Abstract
Job satisfaction is a core variable in the study and practice of organizational psychology because of its implications for desirable work outcomes. Knowledge of its antecedents is abundant and informative, but there are still psychological processes underlying job satisfaction that have not received complete attention. This is the case of employee emotion regulation. In this study, we argue that employees’ behaviors directed to manage their affective states participate in their level of job satisfaction and hypothesize that employee affect-improving and -worsening emotion regulation behaviors increase and decrease, respectively, job satisfaction, through the experience of positive and negative affect. Using a diary study with a sample of professionals from diverse jobs and organizations, for the most part, the mediational hypotheses were supported by the results albeit a more complex relationship was found in the case of affect worsening emotion regulation. This study contributes to expanding the job satisfaction and emotion regulation literatures and informs practitioners in people management in organizations about another route to foster and sustain positive attitudes at work.
Highlights
A central concern for organizations is to foster and sustain job satisfaction among their employees, which involves managing the conditions for building positive judgments about their work environment and organizational membership (Weiss, 2002)
We propose that the relationship between emotion regulation behavior, affect and job satisfaction unfolds through two mediational processes: Hypothesis 1: Affect-improving emotion regulation will be positively related to positive affect, which in turn will be positively related to job satisfaction, such that positive affect will mediate the relationship between affect-improving emotion regulation and job satisfaction
Affect-improving emotion regulation was positively related to positive feelings while working, increasing thereby the likelihood of positive judgments toward the job and the organization
Summary
A central concern for organizations is to foster and sustain job satisfaction among their employees, which involves managing the conditions for building positive judgments about their work environment and organizational membership (Weiss, 2002). The relevance of job satisfaction relies on its effects on work-related outcomes, such as the intention to remain or leave the organization, together with desirable behavior embedded in contextual performance (Bowling and Hammond, 2008). Job satisfaction is a function of individual differences. Personality traits such as extroversion and neuroticism, together with positive and negative trait affect, are positively and negatively related to whether employees have positive judgments about their work (Judge et al, 2008). Today we have a fairly comprehensive understanding of what makes employees satisfied at work
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