When Ignorance Is Bliss: Exploring Perspective Taking, Negative State Affect and Performance

Abstract

Whereas the positive relationship between positive affect in teams and team performance is well established, the relationship between team negative affect and team performance seems to be subject to moderating effects. We focus on the effects of perspective taking as one of these moderators, and posit that perspective taking impedes team performance when team state affect is negative because team members become preoccupied with others’ negative emotions. Results from 49 teams involved in a computerized interactive decision-making task support our hypothesis: Negative state affect was negatively related to performance for teams high in perspective taking, but not for teams low in perspective taking. This leads to the conclusion that when teams experience high negative affect, they benefit from low perspective taking.