Affective events at work have a significant impact on employees. However, much remains unknow about the processes involved. This study draws on Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), servant leadership (Liden et al., 2008) and personality research to further our understanding of how affective events influence employees' psychological wellbeing. Specifically, we examine the impact of positive and negative events on hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, accounting for employees' extraversion and neuroticism and their supervisors' servant leadership.


We conducted an online survey with 209 employees (45.5% women, mean age 32) using previously validated scales. Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) tests suggest multicollinearity was not an issue in this study. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and multiple regression analyses.


Affective work events were significantly related to employees' psychological well-being, and relationships were in the expected direction. For instance, positive events were positively associated with subjective vitality and eudaimonic wellbeing and negatively associated with burnout, while negative events displayed relationships in the opposite direction with these variables. Employee extraversion moderated relationships with some dimensions of wellbeing. For example, the relationship between positive events and eudaimonic wellbeing was weaker among extraverted individuals. Contrary to hypotheses, neuroticism did not significantly moderate relationships. Interestingly, servant leadership strengthened the negative relationship between negative events and subjective vitality.


This study highlights the relevance and complex functioning of how affective work events may impact employees' psychological wellbeing. The moderating role of extraversion, for instance, could result from the fact that extraverted individuals tend to expect positive events, while such events may exceed introverted individuals' expectations, thus having a greater impact on their wellbeing. Similarly, employees with a servant leader may generally expect fewer negative events at work, and experiencing such events may lead them to exert more effort. This study however has limitations, and further research is warranted.