Abstract Why do dimensions of perfectionism have different effects on employees’ engagement, exhaustion, and job satisfaction? Combining the perfectionism literature and self-determination theory, we expected self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) to be differently related to employee well-being through the fulfilment or lack of autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction. We attributed a unique role to autonomy satisfaction in fostering work engagement. Data were collected at 2 time points, with a 3-month interval, in an online study. Several results from path analyses including data from 328 (T1) and 138 (T2) employees were consistent with our expectations. SPP was negatively related to work engagement and job satisfaction via a lack of autonomy satisfaction and positively related to exhaustion via a lack of relatedness satisfaction. Additionally, SOP and SPP showed different associations with competence satisfaction. Overall, our findings highlight the motivational differences inherent in perfectionism that translate into well-being via need satisfaction and unique effects of the three needs.

Given that job boredom is experienced by more than half of the workforce on a daily basis, more scientific research on its potential outcomes and moderators is warranted. This study examined whether daily fluctuations in job boredom are associated with daily increases or decreases in counterproductive work behavior and organizational citizenship behavior, and whether individual differences in cognitive reappraisal moderated these relationships. Our hypotheses were tested in a daily diary study (396 daily observations); results indicated that the predicted positive relationships of job boredom with both active and passive counterproductive work behavior were supported, whereas the direction of the relationship between job boredom and organizational citizenship behavior was person-specific. Contrary to our expectations, cognitive reappraisal did not moderate any of the above relationships. Our results clearly show that scores on these constructs vary more within than between individuals and suggest that combining the within- and between-person levels, both in theorizing and analyses, is necessary to understand these phenomena better.

In contrast to teachers’ positive emotions, such as enjoyment and enthusiasm, teachers’ negative emotions and the regulation of negative emotions have received limited empirical attention. As the most commonly experienced negative emotion in teachers, anger has to date demonstrated mixed effects on teacher development. On the one hand, habitual experiences of anger (i.e., trait anger) exhaust teachers’ cognitive resources and impair pedagogical effectiveness, leading to poor student engagement. On the other hand, strategically expressing, faking, or hiding anger in daily, dynamic interactions with students can help teachers achieve instructional goals, foster student concentration, and facilitate student engagement. The current study adopted an intensive daily diary design to investigate the double-edged effects of teachers’ anger. Multilevel structural equation modeling of data from 4,140 daily diary entries provided by 655 practicing Canadian teachers confirmed our hypotheses. Trait anger in teachers was found to impair teacher-perceived student engagement. Daily genuine expression of anger corresponded with greater teacher-perceived student engagement; daily faking anger impaired perceived student engagement, and daily hiding anger showed mixed results. Moreover, teachers tended to hide anger over time, and were reluctant to express anger, genuine or otherwise, in front of their students. Finally, genuine expression and hiding of anger had only a temporary positive association with teacher-perceived student engagement, with student rapport being optimal for promoting sustained observed student engagement.

The present study investigates the association between people's beliefs about emotion and their overall satisfaction with a social interaction. We focus on three specific aspects to examine this association: (a) utility beliefs-a dimension of emotion beliefs; (b) emotion expression-an emotion channel; and (c) four social emotions-anger, other-embarrassment, gratitude, and other-pride. We examine whether people's utility beliefs about expressing a social emotion can predict their evaluation of a social interaction when they express (vs. suppress) their social emotion. Results (N = 209) consistently show that when people express their social emotion, their utility beliefs positively predict their satisfaction with an event. However, when people suppress their gratitude, their utility beliefs negatively predict their satisfaction, an effect not observed in the other three emotion events. These findings corroborate the claim that emotion beliefs impact people's emotional lives. Implications for research on emotion beliefs and motivated emotion regulation are discussed.

This study pays attention to within-person fluctuations in meaningful work and its antecedents and consequences. Considering self- and other-oriented dimensions as crucial pathways to meaningful work, effects of daily perceived autonomy support and prosocial impact on one’s meaningful work were examined. A daily diary study was conducted in which 86 nurses from varied hospitals reported their work experiences for 10 consecutive workdays (860 occasions). Results of multilevel modeling showed that both day-level perceived autonomy support and prosocial impact were positively related to day-level meaningful work, which served as the mediator between them and work engagement. Prosocial orientation strengthened the positive relationship between day-level perceived prosocial impact and day-level meaningful work. However, autonomy orientation negatively moderated the effect of day-level perceived autonomy support on day-level meaningful work, suggesting the necessity to distinguish between assisted and asserted autonomy orientation. Our findings illustrate the transient and dynamic nature of meaningful work and provide empirical evidences linking suggested managerial practices to employees’ meaningful work.

The dualistic model of passion proposes two passion types, harmonious and obsessive, representing adaptive and maladaptive passion, respectively. Studies suggest interpersonal experiences explain harmonious passion benefits and obsessive passion negative consequences. However, research has not examined passion among individuals with clinically elevated suicide risk, nor the associations between passion types and suicide-related outcomes. The present study presents a conceptual model linking the dualistic model of passion and the interpersonal theory of suicide constructs [specifically, thwarted belongingness (TB) and perceived burdensomeness (PB)]. U.S. adults with clinically elevated suicide risk (N = 484) completed online, cross-sectional assessments of harmonious and obsessive passion, TB, PB, and future dispositions (i.e., positive focus, negative focus, and suicide orientation). A mediation model indicated the effects of harmonious and obsessive passion on positive and negative focus and suicide orientation were largely explained by TB and PB. The present findings suggest engaging in a passion activity may be meaningfully related to suicide-related interpersonal perceptions (i.e., TB and PB).

When competent adults are treated like children, negative outcomes sometimes follow. We used a concurrent study design to conduct an internet-based study to determine how infantilization varies by demographic category and which types of infantilization might be most harmful. The test, which measured 15 types of infantilization, was taken by 32,118 people (mean age 27.6) from 153 countries (most from the United States). Test scores were correlated with self-reported happiness, depression, anger, sense of control, and personal and professional success, and regression analyses consistently showed that of the 15 types of infantilization we measured, emotional abuse was by far the best predictor of adverse outcomes. Infantilization was highest during the teen years and decreased gradually throughout adulthood. Effects were found for gender, education, and sexual orientation, with vulnerable groups more subject to infantilization. Our data, collected between 2011 and 2020, appear to parallel recent increases in authoritarianism and intolerance, with total infantilization scores increasing by 30.1% over this period.