The effects of Work Flow and leisure satisfaction on employees’ affect:

In this paper, optimal experience that enhances positive affect and life satisfaction was explored based on the previous findings that defensive mechanism such as psychological detachment and relaxation does not promote positive affect but mastery experience does. Also the work-related factors and non-work-related factors among optimal experience were compared in terms of their influences on the arousal of positive affect. Lastly, the mediating effect of sleep quality on optimal experience was examined. The survey data were gathered from 142 conglomerate employees and work flow and leisure satisfaction were suggested as recovery mechanisms since each represents optimal experience in the work-related domain and non-work- related domain. In the first correlational analysis, psychological detachment and relaxation were negatively associated with negative affect whereas no significant correlation with positive affect was found, which was consistent with the previous findings. Work flow and leisure satisfaction were positively associated with positive affect while they are negatively associated with negative affect. In the hierarchical regression analysis, work flow and leisure satisfaction were compared in terms of their impacts on individuals’ affect. Predicting positive affect, work flow was the only significant predictor of the positive affect experienced next morning even when sex, age, school, usual positive/negative affect, and work satisfaction were controlled. Sleep quality significantly mediated the relation between work flow and positive affect experienced in the next morning. The result suggests that optimal experience such as work flow promotes a positive change not only in the affective level but also in the physiological level. The implications and limitations of this study and the directions for the future research were discussed.