Affect The word affect means "emotion." Carroll Izard identified nine basic emotions that people can experience: (1) interest-excitement, (2) enjoyment-joy, (3) surprise-startle, (4) distress-anguish, (5) anger-rage, (6) disgust-revulsion, (7) contempt-scorn, (8) fear-terror, and (9) shame-humiliation. Any of these emotions can be at play in organizational settings. For example, individuals who are targets of workplace bullying could experience fear-terror or shame-humiliation. Someone who just got an unexpected promotion could experience enjoyment-joy or surprise-startle emotions. Organizational cynics tend to view their organizations through more negative emotional responses. (Dean, Brandes, and Dharwadkar note, however, that individuals who perceive their organizations as immoral or unscrupulous can also derive enjoyment from feeling they are superior.)