, collectors learned and were encouraged (often subtly) by management and other collectors to use two coping mechanisms to release their tension without communicating it to angry debtors. The first is a variation of the Freudian defense mechanism, displacement of aggression (Freud, 1946; Berkowitz, 1962), in which anger is expressed but deflected away from the person or object that provoked such unpleasant feelings. After calls with nasty debtors were over, collectors often pounded their desks and cussed about that "idiot" or "jerk." I didn't observe or hear of a single case in which a collector was criticized by managers or other collectors for doing so. Collectors sitting nearby usually offered social support, as did managers who happened to be walking by. I heard one manager congratulate a collector for cussing-out a debtor after (rather than during) the call, because it made the collector feel better "without having the debtor sue our deep pockets." The most interesting displacement strategies that collectors were allowed to use, however, were employed during calls. My field notes from a side-by-side describe the following method: One of the first debtors was quite abusive. Jack warned him about his credit rating being at risk. The debtor told Jack: "My credit rating is better than yours, buddy." Jack told him "That is not the issue. Your credit rating has suffered, and it will get worse if you don't start paying these bills on time. And we are on the verge of taking your card away." When the guy started cussing again, Jack then hit the "mute" button and said some words that he would have been fired for if the debtor could hear them: "You asshole, my credit card never looked that bad. I'm not a deadbeat like you." Similarly, collectors sometimes made obscene gestures at the phone while speaking to a hostile debtor, and I never observed them being sanctioned for doing so. Joking was the second coping mechanism that collectors were allowed and subtly encouraged to use to release tension caused by angry debtors. The idea that joking and laughter help release tension was proposed by Freud (1960) and elaborated by Berlyne (1969), who asserted that laughter creates an "arousal jag" in which, after a brief and sharp increase in arousal while laughing, tension then decreases dramatically. The jokes about debtors and associated laughter I often heard after conversations with nasty debtors appeared to be a safety valve that enabled collectors to release their anger rather than directing it at the nasty debtor or at the next debtor. After a conversation with a mean-spirited debtor, for example, one collector provoked widespread laughter by joking that she was going to "get that guy's first-born son." Finally, because conveying anger to nasty debtors was officially disapproved, collectors were taught in training, reminded by supervisors, and encouraged each other to hang up if they were about to holler back. But I noticed that collectors were tacitly allowed to convey their anger to at least two kinds of nasty debtors. In both cases, collectors were allowed to holler back to gain revenge after displaying calm had proven fruitless. First, when a collector had exhausted all reasonable efforts to calm an irate debtor, it seemed to be acceptable to holler back. A manager reported: "When you have lost control of the conversation, and you're mad at them for yelling at you and wasting your time, you might as well yell back at them." Second, after "wasting" time and enduring emotive dissonance to calm a nasty debtor, a collector occasionally judged that the debtor was unable to pay. Giving the debtor a blast of anger at the end of such an exacting call was generally not punished by supervisors, apparently because collectors who had worked hard to follow norms were thought to "deserve" revenge if there was apparently no money to get. A manager and experienced collector reported that with such debtors: "Sometimes I slam them. I might as well get some satisfaction out of the call." Just because a collector judged that a debtor had no money did not mean that collectors who handled the account in later buckets believed that the debtor could not pay. I observed a collector convince a broke 28-year-old man who was a year behind in his payments to borrow several thousand dollars from his mother. The debtor's mother called the collector, and she sent the money directly to the collection organization. What seemed to make it acceptable for collectors to holler back at such debtors was that they had a justifiable belief that they had done all that they could to make the debtors pay and, up to that point, had followed organizational norms.