Affective diversity and decision performance

What is it about?

Does having a diversity of emotional states among team members lead to increased or lower decision making performance on a management team? In this study of strategy simulation teams, we found that having diversity of negative emotions was associated with stronger performance.

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Why is it important?

Our results constrast with earlier studies showing affective diversity negatively impacts performance, and contributes to the literature showing beneficial associations between diversity and performance. Having a few (but not all) team members with high-negative affectivity may promote risk aversion and depth information processing, with high-negative affectivity constituting a sort of “devil’s advocate” and “alert-maker”. However, the presence of too many individuals with negative affectivity may lead to more conformism and less competitive strategies.