Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Keep Calm And Meeting On: Meeting Professionalism And Stress, Kathleen Stibbs

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Purpose - Professionalism in the workplace can be a motivator for employees to be more attentive in their work. Without professionalism, employees may not have a positive image of their organization. Specifically, a lack of professionalism in meetings can elicit negative responses towards meetings and/or other attendees, which can lead to frustration and stress. Workplace meetings are common in nearly any organization, which makes achieving a greater understanding of meeting interaction and its impact all the more important. Consistent with Hobfoll’s conservation theory of resources, a lack of professionalism may elicit feelings of stress. The purpose of this paper is …

Intrinsic Motivation And Creativity: The Mediating Role Of Creative Self-Efficacy, Kasey Klatt

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This research examines the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity and the mediating effect of creative self-efficacy in that relationship. Past research suggests domain differences in creativity and the relationship between creative self-efficacy and creativity. Therefore, we evaluated whether domain differences exist in this mediated relationship. Mediation analyses indicated mediation for four of the five domains of creativity from Kaufman’s Domains of Creativity. Creative self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity for the Artistic and Performance domains and partially mediated the relationship for Scholarly and Everyday domains. No evidence of mediation was found for the Mechanical/Scientific domain. …

Being Proactive: An Exploration Of How College Students Prevent Stress, Mikayla M. Woodard

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Stress is an increasing concern in college students because it can negatively affect them mentally, physically and socially. Though many studies have examined the efficacy of various stress management strategies for enhancing college student wellbeing and success, few have explored preventative stress strategies, This study, part of a larger exploration of college student stress and well-being, explored the preventative strategies utilized by college students to prevent stress, anxiety and depression. Individual interviews were conducted face-to-face or via Skype or FaceTime; they were also taped and verbatim responses were transcribed. Participants were asked open-ended questions in order to capture the participant’s …

Unpacking Divergent Thinking And Intelligence: How Factors Influence Creative Performance, Kevin S. Mitchell

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Creativity has gained increasing research attention with focuses on key individual differences and cognitive processes. Creativity is the production of novel and useful ideas, solutions, or products. There are many factors that can influence creativity, but two well-researched constructs are divergent thinking and intelligence. Both divergent thinking and intelligence have been shown to have a positive relationship with creativity. What is less known is how these factors operate to influence creative performance. To examine the possible mechanism by which these factors influence creativity, we utilize a cognitive process model; specifically examining problem construction. Problem construction is the process of defining …

Extra Curricular Activities: How Good Are They?, Sandra J. Vargas-Salinas 7799949

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The goal of this research program is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the causes and consequences of college student stress, wellness, and engagement. Toward that goal, this study examined college student perceptions of the positive and negative characteristics of their experiences with extra-curricular and volunteering activities. Using an adapted version of the job demands-resources theory, we explored whether college students viewed these activities as resource-providing, where skills were developed and connections were built, or whether they were viewed as a demand in the service of merely building their resume. The study collected data from a variety of different college …

Cynical Towards What? Cynicism Towards Management And Cynicism Towards Diversity Training Differentially Relate To Post-Diversity-Training Measures, Danielle B. Rutz

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

We examined the role of organizational cynicism, that is, the belief that the management of an organization lacks integrity and cannot be trusted to provide truthful information (Dean, Brandes, & Dharwadkar, 1998). In the present research, we further developed our measure of cynicism, distinguishing between cynicism towards management and cynicism towards diversity training.

White participants (N=198; 55% female; M_age = 37.57, SD_age = 10.52) were recruited via MTurk for a study concerning impressions of diversity training. Participants responded to a cynicism measure and then read ostensible corporate memos that described the training as being supported by …

The Effect Of Leader Behavior On After-Action Review Outcomes, Kelly Prange

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Organizational safety concerns are a critical issue for firefighters. Interventions such as after-action reviews (AARs) may be implemented within firefighter teams to facilitate sensemaking and learning, as well as to foster safety norms. The current study investigated AAR leaders in a Midwest fire department and how their behavior improves individual perceptions of AAR quality, thereby influencing how firefighters perceive team and organizational safety norms. Building upon high-reliability organization theory and theories on the influence of leadership on culture, career firefighters were surveyed to test the mediation model. Results indicated that good AAR leader behaviors promote positive team and organizational safety …

The Challenges Of College: How Students Cope With Stress, Hilary L. Jenkins, Lisa L. Scherer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of this research is to identify what types of coping mechanisms utilized by college students. Stress plays a significant role in college student’s lives and influences the types of coping mechanisms used. This study used a qualitative phenomenological approach to examine work-school conflict, its accompanying demands and how it affects student use of adaptive versus maladaptive coping strategies. One-on-one interviews were conducted with 31 college students who were primarily psychology majors, female, and Caucasian. Results showed that college students who participated in this study were more likely to engage in adaptive coping mechanisms compared with maladaptive coping mechanisms. …

Why Arriving Late To Meetings May Harm Workplace Relationships, Joseph Mroz, Nicole B. Lanowski

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Individuals often attend meetings at work to which at least one person arrives late. Building from attributional theories of interpersonal behavior, we conducted an experiment to determine the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of people’s reactions to meeting lateness. Participants read one of eight experimental vignettes that described someone arriving 5 or 15 mins late to an important or unimportant meeting, after which the person who arrived late offered either a controllable or an uncontrollable reason for being late. Participants reported greater anger and a willingness to punish the late arrival who gave a controllable excuse, whereas sympathy and pro-social …

Volunteer Perceptions Of Upward And Downward Communication Facilitate Organizational Commitment, Kelly Prange

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Retaining productive volunteers is an essential issue nonprofit organizations face, as volunteers help extend the services of their target populations. The current study examined upward and downward communication and training as important volunteer management practices with respect to facilitating volunteer engagement and commitment. Using social exchange theory as a framework, the present study investigated the reasons why organizations should stress giving volunteers training and open communication and soliciting feedback from volunteers. Doing so may initiate a social exchange relationship in which volunteers receive training and communication from organizations and in turn become more engaged and committed to the organization. As …

Aware Of What? The Structure And Meaning Of Gender Aware And Blind Ideologies Across Gender And Race, Abigail M. Folberg

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Aware and blind ideologies concerning race (i.e., multiculturalism and colorblindness) have received considerable attention. However, few studies have assessed parallel ideologies about gender, gender awareness (GA) and gender blindness (GB). We examined the relationships of GA/GB to benevolent (BS) and hostile (HS) sexism and assessed the factor structure and measurement invariance of GA and GB across gender and race. Evaluation of the GA/GB measure indicated the presence of two factors (GA and GB) that were invariant across gender and race. Further analyses indicated that greater GA was associated with HS but not GB, whereas greater GB was positively associated with …

Volunteer Attrition: Reducing Incivility Among Coworkers, Sheridan Trent

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Although volunteers are vital to the success of many organizations, the rate of volunteerism in the US has been decreasing since 2002 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). One reason volunteers leave organizations is due to feeling burnt out from volunteer work (Chen & Yu, 2014; Winefield, Xanthopolou, & Metzer, 2012). Although multiple factors have been found to induce burnout in volunteers, studies examining relationships among volunteer coworkers as a potential stressor are sorely lacking. The current study sought to examine coworker incivility as a predictor of volunteer burnout and turnover intentions using Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. COR theory postulates …

Influence Of Meeting Humor Styles On Meeting Satisfaction, Michael Yoerger

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Drawing from theory on humor styles, impression management, and workplace meetings, we developed a video vignette followed by a survey to examine meeting satisfaction. We began by investigating whether there were differences in meeting satisfaction based on differences in the type of humor utilized. We then investigated how individual differences in impression management affects the perception of affiliative and aggressive humor. We found that there were a variety of statistically significant differences in t-test comparisons of humor conditions utilized. Differences in impression management were not associated with differences in meeting satisfaction in the affiliative or aggressive humor condition. One finding …

Well, Now What Do We Do? Wait . . . : A Group Process Analysis Of Meeting Lateness, Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Joseph A. Allen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Workplace meetings start late all the time for a number of reasons. When participants are kept waiting, this can be experienced as a drain of personal resources. In this article, we integrate perspectives from conservation of resources theory, individual goal setting, group problem solving, and temporal dynamics to derive predictions regarding individual attendees’ meeting experiences and behavioral group communication patterns under conditions of meeting lateness. We conducted an experiment using 32 student groups in which 16 groups started their meeting on time, while 16 started their meeting 10 minutes late. We found that late meetings were less satisfying than on …

Emotional Labor And The Work Of School Psychologists, Adam D. Weaver, Joseph A. Allen

Psychology Faculty Publications

As the field of school psychology faces critical shortages, investigations of work factors affecting job satisfaction and burnout are of increasing importance. One such factor is emotional labor, which is defined as the work of managing one’s emotions and emotional expressions so as to align to the expectations of the job or profession. In this study, practitioners (N = 192) were surveyed regarding their work experiences, recognition of display rules (standards that guide employees’ emotional expression), surface acting (the form of emotional labor in which employees manage their external emotional expression), job satisfaction, and burnout (consisting of emotional exhaustion, …

Comparing Depression Screening Tools In Persons With Multiple Sclerosis (Ms), Joshua Hanna, Jonathan Santo, Mervin Blair, Kathy Smolewska, Erin Warriner, Sarah A. Marrow

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: Depression is more common among persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) than the general population. Depression in MS is associated with reduced quality of life, transition to unemployment, and cognitive impairment. Two proposed screening measures for depression in MS populations are the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen (BDI-FS). Our objective was to compared the associations of the BDI-FS and the HADS-D scores with history of depressive symptoms, fatigue, and functional outcomes to determine the differential clinical utility of these screening measures among persons with MS. Method: We reviewed charts of 133 persons with …

The Team Creativity Model: An Exploratory Case Study, Triparna De Vreede, Imed Boughzala, Gert-Jan De Vreede, Roni Reiter-Palmon

Psychology Faculty Publications

Organizations increasingly rely on technology-supported teams to solve problems creatively or design new products and services. To support such efforts, an extensive body of research on creativity has been developed. However, most research to date focuses on individual creativity, rather than on team creativity. This paper introduces the Team Creativity Model (TCM) to understand the antecedents of team creativity. TCM posits that both individual creativity and shared mental models (SSMs) contribute to team creativity. SMMs act as a mediator between knowledge sharing and team creativity. Antecedents to individual creativity include an individual’s propensity to be creative and individual knowledge. Individual …

Faking It For The Higher-Ups: Status And Surface Acting In Workplace Meetings, Jane Shumski Thomas, Jessie Olien, Joseph A. Allen, Steven G. Rogelberg, John Kello

Psychology Faculty Publications

Recent evidence suggests that surface acting occurs in workplace meetings. Even in light of these findings, it remains unknown why employees would choose to surface act in meetings with their colleagues and supervisors, and how this form of emotion regulation affects employees in the short-term. A sample of working adults were asked to report their levels of surface acting during multiple workplace meetings. Results indicate that employees engage in surface acting during meetings, and that their surface acting is positively related to the presence of higher-status attendees in these meetings. Additionally, surface acting during meetings is negatively related to perceptions …

Meeting Madness: Counterproductive Meeting Behaviors And Personality Traits, Michael Yoerger, Johanna Jones, Joseph A. Allen, John Crowe

Psychology Faculty Publications

When used effectively, workplace meetings serve as an invaluable opportunity for coworkers to achieve organizational objectives. However, meetings are often regarded as inefficient, unproductive, and a waste of time. Due to meeting attendee frustration, there can be detrimental impact on employee wellbeing. In this paper, we examine the impact of a specific type of meeting behavior, counterproductive meeting behaviors (CMBs), which include non-constructive criticism and complaints on perceptions of meeting effectiveness. Additionally, we explore the potential moderating influence of personality characteristics on this relationship. While meeting leaders may take great efforts in designing meetings based on good meeting practices supported …