Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

Leadership Coaching And The “Mad Major”, Ray Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Interested in gaining some valuable lessons for leaders and leadership coaches to add to your repertoire? Want to further express your curiosity and explore the opportunity to learn more about leadership and leadership coaching from a very unusual, non-academic and very iconoclastic source? If so, this article may be for you. This commentary is essentially the abbreviated story of a single-minded, highly dedicated leader’s lifelong quest to bring needed change to a very large narrow-minded bureaucratic organization. It will briefly explore the strategy-infused approach of one of the most controversial and little known figures in modern military history. This individual …

Reshaping Resilience Mental Health Challenges In Post-Pandemic Students And Workforce Readiness, Ryan Potts, Tarandeep Kaur Arora, Susan Miller, Julia Ann Boyd Dr.

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on mental health, especially on college students, who faced disruptions to their education and social environments. This study explores the mental health effects of the pandemic on students at Murray State University, focusing on changes in anxiety, depression, relationships, and academic performance. Using survey data collected from students in Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and the Nursing Program, the study aims to understand the trends across pre-pandemic, during-pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. The findings show a significant increase in anxiety and depression during the pandemic, with effects lasting post-pandemic, alongside differences in how students …

A Monte Carlo Study Of The Efficacy Of The Mantel-Haenszel Method At Detecting Item Bias, Macy Daulton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Mantel-Haenszel (MH) method is a statistical method used for differential item functioning analysis. Previous differential item functioning (DIF) research of the MH method focused on Type I error rates and statistical power. Not yet studied in the literature is whether excessive numbers of biased items may cause the MH method to fail to identify biased items. The proposed study employed a Monte Carlo design to determine the extent of bias in the match items necessary for the MH method to fail to identify a biased item. Results showed that the threshold was greater than was hypothesized, requiring nearly all …

Off The Clock But Still At Work: Investigating The Relationship Between Workplace Incivility And Behavioral Disengagement, Doug Brown

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis investigated the relationship between workplace incivility and behavioral disengagement, using emotional appraisal as a mediating factor. Data was collected through a survey method via Prolific. Using the transactional model of stress, I hypothesized that experienced incivility will be positively associated with behavioral disengagement as a coping mechanism. Additionally, I hypothesized that emotional appraisal would mediate the relationship between experienced workplace incivility and behavioral disengagement. By using a mediation model to test these hypotheses I aim to increase the understanding of workplace incivility and its negative impacts on individuals and the workplace as a whole. Results of the study …

Examining Antecedents Of Diversity Initiative Fatigue: A Moderatedmediation Model, Anne Simpson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis investigates the relationships between bias awareness, motivation to respond without prejudice, racialized attitudes, and diversity initiative fatigue (DIF) among employees within an academic setting, specifically focusing on faculty and staff at Western Kentucky University. Data were collected through a survey-based approach to measure these constructs and assess their relationships. This study hypothesized that bias awareness negatively correlates with DIF and motivation to respond without prejudice mediating this relationship. Furthermore, the research examines how racialized attitudes moderate the relationship between bias awareness and motivation to respond without prejudice. By examining these relationships using a moderated mediation model, the study …

Expanding On The Relationship Between Incivility And Resource Depletion: Examining Race And Personal Tolerance For Mistreatment As Moderators, Aishwarya Kurmar

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Workplace incivility is ubiquitous, regularly impacting working adults. Through the framework of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, I examined the relationship between workplace incivility and resource depletion using daily diary methodology. Workplace incivility negatively impacts employee outcomes at the organizational and individual level. As such, it was hypothesized that workplace incivility would have a positive correlation with increased resource depletion, measured as psychological fatigue. Under selective incivility theory, disenfranchised groups face increased instances of incivility. Following this theory, non-whites were hypothesized to experience a greater association between workplace incivility and resource depletion. Additionally, an individual’s personal tolerance of mistreatment for …

Social Comparison And Pressure: Examining The Roles Of Sex And Rank, Ashley East

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Faculty in academia face intense competition and growing expectations, often shaped by perceptions of others’ performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these dynamics were magnified, making social comparison a critical factor in understanding academic workplace pressures. The purpose of this study is to examine the changing work pressures and social comparison tendencies among academics during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hypothesized that social comparison tendencies will be positively related to time pressure (H1a) and telepressure (H1b), with moderation by sex (H2a and H2b) and organizational rank (H3a and H3b). Using a panel survey of 197 tenure-track and tenured faculty members in …

The Association Between The Multidimensional Evaluation Of Attitudes Toward Security Recommendations And The Intention Of Following Those Recommendations, Miguel A. Toro-Jarrin, Pilar Pazos, Miguel A. Padilla

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This study focused on the attitudes toward security recommendations as determinants of compliance with these recommendations in the workplace. It aimed to determine whether attitudes toward an overall concept (security recommendations in organizations) are associated with Information Security (IS) actions. We also examined the relationship between various dimensions of attitudes toward security recommendations and IS actions that follow these recommendations. We conducted a national survey of American workers. Six hundred and eighty-two responses were retained. We also collected demographic data to explore their moderating role in the relation between predictors and IS action-intention. The survey included four workplace scenarios and …

Flexing The Frame: Training Abstract, Concrete, And Ambidextrous Thinking To Improve Creativity Across Leadership Styles, Sampoorna Nandi

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

This study examined whether training individuals in abstract, concrete, or ambidextrous construal-level thinking strategies enhances creative performance and whether the effectiveness of such training is moderated by leadership style within an aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) framework. Drawing on Construal Level Theory (CLT), participants (N = 235 undergraduate students) were randomly assigned to one of four training conditions and completed a low-fidelity planning task designed to assess creativity across three dimensions: originality, quality, and elegance. Results indicated that ambidexterity training—designed to promote flexible shifting between abstract and concrete thinking—significantly improved performance across all creativity dimensions, outperforming concrete and control (but not …

Parsimony, Parallelism, And Presentation: The Impact Of Presentation On Evaluation, Peter Mclemore

Psychology Theses - Archive

In professional and academic settings, support for creative ideas often hinges on how effectively those ideas are communicated in writing. This study examined how two sentence-level rhetorical features—parsimony and parallelism—influence the evaluation, support, and recall of written proposals featuring creative restaurant concepts. Using a 2×2 within-subjects design, 211 undergraduates reviewed proposals manipulated to vary in parsimony (high vs. low) and parallelism (high vs. low). Participants rated each proposal on quality, originality, elegance, support, and completed a recall task. Contrary to expectations, proposals with low parsimony and low parallelism received the highest evaluations across all three creative indicators (i.e., quality, originality, …

The Moderating Role Of Personality In The Relationship Between Cognitive Ability And Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Sarah Jacobsen

Theses and Dissertations

Counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) are negative behaviors that detract from an organization’s goals and cause harm to the organization and to those involved. The current study investigated cognitive ability and personality as predictors of CWB and explored a moderating role of personality on the cognitive ability-CWB relationship. The results found no significant relationships for cognitive ability and personality with self-reported CWBs. Additionally, personality did not moderate the cognitive ability-CWB relationship. An exploratory analysis revealed significant relationships between personality and supervisor-rated CWBs, but no significant relationship for cognitive ability nor significant cognitive ability-personality interactions were found. The current study challenged previous …

Exploring Factors Influencing Posttraumatic Growth Among Nurses: A Path Analysis, Shinhi Han, Hee Sun Kang, Koun Eum, Kathleen Karsten, Faith Armstrong

Publications and Research

Introduction: Persistent exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic has subjected frontline nurses to heightened levels of collective traumatic syndromes, including stress, burnout, and emotional distress. Resilience and self-compassion may serve as protective factors in mitigating stress and burnout stemming from the pandemic. Moreover, these factors may contribute to posttraumatic growth (PTG), which has been recognized as a potential outcome for nurses caring for patients. This study aimed to investigate the factors contributing to PTG among registered nurses, with perceived stress, burnout, resilience, and self-compassion.

Methods: This cross-sectional observational survey used convenience sampling with 228 registered nurses from New York. Data were …

Alert During What? Beyond The "Big O" To A Culturally-Cognizant, Process View Of Entrepreneurial Alertness, Robert J. Pidduck, Daniel R. Clark

Management Faculty Publications

Entrepreneurial alertness is a psychological aptitude generally associated with aspects of nascent venturing, centered on individuals' environmental observations, the association of resources, and idea evaluation. A decade following the Tang et al. (2012) consensus construct and scale, critiques remain questioning its utility and unique value to the major conversations in entrepreneurship. Proponents put great emphasis on entrepreneurial alertness's proven association with opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial actions. Yet, critics suggest it might be an unnecessary step offering little more than a positive association with opportunity recognition in a highly generalized and static way. The purpose of this paper is to address …

Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation: Scale Development And Validation, Daniel R. Clark, Jeffrey G. Covin, Robert J. Pidduck

Management Faculty Publications

Recent research introduced and laid the foundation for a new individual-level entrepreneurial orientation conceptualization (Ind.EO) within the entrepreneurial orientation family of constructs. Building directly from this work, this article theoretically defines a measurement model for the construct and develops and validates a scale. We define and measure disposition-based behavior constructs for autonomy, competitiveness, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking, thus providing psychometrically validated tools that support research in the burgeoning Ind.EO domain. Scale items are generated deductively from our definitions, and then tested through four data collections with academics, the lay population, entrepreneurs, and business managers. Strong validation data across these multiple …

Exploring Coworker Perceptions Of And Reactions To Quiet Quitting, Andrew A. Bennett, Rhett T. Epler, Veronica L. Thomas, Daroon Jalil

Management Faculty Publications

Quiet quitting is a relatively new phenomenon that has quickly caught the attention of both practitioners and academics. With the world of work becoming increasingly interconnected, we contribute to the discourse by approaching quiet quitting from the novel perspective of understanding how others in the workplace perceive those who engage in quiet quitting. To do so, we first provide a formalized definition of quiet quitting and differentiate coworkers' perceptions of quiet quitting from similar psychological constructs (Studies 1–3). We then examine employee responses to coworkers engaging in quiet quitting with a qualitative study (Study 4) and vignette design (Study 5), …

Supervisor Support And Job Satisfaction: The Mediating Roles Of Work-Life Balance And Perceived Employability With Gender As A Moderator, Tori Lomelino

Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction, offering work-life balance and perceived employability as key mechanisms through which this relationship occurs. It also explored gender differences in the relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction, and perceived employability and job satisfaction. Participants were full-time employees in the U.S, recruited via Prolific, who completed an online survey. While supervisor support was found to have positively influenced job satisfaction through perceived employability, the role of work-life balance was less clear. Interaction effects including gender were not significant. This study highlights the significant role of perceived employability as a …

Influence Of Time Pressure And Flood Information Type On Flood Alert Effectiveness In Driving, Katherine R. Garcia, Scott Mishler, Jing Chen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Flood alerts are a means of risk communication that alerts the public to potential floods. The purpose of this research was to investigate factors that affected drivers' understanding and actions given a flood presented through a mobile navigation application. Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of time pressure and type of flood information on drivers' planned actions when faced with potential flooding. Participants were asked about their planned actions given one type of flood information in a driving scenario either with or without time pressure. Our results indicated significant differences in participants' behaviors across the different flood information …

Exploring Neurodiversity & The Role Of Flexible Workplaces For Organizational Neuroinclusion, Miranda Chen

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis conducted a thorough literature review on the experiences and outcomes of neurodiverse individuals in the workplace and found consistently lower outcomes in well-being, work performance, intention to leave, and job satisfaction compared to neurotypical workers. It examined how the emergence of remote work presents new opportunities for mitigating some workplace challenges around stress and sensory overload, while recognizing that remote work alone falls short as being a definitive solution for the unique challenges faced by neurodiverse people. Instead, it argued for Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA’s) as a comprehensive and systemic strategy to address individual needs and organizational inclusion, …

The Interplay Of Gender And Humor In The Workplace, Charlene Marie Baghdadi

CMC Senior Theses

Humor is a key element in workplace dynamics, influencing leadership, team cohesion, and career advancement. However, its impact is not equal among genders. This paper explores the interplay between humor and gender in professional settings, examining how different types of humor – positive (affiliative, self-enhancing, coping sense of humor) and negative (aggressive, self-defeating) – are perceived and used by men and women. Specifically, it investigates how gender and team composition moderate the relationship between types of humor and workplace outcomes, with gender stereotypes acting as a mediator. This analysis highlights that men often benefit from a broader acceptance of humor …

Fortifying Nuclear Security: Cultivating Vigilance Culture Among Personnel For Enhanced Prevention And Response, Sabariah Kader Ibrahim, Sonia Naz

International Journal of Nuclear Security

A vigorous nuclear security culture is crucial in preventing the theft and sabotage of nuclear material. It requires vigilance from all employees because relying solely on closed-circuit television systems and security personnel is insufficient to deter potential threats. Employee attentiveness plays a vital role in recognizing and preventing suspicious activities. However, achieving a strong security culture is challenging because of the lack of incidents in some facilities, leading to employee complacency.

This paper highlights the pivotal role of personnel in the success of nuclear security measures, emphasizing the need for a proactive and vigilant mindset among staff. Through the analysis …