Cynthia D. Fisher

Mood and emotions while working - missing pieces of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is often described as an affective response to ones job, but is usually measured largely as a cognitive evaluation of job features. This paper explores several hypothesized relationships between real time affect while working and standard measures of job satisfaction. Experience sampling methodology was used to obtain up to 50 reports of immediate mood and emotions from 121 employed persons over a two week period. As expected, real time affect is related to overall satisfaction but is not identical to satisfaction. Moment to moment affect is more strongly related to a faces measure of satisfaction than to more verbal measures of satisfaction. Positive and negative emotions both make unique contributions to predicting overall satisfaction, and affect accounts for variance in overall satisfaction above and beyond facet satisfactions. Frequency of net positive emotion is a stronger predictor of overall satisfaction than is intensity of positive emotion. It is concluded that affect while working is a missing piece of overall job attitude, as well as a phenomenon worthy of investigation in its own right. Implications for further research and for improving the conceptualization and measurement of job satisfaction are discussed. Copyright

The Emerging Role of Emotions in Work Life: An Introduction

Research into the role that emotions play in organizational settings has only recently been revived, following publication in 1983 of Hochschilds The Managed Heart. Since then, and especially over the last five years, the tempo of research in this field has stepped up, with various initiatives such as conferences and email discussion lists playing significant roles. This Special Issue is another initiative in this genre. The six papers in the Special Issue were selected from forty submissions, and cover a wide range of contemporary research issues. The papers deal with the relationship of mood to job characteristics and to job satisfaction, manifestation of anger in dyadic relationships, perceptions and effects of emotional labor, emotional intelligence in selection interviews, and the effects of displays of sadness and anger by leaders. In this introduction, we broadly introduce the topic of emotions in workplace settings, summarize the six papers, and present some directions for future research.

Boredom at Work: A Neglected Concept

Nearly everyone experiences episodes of boredom at work from time to time, regardless of the nature of their job. Previous research on industrial monotony is unable to explain boredom on any but the simplest of tasks. A broader view of the causes of boredom, including attributes of the task, environment, person, and person-environment fit, is proposed. Individual choices of response to feelings of boredom are also considered, and a number of research propositions are suggested.

Happiness at Work

Happiness in the form of pleasant moods and emotions, well-being, and positive attitudes has been attracting increasing attention throughout psychology research. The interest in happiness has also extended to workplace experiences. This paper reviews what is known about the definition, causes and consequences of happiness at work, drawing also on insights from the expanding positive psychology literature on happiness in general. Many discrete organizational behavior constructs arguably belong to a larger family of happiness-related constructs, and share some common causes and consequences. Happiness at work includes, but is far more than, job satisfaction. A comprehensive measure of individual-level happiness might include work engagement, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment. Aspects of happiness have been (and should be) conceptualized and measured at multiple levels, including transient experiences, stable person-level attitudes, and collective attitudes, and with respect to multiple foci, such as discrete events, the job, and the organization. At all levels, there is evidence that happiness has important consequences for both individuals and organizations. Past research has tended to underestimate the importance of happiness at work.

Antecedents and Consequences of Real-Time Affective Reactions at Work

Based partly on Weiss and Cropanzanos (H. M. Weiss & R. Cropanzano, 1996) Affective Events Theory, hypotheses were stated about likely antecedents and consequences of positive and negative real-time affective reactions at work. Somewhat different antecedents and consequences were predicted for positive as opposed to negative affective reactions. Affective reactions were operationalized as the average of up to 50 reports of momentary positive and negative feelings collected at work over a 2-week period. Structural equation analyses suggest that the data are consistent with the theoretical model proposed. As expected, job characteristics and positive dispositional affectivity predict positive affective reactions, role conflict and negative affectivity predict negative affective reactions, positive affective reactions predict affective commitment and helping behavior, and intention to leave is predicted by attitudes rather than by affective reactions. The results are consistent with Affective Events Theory as well as with 2-domain models that propose different causes and consequences of positive versus negative affect.

A within-person examination of correlates of performance and emotions while working

In this article, we propose and test within-person hypotheses about real-time correlates of momentary performance and emotions while working. Experience sampling methodology was used to prompt repeated reports of momentary task cognitions and emotions. Hypotheses were largely supported, with task difficulty, skill, interest, and effort predicting momentary perceived performance within person. Task interest had an effect on performance beyond that due to its contribution to effort. Skill, interest, effort, and performance predicted concurrent emotions. The effect of effort on positive emotions was fully mediated through performance, whereas interest had an effect on emotions beyond performance. The effects of skill and effort on emotions changed sign when performance was controlled, suggesting that it is unpleasant to be skilled or exert effort when performance does not improve commensurately. Perceived performance accounts for unique variance in emotions beyond that due to other predictors. Further within-person research on real-time motivation, performance, and emotions is encouraged.

The availability of personal and external coping resources: their impact on job stress and employee attitudes during organizational restructuring

Abstract This study examines the relationships among personal coping resources, social support, external coping resources, job stressors and job strains in a sample of 110 American Telephone and Telegraph employees undergoing a major organizational restructuring. The study expanded on a model suggested by Ashford (1988) by defining another category of coping resources that employees may draw upon to deal with the stressors and strains which occur during major organizational changes. External coping resources were defined as those which provided employees with a sense of ‘vicarious control’ in stressful situations. Results indicated that personal coping resources, social support and external coping resources had a direct effect upon job stressor and strain levels. No ‘buffering’ effect of these coplng resources was found. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that external coping resources added to the prediction of job stressors and strains even when pertonal coping resources and social support were ...

Effects of external and internal interruptions on boredom at work: Two studies

It is proposed that attentional difficulties are central to the experience of boredom. Events which disrupt attention during task performance may contribute to feelings of boredom with the task. Two sources of disruption are explored: external interruptions from the physical environment, and internal interruptions in the form of non-task-related thoughts about current concerns. Study 1 found that external interruptions reduced boredom on a simple task which required little attention, but contrary to expectations, had no impact on reactions to a simple task that did require attention or on reactions to a complex task. Study 2 manipulated internal interruptions via a role-playing methodology, and found that observers attributed greater boredom and less satisfaction to performers who were more frequently interrupted by non-task-related thoughts while at work, especially when these thoughts were about non-urgent concerns. The concepts of internal and external interruptions may be quite useful in understanding variations in the day-to-day experience of work, and in the relationship of non-work to work spheres of life.

Within-person relationships between mood and creativity

State mood has been proposed as a facilitator of creative behavior. Whereas positive mood compared to neutral mood generally facilitates creative performance, mood effects are weaker and less consistent when positive mood is compared to negative mood. These inconsistent results may be due to focusing only on mood valence, while neglecting or confounding mood activation. The current study is based on the dual-pathway model, which describes separate roles for mood valence and mood activation in facilitating creativity. We used experience sampling methodology to investigate the concurrent and lagged effects of mood valence and activation on creative process engagement (CPE) within-person over time among individuals working on a long-term project requiring creativity. We also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences in goal orientation and supervisory support on within-person mood-creativity relationships. As expected, we found that activating positive and activating negative moods were positively associated with concurrent CPE, whereas deactivating moods of both valences were negatively related to CPE. Activating negative mood had a significant lagged effect on CPE, whereas activating positive mood did not. We also found that activating positive mood was more strongly related to concurrent CPE among individuals with high rather than low learning goal orientation. Further, activating positive mood interacted with prove goal orientation and supervisory support for creativity, such that activating positive mood had the strongest association with CPE when both prove goal orientation and supervisory support were high.

Organizational and environmental factors related to HRM practices in Hong Kong: a cross-cultural expanded replication

Data were collected from 151 Hong Kong organizations to determine the relationship between culture, firm size, level of unionization and presence of an HRM department, and human resource management (HR) practices. Culture was a relatively weak predictor of HR practices. Existence of an HRM department and level of unionization were moderate predictors while firm size and the existence of a specialized training unit within the HRM department were the strongest predictors of HR practices.