Coworker support amplifies strain in the COVID-19 pandemic for working parents.

The COVID-19 pandemic directly threatened our health and safety, while contradictory scientific and media reports generated uncertainty. Social information processing theory suggests that employees may have relied on their coworkers, via coworker support, to make sense of the confusion. Because previous research shows that coworker support can counterintuitively increase strain, we investigated the effects of coworker support on strain during the pandemic. Specifically, we collected data from a heterogeneous US sample of 314 working parents in May 2020 to illustrate the path from personal traits (i.e., optimism, generalized self-efficacy, and internal locus of control) to COVID-19 anxiety to workplace outcomes (i.e., self-rated performance, emotional exhaustion, and work-family conflict) in a multiphasic study design. Employees with low levels of these traits reported more COVID-19 anxiety, and in turn, more decrement to their workplace outcomes. This mediation is moderated by coworker social support, such that the indirect effect is exacerbated by coworker social support. This is consistent with social information processing theory, which states that coworker social support can unintentionally corroborate and amplify employee stress perceptions. We therefore recommend that, when faced with significant adversity, organizations provide communication training oriented toward increasing positive coworker interactions and guiding social information.

Older adult driving performance assessed under simulated and on-road conditions.

Simulated driving offers a convenient test of driving ability for older drivers, although the viability of using simulated driving with this population is mixed. The relative weighting of the relevant perceptual, cognitive, and physical factors may vary between simulated and on-road driving. The current study was designed to assess this possibility. We conducted simulated and on-road driving tests of 61 older adults aged 66-92 years. To ensure that the driving performance was measured similarly between the two driving modalities, we employed the Record of Driving Errors (RODE) driving assessment system during both driving tests. Correlation and random weights analysis (RWA) results indicated only modest evidence of correspondence between the simulated and on-road driving performances. The primary factors operative in both simulated and on-road driving was Useful Field of View and a measure of basic cognition. Unique factors for simulated driving included a measure of physical mobility (Time-Up-and-Go) and spatial reasoning (Line), and for on-road driving included chronological age and sensorimotor processing (Trail-Making Task A). Chronological age was correlated primarily the on-road rather than simulated test, was greatly reduced with the inclusion of additional explanatory factors, and likely reflects driving efficiency rather than driving safety. We conclude that simulated driving in healthy older drivers can be beneficial for research purposes to assess cognitive and perceptual factors that underly driving effectiveness, although it cannot serve as a clear proxy for on-road driving.

A trait-interactionist approach to understanding the role of stressors in the personality-CWB relationship.

In the current study, we extend the trait-activation theory (TAT) in order to provide context for the role of stressors in the relationship between personality and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Specifically, we propose relationships between conflict-sensitive personality traits (social dominance orientation and hostile attributional style) and CWB, moderated by organizational stressors (interpersonal conflict and organizational constraints) as trait-relevant situational cues that signal competition. A sample of 208 matched employee-supervisor dyads was recruited from an online panel for a multiphasic study. As expected, the relationships between personality traits and supervisor-reported CWB were stronger when stressors were high compared to low, even when controlling for negative affectivity. Thus, as guided by TAT, we suggest that workplaces should minimize cues that activate CWB or attempt to use cues that constrain these behaviors, particularly when considering employees with higher levels of social dominance orientation or hostile attributional style. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).