THE ROLE OF AFFECT AND ABILITY IN INITIAL EXCHANGE QUALITY PERCEPTIONS

We hypothesized that positive and negative affect would interact with ability information in predicting exchange quality ratings of leaders and group members in a laboratory study. Ninety-six undergraduates completed a measure of cognitive ability, as well as a measure of positive- and negative-trait affect before participating in several group exercises. Exchange quality ratings collected from emergent leaders were best predicted by the interaction of member ability and negative affect. Specifically, there was a positive relationship between ability and exchange quality for those members with low negative affect, but no relationship for those with high negative affect. Exchange quality ratings gathered from group members (i.e., nonleaders) were best predicted only from leaders' positive-affect scores. Discussion centers on the particular role that affect plays in initial exchange quality judgments, as well as practical implications and generalizability issues