BETWEEN-PERSON (INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES) Not all individuals are affected by opportunities and threats equally in

LEVEL 2: BETWEEN-PERSON (INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES) Not all individuals are affected by opportunities and threats equally in

organizational settings. Individual differences feature in Ashkanasy’s (2003a) multilevel model as moderators of the frequency, intensity, and duration of the experience of positive and negative affective states. In the following we review the impact of trait affect and emotional intelligence on the experience of positive and negative affect in the workplace.

Trait affect

Trait affect represents a personal disposition to be in a long-term positive or negative affective state. Watson, Clark, and Tellegen (1988) examined ten- dencies to experience high and low levels of positive affect and negative

240 I NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 affect. The ‘mood-dispositional dimensions’ are viewed as pervasive

individual differences in emotionality and self-concept (Watson & Clark, 1984), or as personality traits that predict people’s general emotional ten- dencies (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Moreover, Forgas’s (1992) research has shownthat people with positive or negative trait affect display the cognitive and behavioral tendencies that are associated with being in a positive or negative affective state on a continual, dispositional basis. As such, experi- mental research on the impact of affective states on cognition and behavior can be extrapolated to understand the cognitive and behavioral tendencies associated with trait affectivity.

Staw and Barsade (1993) suggest that trait affect may be a more useful predictor of organizational performance than positive and negative affective states because it allows for a continual, rather than temporary attitudinal and affective influence on behavior. Thus, individuals who display positive trait affect may be at an advantage performing organizational behaviors that have been shown to be enhanced by experimentally induced positive affect. For example, Fox and Spector (2000) have found that positive affectivity is related to a major facet of work success, namely job interview performance. Moreover, Judge (1993) proposed that positive trait affect is animportant precursor of job satisfaction(see also Judge & Larsen, 2001).

Negative trait affect, onthe other hand, is associated with the persistent use of negative situational cues (Gasper & Clore, 1998), and mediates the relationship between self-reported job stressors and self-reported stress symptoms (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988; Schaubroeck, Ganster, & Fox, 1992). These results suggest that persons high in negative trait affect overreport unpleasant experiences, and are more likely to perceive situational challenges in the workplace environment. In support of this, Watson and Clark (1984) included chronic dissatisfaction among the various strains associated with high trait negative affect. As stated by Levin and Stokes (1989): ‘ . . . high levels of trait negative affect are associated with a type of cognitive bias through which people approach and interpret their life experiences. This affective tendency and cognitive style may influence how people experience and evaluate their jobs’ (p. 753).

While there is little evidence for a positive correlation between negative trait affect and organizational performance, this does not preclude the poss- ibility that trait negative affect, like state negative affect, may contribute to positive organizational outcomes. By analogy with the impact of negative affective states on cognitive functioning in the workplace, it may be that the benefits of trait negative affect depend on the situation and task in which the individual is involved. For example, in organizational situations that require vigilant processing of situational cues and convergent, analytic thinking, an individual with dispositional negative affect may demonstrate consistently accurate and reliable performance, while an individual with trait positive affect may be less scrupulous and cautious in their judgements.

241 Similarly, while an individual with trait positive affect may demonstrate

E MOTION IN O RGANIZATIONS

better interpersonal skills and leadership, people with dispositional negative affect may be more persistent in bargaining and negotiations, and less susceptible to persuasion(Forgas, 1999; Forgas & East, 2003).

In conclusion, trait affect describes an individual’s disposition towards the experience of positive or negative affect. Those with trait positive affect are more likely to think and to behave in a way that is consistent with the impact of positive emotions on cognition and behavior, and are more likely to experience positive affect in response to positive organizational events. Trait negative affect, on the other hand, is the tendency to perceive, to evaluate, and to respond to environmental cues in a way that is consistent with the impact of negative emotions on situational appraisals and behaviors. Furthermore, individuals who show dispositional negative affect are more susceptible to job stressors and more sensitive to negative stimuli (Brief, Butcher, & Roberson, 1995).

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence relates to individual differences in the ability to per- ceive, to use (assimilate), to understand, and to manage or regulate one’s own and others’ moods and emotions (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Differences in emotional intelligence account for between-person variation in individuals’ affective responses to affective events in the workplace, and the way that positive and negative emotions affect their cognitions and behaviors in the workplace. Although currently attracting a good deal of controversy (see Becker, 2003; Daus & Ashkanasy, 2003; Jordan, Ashkanasy, & Ha¨rtel, 2002), the basic idea behind emotional intelligence—that there are individual differences in the way people process emotional information—is straightfor- ward. Since introduction of the construct by Salovey and Mayer in 1990, however, emotional intelligence has become popularized, especially through the writings of New York Times journalist Daniel Goleman (1995), to the extent that the structure and importance of the underlying constructs have become muddied in the eyes of many commentators (e.g., Becker, 2003). Ashkanasy and Daus (2002) note, nonetheless, that there are four aspects that are generally agreed upon by researchers working in emotional intelli- gence research. These are that emotional intelligence is: (1) related to, but distinct from, other forms of intelligence; (2) an individual difference, where some have more than others; (3) a phenomenon that develops over a person’s lifetime; and (4) a set of abilities involved in the perception, understanding, and management of emotion in self and others (see also Ashkanasy, Zerbe, & Ha¨rtel, 2002; Ashkanasy et al., 2004).

More specifically, Mayer and Salovey (1997) have defined emotional intelligence in terms of four ‘branches’ or abilities: (1) to perceive emotions in self and others; (2) to assimilate the information in cognitive functioning;