Perceived identity threat and organizational cynicism in the recursive relationship between psychological contract breach and counterproductive work behavior.

Counterproductive work behavior toward the organization (CWB-O) or supervisor (CWB-S) is commonly treated as a consequence of psychological contract breach (PCB). However, drawing from Self-Consistency Theory, the authors in this article argue that the PCB-CWB relationship is recursive through two mediating mechanisms: self-identity threat and organizational cynicism. Furthermore, the authors predict that the relationship between feelings of violation and CWB-O (or CWB-S) would depend on the extent to which the victim attributed blame to the organization (or supervisor). Using weekly and daily survey data, the study found that identity threat was a stronger mediator for recursive CWB-PCB relationships. Moreover, it was found that PCB related positively to violation feelings, which in turn related positively to CWB-O and CWB-S over time. As predicted, the former was moderated by organizational blame attributions, whereas the latter was moderated by supervisor blame attributions. The authors discuss the theoretical implications and propose novel practical implications based on these reciprocal findings.

Feeling stressed and depressed? A three-wave follow-up study of the beneficial effects of voluntary work.

While symptoms of stress are a major risk factor in the onset of depressive symptoms and major depression, a better understanding of intervening mechanisms in breaking down this positive association is urgently required. It is within this literature that we investigate (1) how symptoms of stress are associated with depressive symptoms and the onset of major depression, and (2) the buffering effect of hours spent on voluntary work on the stress-depression relationship. Using 3-wave longitudinal data, we estimated a direct and reverse auto-regressive path model. We found both cross-sectional and longitudinal support for the positive association between symptoms of stress and depressive symptoms. Next, we found that individuals who experienced more symptoms of stress at T1, T2, and T3 were 1.64 (95%CI [1.46;1.91]), 1.49 (95%CI [1.24;1.74]), and 1.40 (95%CI [1.21;1.60]) times more likely to be prescribed an anti-depression treatment at T3, respectively. Moreover, we found that the number of hours spent volunteering mitigated the (1) longitudinal-but not cross-sectional-stress-depression relationship, and (2) cross-sectional-but not the longitudinal-association between symptoms of stress at T3 and the likelihood of being prescribed an anti-depression treatment. These results point toward the pivotal role of voluntary work in reducing the development of depressive symptoms and major depression in relation to the experience of symptoms of stress.

The Relationship between Organizational Environment and Perpetrators' Physical and Psychological State: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study.

Although job-related work environment studies found associations to workplace bullying perpetration, little work with longitudinal designs has been conducted on broader organizational measures, which may help design effective interventions for perpetration. Using a three-wave longitudinal design and drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory, we investigated whether organizational trust and justice predicted perpetration six months later. The sample consisted of 2447 employees from Spain and Turkey from various industries, such as services, manufacturing, and education. We also investigated whether physical and psychological health explained the relationship between organizational trust, justice, and perpetration. The results indicated that, in three months, organizational justice negatively predicted psychological and physical health deterioration, while unexpectedly, organizational trust positively predicted the same. Health conditions did not predict perpetration, in three months, while organizational conditions did not predict perpetration directly or indirectly in six months. Assessing and improving organizational trust and justice practices may help employee health improve over time. As organizational trust, justice, and health status are significantly related to current perpetration incidents, assessments of these subjects may be instrumental in identifying possible current perpetration phenomena.

A Matter of Health? A 24-Week Daily and Weekly Diary Study on Workplace Bullying Perpetrators' Psychological and Physical Health.

Workplace bullying (WB) studies focusing on perpetrators are increasing. Many processes, events, circumstances and individual states are being studied to understand and inhibit what causes some employees to become perpetrators. Using a 24-week diary design and drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory, we investigated how sleep, physical activity (PA), and being bullied predicted perpetration on a within-level. On a between-level, we controlled for a supervisory position, psychological distress and mental illnesses over 38 employees from Spain and Turkey. Their average age was 38.84 years (SD = 11.75). They were from diverse sectors (15.8% in manufacturing, 15.8% in education, 13.2% in wholesale and retail trade, 13.2% in information and communication, 7.9% in health, 7.9% in other services and 26.3% from other sectors) with diverse professions such as finance manager, psychologist, graphic designer, academic, human resources professional, forensic doctor, IT and Administration head, municipality admin executive, waiter, and sales executives. Data collection was conducted over 24 consecutive work weeks, where only 31 participants were involved in perpetration (final observations = 720). We analyzed the data using multilevel structural equation modeling decomposed into within-and-between-person variance parts. The results indicated that on a within-level, PA as steps taken during the work week and being bullied positively predicted perpetration the same week, while sleep quality did not. By connecting sleep, physical exercise and WB literature, we draw attention to the health condition of perpetrators. Organizations should actively inhibit workplace bullying and be mindful of employees' physical activities at work or commuting to work. Managers should also be attentive to physical fatigue that employees may feel due to their responsibilities in their private lives and allow employees to rest and recuperate to inhibit negative behaviors at work.

Start Small, not Random: Why does Justifying your Time-Lag Matter?

Repeated measurement designs have been growing in popularity in the fields of Organizational Behavior and Work and Organizational Psychology. This brings up questions regarding the appropriateness of time-lag choices and validity of justification used to make time-lag decisions in the current literature. We start by explaining how time-lag choices are typically made and explain issues associated with these approaches. Next, we provide some insights into how an optimal time-lag decision should be made and the importance of time-sensitive theory building in helping guide these decisions. Finally, we end with some brief suggestions as to how authors can move forward by urging them to explicitly address temporal dynamics in their research, and by advocating for descriptive studies with short time-lags, which are needed to uncover how the changes happen over time.

Pain in the Developing Brain: Early Life Factors Alter Nociception and Neurobiological Function in Adolescent Rats.

Although adverse early experiences prime individuals to be at increased risk for chronic pain, little research has examined the trauma-pain relationship in early life or the underlying mechanisms that drive pathology over time. Given that early experiences can potentiate the nociceptive response, this study aimed to examine the effects of a high-fat, high-sugar (HFHS) diet and early life stress (maternal separation [MS]) on pain outcomes in male and female adolescent rats. Half of the rats also underwent a plantar-incision surgery to investigate how the pain system responded to a mildly painful stimuli in adolescence. Compared with controls, animals that were on the HFHS diet, experienced MS, or had exposure to both, exhibited increased anxiety-like behavior and altered thermal and mechanical nociception at baseline and following the surgery. Advanced magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated that the HFHS diet and MS altered the maturation of the brain, leading to changes in brain volume and diffusivity within the anterior cingulate, amygdala, corpus callosum, nucleus accumbens, and thalamus, while also modifying the integrity of the corticospinal tracts. The effects of MS and HFHS diet were often cumulative, producing exacerbated pain sensitivity and increased neurobiological change. As early experiences are modifiable, understanding their role in pain may provide targets for early intervention/prevention.

How psychological contract breach affects long-term mental and physical health: the longitudinal role of effort-reward imbalance.

This study contributes to the research of employee health and well-being by examining the longitudinal effects of psychological contract (PC) breach on employees' health. We integrate Social Exchange and Conservation of Resources theories to position effort-reward imbalance (ERI) as the mediating mechanism. We also assessed the moderating role of perceived job control as a boundary condition through which employees could prevent PC breach and ERI from adversely affecting their health. Using three-wave longitudinal survey data from 389 employees, we estimated a path model using each variable's growth parameters (intercept and slope). We found support for our hypotheses regarding stable effects; we found positive associations between PC breach and physical and mental health complaints and a need for recovery through ERI perceptions. We further tested employees' perceived control over the work environment as a boundary condition and found support for its role in attenuating the positive relationship between PC breach and ERI perceptions, but not for its moderating role in the ERI-health outcomes relationship. Our findings indicate that exposure to PC breach has a detrimental impact on employee health/well-being via perceptions of ERI and allow us to unravel one of the cognitive mechanisms leading to potential employee ill-health. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.

Examining changes in rodent temperament following repetitive mild traumatic brain injury in adolescence.

Mild traumatic brain injuries are known to cause a host of symptoms, including headaches, nausea, and depression, that when persistent, are known as postconcussive syndrome. In addition to these overt symptomologies, individuals may experience changes in day-to-day behavior or temperament, which although not meeting criteria for postconcussive diagnosis, does cause distress to the individual. The aim of this study was to determine whether we could measure temperament in a rat and, if so, determine whether temperament is altered in response to repetitive mild traumatic brain injuries (RmTBI). Forty male and female adolescent Sprague-Dawley rats were same-sex pair housed and subjected to RmTBIs or sham injuries. The rats were recorded at 6 different time points throughout the study for the temperament assessment protocol, a measure of the complex behavioral profile of each rat within its dyadic home cage environment. The temperaments were quantified via a novel behavioral scoring algorithm. The rats were also tested on a battery of tests that were designed to measure symptoms of postconcussion syndrome. We determined that rodent temperament is quantifiable, is sex dependent, changes with age, and is modifiable in response to experiential factors such as RmTBI. Rats that received the RmTBIs were significantly less active and showed decreased levels of social interaction compared with their sham-injury counterparts. Moreover, both task switching and recovery patterns for RmTBI rats were dependent on the injury status of their cage mates. Future studies are now required to determine the mechanisms underlying these important changes in temperament. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A "dyadic dance": pain catastrophizing moderates the daily relationships between parent mood and protective responses and child chronic pain.

Children's experience of chronic pain is influenced by the psychological and behavioural responses of their parents. However, the majority of research has been cross-sectional, precluding examination of how these dynamic relationships unfold over time. This study used a microlongitudinal design to examine the daily relationships between parent mood and protective responses and child chronic pain. We also examined the moderating roles of child and parent pain catastrophizing to determine how the affective-motivational context may alter the influence of parent factors. Participants included 95 youth with idiopathic chronic pain (Mage = 14.08; 71.6% female) and their parents. At baseline, parents and youth reported on their catastrophic thinking about child pain. For 7 consecutive days, parents completed daily assessments of their mood and protective responses, while youth completed assessments of their pain intensity, unpleasantness, and interference. Multilevel path analyses were conducted. At a daily level, greater parent protectiveness significantly predicted higher youth pain unpleasantness, interference, and intensity; more negative parent mood significantly predicted higher youth pain intensity and unpleasantness. Higher baseline youth pain catastrophizing predicted a stronger daily association between parent mood and youth pain unpleasantness and intensity. Higher baseline parent pain catastrophizing predicted a weaker daily association between parent protectiveness and youth pain interference. Findings suggest that parent mood and protective responses are dynamic, daily predictors of child pain. Findings also underscore the importance of addressing parents' daily mental health and protectiveness, among youth with chronic pain, and suggest different intervention targets depending on levels of child and parent catastrophizing.

Examining the Progressive Behavior and Neuropathological Outcomes Associated with Chronic Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats.

While the physical and behavioral symptomologies associated with a single mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are typically transient, repetitive mTBIs (RmTBI) have been associated with persisting neurological deficits. Therefore, this study examined the progressive changes in behavior and the neuropathological outcomes associated with chronic RmTBI through adolescence and adulthood in male and female Sprague Dawley rats. Rats experienced 2 mTBIs/week for 15 weeks and were periodically tested for changes in motor behavior, cognitive function, emotional disturbances, and aggression. Brain tissue was examined for neuropathological changes in ventricle size and presentation of Iba1 and GFAP. We did not see progressively worse behavioral impairments with the accumulation of injuries or time, but did find evidence for neurological and functional change (motor disturbance, reduced exploration, reduced aggression, alteration in depressive-like behavior, deficits in short-term working memory). Neuropathological assessment of RmTBI animals identified an increase in ventricle size, prolonged changes in GFAP, and sex differences in Iba1, in the corpus callosum, thalamus, and medial prefrontal cortex. Telomere length reduced exponentially as the injury load increased. Overall, chronic RmTBI did not result in accumulating behavioral impairment, and there is a need to further investigate progressive behavioral changes associated with repeated injuries in adolescence and young adulthood.

Investigating the Role of the Hypothalamus in Outcomes to Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Neonatal Monosodium Glutamate Does Not Exacerbate Deficits.

Repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (RmTBI) is a prevalent and costly head injury particularly among adolescents. These injuries may result in long-term consequences, especially during this critical period of development. Insomnia and sleeping difficulties are frequently reported following RmTBI and greatly impair recovery. We sought to develop an animal model of exacerbated deficits following RmTBI by disrupting the hypothalamic circadian system. To accomplish this, we conducted RmTBI on adolescent rats that had received neonatal injections of monosodium glutamate (MSG), a known hypothalamic neurotoxin. We then examined behavioral, circadian, and epigenetic changes. MSG treated rats showed lower anxiety-like behaviors and displayed poor short-term working memory. We also showed changes in the morphology of the circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) immunostaining. VIP optical density in the SCN increased with MSG but decreased with RmTBI. There were changes in the expression of the clock genes and upregulation of the orexin receptors in response to RmTBI. MSG treated rats had longer telomere lengths than controls. Finally, although both MSG and RmTBI alone produced attenuated circadian amplitudes of activity and body temperature, exacerbated deficits were not identified in animals that received MSG and RmTBI. In sum, both MSG and RmTBI can alter behavior, circadian rhythm amplitude, SCN morphology, and gene expression independently, but the effects do not appear to be additive. Specific damage in the hypothalamus and SCN should be considered when patients experience sleeping problems following RmTBI, as this may improve therapeutic strategies.

Citizenship Pressure as a Predictor of Daily Enactment of Autonomous and Controlled Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Differential Spillover Effects on the Home Domain.

This study questions the exclusive discretionary nature of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by differentiating between autonomous OCB (performed spontaneously) and controlled OCB (performed in response to a request from others). We examined whether citizenship pressure evokes the performance of autonomous and controlled OCB, and whether both OCB types have different effects on employees' experience of work-home conflict and work-home enrichment at the within- and between-person level of analysis. A total of 87 employees completed two questionnaires per day during ten consecutive workdays (715 observations). The results of the multilevel path analyses revealed a positive relationship between citizenship pressure and controlled OCB. At the within-person level, engaging in autonomous OCB resulted in an increase of experienced work-home conflict and work-home enrichment. At the between-person level, enactment of autonomous OCB predicted an increase in experienced work-home enrichment, whereas engaging in controlled OCB resulted in increased work-home conflict. The divergent spillover effects of autonomous and controlled OCB on the home domain provide empirical support for the autonomous versus controlled OCB differentiation. The time-dependent results open up areas for future research.

Ultra-short term heart rate variability as a tool to assess changes in valence.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is an index that has been extensively used in fields such as clinical cardiology, psychiatry, and psychology to assess affective experiences. Although traditionally The European Society of Cardiology and The North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology recommended to use either a recording length of 24-h (long-term) or five minutes (short-term), recent advances in the field have suggested the use of ultra-short term (<5 min) HRV measurements. In this study, we investigated whether ultra-short term HRV measurements can be used to investigate the temporal dynamics of experimentally induced emotions using pictures from the International Affective Picture System. We took electrocardiogram recordings from thirty-nine participants, and analyzed the root mean square of the successive differences of the R-R interval using a thirty-second moving window. No significant differences in HRV during positive and negative emotion induction were found. These results call into question the use of ultra-short term HRV as a tool for psychologists to measure changes in valence in affective studies.

I Am So Tired How Fatigue May Exacerbate Stress Reactions to Psychological Contract Breach.

Previous research showed that perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach have undesirable individual and organizational consequences. Surprisingly, the PC literature has paid little to no attention to the relationship between PC breach perceptions and stress. A better understanding of how PC breach may elicit stress seems crucial, given that stress plays a key role in employees' physical and mental well-being. Based on Conservation of Resources Theory, we suggest that PC breach perceptions represent a perceived loss of valued resources, subsequently leading employees to experience higher stress levels resulting from emerging negative emotions. Moreover, we suggest that this mediated relationship is moderated by initial levels of fatigue, due to fatigue lowering the personal resources necessary to cope with breach events. To tests our hypotheses, we analyzed the multilevel data we obtained from two experience sampling designs (Study 1: 51 Belgian employees; Study 2: 53 US employees). Note that the unit of analysis is "observations" rather than "respondents," resulting in an effective sample size of 730 (Study 1) and 374 (Study 2) observations. In both studies, we found evidence for the mediating role of negative emotions in the PC breach-stress relationship. In the second study, we also found evidence for the moderating role of fatigue in the mediated PC breach-stress relationship. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

"I Can Only Work So Hard Before I Burn Out." A Time Sensitive Conceptual Integration of Ideological Psychological Contract Breach, Work Effort, and Burnout.

Employees often draw meaning from personal experiences and contributions in their work, particularly when engaging in organizational activities that align with their personal identity or values. However, recent empirical findings have demonstrated how meaningful work can also have a negative effect on employee's well-being as employees feel so invested in their work, they push themselves beyond their limits resulting in strain and susceptibility to burnout. We develop a framework to understand this "double edged" role of meaningful work by drawing from ideological psychological contracts (iPCs), which are characterized by employees and their employer who are working to contribute to a shared ideology or set of values. Limited iPC research has demonstrated employees may actually work harder in response to an iPC breach. In light of these counterintuitive findings, we propose the following conceptual model to theoretically connect our understanding of iPCs, perceptions of breach, increases in work effort, and the potential "dark side" of repeated occurrences of iPC breach. We argue that time plays a central role in the unfolding process of employees' reactions to iPC breach over time. Further, we propose how perceptions of iPC breach relate to strain and, eventually, burnout. This model contributes to our understanding of the role of time in iPC development and maintenance, expands our exploration of ideology in the PC literature, and provides a framework to understanding why certain occupations are more susceptible to instances of strain and burnout. This framework has the potential to guide future employment interventions in ideology-infused organizations to help mitigate negative employee outcomes.

Trajectories of job demands and control: risk for subsequent symptoms of major depression in the nationally representative Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH).

PURPOSE: Depression is a global health concern. High job demands, low job control, and the combination (high strain) are associated with depression. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated changed or repeated exposure to demands and control related to depression. We investigated how trajectories of exposure to job demands and control jointly influence subsequent depression. METHODS: We included 7949 subjects from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health, who completed questionnaires of perceived job demands and control, and depressive symptoms from 2006 to 2014. None of them were depressed between 2006 and 2012. Univariate and joint group-based trajectory models identified groups with similar development of demands and control across 2006-2012. Logistic regression estimated the risk for symptoms of major depression in 2014 according to joint trajectory groups. RESULTS: The joint trajectory model included seven groups, all with fairly stable levels of demands and control over time. Subjects in the high strain and active (high demands and high control) trajectories were significantly more likely to have subsequent major depressive symptoms compared to those having low strain, controlling for demographic covariates (OR 2.15; 95% Cl 1.24-3.74 and OR 2.04; 95% CI 1.23-3.40, respectively). The associations did not remain statistically significant after adjusting for previous depressive symptoms in addition to demographic covariates. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the levels of job demands and control were relatively unchanged across 6 years and suggest that long-term exposure to a high strain or active job may be associated with increased risk for subsequent depression.

One Big Happy Family? Unraveling the Relationship between Shared Perceptions of Team Psychological Contracts, Person-Team Fit and Team Performance.

With the knowledge that team work is not always associated with high(er) performance, we draw from the Multi-Level Theory of Psychological Contracts, Person-Environment Fit Theory, and Optimal Distinctiveness Theory to study shared perceptions of psychological contract (PC) breach in relation to shared perceptions of complementary and supplementary fit to explain why some teams perform better than other teams. We collected three repeated survey measures in a sample of 128 respondents across 46 teams. After having made sure that we met all statistical criteria, we aggregated our focal variables to the team-level and analyzed our data by means of a longitudinal three-wave autoregressive moderated-mediation model in which each relationship was one-time lag apart. We found that shared perceptions of PC breach were directly negatively related to team output and negatively related to perceived team member effectiveness through a decrease in shared perceptions of supplementary fit. However, we also demonstrated a beneficial process in that shared perceptions of PC breach were positively related to shared perceptions of complementary fit, which in turn were positively related to team output. Moreover, best team output appeared in teams that could combine high shared perceptions of complementary fit with modest to high shared perceptions of supplementary fit. Overall, our findings seem to indicate that in terms of team output there may be a bright side to perceptions of PC breach and that perceived person-team fit may play an important role in this process.

Can volunteering in later life reduce the risk of dementia? A 5-year longitudinal study among volunteering and non-volunteering retired seniors.

We propose that voluntary work, characterized by social, physical and cognitive activity in later life is associated with fewer cognitive problems and lower dementia rates. We test these assumptions using 3-wave, self-reported, and registry data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 Swedish National Prescribed Drug Register. We had three groups of seniors in our data: 1) no volunteering (N = 531), 2) discontinuous volunteering (N = 220), and 3) continuous volunteering (N = 250). We conducted a path analysis in Mplus to investigate the effect of voluntary work (discontinuously and continuously) on self-reported cognitive complaints and the likelihood of being prescribed an anti-dementia treatment after controlling for baseline and relevant background variables. Our results indicated that seniors, who continuously volunteered, reported a decrease in their cognitive complaints over time, whereas no such associations were found for the other groups. In addition, they were 2.44 (95%CI [1.86; 3.21]) and 2.46 (95%CI [1,89; 3.24]) times less likely to be prescribed an anti-dementia treatment in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Our results largely support the assumptions that voluntary work in later life is associated with lower self-reported cognitive complaints and a lower risk for dementia, relative to those who do not engage, or only engage episodically in voluntary work.