A dynamic, computational model of job insecurity and job performance.

Despite decades of research, there is little empirical or theoretical consensus around how job insecurity shapes job performance. This article introduces an ecumenical, dynamic, and computational model of the job insecurity-job performance relationship. That is, rather than representing a single theoretical perspective on job insecurity effects, the model includes three key mechanisms through which job insecurity is theorized to impact performance-stress, social exchange, and job preservation motivation-and grounds these in a self-regulatory computational architecture. The model incorporates multiple, dynamic feedback loops that include job performance and job insecurity, as well as individual difference and contextual constructs to project the immediate, short-term, and long-term effects of changes to job security and other important variables. Simulations of the model demonstrate that a self-regulating representation of human information processing can produce effects consistent with the major propositions in the job insecurity literature. Moreover, interrupted time-series simulations of a new job insecurity threat reveal how, when, and why performance can stabilize above, near, or below baseline performance levels, sometimes for counterintuitive reasons. Additionally, the model shows how the frequently reported, cross-sectional, negative relationship between job insecurity and job performance can be explained by job performance's influence on job insecurity. The results imply important considerations and directions for future job insecurity research and demonstrate the value of a formal, dynamic systems approach to theorizing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Risking one's life to save one's livelihood: Precarious work, presenteeism, and worry about disease exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present study advances research on the negative consequences of precarious work experiences (PWE), which include perceptions of threats to one's job and financial security as well as a sense of powerlessness and inability to exercise rights in the workplace. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop, we examine how PWE relate to sickness presenteeism and worry about work-related COVID-19 exposure. In a 12-week, four-wave study of workers working fully in-person, perceptions of powerlessness and job insecurity were associated with presenteeism (e.g., general presenteeism as well as attending work with known or possible COVID-19 infection) and concerns about disease exposure at work. Whereas powerlessness primarily operated at the between-person level of analysis, job insecurity's effects emerged at both levels of analysis. A sense of powerlessness at work also predicted sending children to school/daycare sick. In sum, the findings suggest that precarity related to being able to keep one's job and a sense of powerlessness at work contribute to concerns about the risk of COVID-19 exposure at work and, simultaneously, behaviors that may contribute to the health risks faced by others. This research provides added support to the argument that precarious work should be addressed in order to improve both worker well-being and public health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Are Robots/AI Viewed as More of a Workforce Threat in Unequal Societies? Evidence from the Eurobarometer Survey.

Although advanced technologies (i.e., artificial intelligence (AI), robots) are often discussed as drivers of societal inequality, our research examines whether people living in more unequal societies tend to view technology as a greater threat to jobs in general. Building from research that societal inequality heightens concerns about status hierarchies and future resource attainment, we anticipated that workers in more unequal societies would tend to view AI/robots as greater threats (e.g., AI/robots as job destroyers). Utilizing the Eurobarometer 87.1 dataset, we found that country inequality, as operationalized via the Gini Index, was positively associated with perceptions that AI/robots pose threats of general job loss. These relationships occurred when controlling for people's perceptions of technological threat to their own personal job, technology skills and interests, and demographics. Moreover, these findings are robust across alternative operationalizations of inequality including the Human Inequality Index and people's subjective perceptions of current and future inequality in their country. These findings advance theory on inequality and suggest that the broader context-both objective and perceived-may play a role in how people view disruption associated with AI/robots at work.

Emerging Issues in Occupational Health Psychology.

The world of work is changing dramatically due to continuous technological advancements and globalization (the so-called industry 4 [...].

Industry Context as an Essential Tool for the Future of Healthy and Safe Work: Illustrative Examples for Occupational Health Psychology from the Hospitality Industry.

Contextual nuance holds value for occupational health and safety, particularly as workplace challenges and solutions become more complex. However, disciplines that inform occupational safety and health vary in the degree to which they target breadth and depth of understanding. The future of work presents challenges related to work, the workplace, and the workforce, and an appreciation of the context of industry will ready researchers and practitioners with the most informed solutions. Broadly developed solutions for future of work challenges may flounder without an appreciation for the context of industry, as evidenced by two examples provided in this review. As occupational safety and health disciplines answer the call provided by the future of work, this review provides an account for the value of industry context and recommendations for achieving both breadth and depth of scientific inquiry and practical reach.

Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Accelerated the Future of Work or Changed Its Course? Implications for Research and Practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique transboundary crisis which has disrupted people's way of life more dramatically than any event in generations. Given the ambiguity surrounding the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and its enduring negative effects, it is important to understand how this has affected important future of work trends. The aim of the current paper is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on commonly discussed future of work trends relevant to occupational safety and health priority areas. These topics include work arrangements, compensation and benefits, and the organization of work. For each topic, we assess trends leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, discuss the impact of the pandemic on these trends, and conclude with implications for research and practice. Overall, the pandemic appears to have both accelerated and disrupted various trends associated with future of work topic areas. These effects are discussed in terms of implications for both policymakers and organizations.

Coping with organizational layoffs: Managers' increased active listening reduces job insecurity via perceived situational control.

In this article, we draw on interdisciplinary research and theorizing to posit change in managerial active listening as a lever shaping change in affective job insecurity (AJI). Specifically, drawing on transactional theory, we argue that an increase (decrease) in active listening from one's manager should facilitate a dynamic coping process by strengthening (diminishing) perceived control. In turn, changes in perceived control should shape AJI. Using a longitudinal field study design, we collected three waves of survey data from 268 employees of a large real estate firm that was preparing for restructuring and layoffs. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found support for a mediation model in which an increase in active listening quality predicted a decrease in AJI, mediated by an increase in perceived control. Our findings suggest that in environments characterized by widespread change and impending job loss, an increase in active listening may have a ripple effect in increasing perceived control and decreasing AJI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Stigma & dirty work: In-group and out-group perceptions of essential service workers during COVID-19.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on essential service workers has given rise to their newfound "hero" status, resulting in a dramatic shift of their occupational value. Service work has been long envisioned as "dirty work", and further, stigmatized by members of society (the Out-Group), until recently. This study utilized occupational stigma theory to identify the mechanisms under which both essential service workers and society at large came to unify around the importance of perceived dirty work in the United States. Critical discourse analysis was employed as a qualitative methodology, particularly examining the In- and Out-Group's coping mechanisms for coming to terms with the value of "dirty" service work heroes. Theoretical implications include the utilization of stigma theory for Out-Groups, and revealed a previously undetected Out-Group coping tactic. Practical implications include the urgency for keeping the "hero" story alive so that all service workers benefit from the movement.

Looking forward: How anticipated workload change influences the present workload-emotional strain relationship.

Many workers experience ebbs and flows of workload in concert with busy seasons, changing project demands, and changes to the way tasks are completed. The present study examined how anticipating workload changes influences emotional strain resulting from current workload. We extend conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) by hypothesizing that anticipated changes in workload may be viewed as a future opportunity to recover from current workload (in the case of anticipated workload decrease) or as a threat of loss of resources (in the case of anticipated workload increase), and that anticipated changes in workload would moderate the current workload-emotional strain relationship. Using a sample of employees engaged in project-based work, we found that anticipation of a workload increase exacerbated the current workload-emotional strain relationship and anticipation of a workload decrease buffered this relationship. The results suggest that stressor-strain relations may be influenced by anticipated change in stressor conditions. In other words, employees are more likely to tolerate stressful circumstances if they see the proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel." Implications for occupational stress research and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The psychological interaction of spam email features.

This study explored distinct perceptual and decisional contributions to spam email mental construal. Participants classified spam emails according to pairings of three stimulus features - presence or absence of awkward prose, abnormal message structure, and implausible premise. We examined dimensional interactions within general recognition theory (GRT; a multidimensional extension of signal detection theory). Classification accuracy was highest for categories containing either two non-normal dimension levels (e.g. awkward prose and implausible premise) or two normal dimension levels (e.g. normal prose and plausible premise). Modelling indicated both perceptual and decisional contributions to classification responding. In most cases, perceptual discriminability was higher along one dimension when stimuli contained a non-normal level of the paired dimension (e.g. prose discriminability was higher with abnormal structure). Similarly, decision criteria along one dimension were biased in favour of the non-normal response when stimuli contained a non-normal level of the paired dimension. Potential applications for training are discussed. Practitioner summary: We applied general recognition theory (i.e. multivariate signal detection theory) to spam email classification at low or high levels of three stimulus dimensions: premise plausibility, prose quality, and email structure. Relevant to training, this approach helped identify perceptual and decisional biases that could be leveraged to individualise training.

Is the employee-organization relationship dying or thriving? A temporal meta-analysis.

There is controversy concerning whether, in recent years, organizational failures to act benevolently toward employees have lessened employees' social-exchange relationship (SER) with their work organization or whether, on the contrary, organizations' more favorable treatment of employees has strengthened the SER. With samples of U.S. employees, we examined changes over the past 3 decades in three key elements of the SER: perceived organizational support (POS: 317 samples, including 121,469 individuals), leader-member exchange (LMX: 191 samples, including 216,975 individuals), and affective organizational commitment (383 samples, including 116,766 individuals). We considered both how the average levels changed over time and how the associations of these 3 elements with the antecedents of procedural and distributive justice and the consequences of in-role and extra-role performance have changed. We found that the average levels of indicators of the SER have remained steady except for an increase in POS. LMX and affective commitment show levels near neutral, and POS has increased to only a moderately positive level. In contrast, the relationships between these elements with distributive and procedural justice and extra-role performance remain substantial. These findings suggest that employees on average do not currently have strong exchange relationships with their work organization but remain ready to more fully engage based on perceived voluntary favorable treatment by the work organization and its representatives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Bending without breaking: A two-study examination of employee resilience in the face of job insecurity.

Job insecurity is a ubiquitous threat that has been linked to a number of undesirable emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Against this backdrop, popular and academic accounts have hailed the ability to bounce back from threats (i.e., resilience) as a crucial competency. We leverage the cognitive-relational model of stress to examine the extent to which resilience (operationalized as both dispositional tendencies and coping strategies) mitigates several negative consequences of job insecurity. We tested the moderating role of resilience in 2 studies. In a cross-sectional study with a sample of 1,071 university employees in the United States, we found resilience weakened the relationships between job insecurity and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and psychological contract breach. In a 2-wave study with 335 employees demographically representative of working population of the United States, we found that resilience mitigated the negative consequences of job insecurity on emotional exhaustion and interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors assessed 1 month later. Results of both studies converge to support the proposed buffering effect of resilience during times of job insecurity. (PsycINFO Database Record

Getting what you want: How fit between desired and received leader sensitivity influences emotion and counterproductive work behavior.

We challenge the intuitive belief that greater leader sensitivity is always associated with desirable outcomes for employees and organizations. Specifically, we argue that followers' idiosyncratic desires for, and perceptions of, leader sensitivity behaviors play a key role in how followers react to their leader's sensitivity. Moreover, these resulting affective experiences are likely to have important consequences for organizations, specifically as they relate to employee counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Drawing from supplies-values (S-V) fit theory and the stressor-emotion model of CWB, the current study focuses on the affective and behavioral consequences of fit between subordinates' ideal leader sensitivity behavior preferences and subordinates' perceptions of their actual leader's sensitivity behaviors. Polynomial regression analyses reveal that congruence between ideal and actual leader sensitivity influences employee negative affect and, consequently, engagement in counterproductive work behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record

Suffering in silence: Investigating the role of fear in the relationship between abusive supervision and defensive silence.

Drawing from an approach-avoidance perspective, we examine the relationships between subordinates' perceptions of abusive supervision, fear, defensive silence, and ultimately abusive supervision at a later time point. We also account for the effects of subordinates' assertiveness and individual perceptions of a climate of fear on these predicted mediated relationships. We test this moderated mediation model with data from three studies involving different sources collected across various measurement periods. Results corroborated our predictions by showing (a) a significant association between abusive supervision and subordinates' fear, (b) second-stage moderation effects of subordinates' assertiveness and their individual perceptions of a climate of fear in the abusive supervision-fear-defensive silence relationship (with lower assertiveness and higher levels of climate-of-fear perceptions exacerbating the detrimental effects of fear resulting from abusive supervision), and (c) first-stage moderation effects of subordinates' assertiveness and climate-of-fear perceptions in a model linking fear to defensive silence and abusive supervision at a later time. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social Media: Social Intelligence Training Module.

INTRODUCTION: Physicians' posts on social media have the potential to impact the patient-physician relationship, interpersonal relationships at work, institutions' reputations, and the public's trust in health care professionals. Empirical research, along with several very public cases of unprofessional behavior by physicians on social media, suggests that resident physicians are not always aware of the implications of their actions online. Residency programs are being charged with ways to model positive online presence. The goal of this project was to develop a social media training program that emphasized perspective taking and fostered appropriate social media use. METHODS: This training program involves an interactive lecture and discussion, with approximately 20 minutes of content, 20 minutes of small-group discussion, and 10 minutes of large-group discussion. We evaluated the effectiveness of this program by asking participants to complete presession and postsession surveys of social media knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. RESULTS: Survey responses (N = 16) suggest that the social media training program was successful. Participants demonstrated an increase in knowledge of social media policies, ability to identify potentially inappropriate media interactions, ability to identify appropriate responses to such interactions, and understanding of how their actions on social media affect others. DISCUSSION: We believe that the social media module is an effective and useful tool for members of the medical community as the internet and social media continue to grow in popularity and lines between professional and personal realms are continually blurred. While the effectiveness of this program was established with first-year pediatric residents, the module material is applicable to a broader medical audience.

Blaming the organization for abusive supervision: the roles of perceived organizational support and supervisor's organizational embodiment.

Why do employees who experience abusive supervision retaliate against the organization? We apply organizational support theory to propose that employees hold the organization partly responsible for abusive supervision. Depending on the extent to which employees identify the supervisor with the organization (i.e., supervisor's organizational embodiment), we expected abusive supervision to be associated with low perceived organizational support (POS) and consequently with retribution against the organization. Across 3 samples, we found that abusive supervision was associated with decreased POS as moderated by supervisor's organizational embodiment. In turn, reduced POS was related to heightened counterproductive work behavior directed against the organization and lowered in-role and extra-role performance. These findings suggest that employees partly attribute abusive supervision to negative valuation by the organization and, consequently, behave negatively toward and withhold positive contributions to it.

The economy and absenteeism: a macro-level study.

Despite much speculation, little is known about the net effects of the economy on the employed workforce. To fill this gap, we used state-level data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to examine the effects of the condition of the economy, as indicated by the unemployment rate, on incidence rates of absence reportedly due to symptoms of illness and violent acts in the workplace for 43 states from 1992 to 2009. Our results suggest that the unemployment rate is positively associated with these indicators of absenteeism, and that these effects are delayed in time.