Happy but Deviant: How Does Positive Affect Disrupt Social Sustainability?

Moon Joung Kim and Jin Nam Choi ()
Additional contact information
Moon Joung Kim: Department of Business Administration, Cheongju University, Cheongju 28503, Republic of Korea
Jin Nam Choi: Graduate School of Business, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Despite extensive research on the role of negative affect (NA) in causing interpersonal deviance, the role of positive affect (PA) remains unclear. Responding to the call for more nuanced research on the interpersonal effects of PA, this study explores the neglected facet of PA, the agentic rather than communal aspect, in predicting interpersonal deviance. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory and social labeling theory, we explore how PA predicts interpersonal deviance. We further propose that this relationship will be mediated by social risk-taking and moderated by task interdependence. Multi-source field data provide support for the hypothesis that PA is positively related to interpersonal deviance, which is mediated by social risk-taking. In addition, the relationship is significant only in the condition of high task interdependence that activates the agentic aspect of PA. This study concludes that the beneficial effects of PA are not universal, and that PA at work may have unintended negative consequences, such as interpersonal deviance. Implications for theory and research are discussed.

Keywords: positive affect; social risk-taking; interpersonal deviance; task interdependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4567/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4567/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4567-:d:1087245

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().