Journal of Applied Psychology最新文献

The literature on psychological contracts has focused on employees' perceptions of their employers' obligations, but not on employees' perceptions of their own obligations. Hence, perceived general obligation has seldom been theorized. This study argues that workplace support (i.e., from the organization, supervisors, and coworkers) and morally relevant traits (i.e., moral identity, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) predict perceived general obligation, that perceived general obligation predicts performance outcomes, and that the effects vary across cultures. Meta-analytic data collected from 148 samples (N = 45,671) provide preliminary support for the proposed relationships. I also examine the incremental validity of perceived general obligation in predicting performance outcomes beyond other correlates (e.g., normative commitment, positive and negative affect), the mediating role of perceived general obligation in its nomological network, and alternative models for linking the study variables. This study therefore illustrates the value of perceived general obligation in psychological contract research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Identity conflict-the experience of perceiving incompatibilities between aspects of one's identity content that call into question the individual's ability to meet the identity standard of at least one of these identities-can significantly impact individuals' work experiences. As individuals navigate experiences of identity conflict at work, managers and organizations also grapple with how to support employees' multiple identities while mitigating the primarily negative outcomes of identity conflict. However, the scholarship on work-relevant identity conflict faces several challenges, including disciplinary fragmentation, conceptual imprecision, and diverse but deficient theoretical perspectives, which together have limited our ability to accumulate knowledge about this experience and to develop useful management tools. To overcome these, we conducted a thorough review of the cross-disciplinary literature, allowing us to offer a refined integrative definition of identity conflict and a reconceptualization of identity conflict as the result of an appraisal process. As we delineate what we know about the appraisal process of identity conflict, we provide a detailed theoretical explanation of its antecedents, outcomes, and responses and shed light on the mechanisms that drive the process. This approach not only enhances theoretical depth and guides new research directions but also equips managers to address and reduce identity conflict experienced by their employees. This research contributes to the literature by offering clarity and coherence to the identity conflict domain, providing theoretical and practical guidance, and outlining promising directions for future inquiry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Gratitude expressions have received growing attention from scholars, with research emphasizing its many positive effects on expressers, recipients, and witnesses. Although our knowledge of gratitude expressions' benefits is accumulating, our understanding of its limits is less developed. In this article, we ask when employees' expressions of gratitude toward their leaders positively influence witnesses' perceptions of them, and when they do not. Across three studies including two multiwave surveys and an experiment, we find that expressed gratitude strengthens witnesses' perceptions of expressers' prosocial identities, especially when the leader is believed to be deserving of gratitude. Study 1 examines leader competence as an indicator of deservingness in a sample of leaders and employees in a manufacturing context. Studies 2 and 3 use survey and experimental methods to directly establish leader deservingness as a mechanism of the competence moderator and explore warmth as an additional component of employees' deservingness perceptions. All three studies show how gratitude expression ultimately shapes witnesses' tendencies to help expressers and seek feedback from them. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Despite the prevalence of research on the consequences of collective turnover (TO), we lack an understanding of how, when, and why changes in the external environment influence collective turnover. The present study extends context emergent turnover and threat-rigidity theories to consider temporal changes in rates of collective turnover brought on by an external disruption. We also conduct variance decomposition to evaluate the relative influence of internal and external factors on collective turnover and examine how changes in the external environment impact relative influences. Finally, we examine the role of collective engagement in explaining patterns of collective turnover over time. Our study is based on a large, geographically dispersed U.S. firm. Findings from a two-phase longitudinal model reveal that rates of collective turnover change over time in ways that are predictable from threat-rigidity theory. Variance decomposition analysis finds that internal store-level factors explain substantially more variance than external factors, but the balance changes in response to an external disruption. We also show that collective engagement can mitigate increases in collective turnover. Results inform theory regarding the relative importance of internal versus external factors in influencing collective turnover and provide a framework for predicting how contextual change in the external environment impacts collective turnover over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The prevailing viewpoint has long depicted employee time theft as inherently detrimental. However, this perspective may stem from a limited understanding of the underlying motives that drive such behavior. Time theft can paradoxically be motivated by neutral and even laudable intentions, such as promoting work efficiency, thus rendering it potentially beneficial and constructive. Across three mixed-methods studies, we explore the motives behind employee time theft, develop and validate an instrument to assess these motives, and examine how they differentially predict time theft behavior. Specifically, in Study 1, we use a qualitative method and identify 11 types of time theft motives. Study 2 embarks on the development of measures of these motives, subsequently validating their factor structure. Study 3 examines their incremental variance in predicting time theft behavior by controlling for personality and demographic variables. Overall, these studies reveal that employees' engagement in time theft can be driven not solely by self-oriented motives but also by others- and work-oriented motives. Further, each of these motives provides incremental value in understanding time theft behavior. Implications for both research and practice emanating from these findings are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Although recruitment and perceptions of fit are inherently social-as they reflect the interactions between applicants and recruiting firms-applicants' social networks during recruitment can exert both positive and potentially negative consequences for subsequent applicant perceptions and behaviors. In this study, we examine the role of applicants' friends' perceptions of fit with the same recruiting organizations. Integrating ideas from social information processing theory and the person-organization (P-O) fit literature, we argue that friends' P-O fit perceptions drive social learning and social influence processes for applicants, thus predicting applicant perceptions and behaviors toward recruiting firms. In addition, we posit that the direct and indirect relationships between friends' P-O fit perceptions and applicants' own fit perceptions and job choices with recruiting firms are further strengthened by how centrally connected applicants are within their friend networks. Using a sample of 576 applicant-firm observations from 178 job applicants, we found that friends' P-O fit perceptions are positively related to applicant P-O fit perceptions and job choice decisions. Furthermore, applicants' position in their network-assessed via applicants' outdegree centrality within their friend group-strengthened the relationship between friends' P-O fit and applicant P-O fit as well as with their job choice decisions. Our research provides important theoretical and empirical findings on the influence of applicants' friends during recruitment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Work design scholarship has demonstrated that work characteristics are important determinants of a wide range of individual outcomes including well-being, motivation, satisfaction, and performance. Yet this scholarship has also revealed substantial and unaccounted for variance in these effects, prompting calls for theory and research that applies multilevel and contextual perspectives to expand our understanding of work designs. We develop theory that spans occupation, job, and individual levels to connect the influences of both context and personal attributes (e.g., skills) on work design consequences. Central to our multilevel theory is the concept of attribute relevance, which reflects the extent to which different attributes are prioritized within occupational and job contexts in which individuals enact their roles. Results across three studies spanning 3,838 incumbents and 339 unique occupations reveal that attribute relevance systematically moderates the relationships between work designs and individual outcomes and thus demarcates factors that account for variability in the main effects observed in previous work design research. We bring much-needed theory and evidence to open questions about how worker requirements and individual differences are connected to work designs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).