Picture this: A field experiment of the influence of subtle affective stimuli on employee well‐being and performance

• Author: Xiang Yao,Yujie Zhan,Xiaoxiao Hu,Rebecca Garden
• Date: 01 July 2017
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2177

Picture this: A field experiment of the influence of

subtle affective stimuli on employee well-being and

performance

XIAOXIAO HU

1

, YUJIE ZHAN

2†

, XIANG YAO

3

*AND REBECCA GARDEN

1

1

Department of Psychology, Old Dominion University,Norfolk, Virginia

2

School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

3

School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking

University, Beijing, China

Summary Prior literature examining the antecedents of employee affect has largely ignored subtle affective influences in

the workplace and their impact on employees’affective experiences and behaviors. A substantial body of

evidence from basic psychology research suggests that individuals’affect can be influenced by minimal

stimulus input. The primary objective of this research is to take an initial step towards understanding the

“real-world”impact of subtle affective stimuli in the workplace. Specifically, in a field experiment with a

within-subjects design, we collected data from 68 sales representatives and examined the effect of a subtle

affective stimulus (i.e., a black-and-white picture of a woman smiling printed on the backdrop of paper–

pencil surveys) on employees’affect, well-being, and performance. Results showed that the smiling picture

significantly enhanced participants’positive affect, which in turn influenced employees’extra-role perfor-

mance and emotional exhaustion. The smiling picture also indirectly influenced employees’in-role perfor-

mance and emotional exhaustion via negative affect. Theoretical and practical implications of these

findings are discussed at the end of the paper. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: subtle affective stimuli; workplace affect; performance; well-being

In recent years, affect has drawn increasing attention from organizational researchers as it has been shown to be a

major force in employee well-being and behaviors. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have documented

the importance of affect for various workplace outcomes, such as employees’task performance, prosocial behavior,

subjective work experience, stress, and emotional well-being (e.g., Dalal, 2005; Ilies & Judge, 2004; Kaplan,

Bradley, Luchman, & Haynes, 2009; Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren, & de Chermont, 2003). Given its profound

impact on important work outcomes, understanding factors that contribute to employee affect has significant

implications for organizations and their employees.

Prior literature examining the antecedents of employee affect primarily concentrated on broad contextual and

interpersonal factors (e.g., organizational justice and leadership) and/or salient work events (e.g., interpersonal

incivility). Although these factors help to explain the formation of workplace affect, this line of research has largely

ignored subtle affective influences (e.g., affective pictures printed on work materials, emotionally charged words

shown on posters, trivial interpersonal events) in the workplace and their bearing on employees’affective experi-

ences and behaviors. Affect scholars in the basic psychology domain suggest that individuals’affect can be influ-

enced by minimal stimulus input (Chartrand, van Baaren, & Bargh, 2006; Zajonc, 2000). Consistent with this

notion, a substantial body of empirical evidence has accumulated to support the effectiveness of subtle stimuli in

evoking affective reactions and the impact of these affective reactions on individuals’perceptions and behaviors,

*Correspondence to: Xiang Yao, School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health,

Peking University, Beijing, China. E-mail: yaoxiangpku@gmail.com

†

Yujie Zhan’s work on this article was supported in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant,

Canada (430-2012-0650). This researchwas also supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant No. 31671121 and 91224008

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 31 December 2015

Revised 25 October 2016, Accepted 18 December 2016

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 895–916 (2017)

Published online 26 January 2017 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2177

Research Article

such as their perception of stimuli characteristics (Ravaja, Kallinen, Saari, & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 2004;

Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger, 2005), implicit stereotyping (Chartrand et al., 2006), visual information pro-

cessing (Gasper & Clore, 2002), and memory performance (Ravaja et al., 2004).

Although basic psychology research has repeatedly demonstrated that exposures to subtle affective stimuli can

significantly influence individuals’affective experiences, perceptions, and behaviors, whether these effects exist

in “real-world”work settings remains unknown given that previous experiments were conducted in laboratory

settings and that no attempt has been made to examine this phenomenon in an organizational environment (Hu &

Kaplan, 2013). In laboratory experiments, participants are placed in a physically isolated and somewhat “sterile”

situation with little or no exposure to stimuli outside the laboratory. This relatively austere setting is largely different

from real-world work environments, which obviously contain a multitude of contextual and interpersonal cues

(Elsbach & Pratt, 2008; George, 2009). Due to this difference, the significant effects of subtle affective stimuli found

in laboratory settings may or may not be generalizable to the workplace, where these effects may be easily overrid-

den by other stronger contextual influences (Hu & Kaplan, 2013).

Thus, the goal of the current research is to assess the “real-world”impact of subtle affective stimuli in the work-

place. Specifically, we conduct a field experiment to examine the effects of brief presentations of a smiling picture

on employees’affect, well-being, and performance at work. In doing so, the present research integrates basic psy-

chology research on subtle affective influences into the organizational literature, extending the current understan ding

of workplace affect as well as the utility and effectiveness of subtle affective stimuli in the organizational context.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development

Affective influences in the workplace

As indicated above, research on the formation and consequences of workplace affect has gained increasing popular-

ity in the organizational literature. One major theory used by affect scholars to guide this research is Affective Event

Theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), which states that events (i.e., “a change in circumstances, a change in

what one is currently experiencing”; p. 31) in the work environment can shape employees’affective experiences

which, in turn, influence job attitudes and performance.

Despite the fact that in their seminal paper on AET, Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) indicated that events of “mild

hedonic relevance”might be sufficient to change employees’affective state (p. 43), AET research has focused on

notable or significant work incidents such as accomplishing important work goals, obtaining positive feedback from

supervisors, or receiving help from colleagues (e.g., Basch & Fisher, 2000; Grandey, Tam, & Brauburger, 2002).

Although this has greatly contributed to our understanding of workplace affect by demonstrating the strong influ-

ences of salient work events on employees’affective experiences (e.g., Grandey et al., 2002; Wegge, Dick, Fisher,

West, & Dawson, 2006), the existing body of research tends to ignore subtle affective influences, thus failing to

provide a complete picture of how employees’affective experiences are shaped at work.

Having established the general conclusion that significant work events help build workplace affect, we submit that

the field now is ready to embark on a “second generation”of research wherein we examine subtler and more nu-

anced affective influences in the workplace. Therefore, the current study seeks to explore this issue by investigating

the workplace consequences of subtle “affective events”which have been shown to effectively and automatically

alter individuals’affective states in laboratory settings. In doing so, the present research tests an important potential

boundary condition for the effects of subtle affective stimuli. Perhaps more importantly, the current examination ex-

tends AET by linking it with basic psychology research on automatic affective processing, which represents a major

contribution of this research to the literature of workplace affect. In the next section, we discuss theoretical and

empirical evidence supporting the automatic processing of emotional content, which explains why subtle affective

stimuli may alter employees’affective experiences in the workplace.

896 X. HU ET AL.

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 895–916 (2017)

DOI: 10.1002/job