Consistent and low is the only way to go: A polynomial regression approach to the effect of abusive supervision inconsistency.

The literature on abusive supervision largely presumes that employees respond to abuse in a relatively straightforward way: When abuse is present, outcomes are unfavorable, and when abuse is absent, outcomes are favorable (or, at least less unfavorable). Yet despite the recognition that abusive supervision can vary over time, little consideration has been given to how past experiences of abuse may impact the ways employees react to it (or, its absence) in the present. This is a notable oversight, as it is widely acknowledged that past experiences create a context against which experiences in the present are compared. By applying a temporal lens to the experience of abusive supervision, we identify abusive supervision inconsistency as a phenomenon that may have different outcomes than would otherwise be predicted by the current consensus in this literature. We draw from theories on time and stress appraisal to develop a model that explains when, why, and for which employees, inconsistent abusive supervision may have negative outcomes (specifically, identifying anxiety as a proximal outcome of abusive supervision inconsistency that has downstream effects on turnover intentions). Moreover, the aforementioned theoretical perspectives dovetail in identifying employee workplace status as a moderator that may buffer employees from the stressful consequences of inconsistent abusive supervision. We test our model using two experience sampling studies with polynomial regression and response surface analyses. Our research makes important theoretical and practical contributions to the abusive supervision literature, as well as the literature on time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Anxiety responses to the unfolding COVID-19 crisis: Patterns of change in the experience of prolonged exposure to stressors.

An immense amount of work has investigated how adverse situations affect anxiety using chronic (i.e., average) or episodic conceptualizations. However, less attention has been paid to circumstances that unfold continuously over time, inhibiting theoretical testing and leading to possible erroneous conclusions about how stressors are dynamically appraised across time. Because stressor novelty, predictability, and patterns are central components of appraisal theories, we use the COVID-19 crisis as a context to illustrate how variation in the phenomenon's patterns of change (specifically, total cases [average level] but also the rate of linear [velocity] and nonlinear growth [acceleration] in cases) influence anxiety. We also show the implications of anxiety for next-day functioning at work. These effects are tested in data drawn from a sample of employed adults in a daily diary study conducted in four overlapping waves. The data span the emergence, exponential rise, and initial tapering of the virus in the United States (February 10, 2020 to April 28, 2020). Our results show that although the impact of level of COVID-19 cases on anxiety decreases over time, the effect of change in cases (velocity and acceleration) increases over time. Anxiety is then associated with next-day work functioning (engagement, performance, and emotional exhaustion). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Does CWB repair negative affective states, or generate them? Examining the moderating role of trait empathy.

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is a topic of considerable importance for organizational scholars and practitioners. Yet, despite a wide-ranging consensus that negative affect (NA) is a precursor to CWB, there is surprisingly little consensus as to whether CWB enactment will subsequently lead to lower or higher levels of NA. That is, scholars disagree as to whether CWB has a reparative (negative) or generative (positive) effect on subsequent NA. We submit that both perspectives have validity, and thus the question should not be whether CWB is associated with lower or higher subsequent levels of NA, but rather for whom. This article is dedicated to answering this question. Drawing from the behavioral concordance model, we position empathy as a moderator of this relationship, such that CWB will be reparative for those with lower levels of empathy and generative for those with higher levels of empathy. Findings across 3 experience-sampling studies support our hypotheses and highlight a number of interesting directions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

When challenges hinder: An investigation of when and how challenge stressors impact employee outcomes.

Over the past two decades, accumulating evidence has indicated that individuals experience challenge and hindrance stressors in qualitatively different ways, with the former being linked to more positive outcomes than the latter. Indeed, challenge stressors are believed to have net positive effects even though they can also lead to a range of strains, eliciting beliefs that managers can enhance performance outcomes by increasing the frequency of challenge stressors experienced in the workplace. The current article questions this conventional wisdom by developing theory that explains how different patterns of challenge stressor exposure influence employee outcomes. Across 2 field studies, our results supported our theory, indicating that when challenge stressors vary across time periods, they have negative indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. In contrast, when employees experience a stable pattern of challenge stressors across time periods, they have positive indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. These results, which suggest that the benefits of challenge stressors may not outweigh their costs when challenge stressors fluctuate, have important implications for theory and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Positive and negative assessment center feedback in relation to development self-efficacy, feedback seeking, and promotion.

In this field study we examined both positive and negative developmental feedback given in managerial assessment centers in relation to employees' self-efficacy for their ability to improve their relevant skills assessed in the centers, the extent to which they sought subsequent feedback from others at work, and the career outcome of being promoted to a higher level position within the organization. We found that feedback was related to self-efficacy for improvement which was in turn positively related to feedback seeking, which was positively linked to the career outcome of promotion (e.g., feedback leads to self-efficacy for improvement leads to feedback seeking leads to promotion). In addition, we tested boundary variables for the effects of feedback in this model. Both social support for development and implicit theory of ability moderated the effects of negative feedback on self-efficacy. Having more support and believing that abilities can be improved buffered the detrimental impact of negative feedback on self-efficacy. We discuss implications for theory, future research and practical implications drawing upon literature on assessment centers, feedback and feedback seeking, employee development and career success. (PsycINFO Database Record

Guilty and helpful: an emotion-based reparatory model of voluntary work behavior.

This study proposes a dynamic reparatory model of voluntary work behavior. We test the hypothesis that when people are made aware of their high level of negative behavior at work (i.e., counterproductive work behavior) and are informed that their behavior is counternormative and undesirable, the knowledge that they violated social norms induces guilt. This guilt, in turn, results in compensatory behavior that is positive in nature (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior). We report results from a field experiment involving normative feedback about employees' counterproductive work behavior to support this model. The findings indicate that undesirable behaviors in the workplace can be redressed by making employees aware of the negative consequences of these behaviors.

Joint influences of individual and work unit abusive supervision on ethical intentions and behaviors: a moderated mediation model.

We develop and test a model based on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991) that links abusive supervision to followers' ethical intentions and behaviors. Results from a sample of 2,572 military members show that abusive supervision was negatively related to followers' moral courage and their identification with the organization's core values. In addition, work unit contexts with varying degrees of abusive supervision, reflected by the average level of abusive supervision reported by unit members, moderated relationships between the level of abusive supervision personally experienced by individuals and both their moral courage and their identification with organizational values. Moral courage and identification with organizational values accounted for the relationship between abusive supervision and followers' ethical intentions and unethical behaviors. These findings suggest that abusive supervision may undermine moral agency and that being personally abused is not required for abusive supervision to negatively influence ethical outcomes.

The mind and heart (literally) of the negotiator: personality and contextual determinants of experiential reactions and economic outcomes in negotiation.

The authors developed and tested a model proposing that negotiator personality interacts with the negotiation situation to influence negotiation processes and outcomes. In 2 studies, the authors found that negotiators high in agreeableness were best suited to integrative negotiations and that negotiators low in agreeableness were best suited to distributive negotiations. Consistent with this person-situation fit argument, in Study 1 the authors found that negotiators whose dispositions were a good fit to their negotiation context had higher levels of physiological (cardiac) arousal at the end of the negotiation compared with negotiators who were "misplaced" in situations inconsistent with their level of agreeableness, and this arousal was in turn related to increased economic outcomes. Study 2 replicated and extended the findings of Study 1, finding that person-situation fit was related to physiological (heart rate), psychological (positive affect), and behavioral activation (persistence) demonstrated during the negotiation, and these measures in turn were related to the economic outcomes achieved by participants.

Team structure and regulatory focus: the impact of regulatory fit on team dynamic.

We report a within-teams experiment testing the effects of fit between team structure and regulatory task demands on task performance and satisfaction through average team member positive affect and helping behaviors. We used a completely crossed repeated-observations design in which 21 teams enacted 2 tasks with different regulatory focus characteristics (prevention and promotion) in 2 organizational structures (functional and divisional), resulting in 84 observations. Results suggested that salient regulatory demands inherent in the task interacted with structure to determine objective and subjective team-level outcomes, such that functional structures were best suited to (i.e., had best fit with) tasks with a prevention regulatory focus and divisional structures were best suited to tasks with a promotion regulatory focus. This contingency finding integrates regulatory focus and structural contingency theories, and extends them to the team level with implications for models of performance, satisfaction, and team dynamics.

Are health and happiness the product of wisdom? The relationship of general mental ability to educational and occupational attainment, health, and well-being.

This study tested a structural model explaining the effects of general mental ability on economic, physical, and subjective well-being. A model was proposed that linked general mental ability to well-being using education, unhealthy behaviors (smoking and excessive drinking), occupational prestige, and health as mediating variables. The sample consisted of 398 individuals, from whom measures were collected across 4 periods. The results supported a model that includes direct and indirect (through unhealthy behaviors and occupational prestige) links from mental ability to physical well-being (i.e., health) and economic well-being. Furthermore, the results supported the relationships of economic well-being and physical well-being to subjective well-being. Overall, the study underscores the importance of general mental ability to work and nonwork outcomes, including physical, economic, and psychological well-being.