The role of core affect dynamics on work task engagement

Work task engagement is an essential precursor to task outcomes and a contributor to <br>overall performance during employment. Practitioners and researchers in psychology (specifically <br>education) and information sciences have devoted attention to work task engagement; however, <br>within the organizational science discipline, the attention has been scant. Researchers have focused <br>attention on the broader and longer-duration constructions of work engagement and job <br>engagement as an enduring, static phenomenon. However, recently, investigators in organizational <br>science have reaffirmed work and job engagement as dynamic constructs and the result of a <br>principal contribution by work task engagement. Little research exists on the mechanics of this <br>dynamism. Thus, this thesis aims to contribute to our understanding of the mechanics of work task <br>engagement dynamism in order to understand the ebbs and flows in in relation to the broader, more <br>enduring constructions.<br><br>A component of emotions, moods, anxiety, stress, identified as core affect, task feedback, <br>and task challenge (difficulty) are related to work task engagement. These variables are identified <br>in the literature as influential in work task engagement, while core affect, task feedback, and task <br>challenge are also prone to ebbs and flows. This thesis proposed six hypotheses associating these <br>constructs. A quasi-experiment tested this thesis, with 314 participants, who were asked to perform <br>an on-line computer mediated task consisting of a series of activities, one of which required <br>watching a randomly assigned brief affect evocative video clip. The participants reported their <br>core affect states and the system provided feedback at appropriate stages. During the last activity, <br>this feedback was a quantitative score. <br><br>The findings supported all hypotheses. That is, positively increasing activation and <br>positively increasing hedonic tone (positively increasing core affect) led to increasing work task <br>engagement. Task feedback was confirmed as associated with work task engagement, but through <br>mediation by activation and hedonic tone (core affect). Task challenge was positively associated <br>with work task engagement. Importantly, task challenge was negatively associated with task <br>feedback. As challenge increased, feedback became more negative. This situation created a <br>dampening effect. As task challenge increased, work task engagement increased; however, offset <br>against this direct challenge increase was the greater likelihood of negative feedback, which <br>negatively affected increased activation and hedonic tone (core affect), thereby reducing work task <br>engagement.<br><br>The implications of this study for organizational science research on engagement in the <br>workplace include identification of work engagement and job engagement as dynamic constructs <br>under the influence of the dynamism of work task engagement. Researchers in the future should <br>be cognizant that engagement models need to be developed at the work, job and task level that <br>better encompass this dynamism. In addition, a result of affective changes within employees while <br>engaging in work tasks, management, teachers, and software developers must take care in <br>delivering feedback and in the level of challenge they design into tasks. For example, attempting <br>to improve work task engagement by increasing the task challenge could be offset by the negative <br>influence of poorer performance and hence less positive feedback on activation and hedonic tone. <br>In turn, this negative influence on activation and hedonic tone leads to less work task engagement.