Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

Fraud And Focus: Examining Self-Control Strategies In Students Experiencing Impostor Phenomenon, Francesca Angela Catalano

Theses and Dissertations

Impostor phenomenon (IP) is a common experience among individuals in achievement contexts characterized largely by feelings of self-doubt, attributions of success that focus on external factors, and beliefs that one is “fooling” others about their competence. Current research suggests the effects of IP are complex (e.g., IP is associated with higher grade point average and productivity but also self-handicapping, psychological distress, and difficulties adjusting to college). To better understand these complex effects, this study proposes a self-control perspective for IP, where this phenomenon is seen as involving additional self-control burdens. Specifically, the study examines whether IP is associated with grade …

What Happens When Leaders Don’T Live Up To The Ideal? How The Leadership Perception Gap Can Undermine Leader Development And Intentions, Julia Macgregor-Peralta

Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of research on leadership development, we know surprisingly little about why capable, confident people choose not to pursue leadership. This study introduces the Leadership Perception Gap (LPG), a construct that captures discrepancies between ideal leader views and the leaders people actually observe, and tests whether those discrepancies reduce the desirability of leadership roles. LPG was assessed using latent congruence modeling (LCM) to compare ideal leader ratings with vignette-based leader evaluations. The vignettes manipulated leadership style (agentic, communal, balanced) and team composition (all-male, all-female, balanced). Participants were randomly assigned to one condition and evaluated their interest in joining the …

Employee Perspectives Of Addiction: Effects On Workplace Dynamics, Alex Silverman

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how employees perceive and respond to coworkers experiencing substance use disorders (SUDs) and behavioral addictions in workplace settings. Integrating attribution theory, stigma frameworks, and Quality of Work Life (QWL) perspectives, a controlled vignette-based design was administered to 130 employed adults who evaluated hypothetical coworkers across addiction conditions. Multilevel modeling revealed that SUDs were perceived as more severe than behavioral addictions, and higher perceived addiction severity was associated with greater stigmatizing attitudes. Stigmatizing attitudes, in turn, were differentially associated with workplace behavioral responses: stigma was strongly associated with increased distancing and reporting behaviors but was not significantly associated …

Speaking Up Or Helping Out? The Impact Of Gendered Feedback On Voice And Helping Ocbs And Imposter Phenomenon And Self-Confidence, Jacklyn Scymcyk

Theses and Dissertations

Grounded in Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987) and Role Congruity Theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002), this study examines how gendered differences in feedback influence employees’ self-views and subsequent citizenship behaviors. Specifically, the research aimed to investigate how the relative frequency of task performance feedback and contextual performance feedback impacts self-confidence and imposter phenomenon, and how these self-views, in turn, predict voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), respectively. Initial phases of this study validated measures for perceptions of task and contextual performance feedback frequency, favorability, and adequacy. The final phase used moderated-mediation polynomial regression analyses to test hypotheses. Exploratory cluster …

The Marionette Among Us: The Dark Triad, Influence Tactics, And The Fabric Of Team Relationships, Jarret Nathan Bain

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the influence of the Dark Triad personality traits—Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy—on workplace team dynamics, particularly through the use of hard and soft interpersonal influence tactics. The research focuses on Team Member Exchange (TMX) as a measure of perceived relationship quality among team members. Using a cross-sectional survey of employed adults recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), the study investigated the relationships between Dark Triad traits, influence tactics, and TMX. The findings reveal that while Narcissism is positively correlated with TMX, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy show more complex patterns of association, impacted by the choice of influence tactics. The …

Are You Patronizing Me? Understanding And Identifying The Implications For Benevolent Racism On Inclusion In The Workplace, Nisha Quraishi

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the construct of benevolent racism. The purpose of this study was to address the following areas. First, to distinguish benevolent racism in the racism, benevolence, and sexism literature. Second, to examine how minorities experienced benevolent racism in the workplace. Third, to use that data to conduct a quantitative analysis that examined the impact of benevolent racism on work group identification and inclusion. To do so, two studies were conducted. The first study was a qualitative study that conducted interviews which examined how benevolent racism impacted minorities in the workplace. The second study was a quantitative study that …

Effects & Buffering Of Ai-Induced Career Insecurity Among University Students, Skyler Grunberg

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines how artificial intelligence (AI) development psychologically impacts students' perception of their future careers. Adopting a cross-sectional design, 137 university students were surveyed to investigate the relationship between AI-induced future career insecurity, well-being, work engagement, and career decision-making self- efficacy (CDMSE). AI-induced career insecurity (AICI) was found to be significantly below the neutral midpoint in university students. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the item structure of AICI, finding a hierarchical model incorporating both core and wording factors was best fit. Findings indicate AICI is significantly negatively related to well-being, work engagement, and CDMSE. Though insignificant, resilience …

Malicious Compliance: Examining Revenge Behaviors In Organizations, Patricia Jewel Emily Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

Revenge is a multifaceted behavior that manifests in various forms. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine a particular form of revenge known as malicious compliance, which has yet to be sufficiently researched. A two-study approach was used to examine malicious compliance. In the first study, qualitative data was collected from an online forum for sharing malicious compliance experiences. In the second study, 352 participants completed a mixed-methods survey online. Data from both studies was analyzed in RStudio and MAXQDA. Study 1 utilized unsupervised machine learning techniques, non-machine learning techniques, and thematic coding techniques to analyze the forum dataset. …

Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Optimal Distinctiveness: Examining The Influence Of Culture On The Need To Belong And The Need To Be Different, Hairong Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on optimal distinctiveness motives and group identification, examining the moderating roles of self-construal, global orientation, and tightness/looseness match. Participants (N=465) from the United States and China were randomly assigned to tight or loose conditions and numerically majority or minority group conditions. Experimental manipulation of tightness-looseness did not significantly affect optimal distinctiveness needs. Cultural match, operationalized as alignment of tightness/looseness between participants' own culture and experimental condition, significantly moderated the relationship between culture conditions and need to belong. Individuals with high cultural match showed higher need to belong in tight conditions, while those …

Experiences Of Ambivalent Sexism And Applicant Behaviors: The Interplay Of Affective Reactions, Lauren Marie Soda

Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on ambivalent sexism, which can have detrimental effects for organizations, consisting of two factors: benevolent and hostile sexism. Benevolent sexism is the subtler of the two, oftentimes creating a sense of inferiority and increased anxiety for those experiencing it. Hostile sexism, on the other hand, is often more overt and instills a sense of anger from the target. There appears to be little research looking at experiences of ambivalent sexism in work settings and the affective reactions to those events (i.e., anger and anxiety). I believed that when people experience hostile sexism will feel angry and associate …

The Influence Of Unhelpful Supervisor Support On Employee Burnout Across Cultures, Charles Blomstrom-Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Organizations continue to become increasingly interconnected globally, yet often fail to consider the cultural context of policies. Such failures to account for cultural differences may add to workplace stressors for employees, leading to an increased risk of burnout. Supervisors may attempt to buffer against burnout by providing social support to their employees. However, if the support given by supervisors is considered by the recipient to be unhelpful, these buffering effects may be reversed. Examining samples from the United States and Japan, this study hypothesized that unhelpful supervisor support and burnout would relate significantly to one another, and that culturally based …

Temporal Dynamics Of Shared Leadership Emergence: An Adaptive Leadership Perspective, Erica Medrano

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have identified shared leadership as a valuable team phenomenon due to its link to increased team performance and suitability for the increasingly interdependent and complex work context. Yet, little effort has been invested into discovering how the process unfolds over time. Thus, the proposed study aims to clarify the temporal process of shared leadership by a) confirming that leadership decentralization precedes leadership density, b) identifying the conditions which promote the development of shared leadership, and c) exploring the conditions under which leadership decentralization leads to leadership density. Specifically, I utilize data from an online survey and a 3-hour ecologically …

Rising To The Top With Strategic Agency: Exploring Antecedents To Leadership In Women And Men, Britton Victoria-Hicks Peters

Theses and Dissertations

In congruence with implicit leadership theory, research shows that individuals value agentic traits in potential leaders more than communal traits. However, traits identified as “preferable” or “more valuable” in leader candidates are not always aligned with traits that are typical of an effective or competent leader. If our industry wants to put effective leadership into practice, we must also know how effective leaders are chosen and encouraged further. Here I have explored one small aspect of this research by looking at gender differences in leader potential and leader effectiveness.

This study investigated the role of self-confidence on leader identification and …

Neurodivergent Employees: The Impact Of The Disclosure Decision And Subsequent Workplace Accommodations, Tamara Farquhar

Theses and Dissertations

A great deal of organizational investments have gone towards diversifying the labor force as of late. However, the same cannot be said for efforts made towards making newly acquired talent feel included. Neurodivergent individuals in particular have not been sufficiently welcomed in organizations, partially explaining their reluctance to disclose their identity along with feeling excluded. Despite researchers framing the characteristics displayed by neurodiverse talent as natural variations found at the tail ends of the bell curve, many people are incapable of viewing them as such. Discrimination and stereotyping have thus resulted, further dampening neurodivergent employees’ work experiences. These two factors …

The Role Of Self In Self-Control Dilemmas: Self-Concept, Conflict, And Self-Conscious Emotions, Jasmina (Mina) Milosevic

Theses and Dissertations

Self-control dilemmas, typically defined as an internal conflict between short-term allurements and long-term goals, are a common feature of everyday life. How such dilemmas are handled is often viewed as a measure of one’s self-control, thus carrying significant implications for an individual. Despite a large body of research that has been amassed on this topic, a complete picture of how self-control dilemmas are processed and resolved still eludes us. In the present research, we bring attention to a largely unexplored aspect of self-control, the role of self-concept in shaping self-control efforts. We combined surveys, hypothetical scenarios, and experience sampling data …

The Icarus Paradox: Examining The Gender Bias In Leader Transgression, Pratibha Deepak

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the growing interest in leader transgressions due to their profound impact on organizations and their members, the boundary conditions influencing them remain unexplored. Consequently, this dissertation investigates the differential evaluation of leader transgressions based on such boundary conditions, focusing on the interaction between transgression type (integrity vs. competence), leader gender (female vs. male), and hierarchical status (supervisor vs. senior leader). Utilizing theoretical foundations from causal attribution theory, shifting standards, expectancy violation theory, and social identity theory, it is hypothesized that the impact of transgressions on organizational outcomes at multiple levels—including individual (perceived leader effectiveness), organizational (employee turnover intention), and …

The Dark Side Of Engagement: An Organizational Fairness Perspective, Katherine Naomi Rau

Theses and Dissertations

Employee engagement has long been regarded as a positive phenomenon for organizations and individuals. However, recent investigations into unintended, negative consequences of engagement have illuminated the potential “dark side” of engagement. This research applied an organizational fairness lens by investigating the relationship between engagement and psychological contract fulfillment to explain why engaged employees may experience emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions. Additionally, autotelic personality and job crafting were explored as potential mitigating factors in weakening the relationships between psychological contract breach and emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. While findings across two studies did not support the assertion that engagement was related …

Trust In Human-Agent Teams: A Multilevel Perspective And Future Research Agenda, Jessica L. Wildman, Daneil Nguyen, Amanda L. Thayer, Valerie T. Robbins-Roth, Meredith Carroll, Kendall Carmody, Cherrise Ficke, Mohammed Akib, Arianna Addis

Psychology Faculty Publications

As technology continues to advance, interest in how humans perceive and interact with autonomous agents has increased, spurring ample research within human-agent teams (HATs). However, the word team is a bit of a misnomer, in that much of this research has examined one human in relation to one agent. We extend the HAT literature by applying a multilevel lens to develop future research questions regarding trust in heterogeneous HATs. First, we assert that trust is an attitude that is multireferent, suggesting research should explore not just humans’ trust in agents, but many other perspectives such as agents’ trust in humans. …

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 …

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 …

Examining The Psychological Outcomes Of Decent Work: An Extension Of The Psychology Of Working Theory, Zachary Hesson

Theses and Dissertations

Decent work (DW) has important implications for several aspects of people's lives. There is significant research on the societal implications of DW, but there is scant research on th e individual outcomes that are associated with DW. Using the psychology of working theory (PWT) as a theoretical framework, I explore d how access to DW can impact meaningful work ( and life satisfaction through satisfaction of different work needs as well as whether work orientation moderates the relationship s between work needs and these two outcome variables. More specifically, this thesis contribute s to our understanding of the implications of …

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Role Of Organization Segmentation Norms On Work-Family Enrichment, Engagement & Burnout, Sarah Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

Increased frequency of virtual work environments has changed the dynamics of boundary management decisions for employees and underscored the importance of organizations being aware and purposeful of how their norms will impact their employees. The goal of this study was to a) understand how organizations norms towards segmentation impact employee burnout, engagement, and enrichment, and b) how segmentation preferences, job demands, and job crafting strengthen these relationships. Two samples of participants were recruited from a mental health organization (N = 73) and mTurk (N = 80) to complete surveys on the variables for the study. Organizations with a norm for …

Affiliative And Challenging Prosocial Behavior: Exploring Why And When Through The Lens Of Self-Construal, Vanessa Melendez

Theses and Dissertations

Prosocial behavior yields important benefits for both employees and organizations. This research was designed to extend our understanding of the antecedents of prosocial behavior by focusing on self-construal. Specifically, this study investigates (a) the distinction between affiliative and challenging forms of prosocial behavior and how these relate to self-concept orientations (SCOs), (b) workplace affective commitment variables (workgroup commitment and organizational commitment) and motives (prosocial values and organizational concern) as potential mediators, and (c) independent self-construal as a potential moderator of the link between interdependent SCOs and affective and motivational mediators. The study involved 205 full-time workers completing two Qualtrics surveys …

Am I Committed Or Conflicted? Examining Implications Of Self-Concept Structure For Self-Regulation, Well-Being, And Performance, Nicholas Aaron Moon

Theses and Dissertations

Although research on self-concept is extensive, few studies have examined the relationship between specific aspects of self-concept structure (e.g., self-concept clarity) and self-regulation constructs (e.g., goal commitment). In addition, research has linked aspects of self-concept structure with well-being outcomes, but less is known about the mechanisms involved in these relationships. This research addresses these two issues by examining self-concept structure (self-concept clarity and self-concept differentiation) as antecedents of key self-regulatory mechanisms (goal commitment and goal conflict) and how these linkages may help explain connections between self-concept structure and well-being and performance. More specifically, two studies examined these relationships, with Study …

The Influence Of Benevolent Sexism In Teams: A Team Composition And Attribute Alignment Approach, Catherine Warren

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have long struggled with harnessing the benefits accompanying diversity, such as increased knowledge sharing and the diverse expertise of individuals. One barrier that hinders taking advantage of such diversity is discrimination, such as sexism. Indeed, evidence has indicated that subtle sexism, compared to overt sexism, has a similar magnitude in impacting workplace outcomes. Additionally, teams are ubiquitous in organizations with the increase in complex taskwork, requiring a set of individuals to collaborate and produce outcomes greater than each individual effort. Accordingly, teamwork requires close, interdependent relationships for optimal performance. The purpose of this study was to assess a prevalent …

Do Women See Leadership As Risky? The Potential Role Of Stereotypes And The Perception Of Risk In Claiming A Leader Identity, Julia Macgregor-Peralta

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine if women perceive leadership as riskier than men do, and whether that could be holding women back. Specifically, this study investigated the influence of gender and leadership views on the development of leader identity and the role that perception of risk of leadership plays. Role Congruity Theory of Leadership, Lack of Fit, and Adaptive Leadership Theory were used as theoretical frameworks in this cross-sectional study using 2022 archival data. Participants were undergraduate and graduate students from five different universities in the United States. Leader role alignment (LRA), which is the congruence between …

The Future Of Socialization: Linking Socialization To Employee Engagement, Alexander Michael Dechurch

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between socialization and engagement. In doing so this study investigates and measures the impact that social integration, task mastery, autonomy, role clarity, satisfaction with socialization, job embeddedness, network characteristics, network capital, and online socialization have in linking socialization to engagement. The sample for this study utilized data from Amazon Mechanical Turk. The results suggest that institutionalized socialization tactics relate to higher reported engagement. In addition, social integration, autonomy, job embeddedness, network strength, and network capital each play a significant role in the observed relationship

The Relationship Between Self-Rated Circumplex Traits And Other-Rated Job Performance, Michael Robert Sawdy

Theses and Dissertations

The Big Five has emerged as the dominant personality model in the researcher literature (Judge & Bono, 2000), yet there is still debate about how personality should be modeled within the Big Five framework as well as which personality traits relate most strongly to important outcomes across domains (DeYoung et al., 2007; Digman, 1997; Hofstee et al., 1992; Judge et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to compare complex personality traits as defined by the circumplex personality approach to simple, hierarchical personality traits as defined by the standard personality model approach in relation to other-rated job performance. Overall, …

Exploring Factors That Influence Disagreements In Self-Other Ratings In 360-Degree Feedback Systems, Robert Allen Miller

Theses and Dissertations

360-degree feedback systems are some of the most widely used ratings systems in organizations today. The current study examined the use of 360-degree feedback systems as a method for capturing job performance in organizations and the challenges associated with accuracy in ratings due to individual differences in perception. The study investigated the links between self-other rating tendencies and narrow facets of personality and examined how an individual’s personality affects self- and other-ratings of their performance behaviors. The findings suggest that various aspects of personality differentially affect both self- and other-ratings of performance, providing a deeper understanding of how individual differences …

The Language Of Recruitment: How Minority Status, Racial Minority Centrality, & Linguistic Cues Impact Applicant Perceptions, Clark Waters

Theses and Dissertations

As color-blindness, the intentional denial of racial differences, continues to occupy corporate policy, expressions and consequences of modern racism in the workplace remain pervasive. Color-blind attitudes can be harmful due to their focus on perceived equality, at the expense of actionable, functional equity. Establishing a culture of racial equity in the workplace requires an understanding of how the language used to discuss race can impact potential applicants’ opinions of the company. To attract a diverse pool of job applicants, the language of recruitment is of particular importance in the current study. Using a vignette-style survey design, a diverse sample of …