Lay Theories of Obsessive Passion and Performance: It All Depends on the Bottom Line

Obsessive passion predicts many different types of maladaptive intra- and inter-personal outcomes (Vallerand, 2015). Our aim in this research was to explore one potential force that might promote or sustain obsessive passion in the workplace: lay beliefs about the relationship between obsessive passion and work success. We hypothesized that people hold the lay belief that obsessive passion is ideal for achieving success in workplaces that focus on singular objectives (e.g., productivity) at the expense of competing goals (e.g., well-being) – that is, those work environments characterized by bottom-line mentalities (e.g., Greenbaum, Mawritz, & Eissa, 2012). In three studies we assessed lay beliefs about passion from different perspectives, including perceptions of others (Study 1, n = 138), the way people presented themselves and believed others should present themselves (Study 2, n = 355), and estimates of one’s own success in different workplace environments (Study 3, n = 418). In support of our hypothesis, participants believed that, in workplaces characterized by bottom-line mentalities, they and others would be more likely to achieve success with high levels of obsessive passion. This means that lay beliefs about passion may be a force that promotes and sustains obsessive passion in workplaces focused exclusively on bottom line outcomes. This finding has implications for the decisions that are made by both employers and employees, and reveals a process that could contribute to the value that workplaces put on being obsessed toward the job.