Prelims

Half Title Page

EXAMINING THE PARADOX OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESSORS

Series Page

RESEARCH IN OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND WELL-BEING

Series Editors: Pamela L. Perrewé, Peter D. Harms and Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang

• Volume 1: Exploring Theoretical Mechanisms and Perspectives

• Volume 2: Historical and Current Perspectives on Stress and Health

• Volume 3: Emotional and Physiological Processes and Positive Intervention Strategies

• Volume 4: Exploring Interpersonal Dynamics

• Volume 5: Employee Health. Coping and Methodologies

• Volume 6: Exploring the Work and Non-work Interface

• Volume 7: Current Perspectives on Job-stress Recovery

• Volume 8: New Developments in Theoretical and Conceptual Approaches to Job Stress

• Volume 9: The Role of Individual Differences in Occupational Stress and Well Being

• Volume 10: The Role of the Economic Crisis on Occupational Stress and Well Being

• Volume 11: The Role of Emotion and Emotion Regulation in Job Stress and Well Being

• Volume 12: The Role of Demographics in Occupational Stress and Well Being

• Volume 13: Mistreatment in Organizations

• Volume 14: The Role of Leadership in Occupational Stress

• Volume 15: The Role of Power, Politics, and Influence in Occupational Stress and Well-Being

• Volume 16: Occupational Stress and Well-Being in Military Contexts

• Volume 17: Examining the Role of Well-Being in the Marketing Discipline

• Volume 18: Entrepreneurial and Small Business Stressors, Experienced Stress, and Wellbeing

• Volume 19: Examining and Exploring the Shifting Nature of Occupational Stress and Well Being

Editorial Page

Editorial Review Board

• Terry Beehr – Department of Psychology, University of Central Michigan, USA; beehr1ta@cmich.edu

• Yitzhak Fried – Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, USA; yitzhak.fried@ttu.edu

• Dan Ganster – Department of Management, Colorado State University, USA; Dan.Ganster@business.colostate.edu

• Leslie Hammer – Department of Psychology, Portland State University, USA; hammerl@pdx.edu

• Russ Johnson – Department of Management, Michigan State University, USA; johnsonr@bus.msu.edu

• John Kammeyer-Mueller – Center for HR Labor Studies, University of Minnesota, USA; jkammeye@umn.edu

• E. Kevin Kelloway – Department of Psychology, Saint Mary’s University, USA; Kevin.Kelloway@smu.ca

• Jeff LePine – Department of Management, Arizona State University, USA; Jeff.LePine@asu.edu

• Paul Levy – Department of Psychology, University of Akron, USA; pelevy@uakron.edu

• John Schaubroeck – College of Business Department of Management, University of Missouri, USA; schaubroeck@bus.msu.edu

• Norbert Semmer – Department of Psychology, University of Berne, USA; norbert.semmer@psy.unibe.ch

• Sabine Sonnentag – Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany; sonnentag@uni-mannheim.de

• Paul Spector – Department of IS and Management, University of South Florida, USA; pspector@usf.edu

• Lois Tetrick – Department of Psychology, George Mason University, USA; ltetrick@gmu.edu

• Mo Wang – Department of Management, University of Florida, USA; mo.wang@warrington.ufl.edu

Editors:

• Pamela L. Perrewé – Department of Management, Florida State University, USA; pperrewe@cob.fsu.edu

• Peter D. Harms – Department of Management, University of Alabama, USA; pdharms@cba.ua.edu

• Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang – Michigan State University, USA; cchang@msu.edu

Title Page

RESEARCH IN OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND WELL-BEING - VOLUME 20

EXAMINING THE PARADOX OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESSORS

Building Resilience or Creating Depletion

EDITED BY

PAMELA L. PERREWÉ

Florida State University, USA

PETER D. HARMS

The University of Alabama, USA

AND

CHU-HSIANG (DAISY) CHANG

Michigan State University, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2022

Editorial matter and selection © 2022 Pamela L. Perrewé, Peter D. Harms, and Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang. Published under exclusive licence.

Individual chapters © 2022 Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80455-086-1 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-085-4 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-087-8 (Epub)

ISSN: 1479-3555 (Series)

Overview

Volume 20 of Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being features chapters that expand our understanding of how occupational stressors can build employee resilience and enhance their well-being while at the same time creating negative employee outcomes such as depletion, exhaustion, and depression. Much of the prior literature in occupational stress and well-being have emphasized the negative aspects of experienced stress at work. However, there is also research that examines how individuals and teams can become stronger and more resilient by being exposed to occupational stressors. To this end, we take a hard look at examining the seemingly paradoxical outcomes of work stressors, the circumstances or conditions that can change or even reverse the relationship between stressors and outcomes, and theoretical accounts for apparent contradictions in this literature. We begin with several chapters examining the more positive aspects of experienced work stress (e.g., resilience) and end with chapters focusing on the more negative aspects of work stress (e.g., mistreatment).

In the first chapter, Anita C. Keller and Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang examine the paradoxical effects of coping and argue that coping can be best understood by disentangling between- from within-person effects. The aim of this chapter is to provide a better understanding of the positive and negative outcomes of coping in the workplace by integrating between- and within-person perspectives on coping with learning approaches. They offer a brief overview of the state of knowledge on the paradoxical effects of coping in the workplace and then discuss the between-person followed by the within-person perspectives on the effects of coping. Further, they integrate the multi-level perspective with the learning-based approach to explain why paradoxical effects of coping may exist and offer an agenda for future research on coping at work.

In the second chapter, Danielle D. King, Richard P. DeShon, Cassandra N. Phetmisy, and Dominique Burrows take an in-depth look at resilience research. They use a self-regulation perspective to outline a nomological network scheme for resilience research. They address “quicksand” concerns by differentiating between and providing a framework for the importance of both behavioral and emotional regulation in resilience effects. They highlight distinctions between trait versus behavioral resilience and clarify distinctions between resilience and other concepts in the persistence domain (e.g., grit, hardiness). Further, they address “shadow” side resilience concerns by theoretically detailing that the absence of negative emotions nor the presence of success or well-being are characteristic of resilience. They define resilience as continued, self-regulated goal striving despite adversity and they model the direct effect of adversity factors (e.g., severity) on resilience. This work offers important insights for research, organizational practice, and broader society concerning stress effects, well-being, success, and resilience.

The third chapter also examines the paradoxical role of resilience in a customer-facing workplace. In this chapter, Nicolina Taylor, Esther L. Jean, and Wayne S. Crawford detail how and when emotional labor induced stress can lead to episodic and prolonged resilience. They outline a paradoxical event in which employees engaging in emotional labor can create and sustain resiliency by not deploying an acting strategy and instead, breaking character. Employees may feel empowered and be able to acknowledge their lack of resources after breaking character. Such actions are paradoxical of course, due to simultaneously improving employee well-being and potentially damaging the organization–customer relationship. They further explore individual and organizational factors that impact this process such as personality and organizational culture, which they argue can serve as boundary conditions to workplace resilience capacity.

In the fourth chapter, Karen Landay and Joseph Schaefer examine the paradox of passion in the workplace. They integrate the Dualistic Model of Passion, which includes both harmonious and obsessive passion, with identity theory, and identity threat. Specifically, they provide a unique theoretical lens through which to examine the paradox of passion by which individuals overidentify with their work, which can result in “too much of a good thing”. Further, they discuss the various reactions that individuals enact in response to threats to their passion-related identities, and how these reactions impact well-being, experienced stress, and burnout.

In the fifth chapter, Andrea Bazzoli and Tahira M. Probst examine an intriguing construct, that of job insecurity. They argue that although job insecurity has been seen as a hindrance stressor, certain positive psychological variables, such as self-efficacy, might influence the perceptions of job insecurity. Using a cross-lagged dataset, they find five distinct latent profiles of employee perceptions. Specifically, employees might view job insecurity as irrelevant, simultaneously moderately challenging and hindering, primarily hindering, both highly challenging and highly hindering, or primarily challenging. They discuss implications for theory and practice considering the paradoxical findings indicating both positive as well as negative outcomes from job insecurity.

In the sixth chapter of Volume 20, Alexander R. Marbut and Peter D. Harms tackle the role of vigilance in the workplace. They argue that some characteristics, such as vigilance, that make employees successful, may fail in the long-term because of burnout or fatigue. They pay particular attention to neuroticism and argue that vigilance-related professions, such as information technology, have a higher rate of neuroticism. Thus, vigilance work could be an area in which neurotic individuals thrive because it requires prolonged physiological arousal to maintain attention and mental concentration. These authors also examine contextual and individual moderators and explain how neuroticism might be associated with positive as well as negative performance outcomes.

In the final chapter of this volume, Katharine McMahon, Jamie Pockrandt, Stefanie Fox, Nick Zike, and Liu-Qin Yang examine the paradoxical relationships of workplace mistreatment.

Workplace mistreatment encompasses several negative relational experiences ranging in severity from incivility to physical violence. The literature commonly finds evidence of an array of negative individual and organizational outcomes due to mistreatment incidents in the workplace. However, they argue that the literature often fails to prominently address the paradoxical occasions in which certain forms of workplace mistreatment might be beneficial, or at the very least non-disruptive to desirable work outcomes. This chapter presents a qualitative review of the literature on workplace mistreatment, with the intention of identifying findings from empirical studies that indicate the contingencies of processes in which workplace mistreatment leads to these paradoxical outcomes and the circumstances under which they occur. Their review suggests that different forms of aggression such as bullying, abusive supervision, incivility, and ostracism have positive relationships with paradoxical outcomes and characteristics such as resilience, prosocial behaviors, socially desirable behaviors, job performance, job satisfaction, and creativity. The authors encourage researchers and practitioners to utilize the information to further their understanding of the nomological network of workplace mistreatment and its underlying mechanisms, such as social learning and coping.

Together, these chapters represent theoretically sound and rigorous research examining the paradoxical roles of occupational stress. We are thrilled with our authors and the depth of their research. This volume represents insightful, intriguing, and timely research into the paradox of experienced stress in the workplace. We hope you will enjoy Volume 20 of Research in Occupational Stress and Well-Being.

Pamela L. Perrewé*, Peter D. Harms, and Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang

Contents

About the Contributors

Andrea Bazzoli is a Doctoral student at Washington State University, Vancouver. His research focuses on the intersections between economic stressors (i.e., job insecurity and financial strain), safety behaviors, and employees’ well-being. In addition to this substantive line of research, he is interested in advanced quantitative methods (e.g., latent variable modeling and Bayesian statistics) to develop and refine measurement scales and answer original research propositions. His research has been published in top-tier outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Applied Psychology: An International Review.

Dominique Burrows is currently a PhD student in Rice’s Industrial-Organizational Psychology program. She earned her Master’s degree at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Her research interests focus on issues of diversity in the workplace. Specifically, looking at how the intersection of race and gender creates workplace disparities and how to counteract these. She also studies aspects of employee resilience under her advisor Dr Danielle D. King. In addition to being a student, she is also a Junior Associate on the Human Factors Consulting Team at Deloitte, where she uses data and research to improve organizational operations for their clients.

Chu-Hsiang (Daisy) Chang is a Professor at the Department of Psychology of Michigan State University. Prior to joining Michigan State, she was a Faculty Member at the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health of University of South Florida, and Department of Psychology of Roosevelt University. She received her PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of Akron in 2005. Her research interests focus on occupational health and safety, leadership, and motivation. Specifically, she studies issues related to occupational stress, workplace violence, and how employee motivation and organizational leadership intersect with issues concerning employee health and well-being. Her work has been published in Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Psychological Bulletin, and Work & Stress.

Wayne S. Crawford is an Assistant Professor at University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD from the University of Alabama. His research focuses on employees’ work and life domains, identity, and supervisor–subordinate dynamics in the workplace, including leadership and abusive supervision.

Richard P. DeShon is an Organizational Psychologist actively engaged in both research and practice designed to improve organizational effectiveness and increase the experienced meaningfulness of work. His research is highly cited, published in top tier journals such as Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Methods, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, and the Journal of Management, and has been substantially funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and NASA. He is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Association for Psychological Science. He has earned numerous awards, such as the McCormick Early Career Contributions Award from SIOP and has been privileged to work with many great graduate students who now hold both academic and practice positions all over the world.

Stefanie Fox is a fourth year Doctoral student in Portland State University’s Industrial and Organizational Psychology program. Over the past six years, she has had training and research experiences focusing on research methodology and statistical analysis to identify processes and constructs related to worker mistreatment and well-being. Her research interests include workplace mistreatment, workers with stigmatized identities, psychological measurement, and emotions in the workplace. Additionally, she has worked with public and non-profit organizations to improve volunteer motivation and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.

Peter D. Harms received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Marilyn Hewson Faculty Fellow in Data Analytics and Cyber Security at the Culverhouse College of Business of the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the assessment and development of personality, leadership, and psychological well-being. He has published over 110 articles in leading management and psychology journals. He is a fellow of both the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Association for Psychological Science and has engaged in research partnerships with the US Army, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the US Department of Labor.

Esther L. Jean is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on identity, leadership, psychological processes, and research methods.

Anita C. Keller is an Associate Professor at the Organizational Psychology Department at the University of Groningen. She received her PhD from the University of Bern in Work and Organizational Psychology. Her research focuses on occupational health and career psychology with a particular interest in how working conditions interact with employee behavior and well-being over time. Her current projects investigate the temporal patterns of self-regulation behavior and adaptation processes during stressful periods (e.g., coping with work interruptions and work role transitions). Her work has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Work & Stress.

Danielle D. King is an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Rice University and the Principal Investigator of the Working Resilience Research Laboratory. Her research focuses on the topics of employee resilience, resources, identity, and voice. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and has been published in both peer-reviewed scientific journals, such as Academy of Management Journal, and in popular press outlets, including Harvard Business Review. She received her BA in Psychology from Spelman College and her MA and PhD in Organizational Psychology from Michigan State University.

Karen Landay is an Assistant Professor in the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She holds a PhD in Management from the Culverhouse College of Business at the University of Alabama, an MBA from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and a Bachelor of Music from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Her research interests include work passion, leadership, and music listening at work. Her research has been published in journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, and Human Resource Management Review, among others, and has been featured in media outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., and BBC Worklife.

Alexander R. Marbut is a late-stage PhD student at the University of Alabama. He received his MA in Experimental Psychology from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2019. His research involves occupational power dynamics and interpersonal perceptions, invoking theories of personality, leadership, and statistical conclusion validity to address practical issues in personnel selection and development.

Katharine McMahon is a fifth year Doctoral student at Portland State University’s Industrial and Organizational program. Over the past nine years, she has had training and research experiences in psychological, physiological, neurological, and cultural processes underlying health. Her research interests include workplace mistreatment, occupational stress, motivation, and affect. She has worked with public and private organizations, including healthcare networks, to address workplace mistreatment as well as examining other environmental factors that influence health and behavioral outcomes.

Cassandra N. Phetmisy is a PhD student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Rice University. She received her BS in Psychology from the University of Houston. She broadly researches how stressful experiences, especially those unrelated to one’s direct job description, affect employee well-being, goal pursuit, and work behaviors. She particularly focuses on topics related to financial stress, resilience, discrimination, and voice. Her research and contributions have appeared in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, The Cambridge Handbook of Workplace Affect, and Journal of Management Studies.

Jamie Pockrandt is a Data Analyst at the Democracy at Work Institute where she supports data management and systems design, as well as a Project Specialist in Dr Emily Huang’s Safety Climate Lab at Oregon Health & Science University where she supports research in respectful workplace climate. She received a BA in Psychology from Portland State University in 2021, with a focus on applications at work and in community. Her research interests include social and economic outcomes in relation to the worker cooperative model, systems science, workplace climate, and the sociology of work.

Tahira M. Probst is a Professor of Psychology and directs the Coalition for Healthy and Equitable Workplaces lab at Washington State University, Vancouver. Her research focuses on the health, safety, and performance-related outcomes of economic stressors (including job insecurity, financial strain, economic deprivation, and underemployment), as well as multi-level contextual variables that influence these relationships. She has published over 125 journal articles and book chapters on stress and health-related topics. She is past Editor of Stress & Health and sits on seven additional Editorial Boards.

Joseph Schaefer is a Doctoral candidate of Management in the University of Mississippi School of Business Administration in Oxford, Mississippi. He holds an MBA and Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern Indiana. His research interests lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship and organizational behavior including subjective entrepreneurial success, venture failure, affect, motivation, and the individual differences of entrepreneurs.

Nicolina Taylor is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focuses on emotions in the workplace, emotional labor, how employees meet the emotional demands of their jobs, and organizational justice, including customer mistreatment.

Liu-Qin Yang is a Professor of Psychology at Portland State University. She holds a PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, from the University of South Florida. She specializes in workplace mistreatment and emotion regulation, in relation to the health/well-being, motivation, and productivity of workers. She also has expertise in issues of psychological measurement and statistical analyses. Her work has been published in various high-quality journals across multiple disciplines (e.g., psychology, management, and international business). Her work has been funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)/CDC, the National Institute of Mental Health, among other funders.

Nick Zike is a third year Doctoral student in Portland State University’s Industrial and Organizational Psychology program. For seven years, he has studied psychology and developed research method skills. His specific research interests include employee motivation and affective shifts, workplace fairness, mistreatment, and safety.