Mood and emotions while working - missing pieces of job satisfaction

Cynthia Fisher

Article comments

Cynthia D. Fisher (1997) Mood and Emotions while Working - Missing Pieces of Job Satisfaction

School of Business Discussion Paper ; No. 64, Mar. 1998

© Copyright Cynthia D. Fisher and the School of Business, Bond University

Abstract

Job satisfaction is often described as an affective response to one's job, but usually measured largely as a cognitive evaluation ofjob features. This paper explores several hypothesized relationships between real time affect while working (50 observations ofmood and emotions over two weeks) and measures ofjob satisfaction. As expected, affect measures predict satisfaction but are not identical to satisfaction. Affect is more strongly related to a faces measure ofsatisfaction than to more verbal measures of satisfaction. Positive and negative emotions both make unique contributions to satisfaction, and contribute to the prediction of overall satisfaction above and beyond facet satisfactions. Frequency ofnet positive emotion is a stronger predictor of satisfaction than is intensity ofpositive emotion. Implications for further research and improving job satisfaction are discussed.