Does positivity enhance work performance?: Why, when, and what we don’t know

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Abstract

There is evidence, spanning many decades of research, that the subjective well-being (SWB) of workers, including life satisfaction, job satisfaction, and positive affect, positively correlates with the performance of workers and organizations. However, the size of the relationships is typically small to moderate. In this review we address the question of why the relationships are not stronger. We first review evidence of a relationship moving from well-being to performance through various pathways. Workers who are high in SWB are now understood to have: 1. better health, 2. lower absenteeism, 3. greater self-regulation, 4. stronger motivation, 5. enhanced creativity, 6. positive relationships, and 7. lower turnover. Each of these variables can predict individual and organizational performance. However, the sheer number of known and possible pathways means the relationships are bound to be complex, and there are mitigating conditions at every turn. Thus, second, we review the evidence of moderators of these mediators, hypothesizing when a happier workforce is a more productive one, and when not. Future research is needed to firmly establish the pathways from different types of SWB through the mediators to metrics of performance, to further establish the moderating conditions in which these relations are most likely to occur, and to evaluate how much SWB is needed to maximize effectiveness. We end by urging scholars to conduct this future research using the highest standards of scientific integrity.

Section snippets

How is SWB measured?

We thought it would be useful to include a brief summary of how researchers have studied and operationalized SWB and SWB at work. More extensive and comprehensive reviews can be found elsewhere (e.g., Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Diener et al., 2016; Judge & Klinger, 2008). SWB is an umbrella term that spans levels of specificity (e.g., life as a whole or specific aspects of life, such as work), constructs (e.g., positive affect, absence of negative affect, positive mood, mental health,

SWB and performance

Next, a note on what we mean by performance. To date, the literature exploring SWB and performance has used myriad measures of performance. In this way, the literature on SWB and performance is representative of the literature on performance in the field of organizational behavior as a whole. Specifically, studies of SWB have included objective measures of financial outcomes (Schneider, Hanges, Smith, & Salvaggio, 2003), objective measures of productivity (Hollenbeck and Williams, 1986, Miner

Why (and why not) SWB influences performance—the mediators

What are the processes that connect worker SWB with performance? In Fig. 1, we present a list of potential mediators linking worker to individual and organizational performance. Although several mediators (e.g., absenteeism, motivation, turnover) could be considered performance variables in and of themselves, we defer to the distinction between process and outcome performance (see e.g., Taris and Schaufeli, 2015), with the former being behaviors people do on the job to achieve (or not achieve)

Summary of mediators and moderators

In sum, SWB likely plays a role in: better health outcomes, reduced absenteeism, better self-regulation, higher motivation, more creativity, more positive relationships, and lower turnover. In turn, these variables can predict performance. These main findings regarding the relationships from SWB to each mediator and from each mediator to performance (both individual and organizational) is summarized in the columns labeled Proposition in the left and right halves of Table 1, respectively, and

How much SWB is enough?

Although the body of literature investigating whether SWB at work predicts work performance is extensive, there has been relatively little research on how much SWB is needed and when negative feelings might be helpful instead (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001; Gruber et al., 2011, Parrott, 2014). When researchers do study negative feelings, they often encounter the problem of a restriction of range, because their participants tend to be pretty happy (Diener et al., 2015). For

Summary of future scholarship and research

We have described in some detail research that is still needed in this exciting area because much is still not known. We need to understand more precisely the types of SWB that predict performance, and how they interact with other characteristics such as skills, motivation, and experience. We need more longitudinal research with larger samples, so that the various causal pathways can be reliably distinguished, and we need more high quality, rigorous experiments and replications to assess causal

Conclusion

In light of the fact that most adults now spend a large portion of their waking hours in the workplace, it would be a good thing if these hours were satisfying and rewarding in a psychological as well as financial way. The youngest contingent of the current workforce in particular seems to care whether their work is fulfilling (Moritz, 2014). The research literature generally agrees that the SWB of employees (including job satisfaction, trait positive affect, and frequency of fleeting, positive

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