Walking on eggshells: A self-control perspective on workplace political correctness.

Being politically correct involves an understanding that language and behavior can affect others, and a willingness to modify or suppress those words or actions to be sensitive and tolerant toward others. At work, political correctness may manifest as refraining from sharing a risqué joke out of concern of hurting others' feelings, altering language to be gender neutral, suppressing saying something that might be considered rude or insensitive, or avoiding controversial topics altogether. As employees are increasingly entrenched in their own opinions and beliefs, prone to microaggressions, and unwilling to entertain alternate views, political correctness should be of interest to managers and organizations. Yet, little research has been devoted to its study. This oversight is problematic because, although political correctness may manifest out of a concern for others at work, its enactment is also resource intensive-potentially acting as a double-edged sword for employees. To make better recommendations to managers, we must more fully develop our understanding of this understudied phenomenon. We begin the process of developing the nomological network of political correctness by drawing from theory on self-control to examine (a) an antecedent (other orientation) to understand why employees may be motivated to be politically correct with their coworkers, (b) a mechanism (cognitive resource depletion) that explains the cost of workplace political correctness, and (c) home-based outcomes (angry and withdrawn marital behavior) that suggest political correctness may impact others outside of work. Findings across five studies shed light on why employees may be politically correct and the consequences of doing so. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Too much to know? The cognitive demands of daily knowledge seeking and the buffering role of coworker contact quality.

To get their work done and achieve their daily work-related goals, employees seek knowledge from their coworkers. While the benefits of knowledge seeking have been established in the literature, we have yet to understand the potential downsides of daily knowledge seeking. We adopt a cognitive perspective to carve out the negative effect of daily knowledge seeking, while controlling for its established positive effect via perceived learning. Based on cognitive load theory, we argue that daily knowledge seeking produces intrinsic cognitive load that can hinder daily goal attainment through the experience of knowledge overload and subsequent resource depletion. However, the relational context in which knowledge seekers interact with knowledge sources represents an important contextual boundary condition. Coworker contact quality can mitigate the effect of knowledge seeking on knowledge overload because high coworker contact quality reduces extraneous (i.e., ineffective) and increases germane (i.e., productive) cognitive load that knowledge seekers experience when navigating the social interaction with knowledge sources. Under this condition, cognitive capacity is freed up and knowledge overload is less likely to occur. Based on an experience sampling study in which we collected data across 10 working days from 189 German employees, we found support for our hypotheses. An employee's knowledge seeking had a negative indirect effect on goal attainment via knowledge overload and subsequent resource depletion, however, the downsides of daily knowledge seeking became less pronounced when coworker contact quality increased. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on knowledge seeking and resource exchange behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Leveraging age diversity for organizational performance: An intellectual capital perspective.

The global trend of increasing workplace age diversity has led to growing research attention to the organizational consequences of age-diverse workforces. Prior research has primarily focused on the statistical relationship between age diversity and organizational performance without empirically probing potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. Adopting an intellectual capital perspective, we posit that age diversity affects organizational performance via human and social capital. Furthermore, we examine workplace functional diversity and age-inclusive management as two contingent factors shaping the effects of age diversity on human and social capital. Our hypotheses were tested with a large manager-report workplace survey data from the Society for Human Resource Management (N = 3,888). Results indicate that age diversity was positively associated with organizational performance through the mediation of increased human and social capital. In addition, functional diversity and age-inclusive management amplified the positive effects of age diversity on human and social capital. Our research sheds light on how age-diverse workforces may create value through cultivating knowledge-based organizational resources (i.e., human and social capital). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Religiousness, social support and subjective well-being: An exploratory study among adolescents in an Asian atheist country.

Few studies have focused on the relationships among religiousness, social support and subjective well-being in Chinese adolescent populations. This study tries to fill this gap. Using cluster sampling, we selected two groups: Group A, which included 738 Tibetan adolescents with a formal religious affiliation and represented adolescents from a religious culture, and Group B, which included 720 Han adolescents without a religious affiliation and represented adolescents from an irreligious culture. Structural equation modelling showed that only in Group A did social support mediate (partially) the relationship between religious experience and subjective well-being; furthermore, the results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that only in Group A did social support moderate the relationship between religious ideology and subjective well-being. Possible explanations for the discrepancies between the findings obtained in this study and those obtained in previous studies are discussed.

Adolescent interpersonal relationships, social support and loneliness in high schools: Mediation effect and gender differences.

The purpose of this study was to explore the associations between the qualities of different types of relationships in school, social support and loneliness in adolescence. Using a sample (N=1674) of adolescent students randomly selected from middle schools, we found boys' loneliness was influenced by the qualities of opposite-sex, teacher-student and same-sex relationships, whereas girls' loneliness was only influenced by same-sex relationships. Additionally, social support mediated the association between same-sex relationships and teacher-student relationships, and loneliness. Further, the quality of same-sex relationships showed stronger association with boys' loneliness than girls'. Finally, the quality of same-sex relationships showed the strongest association with boys' loneliness comparing with opposite-sex relationships and teacher-student relationships. These findings are discussed to illuminate the possible mechanisms by which interpersonal relationships could influence loneliness. In future research, causal relationships and other influencing factors on loneliness should be examined.