Are affect and perceived stress detrimental or beneficial to job seekers? The role of learning goal orientation in job search self-regulation

•Affect and perceived stress provide signals about job search progress, and in turn influence job search intensity.•We examine the moderating role of job search learning goal orientation (LGO).•Higher LGO leads to more adaptive responses to increased affect and perceived stress.•Increased positive affect leads to a decrease in job search intensity only for those low in LGO.•Increased perceived stress leads to a stronger increase in job search intensity for those high in LGO.

Although job seekers have variability in affect and perceived stress during their job search, little is known about whether and how such within-person variability is related to job search intensity. We integrated learning goal orientation (LGO) with control theory to theorize that affect and perceived stress provide signals about job search progress that are interpreted differently depending on job seekers’ LGO. Specifically, higher LGO would lead to more adaptive responses to increased affect and perceived stress. Results from job seekers with 4 waves of panel data supported our hypotheses. For job seekers higher in LGO, perceived stress was more strongly positively related to subsequent job search intensity than for job seekers lower in LGO. Additionally, job seekers higher in LGO maintained their job search intensity following increased positive affect, whereas those lower in LGO decreased it. Such results suggest control theory can be extended by including between-subjects differences in LGO.