Today's work experience: Precursors of both how I feel and how I think about my job?

Abstract

Antecedents of affective versus cognitive components of daily job satisfaction were compared. According to the affective events theory, the affective component should relate more strongly to state affect and affective work experiences than the cognitive component. In multilevel regression analyses of 280 daily reports from 40 participants, within-person variation was lower in the cognitive component (24%) than in the affective component (54%). Beyond state affect and trait affectivity, positive valence of work experiences had an incremental value only in the prediction of the affective component. The affective component is more reactive to daily work experiences than the cognitive component. Whenever the link between work and daily job satisfaction is reviewed, the components of job satisfaction measures should be considered as a moderator.