ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe performance episodes and how they are influenced by overlapping, transient episodes of affect. They elaborate episodic structure generally. The authors discuss self-determination theory and control theory here to demonstrate how motivation can play a role in the regulation of attention through attentional pull. They view interface of the work motivation literature and episodic performance to be one of the more fruitful areas of possible integration. Performance episodes, and the associated allocation and regulation of attention, served as the underlying structure and processes through which emotions influence within-person performance. In describing emotion episodes, theorists usually focus on the thematically related core of the experience, its punctuated beginning, and the often overwhelming nature of its intensity. The notion that performance and emotion episodes can have different bases to their structure suggests that the episodes hold the potential for partial or even complete overlap in the stream of experience.
