The relationship between daily mood and Creative Process Engagement(CPE)

Abstract

The current study investigates how daily mood(positive or negative affect) alters creative behaviors of employees, and how personality traits(conscientiousness and openness to experience) moderate this relationship. In particular, assuming that mood in organization varies on a daily basis, we focused on the relationship between general mood in the workplace and creative process engagement(CPE) at a within-person level. Based on the previous literature review on how emotional valence stimulates creative behaviors, we developed and tested hypotheses stating that positive mood would facilitate creative behaviors while negative mood would inhibit them. Moreover, as moderators, we examined the effects of conscientiousness and openness to experience of the Five-Factor traits which either strengthen or weaken the relations between mood and creative behaviors. The model was tested on a sample of 71 employees of large companies in Korea. We collected and analyzed data on mood and CPE for 10 working days. As a result, it was found that daily positive mood enhances CPE while negative mood hinders it, and conscientiousness attenuates the effect of mood on CPE. In particular, for those with high conscientiousness, the influence of mood on CPE was not as strong, and highly conscious people portrayed a relatively stable and high level of CPE. We concluded with a discussion of the contribution of between-and within-person level variables in predicting creativity and its practical implications as well as limitations.