Employees’ proactive performance is future-oriented and contributes to organizational effectiveness and sustainability. The proactivity literature shows that positive affect and negative affect may have differential effects to motivate various proactive behaviors at work. However, direct empirical evidence of the impact of affect on proactive performance is limited. It is also important to investigate whether the motivational effect of positive and negative affect on proactive performance can be sustained over time. Responding to these knowledge gaps, we apply the Hedonic Contingency Theory (HCT), and hypothesize a positive reciprocal relationship between positive affect and proactive performance over time, while such effect does not exist for negative affect. Results from two independent studies – a cross-sectional and a longitudinal one – provide support for hypotheses drawn from HCT. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

员工的积极绩效是面向未来的，有助于提高组织的有效性和可持续性。主动性文献表明，积极影响和消极影响可能对激发工作中的各种积极行为产生不同的影响。然而，关于情感对主动绩效的影响的直接经验证据是有限的。调查积极和消极影响对主动绩效的激励作用是否可以随着时间的推移而持续也很重要。针对这些知识差距，我们应用了享乐权变理论（HCT），并假设随着时间的推移，积极情绪和积极表现之间存在正的互惠关系，而消极情绪则不存在这种影响。两项独立研究的结果——一项横断面研究和一项纵向研究——为从 HCT 得出的假设提供了支持。讨论了理论和实践意义。