You are not feeling alone, but with peers

Abstract

Previous work engagement studies have focused primarily on one individual, with little attention given to colleagues present around the individual when working. This daily research conceptualized affective dissimilarity and validated its operation based on the social comparison theory. Affective dissimilarity indicates the differences in affect state between team members and a particular individual. We hypothesized the moderating effect of positive and negative affective dissimilarity on the relationship between daily positive and negative affect and daily work engagement particularly. We applied the experience sampling methodology and tested our hypotheses using 10 consecutive working days of 221 employees (total=1,114 days) using hierarchical linear modeling. The results showed that positive affective dissimilarity does not moderate the effect of daily positive affect on daily work engagement, but negative affective dissimilarity moderates the effect of daily negative affect on daily work engagement. These findings suggest that the presence of others in a team is an important consideration in an individual’s daily work engagement experience, and, especially in terms of negative affect, individuals significantly compare their negative affect with their peers’ at their workplace.