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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

COPING WITH EMOTIONS AND ASSESSMENT OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS BY
EMPLOYEES IN HELPING PROFESSIONS

ZUZANA BIRKNEROVÁ,

MIROSLAV FRANKOVSKÝ,

LUCIA ZBIHLEJOVÁ,

LADISLAV SUHÁNYI

Faculty of Management, University of Prešov in Prešov,
Slovakia
email:

zuzana.birknerova@unipo.sk,

miroslav.frankovsky@unipo.sk,

lucia.zbihlejova@unipo.sk,

ladislav.suhanyi@unipo.sk

The contribution was created as part of the grant projects: VEGA 1/0909/16 (Research
of determinants of decision-making in the business management and sales
management, taking into account the personal and psychological aspects of trading,
and analysis of the possible implications in neuromarketing) and KEGA 003PU-
4/2017 (Coping with demanding situations – subject innovation and university
textbook preparation).

Abstract: One of the significant attributes in the helping professions is coping with
emotions in the context of interpersonal relationships. The contribution presents the
results of the research attended by 150 respondents employed in helping professions,
which was conducted by means of a shortened version of the Functional Idiographic
Assessment Template-Questionnaire (FIAT-Q). The FIAT-Q questionnaire enables to
identify five attributes within which coping with and expressing emotions; random and
close interpersonal relationships were used in the research project. The results pointed
to the fact that women indicate that they are aware of their feelings and emotions at a
moment when they are just happening to them, they can identify the differences
between individual emotions, and are able to name the individual emotions. For
women, close relationships are more important than for men. They talk about their
experience more often with other persons and they also indicate that they listen to
other people and offer them support.

Keywords: helping professions, coping with emotions, interpersonal relationships,
gender

1 Theoretical background

Employees of helping professions are daily exposed to stress due
to the challenging contact with a large number of other people
who are often in a difficult life situation. In the rich mosaic of
prerequisites for an effective behavior of employees in helping
professions, the issues of coping with emotions and interpersonal
relationships have, therefore, also a significant place.

1.1 Managing emotions

Rutheford (2009) describes Skinner's (1953) view of emotions
which defines emotions as the predisposition of a person to
behave in a certain way at a certain time. Carlson and Hatfield
(1992) characterize emotions as part of the inherited and
partially acquired predisposition to react remotely,
physiologically and behaviorally to changes of certain internal
and external variables. Levenson (1994) argues that emotions
effectively coordinate different response systems, such as
physiological, experiential and expressive responses, helping us
to respond to important challenges or opportunities in the
environment.

Emotion control can be characterized as a group of external and
internal processes that are responsible for monitoring, evaluating
and modifying emotional responses, especially their intensity
and time characteristics, to achieve goals of an individual
(Thompson 1994; Thompson and Mayer, 2007). Individuals
master and control emotions usually in three ways, i.e.
habituation, overlap and avoidance (Millenson, 1979; Leslie,
1996). Coping with and regulation of emotions can be defined as
the process of innovation, maintenance, adaptation or changes in
the occurrence, intensity and duration of the internal emotional
states and emotional physiological processes often serving to
achieve the objectives of individuals (Eisenberg, 2000).

Slaměník (2011) states that the sources of human emotions are
very diverse, and considers interpersonal relationships to be also
one of the sources.

1.2 Interpersonal relationships

A person as a social being is highly dependent on interpersonal
relationships. The basic element of an emotional and social

development of an individual is the relationship, the bond
between people, which has its own specific qualities. Interaction
can be understood as a time-bound social event. Interactions are
essential to maintain relationships (Skorunka and Mareš, 2007).
The basic prerequisite and characteristic of interpersonal
relationships is that individuals find themselves in an interaction
that leaves a certain "trace" in the form of impression,
willingness to reunite, understand, or misunderstand the other

(Slaměník, 2011).

A number of authors (e.g. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2000;
Fletcher and Clark, 2003; Mashek and Aron, 2004) introduce
Kelly’s (1986) concept of interdependence as one of the essential
features of interpersonal relationships. It is characterized by the
degree of consistency in preferring the common needs and their
satisfaction, and the associated positive assessment of
relationships that are intertwined with positive emotions.
Individuals become interdependent when they become aware of
shared responsibility for mutual well-being (Rusbult, Arriaga
and Agnew, 2003; Rusbult et al., 2004; Výrost, 2008).

Interpersonal relationships at the workplace are discussed by
Bedrnová and Nový (2007). Provazník (2002) considers
interpersonal relationships at the workplace to be a significant
and effective motivation factor. These relationships can have a
significant impact on the quality of performance and work of the
workers (Suhányi and Svetozarovová, 2016). Interpersonal
relationships may be considered as a space in which human
emotions manifest themselves in the most intense and varied
forms but, at the same time, it is not easy to clarify all their

functions (Slaměník, 2011).

1.3 Helping professions

Helping professions may be characterized by the need and
willingness to help others with respect to the individual needs of
each indiv

idual (Pilař, 2004). On the part of the company, high

demands are placed on their work (Frankovský and Birknerová,
2015). Their work is often underestimated and the performance

of helping workers is difficult to evaluate (Čekan, 2010).
Determining success

criteria is very difficult (Hrbáčková, 2011).

Workers encounter tasks that are often psychologically and
emotionally challenging (Vávrová, 2009). Helping professions
are little appreciated by the society.

According to Kopřiva (1997), the human relationship between
the helping professional and the client plays a very important
role in these professions, the main instrument of the helper being
his personality. In this context, interpersonal relationships in the
workplace also play a very important role. The helping worker
needs admission, participation, or understanding, and also good
interpersonal relationships as a signal to satisfy their emotional
need and good self-

esteem. Křivohlavý (1998) includes among

the people who carry out helping professions for example
doctors, nurses, health professionals, psychologists,
psychiatrists, social workers, teachers, pedagogues working with
mentally handicapped children, entrepreneurs and managers.
Based on this it is clear that the mosaic of helping professions is
very varied.

An ideal worker in helping professions is a prosocially oriented
mature person, aware of his or her life direction, with a positive
and realistic sense, personality without neurotic or psychopathic
features, with a prerequisite for self-reflection of own decision-
making, negotiation and emotions, open to stimuli, willing to
proceed with further education (Kraus et al., 2001). Balvín
(2012) puts the „prosocial behavior“ label on such behavior that
is aimed at helping or benefiting another person without a right
to reward. In order for a worker to come to a given insight into
the world, he or she needs education, value self-orientation,
awareness of life sense, and well-developed coordination of
social interactions.

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