Working and working out: Decision-making inputs connect daily work demands to physical exercise.

Work demands can undermine engagement in physical exercise, posing a threat to employee health and well-being. Integrating resource theories and a novel decision-making theory called the decision triangle, we propose that this effect may emerge because work stress changes the energetic and emotional processes people engage in when making decisions about exercise after work. Using diary-style data across two workweeks (N = 83 workers, 783 days), we used multilevel latent profile analysis to extract common decision input profiles, or daily configurations of energy and affect as key decision-making resources. Consistent with the decision triangle, three profiles emerged: visceral inputs (low energy/high negative affect), automatic inputs (low energy/low negative affect), and logical inputs (high energy/low negative affect). Daily job demands were highest among the visceral profile. In turn, the daily visceral profile related to the lowest likelihood of and intensity of physical exercise after work, especially relative to the daily logical profile. Whether or not those in the daily automatic profile exercised depended on their health orientation, or trait-level value of maintaining personal health. Our results support decision-making as a promising mechanism explaining the link between work demands and healthy leisure choices. Organizational interventions can target work stress, health orientation, or logical decision-making to promote frequent and vigorous employee physical exercise. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Are common language effect sizes easier to understand than traditional effect sizes?

Communicating the results of research to nonscientists presents many challenges. Among these challenges is communicating the effectiveness of an intervention in a way that people untrained in statistics can understand. Use of traditional effect size metrics (e.g., r, r²) has been criticized as being confusing to general audiences. In response, researchers have developed nontraditional effect size indicators (e.g., binomial effect size display, common language effect size indicator) with the goal of presenting information in a more understandable manner. The studies described here present the first empirical test of these claims of understandability. Results show that nontraditional effect size indicators are perceived as more understandable and useful than traditional indicators for communicating the effectiveness of an intervention. People also rated training programs as more effective and were willing to pay more for programs whose effectiveness was described using the nontraditional effect size metrics.

Familiarity, ambivalence, and firm reputation: is corporate fame a double-edged sword?

This research questioned the proposition that corporate familiarity is positively associated with firm reputation. Student images of familiar and unfamiliar Fortune 500 corporations were examined in 4 experiments. The results suggested that, consistent with behavioral decision theory and attitude theory, highly familiar corporations provide information that is more compatible with the tasks of both admiring and condemning than less familiar corporations. Furthermore, the judgment context may determine whether positive or negative judgments are reported about familiar companies. The notion that people can simultaneously hold contradictory images of well-known firms may help to explain the inconsistent findings on the relation between familiarity and reputation.