Seeing Success Through Rose Colored Glasses: On the “Positivity Bias” in Job Performance Research

Abstract

Job performance is amongst the most common dependent variables in organizational behavior research. Despite this volume of research, however, we argue that a major barrier to comprehensive understanding of the drivers of job performance is a “positivity bias” amongst those who study it: a dual tendency to assume high performance is driven by positive (rather than negative) psychological variables, and low performance is driven by negative (rather than positive) psychological variables. We evidence this positivity bias through analysing 20 years of hypothesizing on job performance across 8 leading organizational behavior journals. We also canvas potential causes of this bias, and conclude with recommendations for cultivating a more balanced perspective on the psychology of success in the workplace.