A relatively new and promising area of research is the effect of mood in the workplace. In an effort to extend existing literature on the subject, we examined the impact of two mood dimensions (positive affect and negative affect) on employees’ withdrawal behavior—specifically, on their absenteeism and turnover from an organization. A longitudinal study of 129 employees of a division of an electronics firm revealed that positive affect reduced absenteeism, while negative affect increased absenteeism and turnover. Job satisfaction moderated the relationship between positive affect and absenteeism. These results point to the importance of considering both job attitudes and emotions in efforts to predict and manage employee withdrawal behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abelson, R. P., Kinder, D. R., Peters, M. O., & Fiske, S. T.1982. Affective and semantic components in political person perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42: 619–630.
2.
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G.1991. Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
3.
Allen, S. G.1983. How much does absenteeism cost?Journal of Human Resources, 18: 379–393.
4.
Bachler, C. J.1995. Workers take leave of job stress. Personnel Journal, 74: 38–45.
5.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Burnkrant, R. E. (1979). Attitude organization and the attitude-behavior relationship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 913–929.
6.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Burnkrant, R. E.1985. Attitude organization and the attitude-behavior relation: A reply to Dillon and Kumar. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49: 47–57.
7.
Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Strauss, J. P.1994. Antecedents of involuntary turnover due to a reduction in force. Personnel Psychology, 47: 515–536.
8.
Belsley, D. A., Kuh, E., & Welsch, R. E.1980. Regression diagnostics: Identifying influential data and sources of collinearity. New York: Wiley.
9.
Cardy, R. L., & Dobbins, G. H.1986. Affect and appraisal accuracy: Liking as an integral dimension in evaluating performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71: 672–678.
10.
Cascio, W. F.1991. Costing human resources: The financial impact of behavior in organizations, 3rd ed.Boston: PWS-Kent Publishing Company.
11.
Chadwick-Jones, J. K., Nicholson, N., & Brown, C.1982. Social psychology of absenteeism. New York: Praeger.
12.
Clark, M. S., & Isen, A. M.1982. Toward understanding the relationship between feeling states and social behavior. In A. H. Hastorf & A. M. Isen (Eds.), Cognitive social psychology: 73–108. New York: Elsevier.
13.
Clark, L. A., & Watson, D.1988. Mood and the mundane: Relations between daily life events and self-reported mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54: 296–308.
14.
Clore, G. L., Schwarz, N., & Conway, M.1994. Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. In R. S. Wyer, Jr. & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition, vol. 1: basic processes: 323–418. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
15.
Cohen, J.1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
16.
Cohen, J., & Cohen, P.1975. Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Wiley.
17.
Cotton, J. L., & Tuttle, J. M.1986. Employee turnover: A meta-analysis with implications for research. Academy of Management Review, 11: 55–70.
18.
Coyne, J. C.1976. Depression and the response of others. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 85: 186–193.
19.
Dalton, D. R.1984. Personnel and human resource perspectives on absenteeism and turnover. In R. S. Schuler & S. A. Youngblood (Eds.), Readings in personnel and human resource management, 2nd ed.: 514–529. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
20.
Dalton, D. R., & Todor, W. D.1993. Turnover, transfer, absenteeism: An independent perspective. Journal of Management, 19: 193–219.
21.
Diener, E., & Emmons, R. A.1984. The independence of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47: 1105–1117.
22.
Diener, E., & Larsen, R. J.1984. Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47: 871–883.
23.
Emmons, R. A., & Diener, E.1985. Personality correlates of subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 11: 89–97.
24.
Eysenck, M. W.1975Arousal and speed of recall. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14: 269–277.
25.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E.1991. Social cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
26.
Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S., Dunkel-Schetter, C., DeLongis, A., & Gruen, R. J.1986. Dynamics of a stressful encounter: Cognitive appraisal, coping, and encounter outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50: 992–1003.
27.
Frijda, N. H.1988. The laws of emotion. American Psychologist, 43: 349–358.
28.
George, J. M.1989. Mood and absence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74: 317–324.
29.
George, J. M.1990. Personality, affect, and behavior in groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75: 107–116.
30.
George, J. M.1991. State or trait: Effects of positive mood on prosocial behaviors at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76: 299–307.
31.
George, J. M., & Brief, A. P.1992. Feeling good-doing good: A conceptual analysis of the mood at work-organizational spontaneity relationship. Psychological Bulletin, 112: 310–329.
32.
George, J. M., & Jones, G. R.1996. The experience of work and turnover intentions: Interactive effects of value attainment, job satisfaction, and positive mood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 3: 318–325.
33.
Gladstein, D. L., & Reilly, N. P.1985. Group decision making under threat: The tycoon game. Academy of Management Journal, 28: 613–627.
34.
Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. A.1995. Behavior in organizations, 5th ed.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
35.
Gupta, N., & Jenkins, G. D.1982. Absenteeism and turnover: Is there a progression?Journal of Management Studies, 1: 39–59.
36.
Hulin, C. L.1991. Adaptation, persistence, and commitment in organizations. In M. D. Dunnette & L. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, vol. 2: 445–506. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
37.
Isen, A. M., & Levin, P. F.1972. Effects of feeling good on helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21: 384–388.
38.
Jackson, S. E., Brett, J. F., Sessa, V. I., Cooper, D. M., Julin, J. A., & Peyronnin, K.1991. Some differences make a difference: Individual dissimilarity and group heterogeneity as correlates of recruitment, promotions, and turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76: 675–689.
39.
Johnson, P. R., & Indvik, J.1996. Stress and workplace violence: It takes two to tango. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 11: 18–27.
40.
Kennedy, P.1980. A guide to econometrics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
41.
Kluger, A. N., Lewinsohn, S., & Aiello, J. R.1994. The influence of feedback on mood: Linear effects on pleasantness and curvilinear effects on arousal. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 60: 276–299.
42.
Latack, J. C., & Havlovic, S. J.1992. Coping with job stress: A conceptual evaluation for coping measures. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13: 479–508.
43.
Lawler, E. E., & Porter, L. W.1967. The effect of performance on job satisfaction. Industrial Relations, 7: 20–28.
44.
Leventhal, E. A., Hansell, S., Diefenbach, M., & Leventhal, H.1996. Negative affect and self-report of physical symptoms: Two longitudinal studies of older adults. Health Psychology, 15: 193–199.
45.
Mano, H.1992. Judgments under distress: Assessing the role of unpleasantness and arousal in judgment formation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 52: 216–245.
46.
Marquardt, D. W.1970. Generalized inverses, ridge regression, and biased linear estimation. Technometrics, 12: 591–612.
47.
Martocchio, J. J.1992. The financial cost of absence decisions. Journal of Management, 18: 133–152.
48.
Mason, C. H., & Perreault, W. D.1991. Collinearity, power, & interpretation of multiple regression analysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 23: 268–280.
49.
McFarland, & Buehler. 1997. Negative affective states and the motivated retrieval of positive life events: The role of affect acknowledgement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73: 200–214.
50.
Meyer, G. J., & Shack, J. R.1989. The structural convergence of mood and personality: Evidence for old and new “directions.”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57: 691–706.
51.
Mitra, A., Jenkins, G. D., & Gupta, N.1992. A meta-analytic review of the relationship between absence and turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77: 879–889.
52.
Mobley, W. H.1982. Employee turnover: Causes, consequences, and control. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
53.
Morris, W. N.1992. A functional analysis of the role of mood in affective systems. In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Emotion (vol. 13 of the series, Review of personality and social psychology): 256–293. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
54.
Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M.1982. Employee-organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. New York: Academic Press.
55.
Necowitz, L. B., & Roznowski, M.1994. Negative affectivity and job satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45: 270–294.
56.
O’Reilly, C. A., Caldwell, D. C., & Barnett, W. P.1989. Work group demography, social integration, and turnover. Administrative Science Quarterly, 34: 21–37.
57.
Pedhazur, E. J., & Schmelkin, L. P.1991. Measurement, design, and analysis: An integrated approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
58.
Pelled, L. H., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Xin, K. R.1999. Exploring the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44: 1–28.
59.
Quinn, R. P., & Staines, G. L.1979. The 1977 Quality of Employment Survey. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
60.
Rhodes, S. P.1983. Age-related differences in work attitudes and behavior: A review and conceptual analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 93: 328–367.
61.
Rosse, J. G., & Hulin, C. L.1985. Adaptation to work: An analysis of employee health, withdrawal, and change. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 36: 324–347.
62.
Ruch, L. O., & Holmes, T. H.1971. Scaling life change: Comparison of direct and indirect methods. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 15: 221–227.
63.
Russell, J. A.1980. A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39: 1161–1178.
64.
Russell, J. A.1991. Culture and the categorization of emotions. Psychological Bulletin, 110: 426–450.
65.
Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J.1978. A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23: 224–253.
66.
Schachter, S.1959. The psychology of affiliation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
67.
Schwarz, N.1990. Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (vol. 2, pp. 527–561). New York: Guilford.
68.
Scott, K. D., & McClellan, E. L.1990. Gender differences in absenteeism. Public Personnel Management, 19: 229–254.
69.
Scott, K. D., & Taylor, G. S.1985. An examination of conflicting findings on the relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism: A meta-analysis. Academy of Management Journal, 28: 599–612.
70.
Smith, P., Kendall, L., & Hulin, C.1969. The measurement of satisfaction in work and retirement. Chicago: Rand McNally.
71.
Staw, B. M., Sandelands, L. E., & Dutton, J. E.1981. Threat-rigidity effects in organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26: 501–524.
72.
Staw, B. M., Sutton, R. I., & Pelled, L. H.1994. Employee positive emotion and favorable outcomes at the workplace. Organization Science, 5: 51–71.
73.
Stone, E. F., & Hollenbeck, J. R.1989. Clarifying some controversial issues surrounding statistical procedures for detecting moderator variables: Empirical evidence and related matters. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74: 3–10.
74.
Taylor, T.1993. The true cost of turnover and how to prevent it. Journal of Property Management, 58: 20–23.
75.
Thayer, R. E., Newman, R., & McClain, T. M.1994. Self-regulation of mood: Strategies for changing a bad mood, raising energy, and reducing tension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67: 910–925.
76.
Watson, D.1988a. The vicissitudes of mood measurement: Effects of varying descriptors, time frames, and response formats on measures of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55: 128–141.
77.
Watson, D.1988b. Intraindividual and interindividual analyses of positive and negative affect: Their relation to health complaints, perceived stress, and daily activities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54: 1020–1030.
78.
Watson, D., & Clark, L. A.1992. Extraversion and its positive emotional core. In S. R. Briggs, R. T. Hogan, & W. H. Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Personality Psychology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
79.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A.1984. Cross-cultural convergence in the structure of mood: A Japanese replication and a comparison with U.S. findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47: 127–144.
80.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A.1988. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54: 1063–1070.
81.
Watson, D., & Tellegen, A.1985. Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98: 219–235.
82.
Weiner, B.1985. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92: 548–573.
83.
Williams, H. A.1997. Ten steps to a safer workplace. HR Focus, 742: 9–10.
84.
Wills, T. A.1986. Stress and coping in early adolescence: Relationships to substance use in urban school samples. Health Psychology, 5: 503–529.
85.
Youngblood, S. A.1984. Work, nonwork, and withdrawal. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69: 106–117.
