Getting worse or getting better? Understanding the antecedents and consequences of emotion profile transitions during COVID-19-induced organizational crisis.

While some organizations are thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic, many are experiencing a crisis-a threat to organizational longevity, time pressure, and inadequate resources. Building on prior work examining emotions during times of crisis and changes that people undergo during major life transitions, as well as media accounts suggesting that employees have had positive and negative emotions tied to aspects of working during COVID-19, we adopt a person-centric view to examine profiles of monthly emotions regarding organizational reopening. Additionally, we consider how employees transition from one profile of emotions to another across months.

The influence of COVID-induced job search anxiety and conspiracy beliefs on job search effort: A within-person investigation.

New labor market entrants face significant hurdles when searching for a job, with these stressors likely amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we consider how COVID-induced job search anxiety-feeling anxious about one's job search due to issues imposed by the pandemic-has the potential to affect adaptive, goal-directed efforts, and maladaptive, goal-avoidant reactions. We theorize that this anxiety can prompt job seekers to engage in problem-solving pondering and affect-focused rumination, with these experiences relating to whether job seekers engage in various forms of search-related efforts the following week.

Gender and the evaluation of humor at work.

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.

Changing job seekers' image perceptions during recruitment visits: the moderating role of belief confidence.

The purpose of this study was to understand how an important construct in social psychology-confidence in one's beliefs-could both (a) influence the effectiveness of organizations' recruiting processes and (b) be changed during recruitment. Using a sample of recruits to a branch of the United States military, the authors studied belief confidence before and after recruits' formal visits to the organization's recruiting stations. Personal sources of information had a stronger influence on recruits' belief confidence than impersonal sources.

Organizational justice and Black applicants' reactions to affirmative action.

Using organizational justice as a guiding framework, the authors studied perceptions of affirmative action programs by presumed beneficiaries. Three conceptual issues were addressed: (a) the content of different affirmative action plans; (b) the 3-way interaction among distributive, procedural, and interactional justice; and (c) the distinction between outcome favorability and distributive justice. These ideas were tested with a sample of Black engineering students who responded to 1 of 6 plans.

Personality trait inferences about organizations: development of a measure and assessment of construct validity.

The authors conducted 4 studies to construct a multidimensional measure of perceptions of organization personality. Results of the first 2 studies suggest that (a) 5 broad factors are sufficient to capture the structure of organization personality perceptions, (b) real-world organizations differ on personality profiles, and (c) personality trait inferences are related to organizational attraction. Results of a 3rd study suggest that personality trait inferences assessed in 1 sample are related lo ratings of organizational attractiveness by a 2nd sample.

Black applicants' reactions to affirmative action plans: effects of plan content and previous experience with discrimination.

This study examined the effects of plan content and previous experience with discrimination on Black respondents' reactions to affirmative action plans. Black engineering students (N = 1,173) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 plans implemented by a hypothetical organization and were asked to provide ratings of perceived fairness and intention to pursue a position at the organization. There were significant effects of plan content on perceived faimess and job pursuit intentions.