Situation contingent negative emotions and performance: The moderating role of trait neuroticism

Negative emotions are related to poor performance in between-person analyses but facilitate performance in within-person analyses, under certain conditions. We examine the effect of situation contingent negative emotions (SCE) on performance, and trait neuroticism as a moderator of that relationship. SCE modelled negative emotions as responses to perceived task challenges using experience sampling data collected over three weeks (2453 responses). Performance was exam scores (n = 83) in an automotive engineering course. SCE predicted performance and this effect was moderated by trait neuroticism. SCE improved performance for students with lower neuroticism.