MOOD VS. INTERPERSONAL AFFECT - IDENTIFYING PROCESS AND RATING DISTORTIONS IN PERFORMANCE-APPRAISAL

This study was designed to simultaneously analyze the influence of moo d and interpersonal affect on the performance appraisal process. Resul ts suggest that affect consistency, as opposed to mood consistency, is likely to influence the weighting of recalled performance information and ratings subsequently assigned. Surprisingly, a mood-incongruent e ffect also occurred when weighting the performance information. Aside from affective influences, the raters assigned the most weight to posi tive performance incidents, however, the raters remembered more of the negative performance. Implications for appraisal practice and directi ons for future research are discussed.