Helping Hands, Flourishing Hearts: A Meta-Analytic Study of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Subjective Well-Being

Does going the extra mile at work enhance an employee’s well-being, or does it come with hidden costs? With these two diverging perspectives on the impact of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) on employee well-being and inconclusive previous meta-analytic findings, the current study provides a much-needed update. We conducted a meta-analysis (k = 186, n = 29,034) on the relationship between OCBs and Subjective Well-Being (positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction) to provide updated estimates of the cross-sectional effects and the first meta-analytic evidence of longitudinal and within-person effects. We also explore critical moderators (age, gender, affective context (work vs. general), and OCB type (individual vs. organizational). Cross-sectional findings reveal significant associations between OCBs and positive affect (𝜌 = .34), negative affect (𝜌 = -.11), and life satisfaction (𝜌 = .30). Notably, only negative affect correlates differently with different OCB types. Consistent with research on gender role expectations, females experience lower life satisfaction from OCBs than males. Longitudinal findings show that positive and negative affect predict future OCBs; however, limited studies examine the reverse causal direction. On a daily level, positive affect is associated with higher levels of OCBs, whereas negative affect is not associated with OCBs. When examining specific OCB types, negative affect is associated with greater engagement in OCB-Is. An important implication is the need to foster employee well-being to sustain prosocial behaviors at work. We discuss further implications for both theory and practice, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of helping behaviors at work.