The Journal of applied psychology
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This study among 168 couples of dual-earner parents uses insights from previous work-family conflict and crossover research to propose an integrative model delineating how job demands experienced by men and women carry over to the home domain. The authors hypothesized that for both men and women, job demands foster their own work-family conflict (WFC), which in turn contributes to their partners' home demands, family-work conflict (FWC), and exhaustion. ⋯ The hypothesis that gender would moderate the model relationships was rejected. These findings integrate previous findings on work-family conflict and crossover theories and suggest fluid boundaries between the work and home domains.
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This study examines how traditionality influences the relationships between job stressors and health. A sample of 496 Chinese employees provided longitudinal questionnaire data, and their health was assessed by collecting blood samples and monitoring blood pressure. The results indicated that the positive relationship between job control and health was stronger among the less traditional workers, whereas the positive relationship between distributive justice and health was stronger among the more traditional workers. ⋯ Perceiving higher control mitigated the effects of job demands on upper respiratory infections among low traditionalists, but it exacerbated the effects among the high traditionalists. Perceptions of higher justice mitigated the effects of job demands on emotional exhaustion and immunoglobulin A for high traditionalists but not for low traditionalists. These results suggest that, in the relationship between job demands and psychological and physiological health, concern for equity is an important moderator for individuals with more traditional values, whereas perceived personal control is salutary for health primarily among people with less traditional values.
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In 4 experiments, the authors investigated whether race is perceived to be part of the business leader prototype and, if so, whether it could explain differences in evaluations of White and non-White leaders. The first 2 studies revealed that "being White" is perceived to be an attribute of the business leader prototype, where participants assumed that business leaders more than nonleaders were White, and this inference occurred regardless of base rates about the organization's racial composition (Study 1), the racial composition of organizational roles, the business industry, and the types of racial minority groups in the organization (Study 2). The final 2 studies revealed that a leader categorization explanation could best account for differences in White and non-White leader evaluations, where White targets were evaluated as more effective leaders (Study 3) and as having more leadership potential (Study 4), but only when the leader had recently been given credit for organizational success, consistent with the prediction that leader prototypes are more likely to be used when they confirm and reinforce individualized information about a leader's performance. The results demonstrate a connection between leader race and leadership categorization.
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An important issue in work motivation is how, when, and why individuals revise their goals up or down over time. In the current study, the authors examine feedback, causal attributions, and self-efficacy in this process. Although self-efficacy has frequently been suggested as a key explanatory variable for goal revision, its role has yet to be directly evaluated. ⋯ In so doing, the authors also address several interpretive ambiguities present in the existing research. Results support the hypothesized model, finding that performance feedback and attributions interactively influenced self-efficacy, which in turn influenced goal revision. These results suggest that interventions targeting attributions, and self-efficacy more directly, may have meaningful influences on goal setting and pursuit, particularly following feedback.
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Self-regulation theories were used to develop a dynamic model of the determinants of subjective cognitive effort. The authors assessed the roles of malleable states and stable individual differences. Subjective cognitive effort and perceived difficulty were measured while individuals performed an air traffic control task. ⋯ The intra-individual relationship between perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort was stronger for individuals with low ability or low Conscientiousness than for their counterparts. A follow-up study showed that the measures of perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort were sensitive to a task difficulty manipulation as well as that the relationship between perceived difficulty and subjective cognitive effort held after controlling for self-set goal level. These findings contribute to the self-regulation literature by identifying factors that influence changes in subjective cognitive effort during skill acquisition.