Coworkers can play an important role in helping each other overcome stressful circumstances (Beehr, Jex, Stacy, & Murray, 2000; LaRocco & Jones, 1978; Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999), yet work-family researchers have paid significantly less attention to coworker-provided support than they have to supervisor-provided support (Kossek, Pichler, Bodner, & Hammer, 2011). This thesis contributes to the occupational health literature by providing empirical evidence of the benefits of a novel construct termed work-family supportive coworker behavior (WFSCB) – defined as any supportive action that a coworker can take to contribute to the improved management of an individual’s work and family role demands. A phenomenological qualitative investigation revealed five categories of WFSCB that were tested using three quantitative samples to develop and validate a multidimensional measure. The findings indicated that four dimensions of behavior best reflect WFSCB including: 1) emotional support, 2) facilitating work adjustments, 3) sharing resources and knowledge, and 4) proactively developing solutions. In testing the criterion-related validity of the new measure, this research provides evidence of the positive relationship between these behaviors and various work-family outcomes, as higher levels of WFSCB were associated with lower levels of work-to-family conflict, and higher levels of work-family balance, work-family positive spillover, and overall life satisfaction. In addition, the utility of WFSCB as a source of informal workplace support was underscored based on evidence of its incremental validity in the prediction of these same outcome variables over and above a measure of general coworker support (i.e., emotional and instrumental support). Practically, these findings suggest that general measures of coworker support may fall short in assessing a broad spectrum of supportive coworker behaviors that can significantly contribute to improved work-family outcomes. Overall, the results of this research program will place scholars in a better position to provide prescriptive advice to organizations and employees on the behaviors that they can engage in towards one another to promote improved work-family integration for individuals and more broadly, to contribute to a work-family supportive organizational climate.

Statement of the problem Psychology is currently unable to demonstrate that psychotherapy is effective because it has no reliable no-inference objective measures of behavior and behavior change. Reliable measures of therapeutic outcomes are currently nonexistent. The problem with which this study was concerned was one of reliably evaluating psychotherapy outcomes and behavioral change. Objective The objective of this study was to develop and assess new measures of behavioral change. The assessment was directed toward those distressing behaviors which cause adult clients to seek psychotherapy. Methods and procedure Development of a Behavioral Checklist which would assess the distressing behaviors which brought clients to therapy required a list of specific behaviors which may cause a client stress. A questionnaire which would measure stress required not only a list of behaviors, but also a measure of the stress caused by each behavior. A Behavioral Checklist which would measure the degree that specific behaviors were representative of the client's behavior was developed and each behavior was quantified by the S's self-report, as to degree of stress. When the degree that the behavior represents the client was multiplied times the amount of stress caused by that behavior, the result was a multiplicative measure of the behavior and the distress concomitant with that behavior which brought the client to therapy. The test-retest reliability of the Behavioral Checklist for a one week period was obtained from a University class of 21 undergraduate students. This reliability study revealed that 40 of the questionnaire's original 203 items had low test-retest reliability. After the 40 unreliable questions were deleted, the questionnaire's reliability ranged from .816 to .865 depending upon which of the first three scoring techniques were used. Following its development, the Behavioral Checklist was used to evaluate a "clinical" population to determine if it would measure change due to psychotherapy. Findings of the Study Using the therapist's ratings of improvement, the Ss were divided into an improved and an unimproved group. At test for each of the three scoring techniques used on the Behavioral Checklist revealed that Ss judged improved had significant gains on each scoring technique post therapy while Ss not so judged did not have significant gains. The Behavioral Checklists, pre less post scores, yield correlations varying from .54 to .78 when correlated with the therapist's rating of therapy outcomes. Specific Target Behaviors, which are operational definitions of the reasons clients came to therapy, were scored and evaluated in the same manner as the Behavioral Checklist. The Specific Target Behaviors yielded correlations ranging from .33 to .407 when correlated with the therapist's rating of therapy outcomes. Summary and Conclusions The current study indicates that a client's self-report of no-inference objective behaviors will measure change resulting from psychotherapy. Self-report no-inference behaviors will measure change due to psychotherapy whether they are from a prepared list of no-inference behaviors (Behavioral Checklist) or operational definitions of the client's own statements about the reasons that he came to therapy {Specific Target Behaviors). The results of the current study indicate that using no-inference, overt, quantifiable behavior is a fruitful area in which to study therapy outcomes with a clinic population.

La contagion émotionnelle se définit comme la tendance à imiter automatiquement les expressions non verbales avec celles des autres pour ainsi converger émotionnellement. Cette convergence peut être bénéfique si celui qui la reçoit sait comment la gérer en réalisant qu’il s’agit de l’émotion de l’autre, et non de la sienne. Toutefois, lorsqu’un intervenant perd le contrôle des effets de la contagion émotionnelle, il peut en résulter une détresse empathique. En travaillant auprès d’une clientèle en détresse, les intervenants représentent alors, eux aussi, un groupe à risque de vivre ces états émotionnels. Ainsi, connaitre sa vulnérabilité à la contagion émotionnelle serait un atout essentiel pour le travail et la santé psychologique des intervenants. La contagion émotionnelle se mesure à partir d’un questionnaire autorapporté : le Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS). Cet outil présuppose que les personnes qui le remplissent connaissent bien leur réactivité émotionnelle aux émotions des autres. Cependant, ce n’est pas toujours le cas, puisque des travaux ont montré que les personnes peu conscientes de leurs émotions étaient plus à risque de difficultés à réguler leurs émotions. Ainsi, il nous apparait essentiel de développer un outil complémentaire et quantitatif afin de contourner les biais liés aux questionnaires autorapportés. Le but de ce projet est de créer et d’évaluer un outil permettant une mesure comportementale de la contagion émotionnelle chez des étudiants universitaires en psychoéducation. Pour ce faire, nous avons mesuré automatiquement les réactions faciales des participants pendant qu’ils visionnaient un ensemble de stimuli vidéo suscitant diverses réactions émotionnelles. Les résultats indiquent que les deux instruments de contagion émotionnelle (quantitatif et autorapporté), ne semblent pas mesurer les mêmes construits psychosociaux, mais demeurent complémentaires. Aussi, le nouvel outil quantitatif de contagion émotionnelle permet de prédire le risque de présenter des symptômes dépressifs ainsi que de vivre certaines formes de stress chronique et d’épuisement professionnel chez les participants de l’étude. Les implications pour la recherche et la pratique sont discutées. / Emotional contagion is defined as the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures and movements with those of another person’s and, consequently, to converge emotionally. This emotional convergence can be beneficial if one knows how to deal with it and realizes that it’s another person’s emotion, instead of his/her own. However, when one loses control over the effects of emotional contagion, it can cause empathic distress. By working with a clientele in distress, social workers are among the professionals who are the most at risk of experiencing emotional contagion. Thus, being aware of their own susceptibility to emotional contagion would be a way to prevent empathic distress, and to improve their professional work and personal well-being. Emotional contagion is usually measured by a self-report questionnaire: The Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS). The ECS relies on the fact that people who use it are conscious of their emotional reactivity. However, it is not always the case. Previous research has shown that people who are unaware of their emotions are at risk of having problems with regulating their emotions. Therefore, it seems important to develop a complementary and quantitative measure of emotional contagion to counterbalance bias related to subjective measures. The goal of this study is to develop and validate a behavioral measure of emotional contagion in a sample of psychoeducation students from the University of Montreal. To do so, we used a facial coding tool to automatically measure participants’ facial expressions as they watched emotion-eliciting film excerpts. Results indicate that both instruments of emotional contagion (quantitative and self-report) do not measure the same psychosocial constructs but remain complementary. Also, the new quantitative measure of emotional contagion seems to predict the risk of developing depressive symptoms and different forms of chronic stress and burnout among participants of this study. Implications for research and practice are discussed.