Journal of Applied Psychology

Paustian-Underdahl, Samantha C.; Eaton, Asia A.; Mandeville, Ashley; Little, Laura M.

doi: 10.1037/apl0000394pmid: 30702304

In light of recent research suggesting mothers are more likely to withdraw from work than fathers are, we assess the relative contributions of popular “pushed-out” and “opting-out” perspectives over the course of their pregnancies. As pregnancy is a pivotal time for the reevaluation of work and life roles, we investigate the degree to which gender differences in changes in turnover intentions and intentions to return to the workforce are explained by changes in perceived career encouragement from organizational members (a pushed-out factor), as well as changes in the employees’ own career motivation (an opting-out factor), throughout pregnancy. We also examine the relationships between these pushed-out and opting-out variables over time. Using latent growth modeling, we find support for the notion that women’s perceptions of being pushed out may lead to women’s opting out of their organizations. We find that gender (being female) indirectly relates to an increase in turnover intentions and a decrease in career motivation throughout pregnancy, as explained by decreases in perceptions of career encouragement (for women) at work. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Ouyang, Kan; Cheng, Bonnie Hayden; Lam, Wing; Parker, Sharon K.

doi: 10.1037/apl0000391pmid: 30730165

Drawing on conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) and the model of proactive motivation (Parker, Bindl, & Strauss, 2010), this research employs experience sampling methods to examine how employees’ off-job experiences during the evening relate to their proactive behavior at work the next day. A multilevel path analysis of data from 183 employees across 10 workdays indicated that various types of off-job experiences in the evening had differential effects on daily proactive behavior during the subsequent workday, and the psychological mechanisms underlying these varied relationships were distinct. Specifically, off-job mastery in the evening related positively to next-morning high-activated positive affect and role breadth self-efficacy, off-job agency in the evening related positively to next-morning role breadth self-efficacy and desire for control, and off-job hassles in the evening related negatively to next-morning high-activated positive affect; next-morning high-activated positive affect, role breadth self-efficacy, and desire for control, in turn, predicted next-day proactive behavior. Off-job relaxation in the evening related positively to next-morning low-activated positive affect, and off-job detachment in the evening had a decreasingly positive curvilinear relationship with next-morning low-activated positive affect. However, as expected, these two types of off-job experiences and low-activated positive affect did not relate to next-day proactive behavior.

Lin, Katrina Jia; Savani, Krishna; Ilies, Remus

doi: 10.1037/apl0000392pmid: 30714747

Drawing on self-determination theory, this research investigates whether the motivation behind employees’ helping behaviors is associated with their positive affect and their subsequent help provision, and whether citizenship pressure moderates these relationships. A recall-based experiment and an experience-sampling study capturing helping episodes among fulltime employees found that when employees helped coworkers because of higher autonomous (controlled) motivation in a helping episode, they experienced higher (lower) positive affect, and they had stronger (weaker) helping intentions and helped coworkers more (less) subsequently. We further found that citizenship pressure enhanced the positive relationship between episodic autonomous motivation and positive affect. Overall, the results challenge the universality of the “doing good–feeling good” effect and explicate the joint roles of citizenship pressure and helpers’ episodic motivation in influencing employees’ positive affect and their subsequent helping behaviors.

Eisenberger, Robert; Rockstuhl, Thomas; Shoss, Mindy K.; Wen, Xueqi; Dulebohn, James

doi: 10.1037/apl0000390pmid: 30730164

There is controversy concerning whether, in recent years, organizational failures to act benevolently toward employees have lessened employees’ social-exchange relationship (SER) with their work organization or whether, on the contrary, organizations’ more favorable treatment of employees has strengthened the SER. With samples of U.S. employees, we examined changes over the past 3 decades in three key elements of the SER: perceived organizational support (POS: 317 samples, including 121,469 individuals), leader–member exchange (LMX: 191 samples, including 216,975 individuals), and affective organizational commitment (383 samples, including 116,766 individuals). We considered both how the average levels changed over time and how the associations of these 3 elements with the antecedents of procedural and distributive justice and the consequences of in-role and extra-role performance have changed. We found that the average levels of indicators of the SER have remained steady except for an increase in POS. LMX and affective commitment show levels near neutral, and POS has increased to only a moderately positive level. In contrast, the relationships between these elements with distributive and procedural justice and extra-role performance remain substantial. These findings suggest that employees on average do not currently have strong exchange relationships with their work organization but remain ready to more fully engage based on perceived voluntary favorable treatment by the work organization and its representatives.

Mayer, David M.; Ong, Madeline; Sonenshein, Scott; Ashford, Susan J.

doi: 10.1037/apl0000388pmid: 30714748

We examine the effectiveness of economic and moral language used by employees when selling social issues to management. In contrast to prior work finding that employees believe it is best to use economic language to influence management to address social issues, we draw on the issue selling, persuasion, and behavioral ethics literatures to demonstrate that moral language is actually most influential—especially when the language is framed to align with the organization’s values and/or mission. The results from a combination of 3 field survey studies and 1 experimental vignette study provide support for this hypothesis. In addition, we find support for obligation (i.e., manager’s anticipated guilt), rather than inspiration (i.e., manager’s prosocial motivation), as a mediator of this interactive effect. We discuss implications for literatures on issue selling, persuasion, and behavioral ethics.

Evans, Jonathan B.; Slaughter, Jerel E.; Ellis, Aleksander P. J.; Rivin, Jessi M.

doi: 10.1037/apl0000395pmid: 30730166

Although research has added to our understanding of the positive and negative effects of the use of humor at work, scholars have paid little attention to characteristics of the humor source. We argue that this is an important oversight, particularly in terms of gender. Guided by parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory (PCST), we propose that gender plays an important role in understanding when using humor at work can have costs for the humor source. Humor has the potential to be interpreted as either a functional or disruptive work behavior. Based on PCST, we argue that gender stereotypes constrain the interpretation of observed humor such that humor expressed by males is likely to be interpreted as more functional and less disruptive compared with humor expressed by females. As a result, humorous males are ascribed higher status compared with nonhumorous males, while humorous females are ascribed lower status compared with nonhumorous females. These differences have implications for subsequent performance evaluations and assessments of leadership capability. Results from an experiment with 216 participants provides support for the moderated mediation model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.