Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Consistent Across Situations? A Person Specific Approach To Examining A Long-Standing Paradox., Muchen Xi

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bem and Allen (1974) address the person situation debate by proposing that there are some people behave more consistently, which can be better “explained” try personality traits, than others who are more influenced by situations. However, with failures to directly replicate Bem and Allen’s study, the existence of individual difference in cross situation consistency of behaviors remaining unclear. The current study addressed open questions that arose from the personality consistency debate by employing Mixed Effect Location Scale Model (MELSM) in an intensive longitudinal study. We found 1) there are individual difference in the overall behavioral consistency across situations; 2) there …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of Prosocial Action On Psychological Resilience In Female Volunteer Maskmakers During Covid-19, Linda D. Montano

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Building and maintaining psychological resilience is important because it mediates the impact of stress on life outcomes such as depression, life satisfaction, and well-being. The purpose of this dissertation was to assess the impact of prosocial action as a way to enhance resilience and reduce the impact of adversity. Using 12 waves of longitudinal data collected from 86 female volunteer maskmakers in the U.S. between April and July 2020, this study assessed the hypothesis that the prosocial action of maskmaking will moderate the impact of the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic such that at higher levels of maskmaking, the volunteer’s …

Functional Cynicism, Michelle Fried

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trait cynicism, or “cynical hostility” as measured by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory’s Cook-Medley Scale, is defined and studied as characteristics associated with psychopathology, interpersonal conflict, and negative health outcomes including heart disease and cognitive decline. Likewise, “organizational cynicism” is operationalized in industrial/organizational psychology for the purpose of describing and identifying an undesirable employee type in the workplace. This research proposes an alternative assessment. It reconnects cynicism with its roots in ancient philosophy by asking if cynical attitudes, despite their negative valence ascribed in the modern literature and conventional opinion, may serve a practical purpose. This study of Functional Cynicism …

Relational Empowerment Among Public Safety Outreach Workers And Violence Interventionists In U.S. Cities: A Qualitative Inquiry, Christopher M. Thompson

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The nation-wide uprisings for racial justice in the Summer of 2020 brought into mainstream awareness the calls to shift resources away from police departments and channel funds to mental health, education, and other social services. However, in the wake of recent post-pandemic surges in community violence, police budgets increased, while public opinion for grassroots, radical initiatives like “defund the police” that many activists, organizers, and abolitionists pushed into public consciousness has faltered. Studies have shown that the implementation of community-led public safety programs significantly reduce incidents of street violence in U.S. cities. Thus, research that informs community-driven violence intervention and …

Coworkers And Leaders: The Relationship Between Trustworthiness, Trust, And Employee Engagement, Lianne Young

Dissertations

A highly engaged workforce provides numerous organizational and individual benefits (Shuck et al., 2016), the culmination of which leads to a competitive advantage difficult to emulate (Burke et al., 2013). It remains challenging to understand how engagement develops, with little research available explaining the process (Shuck, 2020). High employee engagement levels provide a competitive advantage, but stagnant engagement levels remain a significant obstacle (Shuck, 2020).

Shuck (2020) recommends further research focusing on methods to increase engagement. Trustworthiness and trust are antecedents and drivers of engagement (Chughtai & Buckley, 2008; Federman, 2010; SHRM, 2017). A lack of trust has negative impacts …

Toxic Leadership And Its Effect On Employees' Subjective Well-Being, Vaishnavi Waldiya

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Toxic leadership is an area of growing interest. The goal of my study was to investigate toxic leadership and how toxic leader behaviors relate to employee outcomes. Part of my goal was to examine the role of toxic leadership (taking other factors such as burnout, and workplace incivility) and how toxic leadership and other variables contribute to an employee's subjective well-being. Hence, the goal of this study was to examine the following effects: Toxic leadership behaviors and their effects on subjective well-being of the employee; and b) mediating roles of incivility and burnout on toxic leader behavior and the employee’s …

Did That Help? Harnessing Natural Language Processing To Uncover Characteristics Of Peer Feedback And Their Impacts On Teamwork-Skills Learning., Annamaria V. Wolf

All Dissertations

Peer Evaluation Systems (PESs) allow members of student teams to provide one another with computer-mediated feedback in the form of qualitative, open-ended comments. The current research leverages unsupervised Natural Language Processing (NLP), namely Biterm Topic Modeling (BTM) and sentiment analysis, to uncover latent topics and degree of positivity and negativity expressed in peer feedback, respectively. BTM results revealed a 6-topic model that was reliably replicated over 10 Gibbs initializations 80% of the time. Topics were labeled Timely Communication, Idea Generation, Coordination & Adaptation, Work Quality, Team Support & Focusing, and Work Accountability. Qualitative comparison suggests that these topics demonstrate …

“Fit Check”: Testing A Model Of Perceptions Of Team Level Person-Group Fit, Alexandria Wentworth

All Theses

Teams are become a mainstay in nearly every sector of business. Teams are complex and evolve to meet the demands of their unique environments. One team structure growing in popularity is a multiteam system (MTS), a system comprised of multiple teams working interdependently to achieve goals. Understanding the mechanisms by which a MTS is successful is challenging; however, the concept of fit may offer further explanation. Person-group fit has been shown to improve coworker satisfaction, job attitudes, and task performance. Most research has only explored individual-level outcomes of person-group fit, yet there are numerous calls for further exploration into team-level …

A Study Of Group Effectiveness In A Virtual Reality Environment., Dalton Clay Sparks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Virtual Reality (VR) technology has revolutionized the study of team effectiveness, yet many studies in this domain lack a comprehensive approach, focusing narrowly on performance metrics. This thesis investigates VR team effectiveness by integrating traditional Team Effectiveness frameworks with VR-specific dynamics. Utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Group Style Inventory (GSI), this study assesses teams within a VR environment, specifically a multiplayer submarine simulation game, IronWolfVR. Fifteen groups, totaling 45 participants, were observed for their collaborative gameplay, incorporating physiological measures (Heart Rate and Electrodermal Activity), team coordination dynamics, and various survey-based assessments (demographics, System Usability Scale, Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, and …

Charter For Smarter Hats: How Team Charters Dynamically Improve Trust And Emotions In Human-Agent Teams, Dan Manh Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Although human-agent teams have received significant attention from both practitioners and researchers in recent years, human attitudes and emotions towards agents present collaborative barriers that reduce effective teaming. Borrowing from literature on traditional human team interventions, this study examines how team charters may be leveraged to set up better trust relationships and emotional states over time, and how these key emergent states influence both objective performance scores and subjective performance ratings. Using data from 43 individuals who participated in a search-and-rescue simulation with four agent teammates, discontinuous growth modeling was used to examine differences in trust and upsetness over time …

Beyond Labels: Understanding The Complexities Of Lgb Employee Team Networks, Mohammed S. Akib

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to investigate the team network of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) employees, as well as the factors influencing those team networks. The findings were based on responses from 13 participants who identified as either lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Participants completed a 60-minute interview, which was audio recorded and transcribed for analysis. The data was analyzed using MaxQDA qualitative analysis software, employing a phenomenological approach. Two research questions were addressed: (1) How, if at all, does the form and nature of the team network differ between the subgroups of LGB employees? and (2) How do various contextual factors …

An Empirical Examination Of Consequential Factors Of Negative Program Culture As Determinants Of Affective Well-Being In Graduate Students, Morgan Chandler

All Theses

There is evidence of a crisis of low affective well-being troubling graduate students nationwide. Recent studies have shown that graduate students exhibit indicators of low affective well-being, such as levels of anxiety and depression six times greater than the general population (Galleo et al., 2021; Glover, 2019), high levels of being overwhelmed (Kaler & Stebleton, 2019), and overall increased psychological distress (Hacker, 2021). The prevalence and severity of these issues indicate that their causes may exceed personal factors (Bekkouche et al., 2022). Previous research has identified the quality of culture and culture-related factors within graduate schools and programs to be …

Implicit Trait Policies And Situational Judgment Tests: How Personality Shapes Judgments Of Effective Behavior, Alexander Edward Johnson

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The Situational Judgment Test (SJT) is a popular selection tool used by employers to

make hiring decisions due to their strong predictive validity. SJTs present job candidates with

hypothetical scenarios, asking them to choose the responses that best fit those situations. SJTs

have been used to measure a range of knowledge, skills, and abilities, but what they measure and

why they predict performance remains unclear. Lievens and Motowidlo (2016) called for a

reframing of the SJT as a measure of general domain knowledge. According to their theory, SJTs

measure procedural knowledge, which is composed of general domain knowledge—

operationalized as …

Too Many Constructs In The Kitchen: Toward A Feature-Based Approach To Mistreatment, Sarah Carver

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The field of workplace mistreatment has grown considerably over the last two decades yet continues to be plagued by construct overload and measurement challenges. Constructs such as incivility, bullying, abusive supervision, and social undermining are definitionally distinct in terms of their frequency, intensity, and intentionality but this is seldom explicitly measured. Across three studies, we created and developed the Features of Mistreatment (FOM) measure to explicitly measure frequency, intensity, and perceived intentionality. In Study 1 (N = 282), we examined the psychometric properties of the initial 28-item FOM measure and revised the subscales to four items each. We found …

Beyond Rank Attainment: Examining The Nature And Function Of Dominance And Prestige In Teams, Lynden Jensen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social hierarchies are fundamental to human societies, shaping group dynamics and outcomes. Ongoing debates attempt to understand their functional and dysfunctional consequences. While the conflict account of hierarchy emphasizes the potentially detrimental conflict-inducing effects of hierarchies, the functionalist account proposes that hierarchies create contexts conducive to coordination. This study investigates if team-level dominance and prestige processes might account for these diverging consequences of hierarchy with dominance fueling conflict-prone environments and prestige nurturing coordination processes. Additionally, it examines whether the inherently competitive nature of team-level dominance yields more favorable outcomes in highly competitive, zero-sum, contexts.

Across two studies, I investigated the …

Developing And Validating A Measure Of Transformational Followership, Noelle Baird

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Leadership and followership are inherently interdependent, yet research has primarily focused on the unilateral influence of leaders. To advance a more balanced perspective and highlight how followers can positively contribute to the leadership process, I conceptualized and validated a measure of transformational followership. Transformational followership represents leaders’ perceptions of effective followership tendencies that enable productive, generative, and motivating engagements with and for their leader. After conducting a comprehensive literature review of both followership and leadership research, I created an initial item pool which was then subjected to rigorous testing across three distinct phases. Phase 1 leveraged feedback from organizational …

The Prevalence Of Burnout In Saudi Arabia Dental Hygienists, Nouf Hamad Aldayel

Dental Hygiene Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the prevalence of burnout in Saudi Arabian dental hygienists and identify risk factors associated with burnout. Methods: A descriptive survey design using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) assessed burnout among a convenience sample of n=123 Saudi dental hygienists. The survey was disseminated electronically to 1,000 Saudi Arabian dental hygienists. The CBI measures three subscales: personal, work-related, and client/patient-related burnout on a five-point Likert-type scale. The survey also included six demographic questions, two Likert-type, one “yes/no,” and one openended question, related to burnout. Descriptive statistics, one-way between subject’s ANOVA, independent samples …

Dealing With The Effects Of Covid-19 Job Demands On Public Sector Employees’ Work Engagement And Job Burnout: The Role Of Public Service Motivation, Servant Leadership, And Mission Valence, Phillip Joseph Dillulio

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The global recession stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the public sector of the U.S. economy. Specifically, reduced tax revenues from a dramatic decline in economic activity and increased demand for public services resulted in new and increased job demands for public sector employees (Eggers et al., 2020). However, limited research has examined the effects of COVID-19-related demands on job burnout and work engagement among public sector employees, and the role of personal, social, and organizational resources to protect their well-being (Demerouti & Bakker, 2023). The current study addressed this gap by employing the Job Demands …

Third-Party Reactions To Performance Feedback, Daroon Mohammed Jalil

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Although the provision of feedback has traditionally been treated as a dyadic event, I argue for the existence of a neglected third-party - the witness. Drawing from the dual process model of vicarious mistreatment and feedback intervention theory, I hypothesize that 1) third parties experience negative [positive] affect when witnessing an unjust [just] feedback event, 2) negative [positive] affect is stronger when feedback cues are self-referenced [task-referenced], and 3) negative [positive] affect is related to a subsequent decrease [increase] in feedback seeking intentions. Results from a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 470 participants provide partial support for the hypotheses. Third-parties experienced …

With A Little Help At Home: The Impact Of Romantic Partner Support On Daily Burnout And Workplace Incivility, Matthew Aplin-Houtz

Dissertations

With rude and discourteous encounters in the workplace becoming more common, Workplace incivility (WI) is at an all-time high. As such, workers experience levels of burnout from these negative social interactions. The literature concedes that the results of these interactions lead to mounting burnout, causing negative physical and emotional outcomes at the individual and organizational levels. Considering that the literature also supports that employees have the potential to recover from burnout symptoms through rest, obtaining the perception of control of their circumstances, and cognitive reframing, the time and activities a worker spends at home carry the potential for minimizing burnout …

Equity Among Equity Workers: Public Service Motivation In An Educational Nonprofit Organization, Russell C. West Jr

Theses and Dissertations

What opportunities and challenges arise when an equity-focused educational organization aims to support employee’s individual equity practices while simultaneously developing the organization’s equity practice? In this study, employees of a non-profit educational organization were asked what rationales and expectations played a role in their decision to volunteer in an equity working group. Their responses were used to understand whether Perry’s (2000) process theory of Public Service Motivation helped describe their decision. In a second round of interviews, employees were asked what outcomes they perceived came from their participation. These responses were used to understand whether the outcomes aligned with those …

Effects Of Genes And Gene-Environment Interactions On Work-Family Conflict And Enrichment, Peter Yu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how macro-level issues can influence how we manage work and family responsibilities. Yet, work-family (WF) research at different levels of analysis is relatively scarce. To address this, I take a multilevel lens to study WF conflict and enrichment in the context of micro-level factors (in the form of genes), macro-level factors (in the form of family and community-level demands), and their cross-level interactions (i.e., gene–environment interactions). To study genetic main effects, I drew from the work-home resources model to identify four candidate genes associated with conditions that could impact the ability to accrue WF resources …

Avoiding Success: How Does Fear Of Success Impact Today's Workforce?, Bradley E. Gray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fear of success refers to the anxiety experienced by individuals as they come close to accomplishing a goal, ambivalent and even paralyzed over choosing to accept or avoid success. Success fearers are more likely to avoid success, choosing to forego their goal to avoid the assumed negative repercussions that will accompany the success (Canavan, 1989). Though interest in fear of success has waned since its introduction in the 1970’s, evidence of fear of success still exists today. However, original theories of fear of success cannot explain its impact on both men and women, and little is known about how it …

Invisible Disability: A Review Of Hearing And Vision Impairment Challenges In The Workplace, Melissa Ann Aguinaldo

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the factors related to individuals with vision and hearing impairments in organizational contexts within the United States. It overviews the definitions, current state, and U.S. legislation pertaining to individuals with disabilities in the workplace. The thesis reviews disclosure practices, psychological theories, and recommendations for supporting and accommodating individuals with hearing and vision disabilities. In reviewing these factors, this research aims to enhance understanding of the challenges faced by individuals with hearing and vision impairments in organizations and contribute to fostering inclusive and supportive work environments. The thesis also identifies areas for further research in order to advance …

Successful But Exhausted: The Effect Of Tokenism On Black Employees, Sydney Green

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite organizations' efforts to reduce racial inequality in the workplace, White employees continue to outnumber Black employees in many organizations and workgroups. The present research investigates the cognitive performance of Black and White men experiencing different degrees of group racial representation and explores whether keeping their performance private reduces the effect of group racial representation. A sample recruited via Prolific included 491 men, (50.50% White and 49.50% Black), aged 18 to 65 years (M = 39.3, SD = 10.4) working in the U.S. at least 31 hours per week (M = 42.2, SD = 6.7). Using an online …

Tell Me, Do You Feel It Too? A Meta-Analysis Of Dyadic Emotional Contagion In The Workplace, Stefanie Fox

Dissertations and Theses

Emotional contagion influences multiple important individual and organizational outcomes, including burnout, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors, and task performance. The current meta-analytic review utilizes Barsade and colleagues' model of emotional contagion in organizational life and Van Kleef's emotions as social information model, creating a theoretically and empirically based examination of emotional contagion in organizational dyads covering the past 30 years of research. It offers nuance to traditional positive and negative affect conceptualization by utilizing Van Kleef's four social emotion categories (i.e., affiliation, appeasement, dominance, supplication) along with general positive and negative valanced emotional expressions as antecedents of emotional contagion. Using …

A Pandemic’S Potential To Haunt: A Longitudinal Look At The Professional Wellbeing Of Tn’S Infant And Early Childhood Mental Health (Iecmh) Workforce, Robyn A. Dolson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) providers engage in uniquely relational work with high-risk families that expose them to the full advantages (i.e., compassion satisfaction [CS]) and disadvantages (e.g., burn-out [BO]) of a helper role. Though the pandemic seemed poised to escalate disadvantage, most early pandemic studies found high CS alongside elevated BO. Unfortunately, as COVID-19 has continued, CS has declined while BO has increased. Given the delayed COVID-19 impact on children, these changes may be particularly acute for IECMH providers. Using a longitudinal cohort of 27 IECMH providers, this study aimed to describe and quantify changes in professional …

Parental And Individual Correlates Of Work Ethic In Young People In Albania, Eljona Elmazi

All Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the work ethic strength, dimensions, and correlates in young people in Albania. The review of the available research concluded that, regardless of the attention that youth-related topics have received in the last decade, there was a considerable gap in the understanding of the state and correlates of the work ethic in this group. Using the Multidimensional Work Ethic Profile – Short Form, the work ethic strength and dimensions were explored in an Albanian sample of (N = 501) 18 to 24 years old, otherwise known as Generation Z. Data were collected via …

The Impact Of Interdepartmental Psychological Safety On Interdepartmental Conflict Management Styles, Ryan Limpus

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Conflict is an inevitable part of life, and organizations spend a sizable amount of time addressing it. Literature has shown a connection between conflict management styles and psychological safety, but little research has been afforded to these interactions applied across departments. Data were collected from various companies across the United States using an anonymous survey to quantify respondents’ perceived level of general psychological safety, interdepartmental psychological safety, and preferred styles of conflict management. The results of this study indicated that a significant difference between interdepartmental and general psychological safety exists and is positively correlated with each other. Furthermore, certain styles …

The Effects Of Innovative Work Culture And Training Quality On Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Emily Anne Garreton

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In the present study, I examined how innovative work climate influenced job training quality and behavioral intentions and perceptions of employees. Employee reactions to job training foreshadow workplace intentions and behaviors that employees might engage in. The intentions that were investigated were Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs) and the reduction of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs). The sample consisted of 338 participants who have been employed recently. In a self-report questionnaire, participants recalled their perceptions of the job training at a current or recent job and indicated how likely or interested they were in committing certain work behaviors. Survey items were gathered …