Abstract

The present study investigated the effects of interpersonal affect on the cognitive processes in performance appraisal. This study examined the biased influence of interpersonal affect in more clear way and, whether social affect, not directly related job performance, and job-related affect influence performance information processing and performance appraisal in the same way. The results showed that the affect formed in connection with not directly related to job performance makes as equally biased performance information processing and performance appraisal as in affect formed in connection with job performance. That is to say, in both job-related affect condition and social affect condition, the rater makes more positive appraisal, and more positive interpretation of the razee, provided with the same number and same level of performance informations, in case of having positive affect towards the razee than in case of having negative affect, and, the rater retrieves more the ratee's good perfermance than his/her poor performance. In differentiated processing of affect-consistent information and affect-inconsistent information, when the rater has positive affect towards the razee, selective processing of affect-consistent information appeared clearly, but in case the rater has negative affect towards the razee, selective processing of affect-consistent information did not occur in both affect conditions. These results suggested that regardless of how affect is formed, once the rater likes or dislikes the razee, the interpretation of the ratee's performance, retrieval/recognition of his/her performance, and performance appraisal are biased.