The threat-to-self-esteem model suggests an individual's interpretation of an offer of help is influenced by factors of the aid that have implicit consequences to the helpee's self-esteem (Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982). Basic needs theory states that the fulfillment of autonomy and competency needs are two components necessary for an individual to achieve optimal well-being, and thus self-image (i.e., self-esteem; Ryan & Deci, 2000). As such, this study used a LEGO building task and manipulated challenges to autonomy and competency in order to determine the extent to which an individual finds an unsolicited offer of help as threatening or supportive to their self-esteem. This study also examined goal orientation and self- esteem as moderating variables of the relationship between challenge to autonomy and competency on the resulting appraisal of the unsolicited help as supportive or threatening to one's self-esteem. Participants were 168 undergraduate students at the University of Central Florida. A series of ANOVAs indicated that threat to autonomy and performance goal orientation had significant effects on threat to self-esteem. Future research directions and limitations are included.

Research on coping has provided consistent evidence that emotion-focused coping strategies tend to have negative ramifications for well-being, whereas problem-focused coping strategies tend to promote well-being. However, there is little research that examines how these two types of coping strategies impact stressor-sleep quality relationships. Therefore, the current thesis included two studies that utilized Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) conceptualization of coping as either problem-focused or emotion-focused to test the impact of those coping strategies on stressor-sleep quality relationships. The first study was cross-sectional and investigated the effect of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping on the relationship between workload and sleep quality, and the effect of emotion-focused coping on the relationship between incivility and sleep quality. Results suggested that emotion-focused coping exacerbates stressor-sleep quality relationships. The second study built upon the first study by using a daily experience sampling method design to further investigate the effects of coping on the relationship between work stress and sleep quality. In this study, sleep quality was measured subjectively with self-report measures and objectively with the use of actigraphy. Findings suggested that problem-focused coping moderated the relationship between workload and objective sleep quality, but not as expected. Together, findings across both studies suggest that emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping may differentially moderate the relationship between work stress and sleep quality. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Video interviews employ communication technologies to evaluate job applicants. One type of video interview, the one-way video interview, requires applicants to interact with and record their responses via an online platform. This technique strays from more traditional interview methods which rely heavily on human interaction. This could influence applicant reactions depending on the applicant's individual differences, such as individual-level cultural values. In this study, 815 participants were guided through a one-way video interview experience. Their reactions and the potential outcomes of these reactions (i.e., organizational attractiveness and pursuit intentions) were assessed. In this study, one-way video interviews elicited more negative applicant reactions from participants who were higher in collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, or short-term orientation than from those who associated more with individualism, low uncertainty avoidance, or long-term orientation, respectively. When a full model was tested, the evidence suggested that the relationship between cultural values and applicant reactions was not mediated by affective reactions and applicant reactions did not have a significant influence on organizational attractiveness or pursuit intentions. Implications for video interview practices and limitations of this study will be discussed.

The present research sought to demonstrate the utility, validity, and reliability of a new measure of rumination assessing both the intentionality and valence of ruminative thought. The Intentionality and Valence of Work-Related Ruminations Questionnaire (IV-WRRQ) is developed based on Martin and Tesser's (1996) goal progress theory of rumination and existing approaches across various sub-disciplines in psychology. Specifically, it is designed to assess four distinct forms of rumination: deliberate-positive, deliberate-negative, intrusive-positive, and intrusive negative rumination. Initial expert ratings provided insight into the initial construct validity, face validity, and readability of the items. The measure was further refined in a study among MTurk workers (N = 151) using two separate surveys separated by a two-week time interval in line with best practices. The second study was conducted among a sample of college students (N = 288) in order to provide further evidence of the validity and reliability of the new measure. The IV-WRRQ ultimately demonstrated good internal consistency, convergent validity with existing rumination measures, divergent validity with psychological detachment, and predictive validity with regard to important positive and negative outcomes in affective, cognitive, physical, and health-related domains, in some cases over and above a popular, previously validated measure of rumination.

Although creative behaviors are known to have positive effects on general well-being, little research has looked at the relationship between an individual's creativity and stress within the context of work. This research explored how creativity may work as a buffer against the strain of job stressors. In study 1, six vignettes were developed using Role Stressor Theory (Kahn et al., 1964) and the Challenge/Hindrance Framework of stress (Cavanaugh et al., 2000). A sample of 164 undergraduate students responded to the vignettes and results showed that trait-level creativity was directly related not only to the creativity of the solutions the participants generated, but also impacted the way they perceived and responded to the stressors. Creative participants were more likely to view the stressors as challenges to be overcome rather than hindrances and were more likely to suggest they would employ active coping mechanisms to tackle these stressors. In the second study, a sample of 273 working adults completed a questionnaire regarding creativity and the stressors-strain pathway (Spector & Jex, 1998) within their jobs. This study found that employee creativity was positively related to outcomes such as job satisfaction, engagement, and flow states at work and negatively related to physical health symptoms, turnover intent, and burnout. The study also found that for certain types of work stressors, namely organizational constraints, creativity acted as a buffer against strain, moderating the strength of the relationship between stressors (constraints) and strain measured as turnover intent, burnout, and physical health symptoms. The findings of these studies suggest that trait creativity impacts not only employees' capacity to generate new and useful ideas and solutions, but also their ability to manage and respond to stressors at work.

This study is framed in DeRue & Ashford's (2010) theory of Leadership Identity Construction which states that leadership emergence is a mutual-influence process that exists between individuals claiming leadership and the other members of the group granting leadership. Although this theory and subsequent research details how and in what ways leadership claiming behaviors can be made to emerge as a leader, the literature is relatively silent on how (or if) too much or too little claiming behaviors will affect follower's granting of leadership, and if a "sweet-spot" of leadership claiming behaviors exists where followers are most likely to grant leadership. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of different frequencies of leadership claiming behaviors, how it impacts follower's leadership granting, and potential individual differences which may moderate this relationship. The study randomly assigned participants to one of three conditions (i.e., high, medium, and low), where in each condition, they were exposed to varying levels of leadership claiming behaviors via participation over four rounds in a business simulation. Findings showed that leadership claiming behavior did not support the hypothesis which predicted a curvilinear relationship; rather, a linear relationship emerged which was in line with the current literature. One moderating variable of passive follower role orientation showed a significant main effect, but again, did not support the proposed hypothesis as it did not interact with leadership claiming. Exploratory analyses were also conducted to explore the potential relationship of the results further. Theoretical and practical implications of this study include addressing important gaps found in the leadership emergence literature and using potential findings to guide organizational behaviors when individuals are looking to emerge as leaders. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Sexual Harassment (SH) has been a prevalent issue within the workplace. Observer behavior is when employees are trained to identify and intervene in situations of SH. The traditional SH framework has focused on the legal compliance of employees rather than appealing to their moral reasoning. Furthermore, in most SH training typically depicts an SH situation with a white man who identifies as heterosexual as the perpetrator and a white woman as the victim. The Sex-Based Harassment (SBH) framework aims to address various intersections of racial, sexual, and gender identity within the context of SH. The current study examined the role of social identity on observer intervention behavior using the Observer Intervention in Sexual Harassment (OISH) measure informed by the SBH framework. It is hypothesized that participants who have past SH experience and/or identify as people of color, women, or sexual minorities are more likely to engage in observer behavior. Our original hypotheses had null findings and further analysis provided limited significant findings. These findings show that observer intervention behavior is not dependent on experiencing/witnessing SH. This study is important to improve the effectiveness of training to equip employees with the tools to better identify and intervene in situations of SH in the workplace.

The antecedents of abusive supervisory behaviors have been largely examined at the individual and organizational level. Hardly any attempts have been made to investigate abusive supervisory behaviors in a context broader than the organization. I try to answer the question "does a recession really unleash abusive supervisory behaviors?" by conducting a cross-temporal meta-analysis to examine the effect of economic conditions on the prevalence of abusive supervisory behaviors. Considering economic conditions as an antecedent to abusive supervisory behaviors provides a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomena. I proposed four reasons to explain how economic conditions affect employee's perception of abusive supervisory behaviors. The results show that PPP per capita is a more valuable economic indicator to predict abusive supervisory behaviors. My findings are suggestive of a negative relationship between PPP per capita and abusive supervisory behaviors, but more investigation needs to be done and the results should also be interpreted with caution. Implications and limitations are also discussed.

Researchers have proposed job crafting as a solution for alleviating the pervasive issue of workplace boredom. This multi-study dissertation sheds light on the relationship between boredom and job crafting while considering the role of three personality traits: proactive personality, extraversion, and promotion focus. Study 1 utilized a cross-sectional design that measured employee perceptions of boredom along with subject matter expert (SME) ratings of these jobs as boring. The experiment run in Study 2 induced boredom to test its impact on job crafting along with measuring personality. Results did not support the hypotheses that the links between boredom and three dimensions of crafting (i.e., increasing structural resources, social resources, and challenging demands) were dependent on employees being high in proactive personality, extraversion, or promotion focus. Instead, personality factors were consistently strong predictors of job crafting above and beyond boredom, regardless of how boredom was measured (i.e., self-rated, SME-rated, or experimentally manipulated). These findings have implications for organizations wishing to select individuals who are more inclined to job craft and less disposed toward feeling bored. An interesting caveat is that these individuals high in proactive personality or the assertiveness facet of extraversion might be more negatively impacted by experiencing boredom at work, resulting in less energy to increase structural resources or challenging demands. Lastly, this study highlights the value of utilizing multiple methods to measure boredom, along with considering specific dimensions of job crafting and more narrow personality traits.

Recovery from work refers to a process during which individuals recuperate from work demands. This process is imperative not only for employees' health and well-being but also for their job performance at work. Although the recovery literature has established that recovery, often operationalized as the time spent on leisure activities or the psychological experiences of psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery, and control, is beneficial, little attention has been given to whether engaging in each of these forms of recovery is a solitary process or it can be shared with other individuals. Building upon the previous research on recovery from work and positive social interaction, the present dissertation introduces two new conceptualizations of recovery: shared recovery activities and companionship experiences. I propose that recovery activities during leisure time can be shared with others, and doing so will result in a psychological experience, companionship experiences, that is further related to employee well-being. To support this argument, I review the literature on the stressor-strain relationship, recovery from work, and social support. One hundred sixty-five full-time non-faculty employees affiliated with the University of Central Florida participated in the two-weekend main study. Participant responses on weekend activities were recorded on Sundays and Mondays using the day reconstruction method. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel path analyses while controlling for the between-person effects. The results suggest that shared recovery activities and companionship experiences influence well-being outcomes. However, their effects were mostly observed at the between-person level, and the effects were not observed for all the types of well-being indicators. In addition, there was a lack of evidence for the incremental validity above and beyond traditional types of recovery experiences. The companionship experiences also did not explain variance beyond perceived social support. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed.