Effects of positive and negative moods on helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences

A field study investigated the effects of positive and negative moods on subjects' willingness to perform helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences. Results indicated that procedures designed to induce either positive or negative moods facilitate helping when the task has pleasant consequences, but tend to inhibit helping when the task is likely to be unpleasant. The findings are consistent with the notion that many everyday acts of kindness (altruism) are interpretable as a form of hedonism. The implications of these outcomes for an activation model of mood-induced altruism are discussed.     

Defensive Pessimism and Optimism: The Bitter-Sweet Influence of Mood on Performance and Prefactual and Counterfactual Thinking

Three studies demonstrated that manipulated moods influence the prefactual (alternative preoutcome predictions) and counterfactual (alternative postoutcome “what might have beens”) mental simulations of defensive pessimists and optimists. In Study 1, negative moods induced more upward (better than expected) prefactuals, and defensive pessimists performed best under such conditions; optimists performed best under induced positive moods, after which they used little prefactual thinking. In Studies 2 and 3, manipulated moods again influenced the strategies of defensive pessimists and optimists. In Study 2, optimists responded with more downward (worse than actuality) counterfactuals, suggesting attempts at mood repair. In Study 3, defensive pessimists and optimists each coped effectively by using preferred mental simulation strategies; both groups rebounded on a second task from poor performances on a first task.     

Mechanisms linking employee affective delivery and customer behavioral intentions

Past empirical evidence has indicated that employee affective delivery can influence customer reactions (e.g., customer satisfaction, service quality evaluation). This study extends previous research by empirically examining mediating processes underlying the relationship between employee affective delivery and customer behavioral intentions. Data were collected from 352 employee-customer pairs in 169 retail shoe stores in Taiwan. Results showed that the influence of employee affective delivery on customers' willingness to return to the store and pass positive comments to friends was indirect through the mediating processes of customer in-store positive moods and perceived friendliness. The study also indicated that employee affective delivery influences customers' time spent in store, which, in turn, influences customer behavioral intentions.     

Organizational citizenship behavior and performance evaluations: exploring the impact of task interdependence

The influence of task interdependence on the importance attributed to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in evaluations of employee performance was investigated in 3 studies. In Study 1,238 undergraduates were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and a unit-level performance manipulation and provided citizenship ratings. In Study 2,148 master of business administration students were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of OCB in their evaluations of employee performance. In Study 3,130 managers rated the task interdependence in their unit of principal responsibility and the importance of OCB in their overall evaluations of employee performance. The results suggest task interdependence may affect the importance attributed to OCB by evaluators. Implications of these results are explored.     

I want to be creative: exploring the role of hedonic contingency theory in the positive mood-cognitive flexibility link

Three studies explored the role of hedonic contingency theory as an explanation for the link between positive mood and cognitive flexibility. Study 1 examined the determinants of activity choice for participants in happy, sad, or neutral moods. Consistent with hedonic contingency theory, happy participants weighted potential for creativity as well as the pleasantness of the task more heavily in their preference ratings. In Study 2, participants were given either a neutral or mood-threatening item generation task to perform. Results illustrated that happy participants exhibited greater cognitive flexibility in all cases; when confronted with a potentially mood-threatening task, happy participants were able to creatively transform the task so as to maintain positive mood and interest. Finally, Study 3 manipulated participants' beliefs that moods could or could not be altered. Results replicated the standard positive mood-increased cognitive flexibility effect in the nonmood-freezing condition, but no effects of mood on creativity were found in the mood-freezing condition. These studies indicate that the hedonic contingency theory may be an important contributing mechanism behind the positive mood-cognitive flexibility link.     

员工伦理型领导原型对伦理型领导有效性的影响：员工崇敬感的中介作用

基于工作场所中具体积极情绪的理论模型和内隐领导理论, 探究了伦理型领导对员工工作绩效的影响机制, 具体是检验了崇敬感的中介作用和员工伦理型领导原型的调节作用。通过对一项问卷调查研究(193份上下级配对数据)和两个情境实验获得的实证数据进行统计分析, 结果表明: 伦理型领导能够正向影响员工的崇敬感; 崇敬感能够中介伦理型领导对组织公民行为的积极作用, 但对任务绩效的中介效应并不显著; 此外, 员工的伦理型领导原型会强化伦理型领导与员工崇敬感之间的正向关系, 即相比于拥有低伦理型领导原型的员工, 拥有高伦理型领导原型的员工更容易对伦理型领导产生崇敬感; 崇敬感能够中介伦理型领导与员工伦理型领导原型的交互作用对组织公民行为的影响。     

Incremental effects of reward on creativity

The authors examined 2 ways reward might increase creativity. First, reward contingent on creativity might increase extrinsic motivation. Studies 1 and 2 found that repeatedly giving preadolescent students reward for creative performance in 1 task increased their creativity in subsequent tasks. Study 3 reported that reward promised for creativity increased college students' creative task performance. Second, expected reward for high performance might increase creativity by enhancing perceived self-determination and, therefore, intrinsic task interest. Study 4 found that employees' intrinsic job interest mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and creative suggestions offered at work. Study 5 found that employees' perceived self-determination mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and the creativity of anonymous suggestions for helping the organization.     

Is “service with a smile” enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters

Service providers use impression management strategies to engender satisfaction and repeat business in customers. Managing emotional expressions is one strategy to meet those goals. We extended research on the “Duchenne Smile” to see if authenticity of employee expressions influenced the impressions formed of the employee’s friendliness and the overall satisfaction with the encounter. Furthermore, we took two other factors into account—task performance and busyness—to examine the conditions under which authenticity would have the greatest impact. In Study 1, we obtained reactions to videotaped simulations that manipulated authenticity of positive displays and task performance during a hotel check-in encounter. ANCOVA results supported that authenticity of the service provider enhanced perceptions of friendliness, but only influenced customer satisfaction when tasks were performed well. In Study 2, hierarchical linear modeling with reactions from 255 customers of 64 restaurant servers showed that perceived display authenticity enhanced the perceived friendliness of the employee when the store was slow, but less so when it was busy. Display authenticity had a direct effect on customer satisfaction, regardless of task performance (which was generally high) and busyness. We conclude that display authenticity is an extra-role behavior for service encounters with an additive effect on encounter satisfaction only when other factors are at optimal levels. We suggest implications for display rule policies and service training.     

Doing good buffers against feeling bad: Prosocial impact compensates for negative task and self-evaluations

Although evidence suggests that negative task and self-evaluations are associated with emotional exhaustion, little research has examined factors that buffer against these effects. We propose that perceived prosocial impact, the experience of helping others, compensates for negative task and self-evaluations by focusing attention on positive outcomes for others. In Study 1, perceived prosocial impact attenuated the associations of low intrinsic motivation and core self-evaluations with emotional exhaustion among professional fundraisers. Study 2 replicated these results among public sanitation employees and extended them to supervisor performance ratings. Mediated moderation analyses indicated that by protecting against emotional exhaustion, perceived prosocial impact compensated for low intrinsic motivation and core self-evaluations to predict higher performance ratings. Our studies extend theory and research on burnout, helping, and citizenship.     

Affective guidance of intelligent agents: How emotion controls cognition

How do emotions and moods color cognition? In this article, we examine how such reactions influence both judgments and cognitive performance. We argue that many affective influences are due, not to affective reactions themselves, but to the information they carry about value. The specific kind of influence that occurs depends on the focus of the agent at the time. When making evaluative judgments, for example, an agent’s positive affect may emerge as a positive attitude toward a person or object. But when an agent focuses on a cognitive task, positive affect may act like feedback about the value of one’s approach. As a result, positive affect tends to promote cognitive, relational processes, whereas negative affect tends to inhibit relational processing, resulting in more perceptual, stimulus-specific processing. As a consequence, many textbook phenomena from cognitive psychology occur readily in happy moods, but are inhibited or even absent in sad moods (149).     

The Invisible Eye? Electronic Performance Monitoring and Employee Job Performance

To enhance employee performance, many organizations are increasingly using electronic performance monitoring (EPM). The relationship between the frequency of EPM use and employee performance is examined in 2 field studies. In Study 1, which uses a unique longitudinal data set, results reveal that shorter time lags between 2 consecutive employee performance assessments are related to better task performance as indicated by call quality metrics. A second field study using matched supervisor–employee and EPM system data is conducted in 2 call centers to extend these results and to focus more directly on the supervisors’ use of EPM and its relationship with additional performance criteria: counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Results indicate that more frequent supervisory use of EPM is associated with better task performance and OCB. However, supervisory use of EPM was not significantly related to CWB.     

The role of leader relationship quality in the development of employee fit perceptions

Despite being a subject of scholarly inquiry for nearly a century, some components of person–environment fit remain enigmatic. This research seeks to explore the relational factors that are associated with employee identity and how this lens can provide explanatory factors that link leader–employee relationships to employee performance. Across a two‐study, multi‐rater constructive replication design, our results support the tenets of the identity theory that suggests the quality of the leader–employee relationships informs employees of their person–organization (PO) and person–job (PJ) fit, leading to higher performance. Across both the studies, high‐quality leader–employee relations (conceptualized as LMX and trust in leader) were related to higher levels of PO and PJ fit. Our results also indicate that PO and PJ fit uniquely drive higher levels of performance as rated by multiple constituents, helping delineate the impact of PO and PJ fit on work outcomes. Specifically, in Study One (N = 111), PJ fit mediated the relationship between LMX and leader‐rated performance, whereas in Study Two (N = 94), PO fit mediated the relationship between trust in leader and peer‐rated performance. This work provides preliminary support that leaders, through their relationships, can help shape employee fit perceptions and ultimately impact performance. Such knowledge can inform organizations and leaders, and emphasizes the formative role that leaders play in the organizational lives of their employees.     

Clearing the mind: a working memory model of distraction from negative mood

The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods.     

A Whiff of Reality: Empirical Evidence Concerning the Effects of Pleasant Fragrances on Work-Related Behavior1

Two studies were conducted to investigate the potential effects on workrelated behavior of one environmental variable: pleasant fragrances. In Study 1, participants performed a word construction task under low or high stress while in the presence or absence of pleasant fragrances. Performance was significantly enhanced by fragrance in both stress conditions. In addition, exposure to pleasant fragrances significantly increased performance on an additional task (decoding written messages) completed by participants following exposure to stress. In Study 2, both exposure to pleasant fragrances and receipt of a small gift increased performance on the same word construction task used in Study 1. In addition, fragrance and a gift increased participants' willingness to engage in both immediate and delayed helping. Together, the results of these studies offer support for the view that pleasant fragrances can influence work-related behavior, and that such effects may be mediated, at least in part, by increments in positive affect.     

Memory accessibility, mood regulation, and dysphoria: difficulties in repairing sad mood with happy memories?

Recent studies have suggested that mood-incongruency effects are due to mood-regulatory processes, in which people retrieve positive memories to repair negative moods. In Study 1, the authors investigated whether dysphoria influences the accessibility of autobiographical memories following a positive or a negative mood induction combined with subsequent rumination or distraction. The results showed a mood-repair effect for nondysphoric but not for dysphoric participants following rumination. In Study 2, participants were asked to either distract themselves or to recall positive autobiographical memories after a negative mood induction. Whereas nondysphoric participants' mood improved under both conditions, dysphoric participants' mood improved only after distraction. These results suggest that dysphoria is associated with a reduced ability to use mood-incongruent recall to repair sad moods.     

Positive affect and the experience of meaning in life

Six studies examined the role of positive affect (PA) in the experience of meaning in life (MIL). Study 1 showed strong relations between measures of mood, goal appraisals, and MIL. In multivariate analyses, PA was a stronger predictor of MIL than goal appraisals. In Study 2, the most consistent predictor of the experience of meaning in a day was the PA experienced that day. Later, global MIL was predicted by average daily PA, rather than average daily MIL. Study 3 demonstrated no prospective relations between measures of MIL and PA over 2 years. In Study 4, priming positive mood concepts enhanced MIL. In Study 5, manipulated positive mood enhanced ratings of MIL for those who were not given an attributional cue for their moods. In Study 6, PA was associated with a high level of distinction between meaningful and meaningless activities. Results indicate that positive moods may predispose individuals to feel that life is meaningful. In addition, positive moods may increase sensitivity to the meaning-relevance of a situation.     

Moods as spotlights: the influence of mood on accessibility effects

Three studies explore the manner in which one's mood may affect the use and impact of accessible information on judgments. Specifically, the authors demonstrated that positive and negative moods differentially influence the direction of accessibility effects (assimilation, contrast) by determining whether abstract traits or concrete actor-trait links are primed. Study 1 investigated the impact of positive versus negative mood on the judgmental impact of trait-implying behaviors and found that positive moods lead to assimilation and negative moods to contrast. In Study 2, this effect was replicated in a subliminal priming paradigm. In Study 3, it was demonstrated that the type of information activated by trait-implying behaviors is indeed mood dependent, such that abstract trait information is activated in a positive mood, whereas specific actor-trait links are activated in a negative mood.     

Feeling bad and doing good: The effect of customer mistreatment on service employee's daily display of helping behaviors

Mistreatment by customers is a common occurrence for many frontline service employees. Although some evidence suggests that employees engage in dysfunctional workplace behaviors as a result of mistreatment, others studies have suggested that employees may cope with such negative experiences by helping others. Drawing on negative state relief theory, we conducted 2 studies to test these relationships and examine whether service employees cope with negative emotions arising from such daily customer mistreatment by engaging in helping others. In Study 1, daily surveys from 70 restaurant employees showed that daily customer mistreatment predicted the experience of negative moods the next morning, which, in turn, led to higher levels of coworker helping the next day. In Study 2, daily surveys from 54 retail employees showed that daily customer mistreatment led to higher customer helping the next day, but only when customer orientation was high. Our results further show that helping behavior was associated with elevated positive affective experiences and that the proposed relationships differ depending on whether customer mistreatment is measured at a daily or a cumulative perspective. Specifically, cumulative customer mistreatment over time decreased general helping. These findings are discussed in relation to employees' coping strategies towards acute and cumulative mistreatment.     

DOING GOOD,FEELING GOOD: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS IN CHANGING MOOD

This study investigates whether the altruism and courtesy dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) regulate mood at work. Social psychological theories of mood regulation suggest helping behaviors can improve individuals’ moods because helping others provides gratification and directs attention away from one's negative mood. We capture mood states prior to and following the enactment of OCBs using experience sampling methodology in a sample of managerial and professional employees over a 3‐week period. Results suggest altruism shows a pattern consistent with mood regulation; negative moods during the prior time period are associated with altruism and positive moods in the subsequent time period. The pattern of results for courtesy behaviors is only partially consistent with a mood regulation explanation. Consistent with theories of behavioral concordance, interaction results suggest individuals higher on Extroversion have more intense positive mood reactions after engaging in altruistic behaviors. Interactions with courtesy were not significant.     

Mood effects on emotion recognition

Mood affects memory and social judgments. However, findings are inconsistent with regard to how mood affects emotion recognition: For sad moods, general performance decrements in emotion recognition have been reported, as well as an emotion specific bias, such as better recognition of sad facial expressions compared to happy expressions (negative bias). Far less research has been conducted on the influence of happy moods on emotion recognition. We primed 93 participants with happy, sad, or neutral moods and had them perform an emotion recognition task. Results showed a negative bias for participants in sad moods and a positive bias for participants in happy moods. Sad and happy moods hampered the recognition of mood-incongruent expressions; the recognition of mood-congruent expressions was not affected by moods.