Affective Events Theory

Affective Events Theory (AET) is the macro framework that reoriented organizational research toward emotions and the events that cause them. Proposed by Howard Weiss and Russell Cropanzano in 1996, it argues that features of the work environment give rise to discrete events — daily hassles and uplifts — that trigger affective reactions, and that these momentary emotions, not just stable attitudes, drive how people behave at work. The theory's central insight is to distinguish affect-driven behaviors, which flow directly from emotional states, from judgment-driven behaviors, which flow from evaluative attitudes like job satisfaction. It also positions dispositions, such as trait affectivity, as shaping how strongly people react to events. Weiss and Beal's 2005 reflection clarified the theory's structure and its methodological demands, especially the need for within-person, over-time data. AET supplied the conceptual rationale for the experience-sampling and diary revolution in organizational behavior.