One of the most fundamental experiences of deriving positive meaning from work stems from perceptions of task significance. Although interactions with managers and beneficiaries can provide inspirational cues that make the significance of employees' work tasks salient (Grant, 2012, 2008), relying solely on an understanding of these discrete experiences may limit an employee's ability to consistently perceive the significance of work tasks from day to day. To expand understanding of the influences that shape perceptions of daily task significance, we draw on personality systems interaction theory (Kuhl, 2000) to examine the influence of affective shifts. Using a daily diary design over 10 workdays, results from 292 daily observations nested within 38 employees showed that upshifts in positive affect and downshifts in negative affect were positively related to daily task significance. In turn, daily task significance was positively related to helping behaviors and negatively related to work withdrawal. Daily task significance also exhibited an indirect effect on the subsequent workday's start-of-day mood. Employees who perceived high significance today were more likely to start tomorrow off with lower negative mood due to higher helping behaviors the day before and with lower positive mood due to lower work withdrawal the day before. The results yield new insights into the experience of daily task significance and offer significant implications for theory and practice on affect, task significance, and work performance.

中文翻译：

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堆砖还是建造大教堂？情感转变如何塑造对日常任务重要性的看法


从工作中获取积极意义的最基本经验之一源于对任务重要性的认知。尽管与管理者和受益人的互动可以提供鼓舞人心的线索，使员工工作任务的重要性变得突出（Grant，2012，2008），但仅仅依靠对这些离散经历的理解可能会限制员工一致地感知工作任务重要性的能力日复一日。为了扩大对影响日常任务重要性认知的影响的理解，我们利用人格系统交互理论（Kuhl，2000）来研究情感转变的影响。采用超过 10 个工作日的日记设计，对 38 名员工进行 292 次日常观察，结果表明，积极情绪的上升和消极情绪的下降与日常任务的重要性呈正相关。反过来，日常任务的重要性与帮助行为正相关，与工作退缩负相关。每日任务的重要性也对下一个工作日的开始情绪产生间接影响。今天感受到高度重要性的员工更有可能在明天开始时由于前一天的帮助行为较多而产生较低的消极情绪，并且由于前一天的工作撤退较少而导致积极情绪较低。研究结果对日常任务重要性的体验产生了新的见解，并为情感、任务重要性和工作绩效的理论和实践提供了重要的启示。