Disability disclosure as an impression management technique used in the workplace: A grounded theory investigation.

BACKGROUND: In order to overcome obstacles to entry and inclusion in the workplace, individuals with disabilities engage in various impression management strategies to present themselves as the socially acceptable 'ideal employee.' OBJECTIVE: This study expands on previous disclosure research by asking individuals with disabilities to share their experiences of identity management and workplace challenges. METHODS: We leveraged qualitative research techniques to explore the reciprocal impact of workplace treatment and disclosure. RESULTS: Impression management emerged as an especially salient aspect of participants' disclosure decisions, and participants used an array of impression management tactics. Some employees with disabilities described positive experiences; however, we also learned that impression management can present unique challenges that may outweigh potential benefits. CONCLUSION: Our findings affirm that managing the image we project can be remarkably complicated and effortful when having a disability. This paper concludes with implementation recommendations for vocational rehabilitation counselors and human resource practitioners.

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).

When, why, and for whom is receiving help actually helpful? Differential effects of receiving empowering and nonempowering help based on recipient gender.

Helping is a foundational aspect of organizational life and the prototypical organizational citizenship behavior, with most research implicitly assuming that helping benefits its recipients. Despite this, when scholars focus on help recipients, the experience is depicted as somewhat aversive that may actually reduce recipient perceptions of competence. The result is a literature at odds as to whether receiving help is beneficial. Our thesis is that this is the wrong question on which to focus. Instead, we submit that more valuable insight can be gained by asking: "when is receiving help beneficial vs. not beneficial, and for whom?" Regarding when, we differentiate between receiving help that is empowering (i.e., offers tools to empower recipients to become more self-reliant) or nonempowering (i.e., offers only immediate, short-term solutions). Regarding for whom, we draw from theory and research on stereotype threat and benevolent sexism to explain why the help recipient's gender is a critical moderator of the link between receiving nonempowering help specifically and competence perceptions. We present a multistudy "full-cycle" approach to test our hypotheses and understand the consequences of receiving empowering versus nonempowering help in more depth. Combined, our results help shift the conversation as noted above, and identify important practical implications that speak to a larger discussion on systematic disadvantages for women at work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Retreating or repairing? Examining the alternate linkages between daily partner-instigated incivility at home and helping at work.

Although research has recognized the straining effects of incivility at work, it is less clear how incivility experiences at home affect employees' daily states and behaviors at work. We argue that partner-instigated incivility-ambiguous aggressions from an employee's partner prior to work may affect helping behavior at work in multiple ways. Building on prior research, which has identified different mechanisms (i.e., resource drain, reactive compensation) linking family and work domains, we argue that whereas partner-instigated incivility may be cognitively depleting, thus limiting employees' capacity to help others, it may also induce negative mood, which may drive employees to compensate for this unpleasant experience by engaging in more person- and task-focused helping behaviors at work. Furthermore, we consider perspective taking as an individual difference with the potential to buffer the effects of partner-instigated incivility on cognitive depletion and negative mood. Results from a critical incident study (Study 1) supported our assertion that partner-instigated incivility is cognitively depleting and inducing of negative mood. In an experience sampling study (Study 2), which included daily reports from employees and their partners who instigated incivility, we replicated the initial effects and found support for a compensation linkage between partner-instigated incivility and both forms of helping at work via negative mood and partial support for the moderating role of perspective taking. Results also indicated that person-focused helping lessened employees' negative mood in the evening, suggesting that mood repair benefits are associated with this behavior. Implications of these findings for family incivility occurrences and self-regulation are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Pain or gain? Understanding how trait empathy impacts leader effectiveness following the provision of negative feedback.

Although providing negative performance feedback can enhance employee performance, leaders are sometimes reluctant to engage in this activity. Reflecting this, prior research has identified negative feedback provision as an aversive, yet potentially rewarding, managerial activity. However, little is known about how providing negative feedback impacts the effectiveness of leaders who do so. To shed light on this issue, we develop and test a theoretical model that identifies how leaders' proximal and distal reactions to providing negative feedback are contingent upon their levels of trait empathy. Supporting our theory, results from an experience sampling study indicate that leaders higher in trait empathy report feeling both less attentive and more distressed after providing subordinates with negative feedback, whereas leaders lower in trait empathy report feeling more attentive and less distressed. Attentiveness and distress, in turn, were associated with leaders' daily perceptions of their effectiveness; distress was also associated with leaders' daily enactment of transformational leadership behavior. Results of two subsequent studies focused on single episodes of negative feedback provision revealed that trait empathy amplifies the extent to which feedback recipients' negative emotional reactions impact additional leader effectiveness criteria (e.g., executive functioning and planning/problem-solving), further supporting the need to account for the crucial role of trait empathy in the feedback-provision process. Altogether, our research provides a novel perspective on the feedback-giving process by shifting the focus of theorizing from the recipient to the provider, while challenging current thinking about leader empathy by highlighting its potential downside for leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 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).

Boxed in by your inbox: Implications of daily e-mail demands for managers' leadership behaviors.

Over the past 30 years, the nature of communication at work has changed. Leaders in particular rely increasingly on e-mail to communicate with their superiors and subordinates. However, researchers and practitioners alike suggest that people frequently report feeling overloaded by the e-mail demands they experience at work. In the current study, we develop a self-regulatory framework that articulates how leaders' day-to-day e-mail demands relate to a perceived lack of goal progress, which has a negative impact on their subsequent enactment of routine (i.e., initiating structure) and exemplary (i.e., transformational) leadership behaviors. We further theorize how two cross-level moderators-centrality of e-mail to one's job and trait self-control-impact these relations. In an experience sampling study of 48 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that e-mail demands are associated with a lack of perceived goal progress, to which leaders respond by reducing their initiating structure and transformational behaviors. The relation of e-mail demands with leader goal progress was strongest when e-mail was perceived as less central to performing one's job, and the relations of low goal progress with leadership behaviors were strongest for leaders low in trait self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

To branch out or stay focused? Affective shifts differentially predict organizational citizenship behavior and task performance.

We draw from personality systems interaction (PSI) theory (Kuhl, 2000) and regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) to examine how dynamic positive and negative affective processes interact to predict both task and contextual performance. Using a twice-daily diary design over the course of a 3-week period, results from multilevel regression analysis revealed that distinct patterns of change in positive and negative affect optimally predicted contextual and task performance among a sample of 71 employees at a medium-sized technology company. Specifically, within persons, increases (upshifts) in positive affect over the course of a workday better predicted the subsequent day's organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) when such increases were coupled with decreases (downshifts) in negative affect. The optimal pattern of change in positive and negative affect differed, however, in predicting task performance. That is, upshifts in positive affect over the course of the workday better predicted the subsequent day's task performance when such upshifts were accompanied by upshifts in negative affect. The contribution of our findings to PSI theory and the broader affective and motivation regulation literatures, along with practical implications, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Understanding cycles of abuse: A multimotive approach.

Fundamental to the definition of abusive supervision is the notion that subordinates are often victims of a pattern of mistreatment (Tepper, 2000). However, little research has examined the processes through which such destructive relational patterns emerge. In this study, we draw from and extend the multimotive model of reactions to interpersonal threat (Smart Richman & Leary, 2009) to formulate and test hypotheses about how employees' emotional and behavioral responses may ameliorate or worsen supervisors' abuse. To test this model, we collected 6 waves of data from a sample of 244 employees. Results revealed reciprocal relationships between abusive supervision and both supervisor-directed counterproductive behavior and supervisor-directed avoidance. Whereas the abusive supervision--counterproductive behavior relationship was partially driven by anger, the abusive supervision--avoidance relationship was partially mediated by fear. These findings suggest that some may find themselves in abusive relationships, in part, because their own reactions to mistreatment can, perhaps unknowingly, reinforce abusive behavior.

What I experienced yesterday is who I am today: relationship of work motivations and behaviors to within-individual variation in the five-factor model of personality.

Historically, organizational and personality psychologists have ignored within-individual variation in personality across situations or have treated it as measurement error. However, we conducted a 10-day experience sampling study consistent with whole trait theory (Fleeson, 2012), which conceptualizes personality as a system of stable tendencies and patterns of intraindividual variation along the dimensions of the Big Five personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The study examined whether (a) internal events (i.e., motivation), performance episodes, and interpersonal experiences at work predict deviations from central tendencies in trait-relevant behavior, affect, and cognition (i.e., state personality), and (b) there are individual differences in responsiveness to work experiences. Results revealed that personality at work exhibited both stability and variation within individuals. Trait measures predicted average levels of trait manifestation in daily behavior at work, whereas daily work experiences (i.e., organizational citizenship, interpersonal conflict, and motivation) predicted deviations from baseline tendencies. Additionally, correlations of neuroticism with standard deviations in the daily personality variables suggest that, although work experiences influence state personality, people higher in neuroticism exhibit higher levels of intraindividual variation in personality than do those who are more emotionally stable.

Hierarchical representations of the five-factor model of personality in predicting job performance: integrating three organizing frameworks with two theoretical perspectives.

Integrating 2 theoretical perspectives on predictor-criterion relationships, the present study developed and tested a hierarchical framework in which each five-factor model (FFM) personality trait comprises 2 DeYoung, Quilty, and Peterson (2007) facets, which in turn comprise 6 Costa and McCrae (1992) NEO facets. Both theoretical perspectives-the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma and construct correspondence-suggest that lower order traits would better predict facets of job performance (task performance and contextual performance). They differ, however, as to the relative merits of broad and narrow traits in predicting a broad criterion (overall job performance). We first meta-analyzed the relationship of the 30 NEO facets to overall job performance and its facets. Overall, 1,176 correlations from 410 independent samples (combined N = 406,029) were coded and meta-analyzed. We then formed the 10 DeYoung et al. facets from the NEO facets, and 5 broad traits from those facets. Overall, results provided support for the 6-2-1 framework in general and the importance of the NEO facets in particular.

Time is on my side: time, general mental ability, human capital, and extrinsic career success.

The present study linked general mental ability (GMA) to extrinsic career success using a multilevel framework that included time and 3 possible time-based mediators of the GMA-career success relationship. Results, based on a large national sample, revealed that over a 28-year period, GMA affected growth in 2 indicators of extrinsic career success (income and occupational prestige), such that the careers of high-GMA individuals ascended more steeply over time than those of low-GMA individuals. Part of the reason high-GMA individuals had steeper growth in extrinsic success over time was because they attained more education, completed more job training, and gravitated toward more complex jobs. GMA also moderated the degree to which within-individual variation in the mediating variables affected within-individual variation in extrinsic career success over time: Education, training, and job complexity were much more likely to translate into career success for more intelligent individuals.

Does it pay to be smart, attractive, or confident (or all three)? Relationships among general mental ability, physical attractiveness, core self-evaluations, and income.

The authors investigated core self-evaluations and educational attainment as mediating mechanisms for the influence of appearance (physical attractiveness) and intelligence (general mental ability) on income and financial strain. The direct effects of core self-evaluations on financial strain, as well as the indirect effects through income, were also considered. Longitudinal data were obtained as part of a national study, the Harvard Study of Health and Life Quality, and proposed models were evaluated with structural equation modeling. Results supported a partially mediated model, such that general mental ability and physical attractiveness exhibited both direct and indirect effects on income, as mediated by educational attainment and core self-evaluations. Finally, income negatively predicted financial strain, whereas core self-evaluations had both a direct and an indirect (through income) negative effect on financial strain. Overall, the results suggest that looks (physical attractiveness), brains (intelligence), and personality (core self-evaluations) are all important to income and financial strain.