Beyond positivity: A review of the functional outcomes of negative emotions at work

Organizational scholars examining the effects of emotions on employees generally assume that negative emotions produce negative outcomes. However, a nascent body of research challenges this view, suggesting that negative emotions can help employees navigate work demands arising from disruptive external events. We draw on the COVID-19 pandemic-a salient, prolonged event that stimulated widespread negative emotions-as a theoretically meaningful context to explore when and why negative emotions may yield beneficial outcomes. Specifically, we provide an integrative conceptual review synthesizing research from applied and social psychology conducted during the pandemic that identifies two pathways through which negative emotions produce functional individual-level outcomes at work. The first pathway captures direct effects driven by the unique action tendencies associated with discrete negative emotions. The second pathway, informed by the personality systems interaction theory, highlights contingent effects shaped by self-regulatory factors and external support from leaders, teams, or organizational policies. Our findings challenge and extend discrete emotion and affective shift theories by detailing how and under what conditions negative emotions from disruptive events can have functional outcomes. We bring necessary nuance to prevailing emotion theories and offer practical implications for leaders and organizations seeking to manage negative emotions during the times of hardship. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).