Kathleen R Keeler, Harshad Puranik, Yue Wang, Jingfeng Yin
{"title":"In sync or out of tune? The effects of workplace music misfit on employees.","authors":"Kathleen R Keeler, Harshad Puranik, Yue Wang, Jingfeng Yin","doi":"10.1037/apl0001278","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Employees, especially in the service sector, often work long hours exposed to background music that they have little control over because it is usually selected to enhance customer experience. How does this affect employees' daily work experience? This research focuses on how a misfit between the type of music employees need and the background music played in their workplace impacts their psychological states and behaviors. Integrating stimulus-organism-response theory with the research on self-regulation of attention in the workplace, we theorize that workplace music misfit can lower employees' positive affect and increase cognitive depletion, further impacting their organizationally directed citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. We also theorize that these adverse effects of workplace music misfit are stronger for employees who have lower stimulus screening ability. The test of our hypotheses across two studies-an online experimental study and a 3-week experience sampling methodology field study-broadly supported our theory. Our research offers a novel and dynamic account of workplace background music and its effects on employees' psychological states and workplace behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":15135,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Applied Psychology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Applied Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001278","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Employees, especially in the service sector, often work long hours exposed to background music that they have little control over because it is usually selected to enhance customer experience. How does this affect employees' daily work experience? This research focuses on how a misfit between the type of music employees need and the background music played in their workplace impacts their psychological states and behaviors. Integrating stimulus-organism-response theory with the research on self-regulation of attention in the workplace, we theorize that workplace music misfit can lower employees' positive affect and increase cognitive depletion, further impacting their organizationally directed citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. We also theorize that these adverse effects of workplace music misfit are stronger for employees who have lower stimulus screening ability. The test of our hypotheses across two studies-an online experimental study and a 3-week experience sampling methodology field study-broadly supported our theory. Our research offers a novel and dynamic account of workplace background music and its effects on employees' psychological states and workplace behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Applied Psychology® focuses on publishing original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understanding to fields of applied psychology (excluding clinical and applied experimental or human factors, which are better suited for other APA journals). The journal primarily considers empirical and theoretical investigations that enhance understanding of cognitive, motivational, affective, and behavioral psychological phenomena in work and organizational settings. These phenomena can occur at individual, group, organizational, or cultural levels, and in various work settings such as business, education, training, health, service, government, or military institutions. The journal welcomes submissions from both public and private sector organizations, for-profit or nonprofit. It publishes several types of articles, including:
1.Rigorously conducted empirical investigations that expand conceptual understanding (original investigations or meta-analyses).
2.Theory development articles and integrative conceptual reviews that synthesize literature and generate new theories on psychological phenomena to stimulate novel research.
3.Rigorously conducted qualitative research on phenomena that are challenging to capture with quantitative methods or require inductive theory building.