Abstract
Proactive people take initiative when others do not and persist in improving their environment or themselves. Although scholars assume that how we feel influences how proactive we are, there is no experimental research yet to support this. This experiment therefore tests whether positive and negative affect influence proactive behavior and additionally investigates whether engaging in proactivity also has affective consequences. While current theory proposes that positive affect enhances proactive behavior by stimulating broad-flexible thinking, we argue that negative affect should make people proactive through stimulating systematic-persistent thinking. Furthermore, we propose that proactive behavior increases subsequent positive affect rather than positive affect increasing proactive behavior. Last, we hypothesize that affective causes and consequences of proactive behavior are different for people who are rarely proactive (trait-passive-reactive individuals) and people who are often proactive (trait-proactive individuals). We pre-tested 180 participants on trait-proactivity. In the lab, we manipulated affect (negative/positive/neutral), measured proactive behavior in a team interaction task, and repeatedly measured participants’ affective experiences and physiological activation. Results showed that the link between affect and proactive behavior differed depending on participants’ trait-proactivity. First, positive affect made trait-proactive individuals less proactive, whereas negative affect made passive-reactive individuals more proactive. Second, passive-reactive individuals reported decreased negative affect after engaging in proactivity, whereas proactive individuals reported increased positive affect. These results suggest that proactive behavior can serve an affect regulation purpose, which is different for trait proactive individuals (up regulating positive affect) than for trait passive-reactive individuals (down regulating negative affect). These results are limited to core affect (feeling pleasant or unpleasant) and do not apply to specific emotions (feeling proud or anxious), and they are limited to short term and successful proactive behavior and do not apply to more long term, or unsuccessful proactive behavior.
Highlights
Because we have proposed that both positive affect (H1a) and negative affect (H1b) may enhance proactive behavior, we have not predefined the direction of our moderation hypothesis
Since to our knowledge this is the first experiment on affect and proactive behavior, there was no prior data for a power analysis, and so we set our stopping rule at 180 participants to approach a number of 30 participants per cell if we were to eventually split the trait proactivity in a high and low group, resulting in 3 affect groups 2 trait groups [47]
There were no differences between affect conditions on trait-proactivity, baseline negative affect, baseline positive affect, and age and gender was represented in all conditions χ2 (2, N = 162) = 1.93, p > .250)
Summary
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. Whereas positive states facilitate global processing and broad, flexible thinking [20, 26, 27], negative affect stimulates systematic localized information processing efforts Both these affective-cognitive pathways might influence change oriented behaviors such as proactivity. Proactivity scholars typically propose that positive affect influences proactivity through broad-flexible thinking [11], we argue here that negative affect likely fosters proactivity through enhancing focused attention, systematic thinking, and persistence. The affect-type (positive or negative) that increases proactivity of passive-reactive individuals should indicate which cognitive pathway most likely facilitates proactive behavior. Proactive behavior is about influencing and changing one’s environment: a type of control likely to enhance positive feelings and energy levels and decrease negative feelings when exercised In this sense, proactive behavior could play an important role in affect regulation We expected trait-proactivity to moderate 1) which type of affect influences proactivity, 2) what type of affect results from proactivity, and 3) how people affectively respond to the negative affect manipulation
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