"Why Does Affect Matter in Organizations?"
Academy of Management Perspectives
February 2007, pp. 36-59
The authors define "affect" as an "umbrella term encompassing a broad range of feeling states, such as moods and discrete emotions, and traits, such as trait positive and negative affectivity".
The article provides a very good overview of research that has been done regarding the effects of affectivity in organizations. Topics covered include:
- Affect and performance—The original research approach of trying to correlate job satisfaction with performance produced low correlations of .17 to .30. Measuring affect instead of job satisfaction has produced stronger correlations. The research overall shows a strong relationship between trait positive affect measures and various measures of work performance.
- Affect and decision-making—In most cases, positive affect leads to better decision making, but there are exceptions where negative affect leads to more "critical" processing and more effective decisions.
- Affect and creativity—Most research supports that positive affect tends to lead to more creativity.
- Affect and turnover/absence—Positive affect tends to reduce both these variables, except in the case of people who have chronically negative affect. They don't expect things to be any better anywhere else.
- Affect and prosocial behavior—There is strong research support for the effect of positive affect on helping behavior.
- Affect and conflict resolution—Studies have generally shown that positive mood helps to resolve conflict.
- Affect and leadership—The positive affect of leaders has tended to be associated with positive leadership outcomes. This area is complex and still under research and development, however.
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