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.

Economic stress is a fact of life for many American workers (American Psychological Association 2013, 2015). Outcomes of economic stress for individuals are well documented in the literature, particularly related to employment stressors such as job insecurity and unemployment (De Witte, 2005; Shoss, 2017). However, considerably less research has focused on the effects of economic stress beyond the individual employee. In recent years, several researchers have called out the need to examine the impact of economic stressors from a contextual, situational, and/or multilevel standpoint (Probst et al., 2018; Probst & Shoss, 2012; Sinclair & Cheung, 2016). This paper seeks to examine the potential for economic stress to negatively impact an individual's interpersonal behaviors in the workplace. Namely, it examines the troubling suggestions from prior research that economic stress may lead to increased instances of racial prejudice and discrimination at work. This paper leverages theories such as realistic group conflict theory, resource scarcity, and cognitive load to propose a dual-pathway model that examines how experiencing economic stress, in particular, may lead to increased propensity toward workplace prejudice and discrimination via resource scarcity, competition, and attention. This model was tested using two experimental studies where representative samples of employed adults in the US responded to hypothetical scenarios involving candidates of various races. Results provide initial support for the model when examining self-reported racism as the ultimate outcome, as well as some support for the relationship between one facet of economic stress and biased evaluations against non-white candidates. These studies provide a framework to underlie future research and managerial practice that seek to better understand and mitigate workplace prejudice and discrimination, as well as other negative outcomes of economic stress.

Perceived supervisor support and particularly emotional support possess conceptual overlap with stereotypes of femininity. The present study extends understanding of perceived supervisor support by applying the agency and communality framework of gender stereotypes and role congruity theory. This study employed a vignette research design to examine differential ratings of male and female supervisors who were depicted engaging in (a) no support, (b) instrumental support, (c) emotional support, or (d) instrumental and emotional support. Results suggest that supportive supervision is indeed viewed as feminine in nature. Further, findings suggest that female supervisors engaging in emotional support behaviors are preferred over equivalently supportive male supervisors. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

While much research has been dedicated to determining what may cause workers to engage in counterproductive behavior at work, fairly less attention has been paid to the factors which may influence individuals to refrain from enacting these behaviors. The current study was conducted to determine whether trait empathy may be one such factor and serve as a moderator of the relationship between work stressors and intentions to commit counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Using the theoretical framework of the stressor-emotion model of CWB it was hypothesized more specifically that empathy moderated the mediating effects of negative affect on relationships between stressors and CWB intentions; it was expected that this mediating process would be weaker for those who are more empathetic as compared to those who lower in empathy. 365 Full-time working adults were surveyed using Amazon's Mechanical TURK at two time points to examine this relationship. The moderating effects of the different facets of empathy on the work stressor-CWB relationship were also examined in regard the intention to commit CWB to see if one facet of empathy was more key in the buffering of CWB than the other. Results supported the stressor-emotion model of CWB finding that NA mediated the relationship between the work stressors workload and organizational injustice, and CWB intentions. Results also found that trait empathy significantly attenuated the indirect relationship between the stressors and CWB intentions with trait empathy's affective component found to be particularly influential in this process. Implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Internet use has changed modern workplaces and introduced new options for employee behavior, including organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). While prior research suggests the internet is a unique social environment, and not a simple extension of a traditional in-person workplace, OCB has not been studied in this context. This thesis aimed to identify and document the nature of online OCB and identify how it differs in form and function from traditional in-person OCB. This thesis used a mixed methods approach, with self-report data from 201 participants. Results indicate workers engage in OCB online at a lower rate than in person. Some traditional OCBs do not translate to online settings, but online settings do introduce new possibilities for OCB. Additionally, the nature of the relationships between OCB and other workplace constructs, such as cyberloafing, turnover intentions, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, differ depending on if the OCB occurred in person or online. Directions for future research on online forms of OCB are discussed.

Working from home as part of a virtual team has become the status quo for many workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, modern organizations require teams skilled at complex problem-solving, innovation, and adaptability. Psychological safety enhances these skills, by means of fostering an environment in which team members can fully engage and learn. Given the theoretical possibility that team virtuality may dampen the development of team psychological safety, the present study empirically investigated relationship between these two constructs. A hypothesized model was tested, in which team virtuality has an indirect effect on team psychological safety, via intrateam perceived other-to-self peer support, and self-and-other anonymity. I recruited 213 participants via an online platform for pay. The participants were randomly assigned into 71 teams of three members to perform a 30-minute distributed expertise task. Each team was randomly assigned to one of three virtuality conditions, operationalized as the media richness of the computer technology they were required to use to communicate. Results demonstrated that, as team virtuality decreased (i.e., richer media technology), perceived peer support and team psychological safety increased, as did objective measures of team performance. In contrast, perceived anonymity decreased, but the relationship between anonymity and team psychological safety was not statistically significant. Scholarly and practical implications are discussed.

Due to the many detrimental effects of counterproductive work behavior (CWB), it is important to measure the construct accurately. Despite this, there are some limitations inherent to current CWB measures that are somewhat problematic, including that they contain items that do not apply to all jobs while missing items that are important for other jobs (Bowling & Gruys, 2010). The current study tackles these issues by drawing on the benefits associated with open-ended response situational judgment tests (SJTs), such as them having the potential for more insight from respondents (Finch et al., 2018), to develop an open-ended response CWB SJT. To minimize the drawbacks currently associated with the manual analysis of open-ended response SJTs (e.g., being time-consuming and costly)—which is also a reason why they are rarely used— the study leverages natural language processing and machine learning to measure CWB. Using a two-dimensional conceptualization of CWB, including CWB against the organization (CWB-O) and individuals (CWB-I), the CWB SJT dimensions had a moderate to strong correlation with the popular CWB scale the Workplace Deviance scale (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Findings further indicate the CWB SJT to be related to variables typically associated with CWB tendencies, such as neuroticism and trait self-control. By using topic modeling, it was also found that topic prevalence was largely consistent through time both for the full CWB SJT and for individual items, implying the test-retest reliability. The CWB SJT along with R code for analyzing the open-ended responses is provided. Implication of the CWB SJT for research and practice are discussed.

The imposter phenomenon is a psychological experience characterized by feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite evidence of achievement and success. Employees with these imposter-like thoughts feel as if they ended up in notable roles and positions not because of merit, but from oversight or luck. Research and popular press articles have portrayed the imposter phenomenon as a negative experience, bringing costs to the individual's well-being and work life. Yet, recent research has revealed that perhaps a favorable trajectory to the imposter experience might exist. To address this question, participants were identified and interviewed using a two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods design. Participants were individuals who reported relatively high imposter-like feelings but did not exhibit the negative outcomes typically associated with this experience. Among these individuals, the imposter phenomenon was largely seen as an opportunity for personal growth and professional development, one that challenged and motivated them toward continuous self-improvement. These results provide new insight into how some individuals appraise and subsequently experience their imposter-like feelings. Several propositions were developed from this research, many of which highlight the role of cognitive appraisal as an important construct for better understanding how the imposter phenomenon can be experienced. Implications for future research are discussed.

This research investigates whether constructive criticism enhances creative performance within the relationship context of leaders and followers. Previous research on leadership and creativity defines creative products as novel and useful, but overlooks antecedents to creative action—the immediate precondition of creative products. Creative action, or creative performance, includes (1) identifying a problem, (2) searching for information, (3) generating solutions, and (4) evaluating the best solution. Previous research informs that three psychological mechanisms are responsible for creative actions: (1) sense-making, (2) motivation, and (3) knowledge processes. Constructive criticism is posited to act simultaneously on each of these processes to encourage creative performance across the creativity process. This relationship is hypothesized to be moderated by leader-member exchange. Furthermore, follower feedback-seeking behavior and learning goal orientation are also hypothesized to moderate the constructive criticism and creativity relationship. A series of moderated multiple regression analyses were conducted on survey data from 201 employees and 83 leader-follower dyads. Results indicate that constructive criticism has a null relationship with creativity, and may be detrimental to the in-role performance of followers. However, more nuanced analyses show that these relationships are to some degree moderated by leader-member exchange, the follower's learning goal orientation, and the follower's frequency of feedback seeking behavior.

Ensuring effectiveness of training programs has been a dominant theme in the training industry, and is constantly evolving with the steady incorporation of emerging technology. This field study offers an investigation into the intersection between the applied and research world, and examines the practicality of recommended best practices for implementing synthetic learning environments (SLEs) in the military. Specifically, cognitive load has been identified as a significant factor in influencing the effectiveness of training programs. Research on this topic has focused on utilizing the affordances of SLEs to decrease cognitive load imposed by the material and system in order to allow for more cognitive resources to be allocated towards schema construction and automation. Therefore, this study was derived from a need to ensure that the introduction of SLEs into training programs did not hinder learning or training transfer by comparing the performance outcome measures from two SLEs, Virtual BattleSpace 3 (VBS3) and the Military OpenSimulator Enterprise Strategy (MOSES). Based on concepts of cognitive load, it was possible that any group differences could be explained by the varying levels of cognitive load imposed by either system. Furthermore, the specific system could influence the strength of the effect of cognitive load on performance measures. A conditional process analysis model was constructed from the theorized relationships, and the bootstrap method was used to analyze the model. Research findings indicated no support, and discussions delved into possible explanations for results of the study, limitations, and recommendations for future research. While the analyses were nonsignificant, this was the first study investigating the difference between the VBS3 and MOSES platform, and indicated no difference in impacting performance. Additionally, because MOSES is a free, open source platform, this study could support industries that are looking for cost-effective methods to expand training programs in the direction of SLEs.