The present study examined a longitudinal model of state and trait negative affect as predictors of job-search success. Job-search self-efficacy and job-search intensity were also examined as mediators of the negative affect—job-search success relation. Overall the model offered mixed support for Kasl’s (1982) Reverse Causation Hypothesis. Results suggested that trait negative affectivity had a direct negative relationship with subsequent job-search success (i.e., number of offers and job status). Results also suggested that trait negative affectivity related indirectly to interview success through job-search self-efficacy and job search intensity. Contrary to the Reverse Causation Hypothesis, positive relationships were found between distress (state negative affect) and job search outcomes.
Based on the RCH and Kanfer et al.’s (2001) theoretical model of self-regulated job search, the present study examined motivational mediators of the negative affect—job-search success relationship. This study found that NA related directly to job-search success, and related indirectly to search success through job-search self-efficacy, search intensity, and successful interviewing, thereby supporting both the RCH and the self-regulated model of job search, and offering further insights into how NA relates to job-search outcomes.
Although the positive relationship between psychological distress and job-search success was not hypothesized, similar findings have been reported in the job search literature (Kessler, Turner, & House, 1989; Taris, 2002). This finding may be explained by to Control Theory (Klein, 1989) and Vinokur and Schul’s (2002) finding that depressive symptoms are negatively associated with quality of reemployment, and may provide future theoretical insight into the short-term impact of distress on job-search success.
Mixed findings supporting both positive (Kessler et al., 1989) and negative (Hamilton et al., 1993; Murphy & Athanasou, 1999) relations between negative affect and search outcomes suggest that negative affect may play a dual role in the job-search process, under some conditions inhibiting search success by decreasing motivation and search intensity, and under other circumstances facilitating reemployment by prompting job-seekers to lower their employment goals. This dual role hypothesis relates to Vinokur and Schul’s (2002) proposition that financial strain facilitates as well as prohibits job-search success, and offers one explanation of why NA related negatively to search outcomes, and related positively to distress, which related positively to search outcomes. It is possible that the positive relation between distress and job-search success is a statistical artifact, especially in light of the absence of significant zero-order correlations between manifest measures of distress and interview and search outcomes. However, it may also be that when other variables and measurement error were statistically controlled in the structural model, a clearer picture of the relation between distress and search outcomes emerged. Future research with alternative methodological approaches such as qualitative or action research is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
Several limitations of the present study warrant caution in the interpretation of results. First, although the use of college students may help allay concerns of sampling bias related to examining the RCH among chronically unemployed or recently laid-off job seekers (Feather, 1993) students may differ from the general population of job seekers in important ways. For instance, this younger, more educated group may have been more employable than other job seekers. Furthermore, college graduates may be hardier, as depressives and pessimists may quit school prior to graduation. Moreover, college graduates have had time to plan for a period of unemployment and have fewer financial dependents. Together, these and other differences may have led to conservative and perhaps less generalizable findings. A second limitation of the study is that participants provided all of the data on the study variables, leading to concerns of common method and self-report biases.
Future research should examine the impact that reporting bias associated with NA may have had on self-reports of search outcomes. Future research may also seek to examine the impact of positive affective states and traits and the job-search process. Recent research suggests that positive affect may increase motivational variables (Erez & Isen, 2002), and positive affectivity may have a positive impact on interview success (Caldwell & Burger, 1998). Future research examining the role of state negative affect as a predictor and an outcome of job-search success is needed to unify efforts of increasing the mental health of job-seekers and the financial health of organizations looking for new employees.
