Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

Seriously Though... Is Positive Workplace Humor A Help Or A Hindrance?: The Impact Of Coworker-Employee Humor Interactions On Employee Well-Being And Effectiveness, Mary Sierra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence and importance of humor in the workplace has been well-documented over the past several decades, with research consistently revealing its significant impact on employee well-being and effectiveness. During this same time period, organizations worldwide have begun embracing team-based work designs as a means for achieving success. As a result, the degree to which employees are engaging in both frequent and intensive interactions with their coworkers is rapidly increasing. Despite these trends, little research has been dedicated to investigating the ways in which employees’ well-being and effectiveness are influenced by the humor of their coworkers or the ways in …

The Measurement Of Motivation: Examining The Measurement Properties Of The Motivation Assessment System, Daniel Schmerling

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated the Pritchard-Ashwood (P-A) Theory of Motivation (Pritchard & Ashwood, 2008) by examining a measure of P-A Theory labeled the Motivation Assessment System (MAS). P-A Theory combines prior motivation theories such as expectancy theory, goal setting theory, justice theory, and needs theory and consolidates them into one integrated theory of motivation. In essence, P-A theory posits that one’s motivation is determined by four perceptions, including the extent to which one believes: (a) his/her actions will lead to results, (b) his/her results will lead to positive evaluations, (c) his/her evaluations will lead to positive outcomes, and (d) his/her …

Examining Generational Differences Across Organizational Factors That Relate To Turnover, Kimberly Asuncion

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Turnover continues to pose a problem for all organizations across industries. This study examines the complex nature of turnover, by examining the relationship of turnover intentions with perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, growth opportunities, and recognition across age groups. Age groups will be used as a proxy for generational cohort membership. Results of the study confirm previous research that generational differences do exist; however, those differences are fairly small. Perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, growth opportunities, and recognition were found to be significant predictors of turnover intentions regardless of the age group.

Actions, Practices, And Workplace Conditions That Characterize High-Engagement Workgroups In A Hospital Environment, Barbette Weimer-Elder

Dissertations

In the United States a large number of people are not engaged at work. The lack of engagement affects the service outcomes as well as financial bottom line of organizations. The cost of actively disengaged employees in the U.S. is about $300 billion a year. Research cites the importance of examining business units that scored high on employee engagement to learn about actions and practices that drive business outcomes.

Between 2005-2010 The Community Hospital (TCH), part of a Healthcare Corporation in Valley Town, USA (pseudonym), assessed employee engagement using Gallup’s Q12 survey. Some groups scored in the top quartile and …

Incorporating I-O Into An Introductory Psychology Course: A New Set Of Custom Modules By The Education And Training Committee, Joseph A. Allen

Psychology Faculty Publications

One concern that SIOP members often express at conferences and other gatherings of I-O psychologists is the general lack of visibility of I-O among the majority of the undergraduate students in psychology. Although interest in I-O psychology has grown among students, very few introductory psychology textbooks cover the topic. In an effort to address this concern, Mikki Hebl, the former Education and Training Committee Chair, invited a subcommittee composed of committee members and others who have expertise in undergraduate education to develop “shovel-ready” modules that introduce I-O topics to an introductory psychology audience. Those responsible for preparing the modules include …

Emergent Features And Perceptual Objects: A Reexamination Of Fundamental Principles In Display Design, Jerred Charles Holt

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Objective: Our purpose was to discuss alternative principles of design (emergent features and perceptual objects) for analogical visual displays, to evaluate the utility of four different displays for a system state identification task, and to compare outcomes to predictions derived from the design principles. Background: An interpretation of previous empirical findings for three displays (bar graph, polar graphic, alpha-numeric) is provided from an emergent features perspective. A fourth display (configural coordinate) was designed to leverage powerful perception-action skills using principles of cognitive systems engineering / ecological interface design (i.e., direct perception). Methods: An experiment was conducted to evaluate these four …

Heuristics: Bias Vs. Smart Instrument. An Exploration Of The Hot Hand, Jehangir Cooper

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Classical perspectives on judgment and rationality view heuristics as erroneous, leading to suboptimal judgments. Conversely, ecological perspectives view heuristics as smart mechanisms that result in good judgments in the face of uncertainty. Our research focused on the hot hand heuristic and examined it using non-linear analysis methods. This research attempted to answer two questions. The first question concerned the applicability of frequency analysis methods for detecting constraints (such as the hot hand) or structure in a time series of binary data, which we attempted to investigate through Monte Carlo simulations. We found that this method was sensitive enough to detect …

Flash Lag Effect Model Discrimination, Stephen R. Gabbard

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The purpose of this study was to test the various models describing the Flash Lag Effect (FLE). Beginning with the initial work of Nijhawan (1994), several models have emerged endeavoring to explain the FLE (e.g., Eagleman & Sejnowski, 2000; Whitney, 2000; Baldo & Caticha, 2005). Two series of studies comprising 11 separate experiments were undertaken to differentiate these models, with a particular focus on the neural network model of Baldo and Caticha (2005). The experiments included the three primary FLE experimental paradigms: continuous motion (CM), flash-initiated (FIC) and flash-terminated (FTC). Ninety-three participants made observations in these three paradigms using a …

The Effects Of The Proportion Of Women In A Work Role And Tenure On Performance, Kathryn Gabrielle Van Dixhorn

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Token theory (Kanter, 1977) suggests that being a token individual in an organization can cause that individual to experience discrimination, increased pressure to perform, isolation from the majority group, negative stereotyping, and can interfere with performance. The purpose of this research was to determine if varying percentages of females in a work role do indeed influence the likelihood that these negative outcomes will occur by using performance data from an applied sample. By using both supervisor ratings and objective sales figures from a sales organization, this research filled a gap in the current research, in which token theory is often …

Job Crafting: The Pursuit Of Happiness At Work, Cristina D. Kirkendall

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Traditional job satisfaction theories focus on either environmental causes or stable underlying personality characteristics as determinants of job satisfaction, giving very little attention to the possibility that employees may be able to affect their own job satisfaction levels. Recent research on job crafting, however, has provided a source of optimism for changing job satisfaction levels. Job crafting is the processes by which employees actively shape their job to fit their individual needs and unlike the traditional models, it offers hope to those employees that work in a dissatisfying environment or whose personalities may not predispose them to high job satisfaction. …

Impact Of Binaural Beat Technology On Vigilance Task Performance, Psychological Stress And Mental Workload, Elizabeth Ann Shoda

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Currently, there is only one published study examining the impact of binaural beats on the performance of a laboratory vigilance task, however this study had mixed results and left many questions unanswered. I further examined this phenomenon by using a successive vigilance task, between-subjects design, and a control condition to determine whether beta frequency binaural beats could affect vigilance performance over time and across conditions. I hypothesized that participants listening to beta binaural beats would have more hits and fewer misses on the vigilance task than participants in the control condition. In addition, I hypothesized that participants listening to beta …

The Effects Of Multicollinearity In Multilevel Models, Patrick Carl Clark Jr.

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This study examined a method for calculating the impact of multicollinearity on multilevel modeling. The major research questions concerned a) how the simulation design factors affect (multilevel variance inflation factor) MVIF, b) how MVIF affects standard errors of regression coefficients, and c) how MVIF affects significance of regression coefficients. Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to address these questions. Predictor relationships were manipulated in order to simulate multicollinearity. Findings indicate that a) increases in relationships among Level 1 predictors and also relationships among Level 2 predictors led to increased MVIF for those specific variables, b) as MVIF increases for a predictor, …

Spatialized Audio And Landmarks In Team Navigation, Andrew Hampton

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Using data collected from a prior study that established the benefit of spatialized audio on team navigation, the current paper examines the underlying mechanisms by which that benefit arose. With linguistic measures extracted from trial transcripts, I study emergent patterns of conversation for four dyads as they attempt to rendezvous in an immersive virtual environment. Spatialized audio is compared to landmarks, traditionally viewed as integral to navigation tasks, on the basis of coordination and strategy. Analyses reveal that spatialized audio creates a decreased need to speak overall. Paired with the performance advantage, this creates a more linguistically efficient task structure. …

Personality's Influence On Burnout: An Unfinished Puzzle, David Andrew Periard

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This study examines the relationship between emotional exhaustion-the main component of burnout-and several facets of the Big Five Factors of personality. Previous research has found small relationships between the Big Five Factors and emotional exhaustion. I hypothesized that the facets of trust, cooperation, orderliness, and self-discipline will have curvilinear relationships with emotional exhaustion. The facets of vulnerability and depression were also hypothesized to moderate the curvilinear relationships between orderliness and self-discipline and emotional exhaustion. Regression analyses only found a curvilinear relationship between order and personal burnout when vulnerability was controlled for. A significant quadratic-by-linear interaction was found between order and …

Recruitment Discrimination Against Middle Eastern People In Western Australia : The Case Of Accountants, Tiny Pinkerton

Theses : Honours

The population of all Western countries are ageing and humanitarian efforts saw increasing numbers of people from Middle Eastern origin settle in Australia. Whilst older people are encouraged to remain in paid employment longer, it is not clear whether Middle Eastern people and the older population are as readily hired as are Anglo Australians and the younger population. Pairs of fictitious, unsolicited job applications were used to test for age and racial discrimination of Middle Eastern people in the Western Australian labour market. The study employed a 2 x 2 between subjects design with race (Anglo Australian and Middle Eastern) …

Individual Worker Level Attitudes Toward Empirically Supported Treatments, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Eugene Maguin Phd, Catherine N. Dulmus Phd, Bruce C. Nisbet

Brown School Faculty Publications

Objectives: There is a growing literature indicating that organizational and individual worker-level factors affect decisions about whether or not empirically-supported treatments (EST’s) are adopted within health care agencies. The purpose of this pilot study is to further investigate and measure worker’s attitudes within a community organization. Methods: A small organization participated in the study due to their diversity in services offered. Of the 92 workers eligible for participation in the study, 66 (72%) completed the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) survey. Results: Multivariate analyses revealed that female workers scored higher on both Openness and total score; workers with nursing, education …

Materials For Incorporating I/O Into An Introductory Psychology Course, Joseph A. Allen, Carrie Bulger, Chris Cunningham, Lisa Kath, Mike Horvath, Morrie Mullins, S. Tonidandel

Psychology Faculty Publications

The following materials were created by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) in an effort to produce some “shovel-ready” modules for incorporating I-O Psychology topics directly into Introductory Psychology courses. Although interest in I-O psychology has grown among students, very few introductory psychology textbooks cover the topic. Therefore, we have designed modules that correspond directly with the topics typically discussed in introductory psychology courses (e.g. Biopsychology in the workplace, Memory and Job Performance, etc.) that can be “cut-and-pasted” into already prepared lectures.

A Sequential Analysis Of Procedural Communication In Organizational Meetings: How Teams Facilitate Their Meetings, Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Joseph A. Allen, Simone Kauffeld

Psychology Faculty Publications

How do teams facilitate their own meetings? Unmanaged (or free) social interaction often leads to poor decision-making, unnecessary conformity, social loafing, and ineffective communication processes, practices, and products. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential benefits of procedural communication in team meetings. The role of procedural communication, defined as verbal behaviors that structure group discussion to facilitate goal accomplishment, was examined in 59 team meetings from 19 organizations. Meeting behaviors were videotaped and coded. Lag sequential analysis revealed that procedural meeting behaviors are sustained by supporting statements within the team interaction process. They promote proactive communication (e.g., …

Supportive Supervision And Resiliency Ohio - Accwic Training Curriculum, Atlantic Coast Child Welfare Implementation Center

Other QIC-WD Products

Purpose The International Federation of Coaches (ICF) defines coaching as: “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” “Coaching is highly focused on individuals designing their future – and that of their organization – and achieving excellence through setting personally and professionally challenging goals and committing to taking the actions necessary to achieve them” (Byrne, 2007). In the field of child welfare, coaching is being utilized in work situations, at all levels of the system, to focus on specific skills and abilities to reach specific outcomes, enhance performance and …

Unintentionally Unethical: How Uncivil Leaders Violate Norms And Hurt Group Performance, Christopher Coultas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Incivility is a common form of low-grade aggression that lacks a clear intent to harm, that violates community norms and values for interpersonal conduct, and is often chronic in nature (Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001). Because of its subtleties, it is difficult at times to detect and even more difficult to prevent. However, it is an essential phenomenon to research, due to its ubiquity and negative impact on worker outcomes such as job satisfaction and psychological health (Cortina et al., 2001). Incivility instigated by those in authority may be an even bigger problem, due to …