Positive emotions such as joy trigger the release of dopamine in the brain as mentioned earlier. Employees can fully experience the feelings of pleasure, motivation, and focus by tapping into the rewards that come with experiencing joy which in turn can improve the overall morale of the workplace, as employees feel more motivated and engaged in their work. In addition, a study conducted by the University of Illinois found that people who experienced positive emotions such as joy experienced improved memory recall and recall of tasks. The study found that positive emotions lead to an increase in the activity of certain regions of the brain that are associated with memory. This increased activity can help people recall memory more quickly and accurately, leading to improved problem-solving abilities.
A study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, discovered that people who experienced joy had increased activity in the hippocampus, which is a region of the brain associated with learning and memory. This increased activity led to improved problem-solving and creativity.
A study conducted by Allison Rimm for the Harvard Business Review found that when employees feel positive emotions, they are more likely to be productive, creative, and engaged in their work (Rimm, 2013). Hartmann et al. (2021) also conducted a study in 2018 for the Journal of Organizational Behavior in which they found that when employees feel positive emotions, their performance improved. This is because their emotion about a culture of joy leads to growth in team resilience, through growth in mutuality – an expression of high-quality work relations.
