Assessing reflexivity on emotions: development and validation of a new scale

Reflexivity is the meta-cognitive competence to question, explore, review events, and make effective decisions, different from habit. Traditionally, the literature focused on reflexivity applied to the cognitive domain and overlooked the relationship between reflexivity and emotions, which are key elements of organizational life. Only a few qualitative studies suggest that reflexivity can also act on emotions, yet they have not assessed its impact. This study aims to operationalize the construct of reflexivity on emotions and generate a consistent and reliable scale, testing its generalizability in two workplaces with different emotional intensities, measurement invariance, and discriminant and concurrent validity related to some outcomes. Based on existing literature, we developed a 9-item scale that captures how people use reflexivity on emotion and how reflexivity impacts on emotions in ordinary situations and during critical events at the workplace. To test this scale, we conducted two studies involving distinct samples: a wide general sample (employees from a telecommunications company, n.1388) and a sample from a highly emotionally demanding setting (correctional officer trainees, n.609). The results confirmed the good psychometric properties of this scale, its distinctiveness from reflexivity on practices and emotional intelligence, and concurrent validity with various outcomes (i.e., transfer of learning, satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors, and work engagement). Its invariance across gender and organizational tenure and generalizability across two organizational contexts with different emotional intensity job demands were also supported. Further studies are required to assess its validity and explore its potential for application in different contexts and cultures. Reflexivity on emotions is a key competence to manage workplace emotions, especially in highly emotionally demanding contexts where managing emotions is part of the job. This construct bridges the gap between reflexivity and emotions, the scale providing a valuable quantitative tool for assessing it, supporting its use in research and professional practice.