Browsing by Author "Calderwood, Charles"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 20
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    The Association of Microbreaks with Work Performance: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective
    Rost, Emily Alexis (Virginia Tech, 2022-05-17)
    Microbreaks are short, voluntary breaks taken during the workday that have been found to be beneficial in the recovery process as they are less structured and can be taken when an employee is feeling heightened levels of fatigue. Self-determination theory provides an important lens through which to study the possible association between microbreaks and work performance. Self-determination theory states that when an individual's needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are satisfied the individual will have intrinsic motivation which will drive performance. In this experience sampling study, I recruited employees to respond to four surveys per day for five days. Based on the results of 100 participants, using unconflated multilevel modeling I found that higher work engagement covaried with higher personal initiative. Using multilevel structural equation modeling and focusing on between-person relationships, I found that autonomy need satisfaction during microbreaks covaried with increased intrinsic work motivation, while relatedness covaried with decreased intrinsic work motivation. Also, focusing on the between-person relationships, higher intrinsic work motivation covaried with higher work engagement, which then covaried with higher personal initiative. At the between-person level autonomy influenced personal initiative indirectly via enhancements in work engagement extending from intrinsic motivation. In this dissertation, I provided a comparative analysis of microbreak activities and implications of need satisfaction on various work-related constructs.
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    The Association of Subordinate Perceptions of Supervisor Recovery with Subordinate Recovery Outcomes
    Minnen, Molly E. (Virginia Tech, 2020-01)
    Recent literature surrounding the process of recovery from work and work-related demands has included the supervisor as a key variable influencing how and if employees recover from work. Recovery represents the return of personal resources to their pre-work levels and is typically conceptualized as taking place during non-work time (e.g., at night after work, weekends, holidays). It is theorized to take place through four main recovery experiences: psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery experiences, and control over leisure time. This study extends the literature surrounding recovery experiences to include subordinate perceptions of supervisor recovery as a potential predictor of subordinate recovery and well-being. Participants (N=252) completed three time-lagged surveys and reported their perceptions of their supervisor’s recovery (Time 1), their own recovery (Time 2), and their feelings of vigor and fatigue (Time 3). Perceived supervisor recovery was empirically distinguishable from supervisor support for recovery and provided incremental validity in predicting subordinate recovery beyond this support perception. These results bolster the conclusion that supervisor recovery can spillover to directly influence subordinate recovery.
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    BCC’ing AI: Using Modern Natural Language Processing to Detect Micro and Macro E-ggressions in Workplace Emails
    Cornett, Kelsi E. (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-24)
    Subtle offensive statements in workplace emails, which I term "Micro E-ggressions," can significantly impact the psychological safety and subsequent productivity of work environments despite their often-ambiguous intent. This thesis investigates the prevalence and nature of both micro and macro e-ggressions within workplace email communications, utilizing state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Leveraging a large dataset of workplace emails, the study aims to detect and analyze these subtle offenses, exploring their themes and the contextual factors that facilitate their occurrence. The research identifies common types of micro e-ggressions, such as questioning competence and work ethic, and examines the responses to these offenses. Results indicate a high prevalence of offensive content in workplace emails and reveal distinct thematic elements that contribute to the perpetuation of workplace incivility. The findings underscore the potential for NLP tools to bridge gaps in awareness and sensitivity, ultimately contributing to more inclusive and respectful workplace cultures.
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    Ego Depletion-Induced Aberrant Driving in the Post-Work Commute
    Mitropoulos, Tanya Elise (Virginia Tech, 2020-12-11)
    Spillover research has shown that workday stress hampers commuting safety, while ego depletion research has demonstrated that prior self-regulation leads to performance decrements in subsequent tasks. This study sought to unite these two lines of research by proposing that ego depletion-induced alterations in attention and motivation are the mechanisms by which workday experiences spill over to the commute and impair driving safety. To examine the daily influences of these within-person processes on driving behavior in the post-work commute, this study adopted a daily survey design, wherein participants took an online survey immediately before and after each post-work commute across one work week. In these daily surveys, fifty-six participants (N = 56; n = 250 day-level observations) reported their workday self-regulatory demands; pre-commute levels of attention, motivation, and affective states; and driving behavior during the commute home. Using multilevel path analysis to isolate within-person effects, the current study found no evidence to suggest that workday self-regulatory demands lowered pre-commute attention and motivation, nor did it detect associations of attention and motivation with post-work aberrant driving. Results indicated that an ego depleted state might impair attention and motivation but not driving safety in the commute. Instead, the results pointed to the person-level factor of trait self-control as potentially having a greater impact on post-work aberrant driving than daily experiences.
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    Examining Social Support Seeking Online
    Minton, Brandon (Virginia Tech, 2021)
    Research across healthcare and organizational settings demonstrates the importance of social support to increase physical and mental well-being. However, the process of seeking social support is less well-understood than its outcomes. Specifically, research examining how people seek social support in natural settings is scarce. One natural setting increasingly used by people to seek support is the internet. In this online setting, people seek and provide social support verbally via social media platforms and messages. The present project seeks to further examine the nature of social support seeking in these online contexts by examining people’s language. This analysis includes discovering the common language features of social support seeking. By applying a data-driven content analysis approach, this research can examine the underlying themes present when seeking social support and build upon that insight to classify new instances of support seeking. These results would have important practical implications for occupational health. By identifying individuals who are seeking social support, future interventions will be able to take a more targeted approach in lending additional support to those individuals who have the greatest need. Subsequently, this application potentially provides the mental and physical health benefits of social support. Therefore, this research extends our knowledge of both the nature of support seeking and how to develop effective interventions.
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    Exploring human-vehicle communication to balance transportation safety and efficiency: A naturalistic field study of pedestrian-vehicle interactions
    Roediger, Micah David (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-29)
    While driving behavior is generally governed by the nature and the driving objectives of the driver, there are many situations (typically in crowded traffic conditions) where tacit communication between vehicle drivers and pedestrians govern driving behavior, significantly influencing transportation safety. The study aimed to formalize the tacit communication between vehicle drivers and pedestrians, in order to inform an investigation on effective communication mechanisms between autonomous vehicle and humans. Current autonomous vehicles engage in decision making primarily controlled by on-board or external sensory information, and do not explicitly consider communication with pedestrians. The study was a within subject 2x2x2 factorial experimental design. The three independent variables were driving context (normal driving vs. autonomous vehicle placard), driving route (1 vs. 2), and narration (yes vs. no). The primary outcome variable was driver-yield behavior. Each of the ten drivers completed the factorial design, requiring eight total drives. Data were collected using a data acquisition system (DAS) designed and installed on the experimental vehicle by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. The DAS collected video, audio, and kinematic data. Videos were coded using a proprietary software program, Hawkeye, based on an a priori data directory. Recommendations for future autonomous vehicle research and programming are provided.
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    Green Roof Exposure and Office Workers' Mental Health: Work-related Distress, Mental Fatigue, and Perceived Restoration
    Ozturk Sari, Sevda (Virginia Tech, 2023-02-14)
    More than half of the world's population works full time and spends about one-third of their weekdays at workplaces (International Labor Organization, 2022). Mental disorders are one of the health problems that have emerged among working populations (World Health Organization, 2022). Previous empirical research and theories demonstrated that nature exposure positively impacts human health and wellbeing (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989). Green roofs can be one of the most easily accessible nature places for office workers in city centers. This study examines the relationship between green roofs and work-related distress, mental fatigue, and restoration. An online survey of 179 employees was used to evaluate the relationship between exposure to six different green roofs and employee work-related distress, mental fatigue, and mental restoration. The results show that the average time spent on green roofs and the frequency of visits have statistically significant relationships with the mental restoration.
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    A Longitudinal Investigation of the Mental Health Benefits of Physical Activity Among Graduate Students
    Glasgow, Trevin Earl (Virginia Tech, 2020-03-20)
    Recent evidence showing graduate students to be at an elevated risk of developing mental health problems has attracted the attention of both researchers and non-researchers (Evans, Bira, Gastelum, Weiss, and Vanderford, 2018; Flatherty, 2018). This increased risk could be attributed to the stressors graduate students routinely experience. However, few studies have examined the negative effects of work stressors among graduate students and ways to protect graduate students from the negative impact of stressors. This research explored the association between work stressors and the mental health of graduate students, while considering the potential protective role of physical activity. Also studied was the potential predictors of physical activity, such as social support for physical activity. Graduate students completed three surveys over a semester. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to analyze within- and between-person variation. Increased levels of work stressors were associated with increased levels of mental health problems. Physical activity was not associated with improved mental health at both levels of analysis. However, higher levels of physical activity protected graduate students from the negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity, but not work overload. Social support for physical activity and a mindset that stress is enhancing were both associated with increased physical activity. This is one of the first studies to not only consider the negative effects of work stressors on graduate students' mental health, but also the protective benefits of physical activity.
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    Methods, paradigms, and practices: Advancing Dissemination and Implementation Science
    Steketee, Abby M. (Virginia Tech, 2020-12-23)
    There is a critical gap in translating scientific discoveries to public health benefit. For example, despite a multitude of efficacious physical activity interventions, only one in four adults in the United States meets the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. To bridge the research-practice gap, Dissemination and Implementation (DandI) Science has emerged as the study of how evidence-based interventions, programs, and policies are integrated in typical settings. Recent research illustrates barriers to conducting DandI Science and the need for methods that open the black box of implementation. Therefore, the overarching goal of this dissertation was to explore novel approaches for advancing DandI Science. This exploration is presented in three manuscripts and one report. The first manuscript presents a pragmatic, observational study applying the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance) Framework to evaluate a perinatal health fair. Results include that the health fair reached 42 attendees and that 23 educators and seven organizations hosted booths and educational sessions. Mom Expo required 292 implementation hours with 71% of those hours devoted to building relationships. We generated 30 actionable strategies for implementing a health fair. The health fair developed into a non-profit organization, and the participatory approach used can be replicated in other communities to establish connections between local women, educators, and researchers. The second manuscript reports a one-year autoethnography (i.e., first-person narrative) of a perinatal health integrated research practice partnership (IRPP). Findings include three themes: (1) permeable work boundaries, (2) blind spots toward philosophical underpinnings of paradigms, and (3) maladaptive behaviors seemingly reinforced by the research culture. We concluded that autoethnography is an effective novel method to leverage researcher situatedness and capture implementation contexts, processes, and outcomes. The third manuscript presents the longitudinal pilot test of FUEL (focus, unplug, exercise, love), a one-on-one coaching program to promote human flourishing among DandI researchers. Results include that the coach spent 12.96+2.82 hours per participant (N= 16) implementing individually-tailored sessions, and that participants reported multiple, sustained benefits related to productivity, happiness, and health. We concluded that the program is a feasible, well-received approach with preliminary positive effects. Future work is needed to investigate physiological or performance outcomes and, ultimately, impact on DandI. The final report is a literature review and critical analysis of phenomenology within behavioral and community health research. Conclusions include that (1) physical activity is rooted in a scientific paradigm that prioritizes quantifiable mechanism over personal meaning, and (2) phenomenology, as a complement to basic science, is a compelling method, paradigm, and practice to improve research translation. Based on this research, I conclude that three pathways for advancing DandI Science are methods that capture first-person meaning, paradigms that incorporate phenomenological human experience as an essential dimension of health research, and practices that fuel researchers' capacity for generating transformative work. In all three pathways, the heart of elevating DandI Science is to embrace process, person, and presence.
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    A Mixed Methods Study of Ranger Attrition:  Examining the Relationship of Candidate Attitudes, Attributions and Goals
    Coombs, Aaron Keith (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-01)
    Elite military selection programs like the 75th Ranger Regiment's Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP) are known for their difficulty and high attrition rates, despite substantial candidate screening just to get into such programs. The current study analyzes Ranger candidates 'attitudes, attributions, and goals (AAGs) and their relationship with successful completion of pre-RASP, a preparation phase for the demanding eight-week RASP program. Candidates' entry and exit surveys were analyzed using natural language processing (NLP), as well as more traditional statistical analyses of Likert-measured survey items to determine what reasons for joining and what individual goals related to candidate success. Candidates' Intrinsic Motivations and Satisfaction as measured on entry surveys were the strongest predictors of success. Specifically, candidates' desire to deploy or serve in combat, and the goal of earning credibility in the Rangers were the most important reasons and goals provided through candidates' open-text responses. Additionally, between-groups analyses between Black Candidates, Hispanic Candidates, and White Candidates showed that differences in candidate abilities and motivations better explains pre-RASP attrition than demographic proxies such as race or ethnicity. The study's use of NLP demonstrates the practical utility of applying machine learning to quantitatively analyze open-text responses that have traditionally been limited to qualitative analysis or subject to human coding, although predictive models utilizing more traditional Likert-measurement of AAGs had better predictive accuracy.
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    Modeling Attrition in a Military Selection Context
    Coombs, Aaron (Virginia Tech, 2020-10-02)
    Attrition, employee turnover, self-selection, and withdrawal all refer to an employee’s exit from an organization, or from an organization’s recruitment or selection process. When individuals with the desired knowledge, skills, abilities, and other qualities (KSAOs) attrit, it represents lost productivity to an organization (Barrick & Zimmerman, 2009). Therefore, organizations should seek a selection program that screens out unwanted characteristics while minimizing the voluntary withdrawal, or quitting, of those who would be a good organizational fit. A military selection context amplifies these two aims because of the limited number of qualified individuals relative to the organization’s personnel needs, and because of the high potential cost of a bad hire. However, there are few studies of attrition during a selection process, and even fewer in a military context that combines physical, cognitive, and personality components as relevant performance dimensions. The purpose of the study was to model attrition from a military special operations selection through training program to determine what combination of physical abilities, cognitive abilities, and personality scales best predicts success. The study examined archival data from 748 candidate records spanning eight different classes during 2019. Secondary purposes of the study included comparing differences in attrition from the first week of the program to the remaining seven weeks, and comparing the predictive validity of a personality trait profile model to a model using personality scales T-scores. In conducting the analysis and modeling, exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the sample Jackson Personality Inventory-Revised (JPI-R) personality scales, finding both similarities and differences with previous study samples (Detwiler & Ramanaiah, 1996; Paunonen & Jackson, 1996). The result of the study was a logit prediction model with a ROC AUC of .784, and an F1 score of .69, that incorporated three physical predictors, performance IQ, and three personality variables: JPI-R T-score for sociability, and two composites created from the factor analysis—a Conscientiousness Composite and an Openness Composite (negative relationship with candidate success). Models for week 1 attrition and attrition from weeks 2-8 differed from the 8-week attrition model, and from each other in the significance and the importance of the personality variables and of cognitive abilities. Physical predictors: run score, pushups score, and sit-ups score, were significant and strong predictors of success for each of the time periods. Verbal IQ was not significant for any time period, while performance IQ was significant in predicting 8-week success, and for success during the week 2-8 time period. Personality predictors varied the most by timeframe, although some component of Conscientiousness predicted strongly for each timeframe. Whereas Openness-related facets predicted for 8-week success and success from week 1 with a negative relationship, Openness factors were non-significant in weeks 2-8. In contrast, Anxiety, a related sub-facet of Neuroticism, predicted moderately (negative relationship) for success from weeks 2-8, but was non-significant for week 1 and for the 8-week program. Unexpected findings included the sample’s different factor structure on the JPI-R, the dominance of the physical predictors in all models, and the strength of personality predictors relative to cognitive abilities. Implications for military and similar types of selection contexts, where selection through training includes a significant physical component, are discussed.
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    The order in which you cope matters: An examination of the moderating role of coping sequence on the impact of stressor type on affect
    Minton, Brandon Tyler (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-08)
    To date, few studies have sought to investigate whether the sequence in which individuals engage in coping strategies could impact the effectiveness of those strategies. The present study utilizes an EMA data collection approach to obtain a sample of N = 93 student participants to investigate this potential impact. I analyzed the data with a type of multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) called a cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), where the individual served as the higher level and surveys collected at various time points (three per day for five consecutive days) served as the lower level nested within those individuals. Autoregressive, cross-lagged, and moderation paths were tested to see which constructs at time point T-1 were significantly related to positive affect and negative affect at time point T. Findings indicated more significant relationships for positive affect at time point T than negative affect at time point T. Among these were moderation effects of coping strategy on the relationship between the presence of an interpersonal stressor and positive affect, such that emotion-focused coping buffers that effect and problem-focused coping amplifies it.
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    A Person-Centered Approach to Understanding Perceived Deception in Job Advertisement Text
    Ristow, Teresa Lauren (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-09)
    Regardless of industry or job type, most organizations aim to recruit large qualified applicant pools via job advertisements or postings. With little control over those individuals that choose to apply and those that do not, organizations and their recruiters are likely to do what they can to increase their applicant pool. This allows for more options in potential hires during the selection process. In order to control the applicant pool as much as possible, recruiters can try and influence potential applicants through the posted job advertisement. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that many recruiters will write a slightly inflated or overly positive view of the job in order to appeal to more applicants. However, individuals job searching may perceive this attempt as misleading or deceptive. In order to understand perceived deception in job advertisements and what features of their text elicits an overall negative attitude towards the advertisement, this study proposes a mainly exploratory approach to discover if there is a homogenous higher-level construct of perceived deceptiveness or if there is a more person-centered approach via latent profile analysis (LPA) to explain what applicants perceived as deceptive. After the nature of perceived deceptiveness is better understood, this study aims to utilize natural language processing (NLP) topic modeling to find common deceptive topics within different dimensions of the job posting such as, pay, benefits, qualifications, etc. With the limited empirical guidance provided to practitioners, the proposed study can help facilitate research on best practices in job advertisement writing to gain qualified and quality candidates. In turn, those candidates will tend to maintain positive attitudes towards the job and organization, which can persist even after being hired.
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    The Relative Effectiveness of Exercise Breaks on Resistance to Surface Acting Demands
    Rost, Emily A. (Virginia Tech, 2020)
    Exercise is important to employees’ health and well-being. Exercise has been found to increase resources, foster resource replenishment, and increase happiness, which may make it effective in supporting employees against the harmful effects of depletion that arise from emotion regulation. Surface acting is a demanding behavior in which employees must fake their emotions to follow organizational display rules, but we know little about how exercise breaks can prevent harmful effects extending from this common job demand in some organizational settings (e.g., customer service). Fifty participants (N = 50) completed a surface acting task in which they listened to audio-recorded negative restaurant reviews and were instructed to respond to the reviews without conveying negative emotions across a 90-minute in-lab experimental session. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four break conditions (no break, a passive break, an exercise break, or a flaw essay break) which occurred halfway through the experimental session. Participants then completed the surface acting task again for 20 minutes. The surface acting task was effective in inducing emotion regulation. Participants who received a break experienced a decrease in depletion after the break, while participants who did not receive a break experienced an increase in depletion. However, no evidence was obtained to suggest that exercise breaks led to a reduction in depletion relative to other experimental conditions, nor a difference in mastery or positive affect. This thesis contributes to research on emotion regulation and exercise break by creating a new surface acting task that can easily be given in experiments. Also, this thesis suggests that organizations should ensure that employees are receiving breaks during worktime to guarantee employees maintain high productivity.
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    Self-regulation and Regulatory Focus Theory: Regulation in Response to Goal Discrepancy Feedback in a Regulatory Focus Framework
    Gladfelter, Jessica Anne (Virginia Tech, 2020-06-29)
    Regulatory focus theory is a motivational orientation theory encompassing two regulatory systems: promotion focus and prevention focus. Promotion focused individuals tend to seek success, implement risky tactics, and an eager goal pursuit. Prevention focused individuals tend to avoid failure, implement conservative tactics, and a vigilant goal pursuit. Scholer and Higgins (2011) propose an exception to the rule where individuals break the natural RF alignment, which individuals typically seek to maintain. Scholer and Higgins (2011) proposed that promotion (prevention) focused individuals in a state of gain (loss) become conservative (riskier) in their behavior while maintaining an eager (vigilant) goal pursuit. However, literature supporting this theory is between-subjects in methodology and does not measure GP strategy, only risk. The current study proposes two competing regulation patterns: 1) When individuals change in their risk, they maintain their GP strategy 2) when individuals change in their risk, their GP strategy also changes, becoming more eager with higher levels of risk and more vigilant with more conservative behavior. Therefore, the following study examined how tactics and GP strategies change within-person when experiencing loss and gain states. Specifically, examining change in risk and GP after positive and negative goal discrepancy feedback. In order to examine this self-regulation, participants who were primed to be in either a promotion or prevention focused state played three rounds of a simple risk-measuring game. Even though the RF prime did not produce the expected results, there was regulation occurring. After recategorizing the baseline risk and GP to create a high risk /eager GP and a low risk /vigilant GP groups, there was support for the idea that as behavior changes to be riskier, so too does GP change to become more eager. This finding is in contradiction to Scholer and Higgins' (2011) theory that there is a cognitive reappraisal of what it means to be risky, such that it can fit within the vigilant goal pursuit strategy. Additionally, latent profile analyses further supported the second of the competing regulation patterns, in that higher risk-taking corresponded with eager GP, and more conservative behaviors led to greater levels of vigilant GP. Future directions and limitations are discussed.
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    Shifting the focus: Antecedents and consequences of work-related rumination among traditionally scheduled and shift workers
    Minnen, Molly Eleanor (Virginia Tech, 2022-12-08)
    Previous research suggests that employees can experience different types of demands at work. Challenge demands are motivating and goal oriented, whereas hindrance demands are excessively difficult and / or goal irrelevant. Similarly, previous research indicates that employees may think about work in different ways. Affective rumination involves unproductive, emotionally negative work-related thoughts, whereas problem-solving pondering involves productive, unemotional work-related thoughts. I assess challenge and hindrance demands as potential antecedents to the facets of work-related rumination and indicators of employee recovery and well-being (exhaustion and vigor) in both within- and between-person analyses. I additionally consider the role of work schedule and assess my hypothesized model on a sample including both traditionally scheduled and shift workers. My final sample consisted of 92 full-time (80 traditionally scheduled, 12 shift) employees who were sent three surveys per day over a 28-day survey period. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, I found evidence that work-related rumination may operate as a mechanistic pathway linking work demands to recovery indicators. Additionally, evidence from this dissertation suggests that problem-solving pondering may be detrimental to employee recovery at the daily level, but that it may be beneficial to employee recovery at the between-person level. This dissertation contributes to scientific understanding of potential antecedents of the different types of rumination and suggests that hindrance demands, which are almost universally treated as detrimental to employee recovery, may have competing positive and negative relationships with employee recovery.
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    Teleworker Well-Being in COVID-19 as a Function of Change in the Work/Home Boundary: A Multilevel Response Surface Approach
    Mitropoulos, Tanya Elise (Virginia Tech, 2023-12-06)
    This dissertation explored how a change in the work/home boundary stemming from a mandatory switch to full-time telework influenced employee well-being. Organizational scholars have called for more investigations into how crisis events impact employees, and the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to examine a change in employees' work and home domains as it unfolded. Additionally, as full-time telework becomes a more common way of work, understanding how this once rare work arrangement affects employee well-being holistically is important. Using boundary theory, I hypothesized that a switch to full-time telework would increase the level of integration between employees' work and home domains, and that a greater change in integration level would associate with worse daily well-being outcomes. To explain this association, I turned to recovery theorizing and proposed daily work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment as linking mechanisms. Additionally, I expected that teleworkers whose current level of integration was closer to their preferred level would experience better well-being. Using multilevel response surface analysis (MRSA), which enabled illustration of these complex associations in a more nuanced manner than is possible via either change scores or moderation analyses, I found that maintaining higher work/home integration both before and after telework co-varied with worse holistic well-being through work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment. I also found that having higher integration than preferred and even high integration when preferred associated with worse well-being through work-related rumination and lack of psychological detachment. Based on these results, I point to boundary work and its facilitation of segmentation as a potential means of protecting employee well-being in the event of a future crisis that moves work into the home.
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    Using Agent-Based Modeling to Test and Integrate Process-Oriented Perspectives of Leadership Emergence
    Acton, Bryan Patrick (Virginia Tech, 2020-07-06)
    As organizations utilize less hierarchical forms of leadership, the study of how leadership emerges within teams continues to grow in importance. Despite many theoretical perspectives used to study leadership emergence, little is understood about the actual process by which a collective structure emerges. In the current work, I address two of the primary limitations within this literature: imprecise theoretical perspectives and methodological challenges in studying emergence. Specifically, although there are many conceptual works that describe the leadership emergence process, these descriptions do not have enough precision to be able to design a model with formal rules, a necessary requirement for studying emergence. Additionally, studying leadership emergence requires the study of newly formed teams frequently over time, which is challenging to accomplish using existing methods. To address the two above limitations, in the current work, I translate two dominant process-oriented perspectives of leadership emergence (social interactionist and social cognitive) into formal theories that include a series of testable hypotheses. In doing so, these theories outline the essential elements and process mechanisms of each theoretical perspective. Next, I use these theories to design two agent-based models to simulate the process by which leadership emerges within teams, under each perspective. Using the software NetLogo, I simulate 500 newly formed teams over the initial period of 500 dyadic interactions (i.e., hours). Finally, after simulating these models, I use the resulting data to test the predictions from each theoretical perspective. In addition to testing the hypotheses from each model, I also utilize agent-based modeling to systematically test the relative importance of the unique individual-level elements and process mechanisms from each model. From this entire process, I generate results about (1) how well the agent-based models represent the respective perspectives, and (2) the relative influence each perspective's unique elements and mechanisms have on team outcomes. Overall, results generally supported the core concepts from each perspective, but also identified areas where each perspective needs to revisit for theory on leadership emergence to advance. Specifically, the results illustrated that certain individual-level elements were most influential for leadership emergence. For the social interactionist perspective, it was the comparison between implicit leadership theories and self-prototypical leadership characteristics. For the social cognitive perspective, it was leader self-schemas. Additionally, results indicated that future work may need to revisit the conceptualization of both leadership structure schemas, as well as the dynamic process of weighting implicit leadership theories. Finally, predictions about the rate of leadership emergence over time within the social cognitive perspective were the only predictions that were not supported. From these results, I present multiple themes as a conceptual road map for the advancement of leadership emergence theory. I argue that the lack of support regarding leadership emergence trajectories presents opportunities for a reconceptualization of emergence at the event level, as well as new modeling procedures to capture emergence as it occurs. I also present future study ideas that can directly test the competing assumptions from each perspective. In total, I argue that this work advances the study of leadership emergence by adopting a method that helped integrate two dominant perspectives of leadership emergence, possibly laying the groundwork for the development of a combined formal theory.
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    When Daily Challenges Become Too Much During COVID-19: Implications of Family and Work Demands for Work–Life Balance Among Parents of Children With Special Needs
    Calderwood, Charles; Breaux, Rosanna; ten Brummelhuis, Lieke L.; Mitropoulos, Tanya; Swanson, Courtney S. (American Psychological Association, 2022-01-01)
    Working parents of children with special needs (i.e., emotional, behavioral, and/or learning difficulties) face recurrent stressors that can make balancing work and family demands difficult. This strain has been magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic, as these parents often need to take on greater responsibility in supporting their children’s remote learning, while still meeting their own job-related responsibilities. Accordingly, working parents of special needs children may be particularly vulnerable to adverse outcomes stemming from pandemic-induced changes to work (e.g., teleworking) and education (e.g., remote instruction). We sought to understand how daily family and work challenges influence satisfaction with work–life balance (WLB) in this priority population, with an emphasis on contextualizing this process through chronic job stress perceptions. Conducting a 10-day daily diary study in a sample of 47 working parents of special needs children during fall 2020, we observed family challenges to deplete positive affect from day-to-day, which undermined satisfaction with work–life balance. Furthermore, detrimental influences of daily family and work challenges on positive affect were magnified under chronic job stress, yielding diminished WLB satisfaction for more chronically stressed employees. We discuss how these findings can be harnessed to support particularly vulnerable employees during the COVID-19 pandemic and other chronic stress circumstances, while also drawing attention to how the pandemic may be exacerbating work–life inequities that some employees face.
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    Why is Fido Stressed? Crossover of Employees’ Job Stress to their Pets
    Mitropoulos, Tanya (Virginia Tech, 2024-08-07)
    Job stress is an epidemic in the United States, with well-being consequences for the employee, their spouse, and their children. Pets, who most Americans view as family members, may also be susceptible to this crossover effect, or the transference of work-related stress and strains from an employee to their loved ones. Given prior support for cats and dogs’ abilities to perceive, interpret, and absorb a human’s emotions via emotional contagion, I expected that pet dogs and cats of owners with higher job stress would themselves be more stressed. I anticipated that work-related rumination, or the tendency to continue thinking about work during leisure time, would explain this relationship. All variables were measured using self-report scales administered in an online survey, and pets’ stress was captured in two ways: as owner-perceived pet stress and as behaviorally indicated pet stress via separate measures for cats and dogs created for this study. The sample included 107 employees, together owning 85 dogs and 22 cats. Controlling for home stress, I found that job stress related to behaviorally indicated stress in dogs but not cats. Work-related rumination explained this relationship. This study unites organizational research with companion animal welfare and pinpoints a potential contributor to impaired canine welfare. This study also supports the presence of crossover and emotional contagion in the dog-owner bond. Employed dog owners should take care to avoid ruminating about work-related issues when at home to protect the well-being of man’s best friend.