Evaluating dynamic performance: The influence of salient Gestalt characteristics on performance ratings.

It is well recognized that performance changes over time. However, the effect of these changes on overall assessments of performance is largely unknown. In a laboratory experiment, we examined the influence of salient Gestalt characteristics of a dynamic performance profile on supervisory ratings. We manipulated performance trend (flat, linear-improving, linear-deteriorating, U-shaped, and ∩-shaped), performance variation (small, large), and performance mean (negative, zero, positive) within subjects and display format (graphic, tabular) between subjects. Participants received and evaluated information about the weekly performance of different employees over a simulated 26-week period. Results showed strong main effects on performance ratings of both performance mean and performance trend, as well as interactions with display format. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological well-being and job satisfaction as predictors of job performance.

The happy–productive worker hypothesis has most often been examined in organizational research by correlating job satisfaction to performance. Recent research has expanded this to include measures of psychological well-being. However, to date, no field research has provided a comparative test of the relative contribution of job satisfaction and psychological well-being as predictors of employee performance. The authors report 2 field studies that, taken together, provide an opportunity to simultaneously examine the relative contribution of psychological well-being and job satisfaction to job performance. In Study 1, psychological well-being, but not job satisfaction, was predictive of job performance for 47 human services workers. These findings were replicated in Study 2 for 37 juvenile probation officers. These findings are discussed in terms of research on the happy–productive worker hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships Between Organizational Justice and Burnout at the Work-Unit Level.

Relationships between organizational justice and well-being are traditionally investigated at the individual level. This article extends previous efforts by testing such relationships at the work-unit level. Three corridors of influence were examined. First, the level (work units' average scores) of justice is related to the level of burnout. Second, justice climate strength (level of agreement among work-unit members) moderates the predictability of the level of burnout. Third, justice strength is related to burnout strength. The authors interviewed 324 contact employees from 108 work units in 59 service organizations. Findings showed the predominance of interactional justice over distributive and procedural justice in all 3 corridors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A 5-year study of change in the relationship between well-being and job performance.

Recent research, primarily cross sectional in nature, has established a link between psychological well-being and job performance ratings. Such findings suggest that organizations can improve their overall effectiveness by increasing worker well-being, but they provide little guidance as how these increases can be achieved. One means would be to select only those individuals with high well-being scores. However in addition to various ethical concerns, this approach could also be limited if the association between these two variables deteriorates as the time between the measurement increases. This possibility was examined in a 5-year longitudinal study. Consistent with the expectation of diminishing association, it was found that the well-being–performance relationship is influenced by the interval between assessment of well-being and assessment of performance. When well-being was measured at the same time as performance, or as long as a year before, the two were associated. When well-being was assessed 4.5 or 5 years before job performance, the relationship was no longer significant. Practical implications of these findings for both the individual and the organization are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Referent cognitions and task decision autonomy: Beyond equity theory.

A laboratory experiment was conducted to test referent cognitions theory, which integrates distributive and procedural justice. Undergraduates worked on two tasks knowing that performance scores from only one of these would count toward their chances for earning a reward. In the subject-decision conditions, the students selected (prior to knowledge about their performance) which task would count. The experimenter selected the crucial task in the experimenter-decision conditions. Feedback from the task that did not count indicated to subjects in high-referent conditions that they would have won the reward if these scores had counted, whereas subjects in low-referent conditions learned they would have lost no matter which set of scores counted. All subjects "lost" on the task that counted. Only subjects in the high-referent, experimenter-decision condition subsequently expressed feelings of unfair treatment. The results are discussed in terms of limitations to equity theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When a "happy" worker is really a "productive" worker: A review and further refinement of the happy-productive worker thesis.

For decades, organizational scientists and practitioners alike have been fascinated by the happy productive worker thesis. According to this hypothesis, happy employees exhibit higher levels of job-related performance behaviors than do unhappy employees. However, despite years of research, support for the happy productive worker thesis remains equivocal. These ambiguous findings result from the variety of ways in which happiness has been operationalized. Researchers have operationalized happiness as job satisfaction, as the presence of positive affect, as the absence of negative affect, as the lack of emotional exhaustion, and as psychological well-being. Some of these measures exhibit appreciable associations with job performance; others do not. The circumplex framework is offered as a potentially useful taxonomy for researchers interested in better understanding and promoting a happy and productive workforce. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When a happy worker is a productive worker: A preliminary examination of three models.

This 2-yr longitudinal field study examined the contributions of psychological well-being, job satisfaction, and dispositional affect--positive and negative affect--to job performance. 49 public sector management professionals from a governmental county agency participated in this study. Measures of job satisfaction, dispositional affect, and psychological well-being were available at Time 1. Measures of composite job performance were available at Time 1 and Time 2 (2 yrs later). Results show that while psychological well-being predicted job performance, the data fail to establish relations between job satisfaction and dispositional affect as predictors of job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive operations associated with individual differences in affect intensity.

There are individual differences in the characteristic intensity of affective response to the same emotion-evoking event. The processes whereby individuals come to experience strong or mild emotional responses when exposed to the same affect-provoking stimuli are still unclear. In these studies, we propose that individual differences in affect intensity are associated with certain cognitive operations that involve personalizing, generalizing, and selective abstraction were hypothesized to discriminate subjects high and low in affect intensity. Two studies replicated support for the hypothesis that subjects high on affect-intensity dimension engage in more personalizing/empathic and more generalizing/elaborative cognitive operations than do subjects low on the affect-intensity dimension. The same cognitive operations discriminated groups high and low in affect intensity in response to both positive and negative emotional stimuli. Also, the cognitions that discriminated subjects high and low in affect intensity occurred only in response to affective stimuli; neutral stimuli did not evoke divergent cognitive operations for these groups. Finally, a high degree of consistency was found in the use of emotion-relevant cognitive operations across positive and negative stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of organizational behavior in occupational health psychology: A view as we approach the millennium.

This special section of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology provides ample illustration of the increasingly important role of organizational behavior research on work-related issues of health and well-being. More specifically, the 9 articles contained in this special section highlight the varied application and potentially widespread benefit of considering the main effects of employee physical health and psychological well-being. The authors conclude with a discussion of how emerging research issues in occupational health psychology can be used to build a stronger science of organizational behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating role of employee positive well being on the relation between job satisfaction and job performance.

This research provides further clarification to the age-old quest to better understand the happy/productive worker thesis. Using data from 109 managers employed by a large (over 5000 employees) customer services organization on the West Coast of the United States, both job satisfaction (r = .36, p