Abstract
Employees’ daily work routines, including commutes, lunch breaks, workplace artifacts, and conversations with coworkers, are vital rituals that create order and meaning, generate a sense of connection, and restore energy. However, the abrupt transition to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the norms and routines that defined the workplace environment, and employees are grieving this loss. In this study, we draw from the emotion-centered model of work behavior and the dual nature of ambivalence to explore countervailing effects of daily nostalgia—a sentimental longing for the past—on employee performance. In a sample of employed adults recruited from a Northeast US University’s alumni database and LinkedIn (n = 109), we used an experience sampling method (ESM) to capture within-individual variation in nostalgia over a three-week period. Results of multilevel path analysis showed, on one hand, nostalgia increased employees’ enactment of approach strategies (e.g., reappraising one’s situation), which translated into heightened organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB); on the other hand, nostalgia increased employees’ enactment of avoidance strategies (e.g., procrastination), which reduced daily task performance and increased daily counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Unexpectedly, results showed higher trait-level future temporal focus exacerbated the positive effect of nostalgia on avoidance strategies. Taken together, results suggest nostalgia embodies a complex mix of ambivalent emotions that impact individuals’ response strategies and, ultimately, performance.
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