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Journal of Business and Psychology

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01-03-2015

The Effects of Unconsciously Derived Affect on Task Satisfaction and Performance

Authors: Xiaoxiao Hu, Seth Kaplan

Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Purpose

Theoretical and empirical evidence from basic psychological research suggests that much of affective processing occurs outside of conscious awareness and that this unconscious processing can have profound impacts on attitudes and behaviors. However, research in the management domain examining unconscious affective processing is almost completely absent. To address this void, we examined the role of unconsciously derived affect in work-related judgments and behaviors.

Design/Methodology/Approach

In two studies, participants were primed with subliminal affective cues while performing work-related tasks.

Findings

Across the two studies, the results showed that positively valenced stimuli impacted reports of task satisfaction and performance on some, but not all, types of tasks. The effects of this unconsciously derived affect generally remained even when participants were explicitly told that they would be exposed to these primes.

Implications

This study demonstrates the potential importance of unconsciously derived affect for work-related outcomes. The results provide initial evidence that affect that emerges through sources outside of conscious awareness can impact individuals’ feelings about, and performance on, work-related tasks. This finding may help leaders and employees to make the work environment more conducive to serving employee and organizational objectives.

Originality/Value

This is an initial examination of the effects of unconsciously derived affect on reactions to, and performance on, work-relevant tasks.

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In well-being research, negative affect scores are routinely subtracted from positive affect scores to form an overall affect score (e.g., Diener 2009; Diener et al. 2012; Robinson et al. 1991; Van Schuur and Kruijtbosch 1995). The resulting affect score is called the “affect balance,” which represents one’s overall experienced psychological well-being at a given point in time (Bradburn 1969). Individuals with high affect balance were said to be in an overall affective mood state whereas those with low affect balance were said to have an overall negative affective state. Bradbum’s (1969) approach (i.e., compute the difference score between positive affect and negative affect) to measure overall affect has proven to be valid, in that the difference score correlates more strongly with two other prominent indicators of well-being, happiness and life satisfaction, than does either the positive or negative affect score, respectively (Bradburn 1969; Harding 1982). In addition, it has been suggested that one’s affective state is composed of both positive and negative states, and thus is better represented by a composite index (e.g., the difference score) than by either positive affect or negative affect separately (Robinson et al. 1991). Although previous research has suggested that positive and negative affect are distinct factors (e.g., Warr et al. 1983; Watson and Tellegen 1985, but also see Diener et al. 1985; Russell and Carroll 1999 for support for the bipolarity of positive and negative affect), Headey et al. (1984) argued that this should not prevent the use of the composite index and that the composite affect score can be better understood if compared with the measurement of intelligence: “general intelligence tests usually have separate sections dealing with quantitative ability and verbal ability, and results for the sections are considered separately… However, it is generally found that, if an overall measure of intelligence is required, it is best to combine the two scores” (p. 116). Thus, to describe individuals’ global affective states, composite scores computed based on positive and negative affect seem most appropriate. For these reasons and considerations, we computed the difference score between positive affect and negative affect and used it as a measure of participants’ overall affective state during the study (Bradburn 1969; van Schuur and Kruijtbosch 1995).

Univariate analyses showed that those in the positive condition liked the proofreading task more than did those in the negative condition (p < 0.05). No significant difference was found for the creative task.

Creativity has also been operationalized as the product of novelty and usefulness in previous research (Zhou and Oldham 2001). Thus, we also ran an ANOVA using the product of novelty and usefulness as the dependent variable. The result showed no significant difference among the three conditions, F _(2,105) = 1.33, p > 0.05.

Univariate analyses showed that both those in the primed condition (p < 0.05) and those in the primed-and-told condition (p < 0.05) liked the proofreading task more than did those in the control condition. No significant difference was found for the creative tasks.

Again, we also ran an ANOVA using the product of novelty and usefulness as the dependent variable for each task. Results yielded a significant effect for the brainstorming task, F _(2,101) = 3.56, p < 0.05, but a non-significant effect for the problem-solving task, F _(2,101) = .07, p > 0.05. Post-hoc comparisons revealed that participants in the primed condition had higher creativity scores than those in the control condition (p < 0.05).

We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility.

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this future direction.

We conducted regression analyses predicting post-study affect from condition, controlling for pre-study affect. These analyses revealed that, in Study 1, the effect of the condition was not significant at p < 0.05 for either positive affect, F _(2,105) = 32.34, or negative affect, F _(2,105) = 20.71. In Study 2, the effect of the condition was significant at p < 0.05 for positive affect, F _(2,102) = 10.92, but not significant for negative affect, F _(2,102) = 12.14.

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Title: The Effects of Unconsciously Derived Affect on Task Satisfaction and Performance
Authors: Xiaoxiao Hu
Seth Kaplan
Publication date: 01-03-2015
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology / Issue 1/2015
Print ISSN: 0889-3268
Electronic ISSN: 1573-353X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-013-9331-8

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