Ethical conflict: Conceptualization, measurement, and an examination of consequences.

Previous research on workplace conflict has focused on disagreements about work tasks, processes, and personal relationships. However, conflicts often involve matters of right and wrong; yet, ethical conflict is notably absent from the literature. Informed by moral convictions theory, we introduce the construct of ethical conflict, create and validate a measure of it, and explore its unique effects on workplace outcomes. Ultimately, we find that ethical conflict is a double-edged sword: It is negatively associated with team dynamics (i.e., decreased satisfaction with group, group viability, group cohesion, group psychological safety; increased negative emotions; and perceived goal difficulty) as well as group performance on a non-ethics-related task, but positively related to moral cognition (i.e., moral awareness and moral identity accessibility) and elaboration of information and perspectives during group ethical decision making. Overall, our studies provide a conceptual and empirical foundation for the future research on ethical conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Daily engagement and productivity: The importance of the speed of engagement.

People often drag their feet getting started at work each morning, with a rather unclear sense of the implications on their daily productivity. Drawing on boundary transitions theory as a conceptual lens, we introduce and investigate the concept of the speed of engagement-the quickness with which an employee becomes focused and energized upon beginning work. We explore the productivity implications of this phenomenon, as well as the psychological processes people use to capitalize on a quick transition to work. Two experience sampling field studies-one of which featured a within-person field experiment testing the efficacy of two interventions we designed for use on employees' smartphones-support our theorizing. Our findings highlight the importance of the speed of engagement-over and above the level of engagement-for daily productivity levels. They also reveal that simple proactive steps to psychologically disengage from home or reattach to work increase the speed of engagement and lead to more productive days at work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The cost of being ignored: Emotional exhaustion in the work and family domains.

Building on the work-home resources model and crossover theory, we investigated how workplace ostracism both spills over and crosses over to emotional exhaustion for both the ostracism target and his or her spouse. We examine whether this occurs through the linking mechanisms of personal resources, specifically the target's positive mood and psychological distress. We draw on the work-home resources model and crossover theory to explain how being ostracized at work is damaging to the target of that ostracism and has implications for the target's life outside of work as well as for his or her spouse. Using longitudinal data from 3 separate points in time with a sample of 350 matched targets and their spouses, we examined how workplace ostracism flowed through positive mood and psychological distress to impact the target's job and family emotional exhaustion. Decreases in positive mood explained why workplace ostracism affected job emotional exhaustion, whereas increased psychological distress explained its crossover effect on family emotional exhaustion. Further, a crossover effect existed on spouses' family emotional exhaustion, and was explained by the target's increased psychological distress and family undermining behavior. Implications for research and practice are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Meaningfulness misfit: Consequences of daily meaningful work needs-supplies incongruence for daily engagement.

There is a general consensus that meaningful work is a positive attribute-at a general level, it attracts people to jobs and motivates positive outcomes. Yet, at the same time that organizations are focusing their attention on providing employees with greater meaning, day-to-day engagement of employees has been trending downward. In this study, we challenge several prevailing assumptions in the literature to suggest that, even though meaningful work is generally a sought after and desirable characteristic in a job, employees' daily experiences with their work present a more complex picture. Based on the idea that employees' construals of their daily experiences are more granular than those associated with their overall experiences, we use a person-environment fit lens to explore the idea that mismatches between meaningful work received and meaningful work needed on a given day may lead to lower engagement, both in situations of deficiency and excess. Based on a daily within-person examination, we found that although meaningfulness positively influenced daily engagement through increased attentiveness, both too little and too much meaningful work was fatiguing, reducing engagement levels. Combined, these findings suggest that the relationship between meaningful work and engagement is somewhat different depending on whether it is considered between-persons or within-person. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Third parties' reactions to the abusive supervision of coworkers.

This research examines 3rd parties' reactions to the abusive supervision of a coworker. Reactions were theorized to depend on 3rd parties' beliefs about the targeted coworker and, specifically, whether the target of abuse was considered deserving of mistreatment. We predicted that 3rd parties would experience anger when targets of abuse were considered undeserving of mistreatment; angered 3rd parties would then be motivated to harm the abusive supervisor and support the targeted coworker. Conversely, we predicted that 3rd parties would experience contentment when targets of abuse were considered deserving of mistreatment; contented 3rd parties would then be motivated to exclude the targeted coworker. Additionally, we predicted that 3rd parties' moral identity would moderate the effects of 3rd parties' experienced emotions on their behavioral reactions, such that a strong moral identity would strengthen ethical behavior (i.e., coworker support) and weaken harmful behavior (i.e., supervisor-directed deviance, coworker exclusion). Moderated mediation results supported the predictions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Human ß-defensin 3 induces STAT1 phosphorylation, tyrosine phosphatase activity, and cytokine synthesis in T cells.

The AMP hBD-3 stimulates numerous immune effector functions in myeloid cells and keratinocytes, predominantly through the MAPK signaling cascade. In contrast, hBD-3 was reported to neutralize the activation of T cells by antagonizing MAPK signaling initiated by SDF-1α through CXCR4. With the use of complementary proteomic and immunochemical approaches, we investigated possible stimulatory effects of hBD-3 on T cells and demonstrate that hBD-3 induces STAT1 tyrosine phosphorylation within 5 min yet is unable to induce MAPK activation. Inclusion of a PTPase inhibitor increased hBD-3-induced phosphorylation dramatically, suggesting that hBD-3 also stimulates PTPase activity concurrently. The increase in PTPase activity was confirmed by demonstrating that hBD-3 suppresses IFN-γ-induced STAT1 tyrosine phosphorylation but not STAT1 serine and ERK1/2 threonine phosphorylation and stimulates the translocation of SHP-2 into the nucleus within 15 min. The signaling pathways initiated by hBD-3 may lead to the observed enhancement of distinct T cell effector functions during TCR activation, such as the increase in IL-2 and IL-10, but not IFN-γ secretion. Thus, hBD-3 initiates distinct lineage-specific signaling cascades in various cells involved in host defense and induces a concurrent tyrosine kinase and tyrosine phosphatase signaling cascade that may activate simultaneously the targeted T cells and inhibit their response to other immune mediators. Furthermore, these results suggest that this evolutionarily conserved peptide, which exhibits a broad spectrum of antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities, serves to integrate innate and adaptive immunity.

Human ß-defensin 3 peptide is increased and redistributed in Crohn's ileitis.

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) maintain a sterile environment in intestinal crypts, limiting microbial colonization and invasion. Decreased AMP expression is proposed to increase the risk for inflammatory bowel disease. Expression and function of inducible AMPs, human ß-defensin 2 and 3 (hBD-2 and hBD-3), remain poorly characterized in healthy and chronically inflamed intestine. METHODS: Peptide concentrations of hBD-2 and hBD-3 in serum and intestinal biopsies of subjects with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease (CD), and those of healthy subjects were measured by ELISA. Messenger RNA of hBD-2 and hBD-3 was quantified by quantitative PCR in biopsies from the terminal ileum (TI) of patients with CD and healthy controls. Peptide localization of hBD-3 in the TI was visualized by confocal microscopy. RESULTS: Immunoreactive hBD-3 peptide is present in the TI and colon in healthy subjects. In the TI of patients with CD, hBD-3, but not hBD-2 peptide, is increased 4-fold, whereas hBD-2 peptide is elevated in the serum. Messenger RNA of hBD-3 in the CD TI remains unchanged and does not correlate with hBD-3 peptide expression. However, hBD-3 is localized to Paneth cell granules and the apical surface of the healthy columnar epithelium. In CD, hBD-3 peptide location switches to the basolateral surface of the columnar epithelium and is diffusely distributed within the lamina propria. CONCLUSION: The peptide hBD-3 throughout the healthy gastrointestinal tract suggests a role in maintaining balance between host defenses and commensal microbiota. Increased and relocalized secretion of hBD-3 toward the lamina propria in the CD TI indicates possible local immunomodulation during chronic inflammation, whereas increased serum hBD-2 in CD implicates its systemic antimicrobial and immunomodulatory role.