Structural Model of Emotion Regulation and Verbal Aggression of Examiners in Academic Defenses: An Organizational Psychology

Abstract

The academic defense, commonly known as the viva voce, represents a high-stakes performance episode within the professional life of a university lecturer. Beyond its primary function as an evaluative tool, the defense acts as a complex organizational event where institutional hierarchies, emotional demands, and professional identities converge. This research develops and tests a structural model to explain the communicative behaviors of academic examiners, focusing specifically on the relationship between emotion regulation (ER) strategies, emotional labor (EL), and the manifestation of verbal aggression. Drawing on Affective Events Theory (AET) and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, the study analyzes data from 200 academic examiners in the Indonesian higher education context. The results, obtained through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), reveal that surface acting and expressive suppression are significant positive predictors of verbal aggression, whereas cognitive reappraisal and deep acting serve as critical buffers. Furthermore, the analysis highlights how seniority culture and high power distance in Indonesian universities exacerbate the likelihood of uncivil communicative encounters. These findings suggest that institutional gatekeeping is not merely an intellectual process but an affective one, necessitating organizational interventions that prioritize emotional intelligence and adaptive regulation.