The Dark and Bright Sides of Anxiety: A Comprehensive Examination of the Relation between State Anxiety, Trait Anxiety, and Job Performance

Research has consistently tapped into a “dark side” of anxiety by demonstrating that anxiety has a negative relation with performance, while neglecting to consider the possibility of a “bright side” of anxiety by examining whether anxiety can benefit performance. The purpose of this research was to conduct a comprehensive examination of the anxiety and job performance relationship by considering the potential for a dark and bright side. First, I developed a dual-process model of anxiety outlining the process through which state and trait anxiety might lead to debilitative and facilitative job performance. Drawing from Interference Theory (Wine, 1980), I predicted that anxiety leads to debilitative performance through off-task cognition. Drawing from the Integrative Resource Model (Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989), Processing Efficiency Theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992), and Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), I predicted that anxiety leads to facilitative performance through self-regulatory processing. Second, guided by motivation theory (Vroom, 1964), I extended my theoretical model by specifying a condition under which anxiety might lead to debilitative and facilitative performance. Specifically, motivation is predicted to moderate the relationship between anxiety and off-task cognition, and between anxiety and self-regulatory processing. Two controlled laboratory experiments tested the overall model. Experiment 1 consisted of a simulated work environment with 306 participants. Experiment 2 consisted of a similar work simulation with 327 participants. In both experiments, trait anxiety was assessed through self-report, three levels of state anxiety were induced in participants, and performance on in-basket tasks was examined. Experiment 2 also manipulated two levels of motivation. Findings do not support a bright side of anxiety and suggest that the dark side of anxiety is quite robust. Both trait and state anxiety led to higher levels of off-task cognition, which led to lower performance. Both trait and state anxiety led to lower levels of self-regulatory processing, which led to higher performance. Experiment 2 extended these results by finding that motivation buffered the relationship between state anxiety and self-regulatory processing, and between state anxiety and off-task cognition. Motivation did not have an effect for trait anxiety. Contributions and practical implications are discussed.Ph