@article{359df1ec-19f5-4d5c-8014-eedf2cc85f9e,
  abstract     = {{<p>Individual differences in employees’ affective dispositions influence how they perceive the work environment and report their well-being. A recurring challenge in this literature is that self-reported measures of working conditions and well-being cannot easily distinguish objective environmental features from the perceptual lens through which employees report them. Using a large, stratified sample of Danish employees (T1 N = 3970; T2 N = 2375) and the Danish Psychosocial Questionnaire, we quantified the extent to which positive and negative affect account for associations between work environment perceptions and employee well-being. Partial correlations, both cross-sectional and longitudinal over six months, showed that two brief affect measures accounted for an average of 73–75% of the observed associations. These findings suggest that a substantial portion of commonly reported work environment-well-being associations reflects stable individual differences in affective dispositions rather than objective environmental conditions—with direct implications for how self-report surveys are designed and interpreted in research and practice.</p>}},
  author       = {{Craven, Lucas H. and Kajonius, Petri J.}},
  issn         = {{2045-2322}},
  keywords     = {{Individual differences; Negative affect; Positive affect; Well-being; Work environment}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Scientific Reports}},
  title        = {{Individual differences in affect : explaining work environment perceptions and later wellbeing}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-55924-9}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41598-026-55924-9}},
  volume       = {{16}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}