Positive affect through interactions in meetings: The role of proactive and supportive statements

In a study of 32 student projects with 155 participants, we coded fine-grained interaction elements during the first internal meeting of each team. The analysis of resulting codes showed that constructive remarks had a positive impact on positive group affect tone (PGAT). However, this effect was only observed when constructive remarks were followed by supportive utterances. We were able to show a complete mediation of this statistically significant effect. Seemingly subtle behavior patterns influence group affect. Software projects could significantly benefit from supportive meeting behavior. We propose practical interventions to improve meeting quality.