How people feel about their job: effects of regulatory mode on positivity and job satisfaction

Well-being is a multifaceted concept that mainly concerns optimal experience and functioning. It encompasses an individual’s affective and cognitive evaluations of his or her life including satisfaction, positive and negative affect. Past research has generally investigated the role of positivity in predicting well-being related outcomes and it has revealed a strong positive association. The goal of the present study is to take a step back looking at possible antecedents of positivity. In this vein, we propose two such antecedents, namely: assessment and locomotion regulatory modes. In this work, we investigated the relationship between regulatory modes, positivity and well-being accounted for by job satisfaction. We recruited employees (N = 563) from 8 Italian organizations, and obtained their individual (a) scores on the Regulatory Mode Scale, (b) ratings of positivity, and (c) overall job satisfaction. Two separate moderated multiple regression analyses were run to test the main effect and the interactions of the regulatory modes on the two outcome measures. In line with our hypotheses, the results revealed that assessment negatively predicted both positivity and job satisfaction, whereas locomotion positively predicted those variables. Furthermore, the results showed that employees showing a specific self-regulation pattern (i.e., the combination of high assessment and low locomotion) experienced lower positivity and lower job satisfaction. Finally, using a mediated moderation analysis, it was found that the relationship between regulatory modes and job satisfaction was significantly mediated by positivity.