Thesis advisor: Liane Young / Thesis advisor: Hiram Brownell / When (moral) psychologists make a claim (e.g., “Participants judged X as morally worse than Y”), how many participants are represented? Such claims are often based exclusively on group-level analyses; here, psychologists often fail to report, or perhaps even investigate, how many participants judged X as morally worse than Y. More troubling, group-level analyses do not necessarily generalize to the person-level. This dissertation first investigates a moral cognition hypothesis about the relation between perceptions of relationship obligations and moral evaluations of helping behavior. It is found that people, on average, judge agents who help strangers as more morally good than agents who help family members, but people also judge agents who help strangers instead of family members as less morally good than agents who help family members instead of strangers. Second, methodological issues with these studies are assessed, fixed, and thus the original psychological effect is retested with better experimental designs, measures, and analyses. Third, it is discovered that the moral cognition hypothesis consistently describes the psychology of only a minority of participants. Moreover, it is discovered that most psychologists misinterpret typical group-level analyses as revealing how prevalent a psychological phenomenon is. Finally, a set of simple and flexible methodological and statistical options are offered to better align typical psychological hypotheses with appropriate analyses, enabling researchers to confront this “group-to-person generalizability” problem in their own work. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

By using Michigan and SPF surveys, this thesis compares the group-level inflation-forecast performance as well as information transmission between two main market participation groups, consumers and professional forecasters. Group-level performance are in terms of forecasting different U.S. inflation indexes and evaluated using forecast accuracy measured by RMSE as well as predictive power tested by a linear model. In addition, consumers are decomposed into three sub-groups based on educational attainment and income distribution to explore within-group heterogeneity. The results indicate that both consumer groups and professionals show poor forecast performance for all the inflation measures, except professionals’ performance for CPI-Core. Further, gathering downward-biased inflation forecasts from professionals is a possible reason that contributes to highly educated consumers’ inflation-forecast performance for price changes of expenditure categories they care.

Research purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate the extent to which supervisors are universally perceived as abusive across those they supervise. I propose social learning theory and social information processing theory as theoretical bases for understanding collective impression formation among subordinates reporting to the same supervisor. The study, therefore builds on a growing body of abusive supervision literature by analysing intraclass correlations between subordinates' and their co-workers' perceptions of the same supervisor. Research motivation: Studies that examine whether or not subordinates of the same supervisor have similar perceptions of abuse are in short supply. Therefore, this study examines the possibility of objective impression formation with regards to abusive supervision so as to answer the question: Do subordinates and their co-workers mutually perceive the extent to which a supervisor's behaviour is abusive? Research design, approach and method: This study follows a cross-sectional approach to investigate the extent to which subordinates of the same workgroup mutually perceive their supervisor's behaviour as abusive. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit full-time employed Master's of Business Administration (MBA) students from six respected universities in the United States (US). Purposive sampling was further aided by snowball sampling where each subordinate was asked to get two of their own co-workers involved in the study. A total of 1,029 surveys were distributed and 693 completed surveys were returned. The final sample consisted of 210 sets of surveys where responses were received from the focal subordinate and two of his or her co-workers. An intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) analysis was conducted to determine the strength of intra-group agreement regarding abusive supervision perceptions. Main findings: The results indicate that there is agreement between subordinates' and their co-workers' perceptions of abusive supervision as no significant differences were found between these two groups' assessments of the same supervisor's behaviour. The null hypothesis was accepted. A non-hypothesized finding is that dyadic tenure appears to influence the extent to which supervisory abuse is observed. That is, subordinates and their co-workers may view the same supervisor in the same light, the longer the duration of the supervisor-subordinate relationship. Limitations: The results should be interpreted, bearing in mind that there is limited literature available on abusive supervision at the group level. Furthermore, the results should be considered with caution as the perceptions of abusive supervision were only examined at one point in time, the use of snowball sampling method may be associated with the possibility of sampling bias, and that dyadic tenure was measured with a categorical response (i.e., not treated as a continuous variable). Finally, the results may not be generalisable to the South African context. Future research: It is suggested that future studies should investigate abusive supervision as a group-level phenomenon as few such studies currently exist. Additionally, future studies should examine the extent to which social learning and social information processing approaches contribute to the establishment of mutual perceptions about supervisory abuse. Researchers may also investigate the occurrence of abusive supervision at the group level through the lens of an alternative theoretical framework such as social identity theory. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

No ambiente organizacional, o fenômeno criatividade é resultado da interação de fato-res. Cultura organizacional, disponibilidade de recursos, expertise, liderança, motivação, estratégia, formação de grupos, são exemplos de fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade nas organizações. Este trabalho teve por objetivo identificar e organizar nos níveis de indivíduo, de grupo e organizacional os fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade no ambiente das organizações. O presente estudo foi elaborado com caráter exploratório e pretendeu ampliar o entendimento do fenômeno criatividade em empresas brasileiras. Os fatores foram identificados a partir de revisão de literatura e questionados por meio de ferramenta quantitativa a fim de coletar a experiência e opinião de profissi-onais de organizações brasileiras reconhecidas por sua capacidade inovadora. O estudo de campo realizado confirmou a importância de cada um dos fatores o que permitiu a construção de um conjunto coerente de fatores que influenciam a criatividade no ambi-ente das organizações. Demonstrou-se ainda por meio dos resultados obtidos, que, con-forme a organização, podem ocorrer ênfase em alguns fatores e redução da importância de outros. Desta forma, considera-se que a consolidação dos fatores em uma estrutura possibilita a elaboração de ações com objetivo de desenvolver e incrementar o potencial criativo das empresas. / Creativity, within the organization environment, is a result from the interaction of sev-eral factors such as organizational culture, resources availability, expertise, leadership, motivation, strategy and group formation. This work did aim to identify and organize these factors in individual, group and organization levels. It was conducted as an ex-ploratory study intending to boost organizational creativity understanding in Brazilian companies. Factors identified in the literature were checked against Brazilian innovation professionals of well-known organizations through quantitative interviews. The research data did corroborate the factor’s importance making possible to build a structure of the factors that influence creativity in organizational context. The results have also demon-strated that there is alternation of importance of these factors according to the organiza-tion profile. As a result is possible to say that having a factor’s structure enable organi-zations to improve their creative potential.

No ambiente organizacional, o fenômeno criatividade é resultado da interação de fato-res. Cultura organizacional, disponibilidade de recursos, expertise, liderança, motivação, estratégia, formação de grupos, são exemplos de fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade nas organizações. Este trabalho teve por objetivo identificar e organizar nos níveis de indivíduo, de grupo e organizacional os fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade no ambiente das organizações. O presente estudo foi elaborado com caráter exploratório e pretendeu ampliar o entendimento do fenômeno criatividade em empresas brasileiras. Os fatores foram identificados a partir de revisão de literatura e questionados por meio de ferramenta quantitativa a fim de coletar a experiência e opinião de profissi-onais de organizações brasileiras reconhecidas por sua capacidade inovadora. O estudo de campo realizado confirmou a importância de cada um dos fatores o que permitiu a construção de um conjunto coerente de fatores que influenciam a criatividade no ambi-ente das organizações. Demonstrou-se ainda por meio dos resultados obtidos, que, con-forme a organização, podem ocorrer ênfase em alguns fatores e redução da importância de outros. Desta forma, considera-se que a consolidação dos fatores em uma estrutura possibilita a elaboração de ações com objetivo de desenvolver e incrementar o potencial criativo das empresas. / Creativity, within the organization environment, is a result from the interaction of sev-eral factors such as organizational culture, resources availability, expertise, leadership, motivation, strategy and group formation. This work did aim to identify and organize these factors in individual, group and organization levels. It was conducted as an ex-ploratory study intending to boost organizational creativity understanding in Brazilian companies. Factors identified in the literature were checked against Brazilian innovation professionals of well-known organizations through quantitative interviews. The research data did corroborate the factor’s importance making possible to build a structure of the factors that influence creativity in organizational context. The results have also demon-strated that there is alternation of importance of these factors according to the organiza-tion profile. As a result is possible to say that having a factor’s structure enable organi-zations to improve their creative potential.

No ambiente organizacional, o fenômeno criatividade é resultado da interação de fato-res. Cultura organizacional, disponibilidade de recursos, expertise, liderança, motivação, estratégia, formação de grupos, são exemplos de fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade nas organizações. Este trabalho teve por objetivo identificar e organizar nos níveis de indivíduo, de grupo e organizacional os fatores que exercem influência sobre a criatividade no ambiente das organizações. O presente estudo foi elaborado com caráter exploratório e pretendeu ampliar o entendimento do fenômeno criatividade em empresas brasileiras. Os fatores foram identificados a partir de revisão de literatura e questionados por meio de ferramenta quantitativa a fim de coletar a experiência e opinião de profissi-onais de organizações brasileiras reconhecidas por sua capacidade inovadora. O estudo de campo realizado confirmou a importância de cada um dos fatores o que permitiu a construção de um conjunto coerente de fatores que influenciam a criatividade no ambi-ente das organizações. Demonstrou-se ainda por meio dos resultados obtidos, que, con-forme a organização, podem ocorrer ênfase em alguns fatores e redução da importância de outros. Desta forma, considera-se que a consolidação dos fatores em uma estrutura possibilita a elaboração de ações com objetivo de desenvolver e incrementar o potencial criativo das empresas. / Creativity, within the organization environment, is a result from the interaction of sev-eral factors such as organizational culture, resources availability, expertise, leadership, motivation, strategy and group formation. This work did aim to identify and organize these factors in individual, group and organization levels. It was conducted as an ex-ploratory study intending to boost organizational creativity understanding in Brazilian companies. Factors identified in the literature were checked against Brazilian innovation professionals of well-known organizations through quantitative interviews. The research data did corroborate the factor’s importance making possible to build a structure of the factors that influence creativity in organizational context. The results have also demon-strated that there is alternation of importance of these factors according to the organiza-tion profile. As a result is possible to say that having a factor’s structure enable organi-zations to improve their creative potential.

Team psychological safety fosters interpersonal risk-taking and constructive debate. Yet, how psychological safety develops in diverse teams needs to be explained. I apply collective regulatory lenses to shed light on how collective prevention focus (status quo) and collective promotion focus (growth) uniquely affect team psychological safety. I believe promotion focus makes it easier to attain psychological safety, while prevention focus makes it harder. Under a collective promotion lens, teams seek growth. Under a collective prevention lens, teams desire protection and not making things any worse. A pilot study of 76 students in 17 student project teams provided initial support for individual relationships in my model. In Study 2, an experiment, I manipulated team regulatory foci in three tasks (building towers, selling a house, negotiating a salary). I did not find significant mean group differences in psychological safety between promotion (n = 17) and prevention (n = 15) teams; yet, promotion teams experienced greater team viability in the final activity. In Study 3, I employed an experimental vignette method that suggested leadership conditions (e.g., leader humility vs transactional leadership) created differences in regulatory foci and subsequent differences in psychological safety with 343 working professionals in 7 scenarios.

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Leader self-development, as an approach to leader development, is defined as autonomous, self-regulated behaviors focused on developing one’s leadership capacities. Leader development, as a function, is purposeful engagement in the development of human capital, often in the form of formal training programs or on-the-job assignments. It has been theorized that leaders can only learn from such structured investments if they are motivated to self-develop as leaders. For this reason, self-development is a foundational element of leadership development in general. Previous research has found that certain leader characteristics such as feedback seeking, achievement seeking and mastery orientation predict an individual’s motivation for self-development. The current study examines whether matched perceived group-norms interact with leader characteristics to impact motivation to self-develop. 134 male and 33 female leaders who manage people within structured organizations completed an online self-report survey to assess participants’ leader characteristics, perceived group norms and motivation to self-develop. Results replicated previous research using a new sample, thus establishing the importance of leader characteristics of feedback seeking, achievement seeking, and mastery orientation in predicting motivation to self-development. Although results failed to support the predicted interactions between leader characteristics and matched group level norms, for the first time, group level norms of goal-setting and learning were found to have a direct effect on motivation to self-develop. Implications of increased leader self-development under specific, advantageous group norms are discussed.