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Need-Based Moderators Of Relational And Resource Concerns And Their Relationship To Procedural Justice, Jonas Johnson Dec 2010

Need-Based Moderators Of Relational And Resource Concerns And Their Relationship To Procedural Justice, Jonas Johnson

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The current study assesses how needs influence the relationship between resource and relational concerns and procedural justice. Previous research has examined antecedents of procedural justice but often omits a consideration of individual needs in this analysis. Tyler (1994) found that the variables trust, neutrality, and status recognition were related to procedural justice because they contained variance related to relational concerns. Further research by Heuer, Penrod, Lafer, & Cohn (2002) also found that trust, neutrality, and status recognition were related to procedural justice based on resource concerns as well as relational concerns. However, no studies have examined the extent to which …


Multilevel Antecedents Of Economic Stress, Mark Zajack Dec 2010

Multilevel Antecedents Of Economic Stress, Mark Zajack

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Much of the literature on economic stress focuses on outcomes. This study assessed the antecedents that precede employee perceptions of economic strain. A multilevel framework of economic antecedents was proposed. The framework included objective indicators of the macroeconomic context as well as individual-level objective and subjective economic antecedents. It was hypothesized that antecedents within each of these categories of economic stress can fall into one of two dimensions: employment- or finance-related. Indicators of the macroeconomic context were gathered from the American Community Survey (ACS). Over 2,000 union employees of a large U.S. Midwestern retail chain provided individual employee-level economic information …


Predictors And Outcomes Of Occupational Commitment Profiles Among Nurses, Lindsay Sears Dec 2010

Predictors And Outcomes Of Occupational Commitment Profiles Among Nurses, Lindsay Sears

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Occupational turnover is a costly problem afflicting much of the nursing industry, and occupational commitment is a strong predictor of withdrawal from one's profession. Traditional organizational research examines most commitment-behavior relationships from a variable-centered perspective, focusing on the relationships between constructs. The present study adopts a configural, or person-centered approach aimed at identifying and describing clusters of individuals who share a similar set of occupational commitment mindsets. The present study extends current literature by a) investigating the existence of several occupational commitment profiles and describing their characteristics; b) examining situational and demographic predictors of profile membership; and c) testing differences …


Buffering Effects Of Positive Mentoring On Mentor Burnout: Generative Concern And Perceived Organizational Support As Moderators, Meline Schaffer Dec 2010

Buffering Effects Of Positive Mentoring On Mentor Burnout: Generative Concern And Perceived Organizational Support As Moderators, Meline Schaffer

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Burnout among employees has personal and organizational consequences. Negative effects of burnout include lowered individual adjustment as well as disengagement from the organization. Given this, both psychologists and practitioners may benefit from understanding ways to decrease this factor among employees.
One organizational experience that has the potential to decrease burnout is mentoring. While the advantages of mentoring relationships for protŽgŽs are well-documented, this study examines the potentially beneficial effects of positive mentoring relationships for the mentor, focusing on the reduction of burnout as a dependent variable. While benefits of mentoring may lead to reduced burnout, recent research suggests that negative …


Complex Decision Support For Older Adults: Effects Of Information Visualization On Decision Performance, Margaux Price Dec 2010

Complex Decision Support For Older Adults: Effects Of Information Visualization On Decision Performance, Margaux Price

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Older adults are faced with complex decision tasks that impose high working memory demands. A representative task is choosing a prescription drug plan from a multitude of options that must be evaluated along many factors. The combined effect of the quantity of complex information, and reduced working memory capacity puts older adults at a disadvantage. However, research with younger adults suggests that the working memory burden of decision tasks can be reduced using well-designed, graphical decision aids (i.e., environmental supports). The current study examined the use of environmental supports to support complex decision-making for older adults. Two experiments were conducted; …


Prospective Memory In The Nursing Environment: Effects Of Type Of Prospective Task And Prospective Load, Nicole Fink Dec 2010

Prospective Memory In The Nursing Environment: Effects Of Type Of Prospective Task And Prospective Load, Nicole Fink

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The nursing environment is replete with event-based and time-based prospective memory (PM) tasks (i.e. high prospective load). However, the effects of time-based prospective load, prospective load in naturalistic settings, and prospective load with unique retrospective components for each PM task remains unknown. To address this gap, the current study used a mockup patient room setting to examine the effects of PM type (event-based or time based) and prospective load (1 vs. 4 tasks) with unique prospective and retrospective components) on ongoing task and PM task performance. Registered nurses completed an ongoing documentation task while also remembering to perform 1 or …


Predicting Team Workload And Performance Using Team Autonomic Activity, Alexander Walker Aug 2010

Predicting Team Workload And Performance Using Team Autonomic Activity, Alexander Walker

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The development of a team measure of autonomic activity has a wide variety of applications. During team training, an index of team autonomic activity could potentially have added value for real-time feedback, team selection and performance evaluation. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between autonomic activity measures, workload, and performance, on both an individual and team level. Specifically, this study sought to determine whether changes in workload could be detected in measures of autonomic activity and whether changes in the autonomic measures related to changes in performance. 34 teams of two (35 males, 33 females) …


The Relationship Between Mood, Emotional Labor, Ego Depletion, And Customer Outcomes Over Time, Eric Mckibben Aug 2010

The Relationship Between Mood, Emotional Labor, Ego Depletion, And Customer Outcomes Over Time, Eric Mckibben

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This dissertation examined the role of customer service representative mood in predicting emotional labor demands which subsequently predicted ego depletion and customer satisfaction ratings and tip percentage. Organizations require employees to display a positive mood or emotion and generating organizationally mandated positive emotions to display to customers requires emotion regulation which can be quite taxing for employees. Indeed, emotion regulation, a form of self-regulation, has been experimentally linked to a state similar to exhaustion called ego depletion. As such, employee mood, emotional labor and subsequent ego depletion are likely to play a role in customer ratings of satisfaction. A study …


Who's The Boss: The Influence Of Gender Stereotypes On Perceptions Of Leaders And The Likelihood Of Engaging In Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, Elizabeth Conde Aug 2010

Who's The Boss: The Influence Of Gender Stereotypes On Perceptions Of Leaders And The Likelihood Of Engaging In Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, Elizabeth Conde

All Theses

Over the past few decades, there have been an increasing number of women in management positions (Heilman, 2001). This study examined the role that gender stereotypes may have in influencing differences in extra-role helping behavior in the workplace. Although hypotheses were not supported, likability was identified as a variable of interest in the gender-helping behavior relationship. Future research should further examine this relationship and its implications for organizations.


The Effects Of Headlight Intensity And Clothing Contrast On Pedestrians' Own Estimated Recognition Distances At Night, Rachel Rosenberg Aug 2010

The Effects Of Headlight Intensity And Clothing Contrast On Pedestrians' Own Estimated Recognition Distances At Night, Rachel Rosenberg

All Theses

Inadequate pedestrian detection is a crucial contributing factor in fatal nighttime collisions involving pedestrians. Pedestrians typically overestimate how recognizable they are to oncoming drivers and little is known about what affects pedestrians' estimates of how recognizable they think they are. This study explored the extent to which pedestrians believed their conspicuity was affected by headlight intensity and clothing reflectance. Participants in four clothing conditions and in four different levels of headlight intensity walked to and from a parked vehicle until they felt recognizable to the driver. Estimated recognition distances did not change with variations in headlight intensity, suggesting that pedestrians …


The Effect Of Interface Consistency And Cognitive Load On User Performance In An Information Search Task, Jeremy Mendel May 2010

The Effect Of Interface Consistency And Cognitive Load On User Performance In An Information Search Task, Jeremy Mendel

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Although interface consistency is theorized to increase performance and user satisfaction, previous research has found mixed and often non-significant results. The source of this discrepancy may be due to varying levels of task difficulty employed in these past studies. This study attempted to control the task difficulty using cognitive load theory. Interface consistency was manipulated along with intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load. Interface consistency was manipulated along three dimensions: physical, communicational and conceptual. Intrinsic cognitive load was manipulated by asking participants finance (high load) questions and travel (low load) questions. Unnecessary and irrelevant extra hyperlinks were used to …


Perceived Organizational Support As A Predictor Of Stigma And Treatment Seeking For Psychological Problems, Christie Kelley May 2010

Perceived Organizational Support As A Predictor Of Stigma And Treatment Seeking For Psychological Problems, Christie Kelley

All Theses

Research has shown that the stigma of psychological problems is related to decreased treatment seeking for psychological problems. Utilizing a longitudinal design and a military sample, this study found contrary results, instead supporting the relationship between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptomology and treatment seeking. A relationship between Perceived Organizational Support (POS), or how much organizations value the contributions and well-being of their employees (Eisenberger et al., 1986), and PTSD Symptomology also emerged. POS was negatively related to stigma, and stigma partially mediated the relationship between POS and PTSD Symptomology. Contrary to hypotheses, stigma did not mediate the relationship between …


Acculturation, Alienation, And Hiv Risk Among The Russian-Speaking Drug Users In Estonia, Anna Skosireva May 2010

Acculturation, Alienation, And Hiv Risk Among The Russian-Speaking Drug Users In Estonia, Anna Skosireva

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In 1991, dramatic socio-political changes transformed the Russian-speaking population in Estonia from the governing class to an immigrant minority virtually overnight absent of a relocation or emigration process. New citizenship and language policies, and associated socioeconomic hardships, drove many of the Russian-speaking population to the edges of the society. These processes were amplified by traditional acculturation challenges that led to increased psychological distress, rising indicators of social exclusion and social alienation, and poor health, including HIV/AIDS and substance abuse, in this linguistic group during the past two decades. Given the growing relevance of cultural issues in this group as well …


Spatial Perception And Robot Operation: The Relationship Between Visual Spatial Ability And Performance Under Direct Line Of Sight And Teleoperation, Joshua Gomer May 2010

Spatial Perception And Robot Operation: The Relationship Between Visual Spatial Ability And Performance Under Direct Line Of Sight And Teleoperation, Joshua Gomer

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This dissertation investigated the relationship between the spatial perception abilities of operators and robot operation under direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation viewing conditions. This study was an effort to determine if spatial ability testing may be a useful tool in the selection of human-robot interaction (HRI) operators. Participants completed eight cognitive ability measures and operated one of four types of robots under tasks of low and high difficulty. Performance for each participant was tested during both direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation. These results provide additional evidence that spatial perception abilities are reliable predictors of direct-line-of-sight and teleoperation performance. Participants in this study with higher …


The Accuracy Of Observers' Estimates Of The Effect Of Glare On Nighttime Vision: Do We Exaggerate The Disabling Effects Of Glare?, Stacy Balk May 2010

The Accuracy Of Observers' Estimates Of The Effect Of Glare On Nighttime Vision: Do We Exaggerate The Disabling Effects Of Glare?, Stacy Balk

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Designing headlights involves balancing two conflicting goals: maximizing visibility for the driver and minimizing the disabling effects of glare for other drivers. Complaints of headlight glare have increased recently. This project explored the relationship between subjective (discomfort and expected visual problems) and objective (actual visual problems) consequences of glare. Two experiments - a lab-based psychophysical study and a field study - quantified the accuracy of observers' estimates of the effects of glare on their acuity. In both experiments, participants over-estimated the extent to which glare degraded their ability to see a small high contrast target. Observers' estimates of the disabling …


Desired Characteristics Of 'Smart' Nightstands For Higher And Lower Functioning Older Adults, Linnea Smolentzov May 2010

Desired Characteristics Of 'Smart' Nightstands For Higher And Lower Functioning Older Adults, Linnea Smolentzov

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The current study examined the desired characteristics of a 'smart' nightstand for higher and lower functioning older adults. Incorporating 'smart' technology into the housing environment of older adults has been identified as a key way to help aging-in-place. Yet, little has been done to examine what older adults want and need in such 'smart' technology. Twelve lower functioning and twenty higher functioning older adults were surveyed concerning their likes and needs on items and functions on a 'smart' nightstand. The concepts for a 'smart' nightstand were demonstrated with cardboard prototypes with which the participants could interact. Results showed that overall, …


An Exploration Of The Core Self-Evaluations- Performance Relationship: The Roles Of Engagement And Need For Achievement, Christine Haugh May 2010

An Exploration Of The Core Self-Evaluations- Performance Relationship: The Roles Of Engagement And Need For Achievement, Christine Haugh

All Theses

The present study proposed a moderated mediation model involving the personality variables of core self-evaluations (CSE) and need for achievement (nAch), and the motivational state of engagement as predictors of task performance. CSE was hypothesized to interact with nAch to predict two domains of engagement, such that higher scores in measures of both variables would lead to increased performance in these domains. The narrow domain was represented by a single psychology test, and the broad domain referred to overall academic engagement and performance, as measured by cumulative GPA. CSE was also hypothesized to be directly related to performance in these …


The Relationship Between Energy Balance Understanding And Measures Of Wellness, Stephanie Fishel-Brown Jan 2010

The Relationship Between Energy Balance Understanding And Measures Of Wellness, Stephanie Fishel-Brown

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Much emphasis on the fight against obesity is placed on education and food labeling, yet very little research has been performed to measure how much people know about energy balance and the relationship of this knowledge to measures of wellness. The primary objective of this study was to determine if college students' (N = 262) performance on an energy balance questionnaire is associated with measures of wellness. Performance on the questionnaire as a whole was not significantly correlated (p > .05) with body mass index (BMI; rs = .04), percent body fat (rs = .05), waist to hip ratio …