Mood Swing

Feeling good at work? Well, this just might upset you. Although some studies have shown that creativity in the workplace requires the right culture, leadership, and, not surprisingly, a positive mood, a recent study by Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management faculty members Jennifer George and Jing Zhou suggests that, under some conditions, negative moods may be a more likely stimulus.

Their study is the first to identify and measure conditions under which positive moods may not encourage creativity, and negative moods may, in fact, enhance it. They focused on the relationship between employees’ moods and the conditions or contexts in which they perform their tasks, the role of recognition and rewards, and the extent to which employees know and understand their feelings.

The results show that, depending on a number of factors, negative moods can enhance workplace creativity. “Good moods signal that good progress has been made and current efforts are sufficient and may lead to overconfidence,” George says. This may cause employees to believe that additional effort on their part is not necessary. “By contrast,” she says, “negative moods can signal that things are not going very well, that the status quo is problematic, and that more effort needs to be exerted.”

Of course, neither researcher is suggesting that managers purposely dampen employees’ moods. “We simply wanted to identify conditions under which naturally occurring negative moods might be a kind of energizing force,” George says. “People in positive moods may just need feedback about how well they actually are performing in terms of creativity.”

The study, titled “Understanding When Bad Moods Foster Creativity and Good Ones Don’t: The Role of Context and Clarity of Feelings,” appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology.