The Self at Work: Fundamental Theory and Research (SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series) [1 ed.] 1138648221, 9781138648227

Table of contents :
The Self at Work- Front Cover
The Self at Work
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Series Editor’s Foreword
Chapter 1: The Self at Work: An Overview
The Self: A Brief Historical Overview
The Self at Work
Origin and Organization of This Book
Note
References
PART I:
Fundamental Concepts and Theories
Chapter 2: Self-Efficacy
Meaning and Measurement of Self-Efficacy
Empirical Evidence Regarding Self-Efficacy
Theoretical Debates (and Empirical Findings) on the Roles of Self-Efficacy
Unexplored Self-Efficacy
Which Capacity?
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Self-Esteem
What Is Self-Esteem?
The Global Trait-Based View
Social Cognition and the Dynamic Self
What Does Self-Esteem Actually Do?
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Social Identifications in Organizational Behavior
Origins of the Social Identity Perspective in Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior
Social Identity and Organizational Behavior: A Review in Broad Strokes
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Self-Enhancement in Organizations
Self-Enhancement: An Overview
Self-Enhancement Strategies: Defensiveness, Positivity Embracement, Favorable Construals, and Self-Affirming Reflections
How Self-Enhancement Has Been Used in IO/OB Research
Contributions of IO/OB Research to the Self-Enhancement Literature
Future Research Directions and Conclusion
Note
References
Chapter 6: Self-Control in Work Organizations
Overview of Self-Control and Ego Depletion Theory
Organizational Research on Self-Control and Ego Depletion
Challenges and Issues Concerning Self-Control Research
Future Directions for Research on Self-Control
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Emphasizing the Self in Organizational Research on Self-Determination Theory
Self-Determination Theory: Basic Concepts
The Self in Self-Determination Theory
Organizational Research on SDT
Future Directions for Investigating SDT and the Self at Work
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 8: The Role of Guilt in the Workplace: Taking Stock and Moving Ahead
The Negative Self-Conscious Emotions
Guilt Proneness, Shame Proneness, and Productive Work Behaviors
Future Directions for the Study of Guilt Proneness and Shame Proneness in Organizations
Conclusion
References
Chapter 9: Contextualizing Social Power Research Within Organizational Behavior
The Evolution of Experimental Research on Social Power
Can Organizational Power Be Studied in the Lab?
Increasing Organizational Realism for Social Power Research
Final Conclusions
References
PART II:
Integrative Themes
Chapter 10: Culture, Work, and the Self: The Mutual
Influence of Social and Industrial
Organizational Psychology
The Social Foundation: The Self in Social Psychology
The Industrial Organizational Foundation: Culture and the Self in IO Psychology
Discussion
References
Chapter 11: An Actor–Perceiver Model of Impression
Management in Organizations
The Nature of Impression Management
Actors’ and Perceivers’ Perspectives on Impression Management
The Actor’s Perspective: Determinants of Impression Management
The Perceiver’s Perspective: Drawing Inferences From Public Images
The Actor Reacts
Future Directions and Conclusion
Note
References
Chapter 12: Escaping the Self: Negative Self-Evaluations and
Employee Alcohol Misuse
Negative Self-Evaluations and the Motivation to Escape the Self
Alcohol Use as Escape From Self
Shame: A Self-Conscious Emotion-Based Mechanism
Events Triggering Escaping the Self
Future Directions for Research
Conclusion
Notes
References
PART III:
Applications to Organizational Concepts
Chapter 13: How Future Work Selves Guide Feedback
Seeking and Feedback Responding at Work
The Self in Feedback Interventions
Future Work Selves
Construal Level Theory of Psychological Distance
Linking Future Work Selves, Construal Level, and Self-Motives
A Future Work Self Model of the Feedback Process
Practical Implications for Feedback Processes at Work
Concluding Note
References
Chapter 14: The Self and Engagement at Work
Conceptualizations of Engagement
Predictors of Work Engagement
The Role of the Self for Engagement at Work
Discussion and Future Directions
References
Chapter 15: Dual Process Models of Self-Schemas and Identity:
Implication for Leadership and Followership Processes
Dual Process Models and Identity
Self-Schemas, Identities, Psychological, and Sociological Aspects of Processes
Integrating Psychological and Social Identity Processes
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

THE SELF AT WORK

The Self at Work brings researchers in industrial and organizational psychology and organizational behavior together with researchers in social and personality psychology to explore how the self impacts the workplace. Covering topics such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-control, power, and identification, each chapter examines how research on the self informs and furthers understanding of organizational topics such as employee engagement, feedback-seeking, and leadership. With their combined expertise, the chapter authors consider how research on the self has influenced management research and practice (and viceversa), limitations of applying social psychology research in the organizational realm, and future directions for organizational research on the self. This book is a valuable resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals who are interested in how research on the self can inform industrial/organizational psychology. D. Lance Ferris is Associate Professor of Management in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, USA. Russell E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Management in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, USA. Constantine Sedikides is Professor and Director of the Centre for Research on Self and Identity at the University of Southampton, UK.

“Just as the self is foundational to our personal understanding of how we connect to the world, so The Self at Work will become foundational to our scholarly understanding of what it means to ‘be’ in the workplace.” Blake Ashforth, Horace Steele Arizona Heritage Chair and Professor of Management, Arizona State University, USA “The editors have assembled a dynamite volume that will be the definitive source for understanding the human self in the workplace. Packed with information and rich with diverse perspectives, the book covers many vital aspects of workplace behaviour, including task performance, decision-making, unethical behaviour, striving for improvement, personnel evaluation, identification with the company, colleague relationships, leadership, blame time, workplace aggression, organizational culture, alcohol and drug abuse, and impression management. Anyone interested in the psychological dynamics of organizations and work will find this book an invaluable addition to his or her library.” Roy F. Baumeister, Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology, Florida State University, USA; author of New York Times bestseller Willpower “The Self at Work presents a broad and inclusive view of self research and self theory as applied to the workplace. Topics from self-esteem and self-efficacy to narcissism and even cultural models of the self are included. The theory and research brought together in this volume have the potential to drive a full decade of research.” W. Keith Campbell, Professor of Psychology, University of Georgia, USA “The Self at Work is an impressive and timely volume on an important topic. Understanding identity processes in work contexts has emerged as a cuttingedge area of study across a number of perspectives (e.g., employee, supervisor, organization). This volume brings together the writings of eminent scholars who have studied various aspects of the self at work. It is sure to be a valuable resource for anyone interested in state-of-the-science reviews on essential topics in this field.” David V. Day, Professor of Psychology and Academic Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, Claremont McKenna College, USA

SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series Series Editor Richard Klimoski George Mason University

EDITORIAL BOARD Neal M. Ashkanasy University of Queensland Jill Ellingson University of Kansas Ruth Kanfer Georgia Institute of Technology Eden King George Mason University Fred Oswald Rice University Stephen Zaccaro George Mason University Deborah Rupp Purdue University Mo Wang University of Florida Gilad Chen University of Maryland

SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series Series Editor Richard Klimoski George Mason University

Ferris/Johnson/Sedikides: (2018) The Self at Work Ellingson/Noe: (2017) Autonomous Learning in the Workplace Ashkanasy/Bennett/Martinko: (2016) Understanding the High Performance Workplace: The Line Between Motivation and Abuse King/Tonidandel/Cortina: (2014) Big Data at Work: The Data Science Revolution and Organizational Psychology Finkelstein/Truxillo/Fraccaroli/Kanfer: (2014) Facing the Challenges of a Multi-Age Workforce: A Use-Inspired Approach Coovert/Foster Thompson: (2013) The Psychology of Workplace Technology Highhouse/Dalal/Salas: (2013) Judgment and Decision Making at Work Cortina/Landis: (2013) Modern Research Methods for the Study of Behavior in Organizations Olson-Buchanan/Koppes Bryan/Foster Thompson: (2013) Using Industrial Organizational Psychology for the Greater Good: Helping Those Who Help Others Eby/Allen: (2012) Personal Relationships: The Effect on Employee Attitudes, Behavior, and Well-being Goldman/Shapiro: (2012) The Psychology of Negotiations in the 21st Century Workplace: New Challenges and New Solutions Ferris/Treadway: (2012) Politics in Organizations: Theory and Research Considerations Jones: (2011) Nepotism in Organizations Hofmann/Frese: (2011) Error in Organizations

THE SELF AT WORK Fundamental Theory and Research

Edited by D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson, and Constantine Sedikides

First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business  2018 Taylor & Francis The right of D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson, and Constantine Sedikides to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ferris, D. Lance, editor. | Johnson, Russell E., editor. | Sedikides, Constantine, editor. Title: The self at work : fundamental theory and research / edited by D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson, and Constantine Sedikides. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, [2018] | Series: SIOP organizational frontiers series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017035666| ISBN 9781138648227 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138648234 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315626543 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Organizational behavior. | Psychology, Industrial. | Self. Classification: LCC HD58.7 .S453 2018 | DDC 302.3/5—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035666 ISBN: 978-1-138-64822-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-64823-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-62654-3 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

For my turtle, Richard. Since you’re a turtle you will outlive me, but since I’m the one that feeds you, it won’t be by very long. D. L. F. For my infinitely patient wife, Daisy, and our kids, Oscar, Shatner, Espresso, Frappy, and Kitten. Last but not least, to John McCauley, Suzuka Nakamoto, Yui Mizuno, and Moa Kikuchi. R. E. J. For Anastasia, George, and Alexi C. S.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments xii Contributors xiii Series Editor’s Foreword xviii   1 The Self at Work: An Overview D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson, and Constantine Sedikides

1

PART I

Fundamental Concepts and Theories

13

 2 Self-Efficacy Jeffrey B. Vancouver, Mark Alicke, and Leah R. Halper

15

 3 Self-Esteem Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

40

  4 Social Identifications in Organizational Behavior Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

72

  5 Self-Enhancement in Organizations D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

91

x Contents

  6 Self-Control in Work Organizations Russell E. Johnson, Mark Muraven, Tina L. Donaldson, and Szu-Han (Joanna) Lin   7 Emphasizing the Self in Organizational Research on Self-Determination Theory James M. Diefendorff, Nathalie Houlfort, Robert J. Vallerand, and Daniel Krantz   8 The Role of Guilt in the Workplace: Taking Stock and Moving Ahead Rebecca L. Schaumberg, Francis J. Flynn, and Jessica L. Tracy   9 Contextualizing Social Power Research Within Organizational Behavior Michael Schaerer, Alice J. Lee, Adam D. Galinsky, and Stefan Thau

119

145

172

194

PART II

Integrative Themes

223

10 Culture, Work, and the Self: The Mutual Influence of Social and Industrial Organizational Psychology Jasmine L. Wheeler, Michele J. Gelfand, Ying-yi Hong, and Chi-yue Chiu

225

11 An Actor–Perceiver Model of Impression Management in Organizations Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

253

12 Escaping the Self: Negative Self-Evaluations and Employee Alcohol Misuse Cynthia D. Mohr, Sarah N. Haverly, Ariane Froidevaux, and Mo Wang

273

Contents  xi

PART III

Applications to Organizational Concepts

293

13 How Future Work Selves Guide Feedback Seeking and Feedback Responding at Work Frederik Anseel, Karoline Strauss, and Filip Lievens

295

14 The Self and Engagement at Work Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay 15 Dual Process Models of Self-Schemas and Identity: Implication for Leadership and Followership Processes Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

319

341

Index 362

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost we would like to acknowledge the incredible efforts of the chapter authors, without whom this book would literally not be possible. We are particularly grateful for their willingness to, in many cases, take a leap of faith: owing to the nature of the book, many chapters were written by coauthors who had never previously worked together. Separated by disciplines yet united by their interest in the topic, we hope the authors have learned as much working together as we have learned in reading their chapters. Behind the scenes, a number of people also played key roles in helping this book come together. Mo Wang encouraged Russ and Lance to consider submitting a prospectus on the topic, and conversations with Doug Brown helped inspire the idea of bringing together researchers from social psychology and industrial-organizational/organizational behavior to collaborate on chapters. Rich Klimoski was instrumental in shepherding us through the early stages of submitting and revising our prospectus, and the great feedback on our prospectus from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Organizational Frontier Series Editorial Board helped improve the final product. Finally, on the publisher side, our collaborators at Routledge – Christina Chronister, Julie Toich, and Lauren Verity – kept us on track and on time, and were key to putting together the volume. D. L. F. R. E. J. C. S.

CONTRIBUTORS

Mark Alicke is Professor of Psychology at Ohio University. He received his

PhD from the University of North Carolina and was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Society and Division 8 of the American Psychological Association. He is the former editor of Self and Identity and has served on numerous editorial boards. His main research interests are in the psychology of blame and in self-knowledge and the role of the self in social judgment. Frederik Anseel is Full Professor of Organizational Behavior at King’s Business

School, King’s College London, UK. He seeks to understand how people can remain vigorous in the face of challenge by studying proactive behavior and learning. His work has been published in Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Mark C. Bolino is Professor of Management and Michael F. Price Chair in International Business in the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. He received his PhD from the University of South Carolina. His research interests include impression management, organizational citizenship behavior, and global careers. Douglas J. Brown is Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology

at the University of Waterloo. He obtained his PhD from the University of Akron. His current research interests include leadership, motivation, employee well-being, and workplace deviance. Chi-yue Chiu is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Psychology and Dean of Social

Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His current research areas are: intersubjective foundation of culture, globalization and culture mixing, innovation and creativity, and cultural constraints on knowledge diffusion.

xiv Contributors

Susanna L. M. Chui is a PhD candidate at the Durham Business School. Her research areas include leadership and identity processes and social value creation in social entrepreneurship. James M. Diefendorff is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the

University of Akron. His research focuses on emotional labor, work motivation, and dynamic processes involved in behavioral self-regulation. Tina L. Donaldson is a graduate student at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her research interests include self-control, perception and happiness. Doris Fay is Full Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Potsdam, Germany. She received her PhD from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on proactivity, occupational stress, and well-being. D. Lance Ferris is Associate Professor of Management in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. He received his PhD in industrial/ organizational psychology from the University of Waterloo. His research primarily focuses on self-enhancement, self-control, approach/avoidance, and self-determination motivation processes. Francis J. Flynn is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s

Graduate School of Business. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His research examines how employees can develop healthy patterns of cooperation, mitigate racial and gender stereotyping, and emerge as leaders in the workplace. Ariane Froidevaux is a visiting postdoctoral researcher in the Management

Department at University of Florida. She received her PhD in psychology from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research interests include retirement and bridge employment, identity, careers, and occupational health. Adam D. Galinsky is Professor and Chair of the Management Division at

Columbia Business School. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and chapters, including the best-selling book, Friend & Foe (Penguin Random House, 2015; co-authored with Maurice Schweitzer). Michele J. Gelfand is Professor of Psychology and affiliate of the RH Smith School of Business and is a Distinguished University Scholar Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on cultural influences on conflict, negotiation, justice, and revenge; workplace diversity and discrimination; and theory and methods in cross-cultural psychology. Leah R. Halper has a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Ohio University. Her research focuses on self-efficacy, learning, motivation, and gender issues in the workplace. Leah is currently working as an Interim Assistant Director in the Center for the Study of Student Life at The Ohio State University.

Contributors  xv

Sarah N. Haverly is a doctoral student of Applied Psychology at Portland State

University. Her research interests include occupational health psychology, selfconscious emotional processes, and interpersonal relationships as they impact, and are impacted by, workplace factors. Michael A. Hogg is Professor and Chair of the Social Psychology Program at Claremont Graduate University, and Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Kent. He has published widely on self and social identity, group and intergroup processes, and influence and leadership, and is editor of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations and an associate editor of The Leadership Quarterly. Ying-yi Hong is Choh-Ming Li Professor of Marketing at the Chinese University

of Hong Kong (CUHK). She obtained her PhD from Columbia University, and has published over 140 journal articles and book chapters.Her research focuses on culture and cognition, multicultural identity, and intergroup processes. Nathalie Houlfort is Full Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology

and Director of the Laboratoire de recherche sur le Comportement Organi­ sationnel at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Prof. Houlfort has a PhD in social psychology from McGill University. Her expertise lies in the motivational processes at work and her current research focuses on passion and work-life balance. Russell E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Management in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. He received his PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of Akron. His research focuses on person-based (e.g., personality, motives) and situation-based (e.g., fairness, leader actions) factors that drive organizational behavior. Daniel Krantz is a graduate student in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Akron. His research interests include work motivation and emotional labor. Mark R. Leary is Garonzik Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. He received his PhD in social psychology from the University of Florida. His research interests include social motivation and emotion, the deleterious effects of excessive self-preoccupation, and interfaces of social and clinical psychology. Alice J. Lee is a doctoral student in Management at Columbia Business School. Filip Lievens is Full Professor at the Department of Personnel Management,

Work and Organizational Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium. His main interests deal with talent acquisition and talent assessment. He has published among others in the Annual Review of Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management. Szu-Han (Joanna) Lin is Assistant Professor of Management in the Isenberg

School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She

xvi Contributors

received her PhD from Michigan State University. Her research focuses on self-regulation, leadership, and voice. Robert G. Lord is Professor of Leadership at Durham University Business School. He received his PhD in organizational psychology from CarnegieMellon University in 1975. His current research interests involve identity, leadership, motivation, and information processing. He has co-authored the books Leadership and Information Processing: Linking Perceptions and Performance with Karen Maher, and Leadership Processes and Follower Self-Identity with Douglas Brown. Cynthia D. Mohr is Professor of Social Psychology at Portland State University. She received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. Her research explores psychosocial influences on subjective well-being and physical health, interpersonal relationships, and alcohol consumption. Mark Muraven is Professor of Psychology at the University at Albany, State

University of New York. His research focuses on self-control, motivation, and emotion. He received his PhD from Case Western Reserve University. Rebecca L. Schaumberg is an Assistant Professor of Operations, Information,

and Decisions at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. She received her PhD in organizational behavior from Stanford University. Her research interests concern the psychological, emotional, and demographic drivers of people’s job performance and leadership outcomes. Michael Schaerer is Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human

Resources at Singapore Management University. He received his PhD from INSEAD. He studies the psychological principles that govern organizational behavior in hierarchically differentiated environments. Constantine Sedikides’ research is on self and identity and their interplay with emotion and motivation, close relationships, and group processes. He is Professor and Director of the Centre for Research on Self and Identity, University of Southampton, UK. Sabine Sonnentag is Full Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. She studies how individuals can stay healthy, energetic, and productive at work, even when they face a high level of job stressors. Karoline Strauss is Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School, France.

She received her PhD from the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include possible selves in organizations, particularly future work selves, as well as proactive behavior, and well-being. Stefan Thau is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. His research focuses on understanding social interactions in groups, organizations, and society.

Contributors  xvii

Jessica L. Tracy is Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia,

in Vancouver, B.C. Her research focuses on emotions and emotion expressions, and, in particular, on the self-conscious emotions of pride and shame. Robert J. Vallerand is Full Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Comportement Social at the Université du Québec à Montréal where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning. He obtained his PhD from the Université de Montréal and a postdoc from the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on motivational processes and the concept of passion. Daan van Knippenberg is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Rotterdam School of Management. His research interests are in leadership, diversity, teams, and creativity. Daan is Editor in Chief of Academy of Management Annals. Jeffrey B. Vancouver is Byham Chair for Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Ohio University. He received his degree in 1989 from Michigan State University. Dr Vancouver studies the dynamics underlying human motivation in work contexts using a self-regulatory perspective, rigorous empirical protocols, and computational models. Mo Wang is the Lanzillotti-McKethan Eminent Scholar Chair of Management

and the Director of Human Resource Research Center at the Warrington College of Business, University of Florida. He received his PhD in industrialorganizational psychology and developmental psychology from Bowling Green State University. His research interests include older worker employment and retirement, newcomer and expatriate adjustment, occupational health psychology, teams and leadership, and advanced quantitative methods. Jasmine L. Wheeler is a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park. She obtained her master’s degree under the advisement of Dr. Michele Gelfand. She is currently working on her dissertation which seeks to examine racial identity-based impression management strategies utilized by underrepresented minorities in the workplace. Virgil Zeigler-Hill is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Oakland

University. He received his PhD in social-personality psychology from the University of Oklahoma. His research interests include self-esteem, the darker aspects of personality (e.g., narcissism, psychopathy, spitefulness), and interpersonal relationships.

SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD

This volume is remarkable because it assembles a vast amount of research and insight regarding what we know (and don’t know) about the nature of the “self” construct. Moreover, it does so in a way that makes it easy for the reader to really see how the self at work “works.” And as it turns out, the self is indeed implicated in helping to understand much of worker behavior. As developed in the chapters of this book we learn, for example, how the nature of the self might explain why employees come to join and identify with their company, when and where they respond to leaders, or why they are or are not engaged at work. The nature of the self is also portrayed as the foundation for a better understanding of many of the problematics facing work organizations. These include such things as when and how an organization might provide feedback in a way that will make a positive impact on learning, behavior or performance, and when and where the nature of the self can produce inauthentic relationships or even help us to better “explain” and mitigate against worker substance abuse. With regard to the latter, at the time that this Forward is being written, the United States is experiencing what is being termed an “opiate overuse epidemic.” This is thought to be exacerbated by a feeling of anomie on the part of so many individuals discouraged about the prospects of becoming re-employed. As you will learn from this volume, the sense of self can be a powerful force for promoting success in the workplace but it also plays a major role in undermining one’s efforts to live up to the workplace-related aspirations of most Americans. Lance Ferris, Russ Johnson and Constantine Sedikides are extremely qualified as editors. In fact, any one of them could have personally written a book on the many important topics covered in this volume. But instead they have brought their years of research and teaching experience relative to self-theory to bear in scoping out a very fine volume. They have also done us a great service

Series Editor’s Foreword  xix

by reaching out and engaging a set of chapter authors who are similarly well qualified. In short, this is a book that should not only be read for the wisdom that it imparts but also for its potential to motivate the reader to pursue future research relative to addressing the many yet to be answered questions lying at the intersection of self-theory and workplace behavior as well. Richard Klimoski

1 THE SELF AT WORK An Overview D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson, and Constantine Sedikides

Issues pertaining to the self are ubiquitous at work. Consider the case of Maggie, a senior manager at a large accounting firm who is hoping to be promoted to partner. Although the promotion comes with a pay raise, Maggie especially desires the position because of the boost it would give her self-esteem and because of the greater power and autonomy that being partner affords. For these reasons, Maggie is motivated to present an overly favorable impression of herself to the partners by seeking positive feedback about her accomplishments and by displaying visible signs of being engaged at work (e.g., working late and coming in on weekends, holding meetings with clients at the office, etc.). Or consider the case of Erlich, who is a member of a close-knit team working in a software company. The culture and leadership in this company stresses benevolence and universalism, which causes employees to see themselves as interconnected with one another. Erlich’s work can sometimes be quite demanding, which leaves him feeling mentally depleted and prone to making mistakes. When mistakes occur, they hinder the performance of his team members, leaving Erlich feeling guilt and shame. To escape negative feelings about himself and his abilities, Erlich smokes marijuana in the evening. As these two examples illustrate, what people think and feel about themselves impact how they perform their jobs and interact with work colleagues. The thoughts and feelings that people have about themselves are also shaped by their jobs and interactions, and the broader work environment. The self and work are indeed intertwined, thus necessitating that industrial and organizational psychologists have an understanding of theory and research pertaining to the self.

2  D. Lance Ferris et al.

The Self: A Brief Historical Overview Few concepts are as fundamental or impactful to psychology as the self. The self is implicated in a mind-bogglingly large array of concepts – a partial list provided by Baumeister (1998, p. 681) includes “self-affirmation, self-appraisal, self-as-target effect, self-awareness, self-concept, self-construal, self-deception, self-defeating behavior, self-enhancement, self-esteem, self-evaluation maintenance, self-interest, self-monitoring, self-perception, self-presentation, self-protection, self-reference, self-regulation, self-serving bias, self-verification” – to which we could add selfefficacy, core self-evaluations, self-determination, self-control, and self-conscious emotions, among others. This is an impressive catalogue, and one that grows even larger when we include concepts relevant to the self but that do not contain the word “self” (such as social comparison, narcissism, authenticity, or engagement). Fully appreciating what the self is and what it does has historically been challenging, in part because of this sheer variety of concepts related to the self and the self’s influence on so many cognitive, affective, conative, and behavioral processes. Greenwald and Pratkanis (1984) identified work by James (1890) and Allport (1943) as milestones in scholarly understanding of what the self is and what it does. In particular, James (1890, p. 291) defined the self thus: In its widest possible sense . . . a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. (emphasis in original) Although this definition of the self may leave females, landlubbers, and the horseless feeling excluded, it nonetheless illustrates just how broad the concept of “self” can be. To simplify, James further divided this definition into what he called the four constituent elements of the self: the material self (broadly, one’s physical body and possessions), the social self (broadly, the aspects of the self that are presented to others), the spiritual self (broadly, one’s inner thoughts), and the pure ego (broadly, the unitary agent, thinker, knower, or observer – what some refer to as the soul). James also delineated how these constituents can inspire a variety of feelings (e.g., pride, vanity, shame, and inferiority) and motivate a variety of actions (e.g., to acquire objects, to be noticed, and to be moral), which foreshadowed future work on self-relevant emotions and motivations. Following the publication of James’ (1890) work, the self largely disappeared as a topic of serious research. During this ensuing period, as Allport (1943) noted, behaviorism took hold in psychology (with the exception of psychoanalysis’ preoccupation with the ego) and cognitive concepts like the “self,” “identity,” and “esteem” fell by the wayside. Arguing for a greater focus on the self in psychology, Allport pointed out that a decisive influence on

The Self at Work  3

human behavior and cognition is the involvement of the self. For example, it is altogether different when another person’s clothes, relationships, or works are criticized compared to when that same criticism is leveled at our own clothes, relationships, or works. These two cases – when the self versus another person is criticized – give rise to distinct thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In terms of how the self should be conceptualized, Allport (p. 459) noted that researchers conceive of the self in eight ways: (1) as knower, (2) as object of knowledge, (3) as primordial selfishness, (4) as dominator, (5) as a passive organizer and rationalizer, (6) as a fighter for ends, (7) as one segregated behavioral system among others, (8) as a subjective patterning of cultural values. In Allport’s list, we see many of the topics that researchers of the self continue to examine today, such as narcissism (or the self as “primordial selfishness”), power and status (or the self as “dominator”), the moral self (or the self as “a fighter for ends”), self-regulation and -control (or the self as “a passive organizer and rationalizer”), and individualistic and collectivistic self-construals (or the self as “a subjective patterning of cultural values”). In line with the cognitive revolution occurring in psychology at the time, Greenwald and Pratkanis’ (1984) own review highlighted studies on the self and cognition, including how people remember better material that has been “touched” by the self (such as material generated by the self vs. someone else, or relevant to the self like words describing one’s qualities), how people overestimate the amount of control they have over events, and how their evaluations are biased in ways that favor themselves. Greenwald and Pratkanis (p. 166) ultimately concluded that the self is not only the focus of affective evaluations, but also a “central cognitive structure, a self-concept with content that varies from person to person” and can be described as “complex, consisting of diffuse public, private, and collective facets, each providing a distinct basis for selfevaluation.”

Three Functions of the Self The reviews by James (1890), Allport (1943), and Greenwald and Pratkanis (1984) highlight the broad and wide-ranging impact of the self. More recently, Baumeister (1998, p. 681) argued the various self-related research findings can be organized into a tripartite view of the self’s functions, proposing the self is “an entity marked by reflexive consciousness, interpersonal roles and reputation, and executive function.” This tripartite view constitutes a parsimonious way to conceptualize (and ultimately appreciate) what the self does. First, the reflexive consciousness function of the self refers to humans possessing the capacity for self-awareness. The self can be both observer and

4  D. Lance Ferris et al.

observed – or, as James (1890) put it, there is both the self-as-subject (the “I” self) and the self-as-object (the “Me” self) in a phrase such as “I can see me” (see also Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 2016; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003). The reflexive consciousness function of the self allows people to appraise themselves, to know their capabilities and form opinions about themselves, and ultimately to strive to improve and enhance ourselves. Concepts such as self-esteem and self-efficacy largely (but not exclusively)1 arise from the self’s reflexive consciousness function. Second, the interpersonal function of the self refers to how the self exists within interpersonal relations – individuals are mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, daughters and sons, friends and enemies, older and younger, teammates and competitors, supplicants and superiors – all depending on the interpersonal context. Moreover, the interpersonal context influences and is influenced by the self. Indeed, some authors have argued that what people perceive as the self is largely the reflection of others’ appraisals of the self (i.e., reflected appraisals, or the looking-glass or mirrored self; Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934), yet the self also expends considerable effort to manage the appraisals of others. The interpersonal function of the self gives rise to concepts such as self-monitoring and impression management, as well as biases in how people perceive and evaluate others (e.g., academics and athletes evaluating others based on their CVs or sports prowess, respectively), their ability to identify with social groups, and uniquely interpersonal emotions such as guilt, embarrassment, or even anxiety during a blind date. Finally, the executive function of the self refers to how the self “makes decisions, initiates actions, and in other ways exerts control over both self and environment” (Baumeister, 1998, p. 712). Put simply, the self is a doer and is not relegated to being a passive observer – if anything, the self reacts negatively to reductions in control and autonomous choices. The executive function of the self is ultimately what gives rise to motivated behavior, be it job-specific, prosocial, antisocial, or more neutral everyday behavior. It also gives rise to attempts – and failures – to exert self-control over our behavior by, for example, regulating what goals are chosen, what plans and strategies are formulated, and when and how goal-directed action is initiated and maintained. It is the executive function of the self that translates cognition, conation, and affect into observable action.

The Self at Work So far, we have primarily drawn upon the literature in social and personality psychology (what we refer to as social/personality) to discuss the self. Yet as the tripartite view makes plain, the self is intimately involved in many (if not most) aspects of one’s lives, including their work lives, where the self is particularly influential by shaping how employees perceive and understand their

The Self at Work  5

environment, job tasks, colleagues, and interpersonal interactions. Employees are continuously evaluating their own work and abilities (and are in turn evaluated by others), regulating their behaviors that contribute to and influence their environment, and interacting with other employees inhabiting different social roles. In line with this idea, some of the more explicit organizational applications of research on the self include organization-based self-esteem (Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, & Dunham, 1989), workplace contingencies of self-worth (Ferris, Lian, Brown, & Morrison, 2015), self-control depletion and its effects on deviant and prosocial organizational behavior (Koopman, Lanaj, & Scott, 2016; Trougakos, Beal, Cheng, Hideg, & Zweig, 2015; Marcus & Schuler, 2004), organizational and relational identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Lord & Brown, 2004), workplace identity negotiation and change (Ibarra, 1999; Swann, Johnson, & Bosson, 2009), and CEO narcissism (Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2007; Grijalva, Harms, Newman, Gaddis, & Fraley, 2015; Sedikides & Campbell, 2017). In some ways it is surprising that a book on the self at work has not been published previously, given the pervasive impact the self has on work and organizational phenomena. Indeed, we would argue that most of the topics that interest scholars of industrial-organizational or organizational behavior (what we refer to as IO/OB) stand to be influenced by the self. Consider, for example, the topics of other volumes within SIOP’s Organizational Frontiers series. Many of these volumes broadly address ratings and evaluations, either of the self or others, in training and performance contexts (Ashkanasy, Bennett, & Martinko, 2016; Ellingson & Noe, 2017; Highhouse, Dalal, & Salas, 2014; Kozlowski & Salas, 2010). Here, the reflexive consciousness functions of the self become implicated, particularly because numerous studies have shown that the self holds a privileged status in memory and evaluations (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Cai, 2015; Sedikides, Green, Saunders, Skowronski, & Zengel, 2016). For example, people retrieve memories associated with the self more quickly than unrelated memories (Ross & Sicoly, 1979), they are more likely to remember something that did not happen (socalled “false alarms”) when it is consistent with their self-views (Bransford & Franks, 1971), and they are more likely to remember their successes than failures (Glixman, 1949). Similarly, they judge themselves more positively than others do, taking credit for successes and denying responsibility for failures (Ferris & Sedikides, this volume). The self is thus part and parcel of research involving ratings and evaluations. Other Organizational Frontiers volumes broadly deal with groups, be they teams (Eby & Allen, 2012; Salas, Goodwin, & Burke, 2009), demographic sections (Dipboye & Colella, 2005; Finkelstein, Truxillo, Fraccaroli, & Kanfer, 2015), or political coalitions (Ferris & Treadway, 2012). Being in a group understandably introduces the interpersonal functions of the self, and decades of research have been devoted to the study of the self in groups. This research

6  D. Lance Ferris et al.

includes identification with groups (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2001), how certain emotions uniquely emerge from group situations (Bohns & Flynn, 2013; Tracy & Robins, 2004), and how the self reacts to inclusion and exclusion from groups in prosocial and antisocial ways, with people engaging in risky or even unethical behavior to gain inclusion (Leary, Tchividjian, & Kraxberger, 1994; Thau, Derfler-Rozin, Pitesa, Mitchell, & Pillutla, 2015). In particular, self-referenced cognitions and processes are prompted by various forms of interpersonal mistreatment (e.g., incivility, unfairness, ostracism, etc.), which give rise to behaviors that protect the self and create psychological separation from the perpetrator (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996; Ferris, Chen, & Lim, 2017; Johnson & Lord, 2010; Rosen, Koopman, Gabriel-Rossetti, & Johnson, 2016). Given that groups are aggregates of individual selves, the self is an integral concept in understanding groups and emergent properties and processes in groups. Still other Organizational Frontiers volumes broadly address self-regulation, motivation, affect, and self-improvement (Ellingson & Noe, 2017; Hofmann & Frese, 2011; Kanfer, Chen, & Pritchard, 2008; Lord, Klimoski, & Kanfer, 2002). Naturally, such work implicates the executive function of the self. Prior research has highlighted the self’s relevance for self-regulation and motivation, including how different types of motivation and emotional reactions emerge when the self’s basic needs for autonomy, competence, and belongingness are satisfied or thwarted (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Vallerand, 1997), as well as work on self-enhancement and power (Lammers, Stoker, Rink, & Galinsky, 2016). Emotional reactions at work, in particular, are driven by the self-relevance of organizational features and events (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). The self’s role is also implicated in its limited ability to engage in self-control before becoming depleted (Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, & Lin, this volume; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998). Finally, a recent Organizational Frontiers volume addressed nepotism, or the “psychological and social processes associated with observed phenomena with respect to family membership (broadly defined) in and around organizations” (Jones, 2012, p. 2). Suffice to say, we can think of no more relevant topic for the self than a topic around people who are copies of their genes. Certainly, nepotism offers unique opportunities to bask in the reflected glories of family members – or to be shamed by their failures – while also affording opportunities to be envious of close others (both in a genetic and relationship sense). We do not claim that these prior Organizational Frontiers volumes or their associated literatures have overlooked the role of the self. Reviewers are well aware of the limitations of self-generated ratings of performance and are often more than happy to point these out. Rather, our aim is to raise awareness about just how impactful the self is for organizational phenomena. We are hard-pressed to find any organizational topic where a knowledge of the self’s reflexive, interpersonal, or executive functions would fail to yield interesting insights and testable hypotheses. Of course, it is not possible to provide

The Self at Work  7

exhaustive coverage of all IO/OB topics that intersect with the self, thus some interesting topics unfortunately did not make it into this volume, such as selfimprovement, the moral self, and authenticity, among others. Nevertheless, we are hopeful (one might even say self-assured!) that the included topics will be of interest to readers who are curious to learn more about the self.

Origin and Organization of This Book To this point, we have outlined how the historical roots of the self largely lie in the social/personality domain, while also arguing the self has crucial implications for the IO/OB domain. As such, for this latest volume of SIOP’s Organizational Frontiers series, we decided to bring together leading IO/OB and social/personality researchers with overlapping interests on the self to co-author chapters (excluding the Applications section, detailed below). For many of our chapter authors, these collaborations were entirely new, and thus entailed all the usual risks of working with someone they had not partnered with before. We were ecstatic that so many luminaries in our field were willing to take this leap into the unknown with us! Our aim in bringing together this diverse group of authors to work together on specific self-related topics was to foster conversations between IO/OB and social/personality authors across a range of areas. We asked them to consider, among other things, what the key theoretical tenets and takeaways are for the focal topic, how the topic has been used in the IO/OB literature, whether “translation” issues occurred between the social/personality literature and IO/OB’s use of that literature, what new insights IO/OB has given back to the social/personality literature, what burning issues or problems remain in the literature, and (relatedly) where IO/OB and social/personality research on the topic can go. Given that it was impossible to predict what would happen when they began working together, we also encouraged authors to follow whatever directions they found most interesting. We hope that the resulting chapters are interesting and useful for both IO/OB and social/personality researchers, in terms of understanding how IO/OB has used and contributed to the literature on the self as well as for understanding the roots of this work. This book is organized into three sections. The first section, Fundamental Concepts and Theories, covers topics that represent building blocks in the literature on the self. These topics are fundamental in the sense that they represent major concepts and theories that are frequently referenced in research articles (even when the self may not be the specific focus of the articles). The topics surveyed in these chapters can therefore be viewed as having attained prominent (or fundamental) status within both social psychology and management research. These concepts and theories range from self-efficacy to self-determination to social power, all of which are intertwined with the concept of the self. The first two chapters cover two of the most commonly

8  D. Lance Ferris et al.

studied “self” topics in the IO/OB and social/personality literatures. First, Vancouver, Alicke, and Halper (Chapter 2) clarify the meaning and function of self-efficacy in the opening chapter. They also draw attention to critical theoretical insights and challenges in the self-efficacy literature (e.g., the causal relation between self-efficacy and behavior) and discuss untapped areas of inquiry for future research. In the next chapter, Brown and Zeigler-Hill (Chapter 3) tackle research on intrapersonal and subjective evaluations of one’s worth and value, namely self-esteem. The authors’ coverage spans numerous perspectives (e.g., trait vs. state and explicit vs. implicit self-esteem), controversies (e.g., is self-esteem a predictor or outcome of performance? Is extreme self-esteem beneficial or harmful?), and functions of self-esteem (e.g., as a gauge of social status and as a source of meaning). The attention of the next two chapters shifts to conceptualizations of the self vis-à-vis other people and groups. van Knippenberg and Hogg (Chapter 4) examine how employees come to define themselves as part of work groups based on the defining characteristics they share with other members. As reviewed in their chapter, these social identification processes have key implications for the goals and values that employees hold, the types of exchange relationships they develop with others, how employees respond to organizational change efforts, and who are endorsed as group leaders. Ferris and Sedikides (Chapter 5) explore the basic motive of self-enhancement, which involves the desire for other people to view the self in a favorable light. This motive can lead employees to take credit for successes and attribute failures to external causes, to solicit positive feedback from others, or to make downward social comparisons, especially for defining characteristics of the self. The two chapters that follow cover topics that pertain in particular to aspects of self-regulation, which refers to the process of exercising self-control over cognition, affect, and behavior in order to achieve one’s goals. Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, and Lin (Chapter 6) review theory and research on selfcontrol, and how it appears to operate as a limited resource. After engaging in demanding activities that require high amounts of self-control (e.g., suppressing self-interest, multi-tasking), employees may become mentally fatigued and, as a result, show poorer task performance, and exhibit less cooperative and more destructive interpersonal behaviors. Diefendorff, Houlfort, Vallerand, and Krantz (Chapter 7) summarize social/personality and IO/OB research on SelfDetermination Theory, which stresses the importance of pursuing goals that enable individuals to satisfy basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Pursuing such goals requires less self-control on the part of employees, because self-concordant activities are intrinsically motivating and they foster greater well-being. The final two chapters in this section review self-referenced emotions and forms of power. Schaumberg, Flynn, and Tracy (Chapter 8) discuss the role of two social emotions – guilt and shame – that arise from evaluating the self

The Self at Work  9

from the perspective of others. These authors highlight the need to distinguish between discrete emotions at work because guilt and shame trigger unique types of behavior (e.g., reconciliatory and hostile behaviors, respectively). Moreover, how individuals think and behave towards others at work not only depends on their emotional states but also on the extent to which they have control over valued resources, as made clear in Schaerer, Lee, Galinsky, and Thau’s review of social power (Chapter 9). The authors provide detailed coverage of the topic, ranging from methodological issues to power dynamics over time and special considerations at different levels (i.e., individual, interpersonal, and organizational). After presenting these fundamental concepts and theories associated with the self, the second section of the book, titled Integrative Themes, covers topics that build on one or more of the concepts and theories from the first section. This section illustrates how research on culture, impression management, and escaping the self have taken fundamental concepts of the self and incorporated them into their own research areas. Wheeler, Gelfand, Hong, and Chiu (Chapter 10) discuss how culture shapes the self, particularly the relative prominence that different self-construals hold. These differences in self-construal, in particular, can have marked effects on how individuals achieve self-enhancement or how they react to displays of self-conscious emotions such as shame. Similarly, Leary and Bolino (Chapter 11) discuss the various tactics individuals use to construct positive impressions of themselves to others. Such tactics typically are motivated by a desire for self-enhancement and involve striving towards a desired identity. Finally, Mohr, Haverly, Froidevaux, and Wang (Chapter 12) discuss how negative self-evaluations and self-conscious emotions can lead to behaviors such as alcohol and drug misuse – behaviors that serve as means to escape self-awareness. The third section of the book, Applications to Organizational Concepts, departs from the prior two sections’ pairing of IO/OB and social/personality co-authors and instead invites prominent IO/OB researchers to consider the application of research on the self to topics that are particularly apposite and popular in the IO/OB literature: feedback seeking, engagement, and leadership. Anseel, Strauss, and Lievens (Chapter 13) delve into how self-enhancement and self-improvement strivings influence how individuals seek and react to feedback, as well as the role that possible future selves play in emphasizing self-enhancement or self-improvement strivings. Sonnentag and Fay (Chapter 14) review the role of elements of the reflexive and executive self in the engagement process at work, as well as possible reciprocal influences between the self and engagement at work. Finally, Lord and Chui (Chapter 15) build on recent work that explores leadership in terms of dynamic relationships among self-based concepts (e.g., self-schemas and -identities) and the effects of these concepts on behavior. Specifically, the authors discuss how dual process models and neuroscience perspectives can provide a dynamic model of leadership processes, focusing in particular on the activation of individual and social identities over time.

10  D. Lance Ferris et al.

In closing, our hope is that by highlighting the diverse research areas associated with the self this latest volume in the SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series will increase awareness of the key role the self plays in organizational research. The self is an exceptionally broad and multifaceted topic, and we believe that a greater appreciation of it can produce generative insights for many organizational phenomena. These insights can be enriched by greater synergy between IO/OB and social/personality researchers.

Note 1 Consider, for example, the concept of self-efficacy (see Chapter 2 by Vancouver, Alicke, & Halper). As a perception of one’s own capabilities to complete a task, self-efficacy represents a function of the reflexive self. At the same time, self-efficacy is interpersonal in nature, in that it can be positively or negatively influenced by social comparisons, or even improved by observing role models engage in tasks (e.g., via social learning processes; Bandura, 1997). Thus, self-efficacy also arises from interpersonal functions of the self. Finally, perception of one’s own capabilities influences the behaviors individuals engage in – i.e., the executive functioning of the self (Vancouver, Thompson, & Williams, 2001), and these behaviors are in turn reflected upon and incorporated into self-perceptions. In this manner, self-efficacy arises from and is involved with all three self-functions. This is consistent with Baumeister’s (1998) view that, although the tripartite conceptualization outlines the functions of the self, the functions are not independent from one another. As a result, many self-related concepts may not align in a one-to-one fashion with a specific function but rather emerge from the interplay between the three self-functions.

References Allport, G. A. (1943). The ego in contemporary psychology. Psychological Review, 50, 451–478. Ashforth, B.E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39. Ashkanasy, N. M., Bennett, R. J., & Martinko, M. J. (2016). Understanding the high performance workplace: The line between motivation and abuse. New York, NY: Routledge. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Freeman. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed.; pp. 680–740). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Baumeister, F. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103, 5–33. Bohns, V. K., & Flynn, F. J. (2013). Guilt by design: Structuring organizations to elicit guilt as an affective reaction to failure. Organization Science, 24, 1157–1173. Bransford, J. D., & Franks, J. J. (1971). The abstraction of linguistic ideas. Cognitive Psychology, 2, 331–350. Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B. M. (2016). Self-as-object and self-as-subject in the workplace. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 36–46. Chatterjee, A., & Hambrick, D. C. (2007). It’s all about me: Narcissistic CEOs and their effects on company strategy and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52, 351–386.

The Self at Work  11

Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York, NY: Shocken Books. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. 1985. Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum. Dipboye, R. L., & Colella, A. (2005). Discrimination at work: The psychological and organizational bases. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Eby, L. T., & Allen, T. D. (2012). Personal relationships: The effect on employee attitudes, behavior, and well-being. New York, NY: Routledge. Ellingson, J. E., & Noe, R. A. (2017). Autonomous learning in the workplace. New York: Routledge. Ferris, D. L., Chen, M., & Lim, S. (2017). Comparing and contrasting workplace ostracism and incivility. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, 315–338. Ferris, D. L., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., & Morrison, R. (2015). Ostracism, self-esteem, and job performance: When do we self-verify and when do we self-enhance? Academy of Management Journal, 58, 279–297. Ferris, G. R., & Treadway, D. C. (2012). Politics in organizations: Theory and research considerations. New York: Routledge. Finkelstein, L. M., Truxillo, D. M., Fraccaroli, F., & Kanfer, R. (2015). Facing the challenges of a multi-age workforce: A use-inspired approach. New York, NY: Routledge. Glixman, A. F. (1949). Recall of completed and incompleted activities under varying degrees of stress. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39, 281–295. Greenwald, A. G., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1984). The self. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 129–178). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Grijalva, E., Harms, P.D., Newman, D. A., Gaddis, B., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Narcissism and leadership: A meta-analytic review of linear and nonlinear relationships. Personnel Psychology, 68, 1–47. Highhouse, S., Dalal, R. S., & Salas, E. (2014). Judgment and decision-making at work. New York, NY: Routledge. Hofmann, D. A., & Frese, M. (2011). Errors in organizations. New York, NY: Routledge. Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 764–791. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Volume 1). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. Johnson, R. E., & Lord, R. G. (2010). Implicit effects of justice on self-identity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 681–695. Jones, R. G. (2012). Nepotism in organizations. New York, NY: Routledge. Kanfer, R., Chen, G., & Pritchard, R. D. (2008). Work motivation: Past, present, and future. New York, NY: Routledge. Koopman, J., Lanaj, K., & Scott, B. A. (2016). Integrating the bright and dark sides of OCB: A daily investigation of the benefits and costs of helping others. Academy of Management Journal, 59, 414–435. Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Salas, E. (2010). Learning, training, and development in organizations. New York, NY: Routledge. Lammers, J., Stoker, J. I., Rink, R. & Galinsky, A. D. (2016). To have control over or to be free from others? The desire for power reflects a need for autonomy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 498–512. Leary, M. R., Tchividjian, L. R., & Kraxberger, B. E. (1994). Self-presentation can be hazardous to your health: Impression management and health risk. Health Psychology, 13, 461–470.

12  D. Lance Ferris et al.

Lord, R. G., & Brown, D. J. (2004). Leadership processes and follower self-identity. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Lord, R. G., Klimoski, R. J., & Kanfer, R. (2002). Emotions in the workplace: Understanding the structure and role of emotions in organizational behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Marcus, B., & Schuler, H. (2004). Antecedents of counterproductive behavior at work: A general perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 647–660. Mead, G. H. (1934).Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Muraven, M., Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, D. M. (1998). Self-control as limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 774–789. Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., & Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organizationbased self-esteem: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 622–645. Rosen, C. C., Koopman, J., Gabriel-Rossetti, A. S., & Johnson, R. E. (2016). Who strikes back? A daily investigation of when and why incivility begets incivility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 1620–1634. Ross, M., & Sicoly, F. (1979). Egocentric biases in availability and attribution. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 322–336. Salas, E., Goodwin, G. F., & Burke, C. S. (2009). Team effectiveness in complex organizations: Cross-disciplinary perspectives and approaches. New York, NY: Routledge. Sedikides, C., & Campbell, W. K. (2017) Narcissistic force meets systemic resistance: The Energy Clash Model. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12, 400–421. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Cai, H. (2015). On the panculturality of self-enhancement and self-protection motivation: The case for the universality of self-esteem. Advances in Motivation Science, 2, 185–241. Sedikides, C., Green, J. D., Saunders, J., Skowronski, J. J., & Zengel, B. (2016). Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults. European Review of Social Psychology, 27, 1–62. Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2003). Portraits of the self. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Sage handbook of social psychology (pp. 110–138). London, UK: Sage. Swann, W. B., Jr., Johnson, R. E., & Bosson, J. K. (2009). Identity negotiation at work. In B. M. Staw & A. P. Brief (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior (Vol. 29, pp. 81–109). Oxford: Elsevier. Thau, S., Derfler-Rozin, R., Pitesa, M., Mitchell, M. S., & Pillutla, M. M. (2015). Unethical for the sake of the group: Risk of social exclusion and pro-group unethical behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 98–113. Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: A theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 103–125. Trougakos, J. P., Beal, D. J., Cheng, B. H., Hideg, I., & Zweig, D. (2015). Too drained to help: A resource depletion perspective on daily interpersonal citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 227–236 Vallerand, R. J. (1997). Toward a hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 271–360. Vancouver, J. B., Thompson, C. M., & Williams, A. A. (2001). The changing signs in the relationships among self-efficacy, personal goals, and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 605–620. van Knippenberg, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2001). Social identity processes in organizations. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 4, 185–189. Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory. Research in Organizational Behavior, 18, 1–74.

PART I

Fundamental Concepts and Theories

2 SELF-EFFICACY Jeffrey B. Vancouver, Mark Alicke, and Leah R. Halper

After years of scientific investigation, the famous entomologist, J. B. S. Haldane, was asked what he had learned about God. Reportedly, he said, “God has an inordinate fondness of beetles,” due to the variety and number of beetles he had observed in his long and lustrous career. If we were asked the same question about what we have learned about psychologists after years of reading their work, we would say that they have an inordinate fondness of the “self.” This does not mean that we (as we are psychologists ourselves) are selfish or self-centered, but rather that many in our field have devoted a great deal of resources toward studying concepts that are prefixed with the word “self” (e.g., self-esteem, selfconcept, self-enhancement, self-confidence, self-evaluation, self-monitoring, self-regulation, self-control), including the topic of this chapter: self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is defined as “belief in one’s capacities to organize and execute the course of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). According to Albert Bandura, who coined the term, strong levels of self-efficacy beliefs are required to motivate human behavior. The specific question we take up here is just how important self-efficacy is and what role self-efficacy beliefs have in understanding human behavior, particularly as it applies to human behavior at work. Of the “self” constructs, self-efficacy is one of the most commonly used in applied psychology. Specifically, according to a recent search on Google Scholar (August, 2016), self-efficacy had ~1,480,000 hits. This number does not quite reach self-esteem’s number (~1,540,000; see the Brown & Zeigler-Hill chapter in this volume), but it beats self-concept (~1,460,000). Of course, popularity is not evidence of validity or usefulness. For example, Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, and Vohs (2003) recently called self-esteem’s exalted status into question via a thorough review of the empirical literature. Similarly, self-efficacy has

16  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

long been the subject of criticism from various scholars (e.g., Eysenck, 1978; Hawkins, 1992; Kirsch, 1985; Powers, 1991), which has recently mushroomed into a major dispute in the literature (e.g., Bandura, 2012, 2015; Vancouver, 2005, 2012). However, the existence and general impact of self-efficacy has also received substantial empirical support, even from some of its critics (e.g., Vancouver, More, & Yoder, 2008). Indeed, though we review the issues that might suggest reining in some of the enthusiasm for self-efficacy, we believe not only that it is an important construct, but also that many potentially useful aspects of it have yet to be investigated. In the remainder of the chapter, we describe the self-efficacy concept in more detail, including issues related to its measurement. We then overview the research on the construct, particularly as it relates to work psychology. This overview is followed by a discussion of the deeper theoretical issues facing selfefficacy, including its causal role in human behavior. Finally, we end with a discussion of the future of self-efficacy for the field. This includes a discussion of its possible practical relevance and untapped areas of inquiry.

Meaning and Measurement of Self-Efficacy In 1977, Bandura introduced self-efficacy and defined it as an expectation regarding a person’s ability to perform the behaviors necessary to achieve an outcome. He called this the person-to-behavior link. Critically, Bandura distinguished self-efficacy from outcome expectations, which are beliefs that the behavior, if performed, will lead to the expected outcome (i.e., the behaviorto-outcome link). Bandura argued that the self-efficacy construct made two contributions to applied psychology. First, the construct reinforced the cognitive revolution notion that cognitive representations such as beliefs could play key roles in behavior change. Second, it expanded the types of expectations psychologists should consider. That is, Bandura claimed that most extant theories assumed that individuals had no reservations about their ability to produce an activity or behavior. Thus, changing such beliefs was not a concern for psychotherapists even though such beliefs might be the very thing undermining motivation to engage in a behavior. Moreover, this self-efficacy belief notion highlighted that not only beliefs, but beliefs specific to the self, were relevant when determining behavior. Bandura (1997) described three dimensions on which self-efficacy could vary: level, strength, and generality. Level refers to the individual’s believed capacity to engage in the activities or behaviors. The level dimension is the core dimension of the self-efficacy construct. For example, if one thinks he or she is capable of producing up to 20 widgets per day, 20 represents the level of one’s self-efficacy. The second dimension, strength, refers to the commitment one has to the belief. In the widget example, someone with high strength in their self-efficacy would be very confident in their estimate of capacity, whereas

Self-Efficacy  17

one with low strength would have less confidence. Finally, generality refers to the concreteness of the target of the belief. General targets are broad areas of performance or activities (e.g., academics; work) whereas specific targets are narrow (e.g., grade in the next exam in biology or number of widgets capable of producing in 10 minutes when rested). Bandura argued that the measure of selfefficacy beliefs should be consistent with the specificity of the target of interest. Indeed, because of the preference for using specific measures of self-efficacy for addressing specific behaviors or performances, no general measure of selfefficacy is recommended (Bandura, 1997, 2012). Instead, Bandura provides prescriptions for how one should develop a task-specific measure of selfefficacy. Specifically, to measure self-efficacy level, which he calls a measure of magnitude, he suggests listing several levels of performance (or behavior) and having respondents indicate if they think they are capable of reaching each level. Alternatively, in the case of behavior, such as interacting with a snake (see Bandura, Reese, & Adams, 1982), the questions might ask whether one can be in a room with a snake, approach it, touch it, etc. Meanwhile, to capture the strength dimension, individuals are asked to rate how confident they are that they can reach each level or engage in each action. The magnitude score is the sum of levels or items endorsed and the strength measure is the sum or average of the confidence ratings. Of some import, Bandura’s (2012) more recent discussion of self-efficacy measurement focuses on using just the strength measure to measure level. This is largely because the strength measure seems to capture a respondent’s belief level (e.g., is more predictive of behavior) than the magnitude measure. Yet, if the strength measure assesses level, it does not assess strength. Instead, strength is often inferred from the experience the individual has with the task (Bandura, 1997). Specifically, Bandura argues that individuals with little or no experience with a task will largely guess about their capacity, making it unlikely to be accurate or used by the individual as a motivational guide. Of course, a strength measure is needed to validate Bandura’s assumption. A more problematic issue is that self-efficacy measures include the outcome self-efficacy is presumed to cause (e.g., levels of performance or behavior). That is, the measure essentially amounts to a prediction of an outcome (e.g., example item in the Self-Efficacy for Learning and Performance scale [Aydin, 2015] is “I believe I will receive an excellent grade in biology class”). Thus, beliefs about achieving outcomes confound beliefs about capacities to produce behaviors with beliefs about the link between those behaviors and the outcomes. For example, if one asked an academic whether they could get 1 or 2 or 3 (or more) papers published in a year, the answer may include beliefs about the probability that reviewers and editors would accept the papers submitted (i.e., acceptance rate), which is an outcome expectancy. To address this issue Bandura (1997) claims that self-efficacy is broader than expectancy. Presumably, this means it incorporates outcome expectancy and should not be considered confounded

18  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

with self-efficacy. This may be fine, but it conflates one of the contributions of self-efficacy as a unique form of expectancy with existing expectancy concepts (e.g., Tolman, Hall, & Bretnall, 1932). In addition, by including the outcome in the measure, it is difficult to separate self-efficacy from a mere prediction. To address this, Bandura (1997) has argued that when asking for beliefs about capacity one uses “can” one reach some outcome, not “will” one. Using “will” asks for a prediction of the future rather than belief in capacity. Unfortunately, it is not clear if respondents recognize the difference (Kirsch, 1985) or that researchers follow his advice (e.g., Aydin, 2015). At the heart of this measurement issue is accessibility. That is, it is difficult to imagine how an individual would be able to describe their belief in capacity independent of the result of that capacity. To understand the difference, consider the capacity of an engine. Engine capacity is often measured in terms of the volume of displacement for the cylinders in an engine. This volume can affect performance outcomes, such as how quickly a car equipped with the engine can reach a certain speed (e.g., zero to 60 mph in 6 seconds). Thus, one could ask about a belief in engine capacity in terms of volume displaced as opposed to rating the confidence one has that the engine would reach 60 mph from zero in 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. seconds, which is analogous to what the self-efficacy measure achieves. Yet, it is often difficult to imagine an individual possessing a belief regarding a particular internal dimension of capacity (e.g., the level of knowledge and skill necessary to argue property law in court). It seems more likely that the individual would infer it from observations of performance (e.g., number of court cases won and lost in the past). Self-efficacy measures are direct measures of beliefs in the effects of capacity and indirect measures of beliefs in capacity. Of course, this problem of confounding the outcome in measures of presumed antecedents of the outcome is common in management research (e.g., the measure of transformational leadership includes ratings of the outcomes that are presumed to accrue for someone who is a transformational leader; van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). The issues described thus far bring us to the third and most problematic issue for self-efficacy. Even if there were a valid measure of one’s belief in capacity, unless there was reason to believe the belief was highly inaccurate, it may be difficult to determine whether associations (e.g., motivation, performance) with the belief occur because of the belief or because of the capacity. Indeed, it seems that one should attribute outcomes to the capacity before attributing it to the belief in the capacity. For example, if drivers could estimate the engine capacity of the cars they drive, we would likely think that the times it takes the cars to go from zero to 60 mph is a function of the engines’ capacities, not the drivers’ assessments of those capacities. That is, capacity and belief in capacity, whether direct or indirect, are confounded. Again, the exception would be if the beliefs were highly inaccurate. However, we seem to know that they are not (as will be highlighted below) or that when beliefs are highly inaccurate, self-efficacy

Self-Efficacy  19

largely loses its associations with outcomes entirely (Bandura, 1997). Of course, as Bandura points out, when the beliefs are inaccurate, they are probably not held with any strength and are therefore unlikely to engage motivational processes. Unfortunately, we have no good measure of belief strength to test that proposition. The above discussion is a necessary preliminary step when seeking to understand the empirical literature on self-efficacy. In the next section we review that literature, with special attention to the issues raised above.

Empirical Evidence Regarding Self-Efficacy The popularity of self-efficacy as a psychological concept has led to hundreds of studies that measured some form of self-efficacy (e.g., Boyer, Zollo, Thompson, Vancouver, Shewring, & Sims, 2000; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Many of these studies have been aggregated in meta-analyses. We begin our review there.

Meta-Analyses By 2003, eight meta-analyses had been conducted that involved self-efficacy, which Bandura and Locke (2003) noted, uniformly found a strong, positive association between self-efficacy and the outcomes of interest, including work performance, athletic performance, and academic achievement. One problem with these older meta-analyses is the observational and cross-sectional nature of the study designs used. If self-efficacy is somewhat caused by observations of past performance (i.e., enacted mastery; Bandura, 1997) and past or present performance is primarily a function of actual capacity, then positive correlations will arise as a function of reverse causality and the confounding effect of actual capacity. That is, self-efficacy might simply serve as a marker for actual capacity where actual capacity does all or most of the “work” in determining performance. Thus, because observational and cross-sectional studies are not internally valid, they should probably not be used to assess self-efficacy’s causal effects. More recent meta-analyses that include a broader variety of primary studies have contradicted the finding of a strong, positive association of self-efficacy with its outcomes. For example, Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott, and Rich (2007) conducted a path analysis based on a correlation matrix developed from metaanalytic studies of self-efficacy, performance, experience, general mental ability, and the Big Five personality constructs. They found that self-efficacy’s substantial correlation with performance was reduced to a trivial level once these other constructs were included. However, despite being based on a meta-analysis, the path analysis had relatively little power, used weak proxies for actual capacity, and, most problematically, used studies with a weak correspondence between the self-efficacy measure and the target performance (i.e., the levels of specificity or content did not often match).

20  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

Another exception to the predominately positive findings from early metaanalyses was obtained in a meta-analysis by Sitzmann and Yeo (2013). Their meta-analysis included only studies that assessed how changes in self-efficacy related to changes in performance over time. They found that changes in performance had substantial, positive effects on subsequent self-efficacy levels, but that, on average, self-efficacy’s relationship with subsequent performance was null after controlling for past performance. Importantly, this meta-analysis was based on within-person studies where actual capacity was largely controlled by using repeated measures. Most studies also provided additional controls for change in capacity over time (e.g., trend in performance or past performance). This is important because if the relationship between self-efficacy and performance is reciprocal, changes in performance as a function of other factors (e.g., practice, fatigue) will create positive covariance between self-efficacy and subsequent performance that is a function of changing performance and not self-efficacy. However, Sitzmann and Yeo’s (2013) finding of a “null” effect was not the full story. They also found substantial variance in the effects observed across the studies. That is, some studies found positive effects for self-efficacy on performance, some found null effects, and some found negative effects. Moreover, many of the studies were observational. Thus, though repeated-measurement designs and lagged pairings analyses reduce threats of reverse causality and actual capacity confounding with a third variable like actual capacity, they do not completely eliminate these threats. Thus, to unravel the truth about self-efficacy’s role in human behavior, an examination of primary study properties and findings is needed.

Primary Studies: Experiments We review the primary studies conducted on self-efficacy selectively, starting with what would presumably be the strongest evidence of causation: experimental studies. For example, Bandura’s original empirical work with self-efficacy examined the behavior of individuals with snake phobias (Bandura et al., 1982). Specifically, participants suffering from snake phobias were more likely to interact with snakes after their self-efficacy for such interaction was increased. To increase this self-efficacy, positive experiences of snake exposure were used. To make the experiences positive, the exposures were mild at first, building as the individual was able to engage in them. This is consistent with the logic Bandura uses to describe how to build self-efficacy via enacted mastery (i.e., experience). Yet, it is also consistent with systematic desensitization, which is another method used to deal with phobias. The idea behind systematic desensitization is to dissociate negative emotions (i.e., fear) from the stimuli. That is, the mechanism of systematic desensitization is not predicated on changing a belief. To address this limitation, self-efficacy was manipulated in another study by having phobics watch a model engage with the snakes. Yet,

Self-Efficacy  21

Kirsch (1985) argued that this modeling did not so much show the participants that they could engage with the snakes as it showed that engaging with the snakes was not dangerous. In other words, he argued that this second manipulation changed an outcome expectancy – the likelihood that snakes would hurt you – that was preventing individuals from engaging with snakes. Kirsch may or may not have been correct, but his arguments demonstrate the difficulty of making causal conclusions about self-efficacy, even using experimental designs. Of course, few work settings require employees to engage with snakes, so it is not clear how relevant this context is for the workplace or other real-life scenarios. Fortunately, several experimental studies have been conducted that looked at self-efficacy for task performance in a way that is relevant to work settings. Indeed, Boyer et al. (2000) meta-analyzed these types of experiments. As with the other meta-analyses cited by Bandura and Locke (2003), this one found an average positive effect of self-efficacy on task performance. However, many of these experiments confounded actual capacity with capacity beliefs. In particular, more than half the studies in the meta-analysis manipulated selfefficacy via training. That is, those in the high self-efficacy condition were trained on some task and those in the low self-efficacy condition were not trained on the task. Because training tends to increase capacity as well as belief in capacity (Brown & Sitzmann, 2011), it is unclear whether change in capacity or belief in capacity accounts for the positive effects. Of course, other methods for manipulating self-efficacy have been used. The second most common approach is modeling. As noted above, modeling involves watching another person successfully engage in the behavior. However, besides the possibility that modeling affects outcome expectancies or the value associated with behavior as Kirsch (1985) noted, modeling is primarily used as a method to train individuals how to do things (Bandura, 1969). Thus, modeling as a manipulation of self-efficacy can also create actual capacity change rather than just belief in capacity change. Meanwhile, other ways to manipulate selfefficacy may also introduce confounds. For example, persuasion (e.g., “you can do it”) or positive feedback, sometimes false, are occasionally used to induce self-efficacy effects (e.g., Locke, Frederick, Lee, & Bobko, 1984). Yet, it is possible that the positive feelings arising from positive feedback improve the affect or attitude toward the researcher, motivating higher levels of performance. Fortunately, several examples of clean self-efficacy manipulations have appeared in the literature. However, their effects are surprisingly varied. Some show negative effects (e.g., Mann & Eland, 2005; Salomon, 1984; Stone, 1994), some null effects (e.g., Beattie, Lief, Adamoulas, & Oliver, 2011), some mixed effects (e.g., Bandura & Jourden, 1991), and some positive effects (e.g., Bandura & Cervone, 1983). For example, a well-known field experiment in work psychology by Eden and Zuk (1995) randomly assigned groups of navy cadets to high self-efficacy or control conditions. Specifically, in one group the cadets were told that they were not going to get seasick whereas nothing was said

22  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

about seasickness to cadets in the control group. Importantly, there was no information provided about how to avoid or deal with seasickness in either group; it was simply the statement of a predicted outcome. Thus, claims of capacity change confounds do not seem reasonable. Interestingly, this simple manipulation resulted in significantly fewer seasick sailors in the high selfefficacy group (i.e., those told they would not become seasick) than the control. Of course, this particular effect might be specific to seasickness, which some claim is a psychosomatic illness (Collins & Lentz, 1977). Yet, the bottom line is that some studies present compelling evidence of self-efficacy’s causal effect. Most studies show the effect is positive, but some studies demonstrate that the effect is negative.

Primary Studies: Observational As noted, the bulk of studies on self-efficacy are non-experimental. Many of these are not useful for addressing the causality question because of the ambiguity inherent in simple observational studies where no design elements or statistical controls are used to counter alternative explanations. However, some sophisticated observational studies exist. For instance, self-efficacy was introduced to IO psychology via an exploratory study about goals, self-efficacy, and task performance by Locke et  al. (1984). The researchers were interested in finding a substitute for the expectancy concept found in Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory because previous research had shown that measures of expectancy lost predictive power after controlling for past performance and goal level. Vroom’s expectancy construct refers to subjective beliefs regarding the link between effort and performance. Critically, the researchers found evidence to support their self-efficacy substitute for expectancy on a sample of between 181 and 112 students participating in several brainstorming tasks where performance was measured as the number of unique uses for the common objects provided at the beginning of a trial. Most critically, a path analysis showed that self-efficacy had a significant effect on self-set goal level as well as performance, even when goal level and ability measured via past performances were included in the statistical model. Indeed, this finding seemed beyond the researchers’ expectations given that they started their discussion with the following sentence: “The most unexpected finding of this study was the very powerful effect of self-efficacy even with ability and past performance controlled” (Locke et al., 1984, p. 247). Nonetheless, and despite the exploratory nature of the study, they concluded that “these results give very strong support to Bandura’s (1982) claim that self-efficacy is a key causal variable in performance and show that its effects on performance are not only direct but indirect [via goal] as well” (p. 247). The conclusions Locke et al. (1984) drew seemed reasonable given their analysis. For example, unlike the path analysis presented by Judge et al. (2007),

Self-Efficacy  23

the Locke et al. (1984) path analysis included specific measures of ability (i.e., past performance on two previous trials) and thus presumably controlled for actual capacity differences among participants. Moreover, self-efficacy was significantly related to performance even when goal level was included in the path analysis (i.e., the direct effect). Self-efficacy was also positively related to goal level, which was positively related to performance and self-efficacy (i.e., the indirect self-efficacy effect via the goal mediator). Yet, some elements of the findings raise concerns. In particular, the researchers attempted to manipulate self-efficacy via false feedback on an early trial (as noted in a footnote). The manipulation had a short-lived effect on self-efficacy, but it never affected performance. Thus, the specific attempt to dissociate selfefficacy from actual capacity worked for a short while, but was unrelated to performance; these two points we return to later. Unfortunately, the Locke et  al. (1984) finding of a significant, positive relationship between self-efficacy and performance after controlling past performance was, as it turned out, an anomaly. Most studies find no effect after past performance is removed from the variances in the performance and self-efficacy measures (e.g., Heggestad & Kanfer, 2005; Mitchell, Hopper, Daniels, GeorgeFalvy, & James, 1994). In other words, it appears that self-efficacy suffers from the same problem that originally motivated the Locke et al. study. Yet, the use of past performance to control for actual capacity has a flaw that might hide a true positive effect. Specifically, Wood and Bandura (1989) argued that isolating past from present also removes the influence of self-efficacy on past performance. Thus, by controlling past performance one is also removing self-efficacy’s effect on present performance. To address this possibility, they developed a statistical procedure for removing the covariance of self-efficacy from past performance, which they called residualized past performance. They found that self-efficacy continued to positively relate to performance when residualized past performance was used as a control for past performance as opposed to unresidualized past performance – a finding that Heggestad and Kanfer (2005) replicated. However, Heggestad and Kanfer (2005) as well as others (e.g., Vancouver, Thompson, & Williams, 2001) noted that the covariance of common causes of self-efficacy and performance will also be removed from past performance if the residualized past performance approach is used. That is, if past self-efficacy’s relationship to past performance is due to actual capacity, removing past selfefficacy from past performance will remove the key reason past performance is used as a control (i.e., controlling for actual capacity). In other words, the procedure may work too well because it also removes those factors that are confounded with self-efficacy. Another way to control for stable actual capacity difference is to use repeated measures. That is, by looking at covariance between lagged measures of selfefficacy and performance over many waves of data one can remove possible

24  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

reverse causality effects and control for stable capacity differences as well as linear change in capacity (via controlling for data collection wave). Recall, however, that studies based on this protocol were the basis of the Sitzmann and Yeo (2013) meta-analysis that showed an average null relationship between selfefficacy and subsequent performance (and a strong positive relationship between performance and subsequent self-efficacy). Yet, studies by Vancouver et  al. (2001) and others using the repeatedmeasures approach (e.g., Vancouver & Kendall, 2006; Vancouver, Thompson, Tischner, & Putka, 2002; Yeo & Neal, 2006) found something else regarding self-efficacy and performance. Specifically, they found that self-efficacy was negatively related to subsequent performance. Recall that the experimental studies also sometimes found negative effects for self-efficacy, some of which Bandura (1997) found to be reasonable. However, the findings from these recent observational studies and the explanation for them created problems for self-efficacy as described by Bandura. We discuss this theoretical debate next.

Theoretical Debates (and Empirical Findings) on the Roles of Self-Efficacy Theories are presumed to provide explanatory and predictive power. Ambiguities in a theory undermine that power. Powers (1991) argued that Bandura’s social cognitive theory, and particularly the roles of self-efficacy he articulated, were ambiguous or not represented well logically. So began another tendril of the challenges Bandura’s theory has faced over the decades. In this section, we bookend the conceptual nature of the debate (i.e., the most antagonistic and protagonistic positions). However, because we see the debate as largely resolved, we present the resolution rather than the arguments. Indeed, much of the arguments were covered in the empirical review above. To be sure, the resolution is complex, which likely is why the debate has raged for so long. However, the resolution is not a compromise, but a conciliation of positions. This point is made clear at the end of this section.

A Question of Roles The most antagonistic position one might take regarding a construct such as self-efficacy is that it is merely epiphenomenal with no substantial role in human behavior (e.g., Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968). That is, given the evidence presented above, Vancouver (2005) argued that many effects ascribed to selfefficacy (e.g., the positive association of self-efficacy and performance) might be better ascribed to differences in actual capacity. Indeed, would one assume that the superior performance of an individual trained and who practices juggling, as compared to the individual who never trained or tried juggling, is because the juggler believes he is a better juggler? This explanation seems implausible.

Self-Efficacy  25

Nonetheless, much of the data presented to substantiate self-efficacy’s role on performance is of this nature. Yet, just because some effects attributed to self-efficacy are likely spurious does not mean that that all effects of self-efficacy are spurious. Indeed, if selfbeliefs serve no purpose, one might ask why humans would form such beliefs. However, individuals do form these beliefs, which we assume they would not bother to do if they did not provide some value to the individual, group, or species. That value, we would argue, is in predicting the future or estimating the states of important variables in the present. Predicting the future and estimating the current state can be useful for meeting one’s goals and resolving goal conflict. This is the general concept of lead in systems theory (Vancouver, 1996). In particular, self-efficacy beliefs are likely to be helpful because they increase the efficiency of resource use as one attempts to adapt to the environment. Importantly, this adaptive feature does not reduce to a single, monotonic relationship for self-efficacy. Moreover, in contrast to claims that self-efficacy can be an easily manipulated lever for increasing motivation in work settings (Gist & Mitchell, 1992), careful consideration of the roles and sources of selfefficacy reveal a more complex picture and a less manipulatable construct than one might think. To begin our discussion of roles for self-efficacy, consider the view of its greatest protagonist. Specifically, Bandura (2012, p. 13) claims that: Self-efficacy beliefs affect the quality of human functioning through cognitive, motivational, affective, and decisional processes. Specifically, people’s beliefs in their efficacy influence whether they think pessimistically or optimistically, in self-enabling or self-debilitating ways. Self-efficacy beliefs influence how well people motivate themselves and persevere in the face of difficulties through the goals they set for themselves, their outcome expectations, and causal attributions for their successes and failures . . . . The final way in which self-beliefs of efficacy contribute to self-development and change concerns choice processes. Such beliefs affect the slate of options people consider and the choices they make at important decisional points. By their choices of activities and environments, people set the course of their life paths and what they become. The above quote implies many roles for self-efficacy, though the specific predictions arising for these roles are not very clear. Moreover, as the above review of the empirical literature of self-efficacy and performance indicates, it is difficult to verify these hypothesized functions of self-efficacy. In this section we focus on what appears to be self-efficacy’s role in resource allocation (i.e., motivation) toward performance goals. To foreshadow our review, it appears that self-efficacy’s role falls somewhere between the generous attributions of Bandura and the valueless attributions of the construct’s most ardent detractors.

26  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

Self-efficacy and goal choice. We begin with the last role that Bandura (2012) mentioned above, which was that self-efficacy affects the choices individuals make at “important decisional points.” Given self-efficacy’s heritage as an expectancy concept, it seems reasonable to assume it would play the same role that expectancies do in decision processes (Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000). That is, ever since Tolman et al. (1932) introduced the idea that individuals form beliefs (i.e., expectancies) about the probabilities or degrees of association between events and use these beliefs to make goal decisions, many theories have incorporated this notion and much empirical work has supported it (Diefendorff & Chandler, 2011). Specifically, the idea is that the value associated with the consequent event is discounted by the expectancy (i.e., the smaller the expectancy, the more the value associated with the event is discounted), which creates a positive effect for expectancy. Self-efficacy is no exception to this rule (Vancouver et al., 2008). Of some relevance, the expectancy concept has recently been updated to handle the dynamics of goal pursuit (Vancouver, Weinhardt, & Schmidt, 2010). That is, expectations for reaching goals should change as progress toward the goal is made or as other external factors affecting goal progress are occurring (e.g., a deadline is approaching). This updated view treats expectancy as a function of the resources that are believed to be necessary to reach the goal at any point in time. For example, individuals who believe they have high capacity for the task at hand (e.g., have high self-efficacy) are likely to think that they can reach a goal more readily (i.e., with fewer resources or in a shorter amount of time) than individuals who believe they have low capacity. This relatively lower anticipated need for resources because self-efficacy is high increases the probability that an individual will choose or stick to a goal over time compared to when self-efficacy is low. That is, via this mechanism, a role for self-efficacy is in the goal choice domain and there it should positively affect choice and persistence on a task. Self-efficacy and goal planning. The next role for self-efficacy begins from the same mechanism of identifying resource need based on self-efficacy. Yet, here the lower anticipated resource need that results from higher selfefficacy beliefs might also lead to reduced allocation of resources to a chosen task compared to low self-efficacy beliefs (Vancouver, 2005). Bandura (2012) refers to this description as articulating a self-debilitating role for self-efficacy and believes that it is false. However, Vancouver (2012) argues that this process is more efficient for the individual than the alternatives because when capacities are higher, fewer resources are actually needed. Thus, if self-efficacy beliefs reduce the resources one allocates to accomplish a goal, this process would be prudent and self-facilitating because it would reserve more resources for other tasks. It would also create a negative relationship between self-efficacy and resources allocated, which is a frequent measure of motivation. Empirical evidence of above two roles. To confirm the positive effect of self-efficacy (or expectancy) on goal choice and the negative effect of self-efficacy (or expectancy) on resource allocation, Vancouver et al. (2008) examined

Self-Efficacy  27

how individuals allocated resources (i.e., time to accomplish a task) across tasks of differing difficulties using a within-person approach. Specifically, individuals were tasked with tagging (i.e., clicking on) a target that unpredictably and rapidly jumped around on the screen. What these researchers found conformed to the above description of self-efficacy’s roles in goal choice and goal planning. That is, individuals were more likely to pass on more difficult targets (i.e., when self-efficacy was low) than the easier targets, meaning self-efficacy positively affected choosing to pursue a goal. Moreover, for targets attempted, they allocated fewer resources the higher their self-efficacy, meaning self-efficacy negatively affected motivation (i.e., magnitude of resources allocated). In total, self-efficacy exhibited a non-monotonic, discontinuous functional relationship to resource allocation (see Figure 2.1). The negative effect of self-efficacy on motivation illustrated in Vancouver et  al. (2008) contrasts with Bandura’s (2012) claims for self-efficacy, though Bandura acknowledges, somewhat obscurely, negative effects for self-efficacy. For example, Bandura and Locke (2003) noted that while one is “preparing for challenging endeavors some self-doubt about one’s performance efficacy provides incentives to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to master the challenges” (p. 96). This statement seems to imply Bandura and Locke think individuals will allocate more resources when they have lower self-efficacy. However, the context of the statement suggests otherwise (i.e., it was in a paper suggesting the negative effect was spurious).

Non-Monotonic, Discontinuous Model

Motivation

Goal is rejected

Goal is accepted Goal striving

Self-Efficacy FIGURE 2.1 The

Non-monotonic, Discontinuous Model of Self-Efficacy (Vancouver et al., 2008) redesigned by Leah R. Halper (third author of this chapter)

28  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

Yet, the most controversial question about self-efficacy’s role in human behavior relates to its relationship to performance. It turns out that the relationship between self-efficacy and performance, which is the cornerstone relationship of interest to I/O psychologists, is not very straightforward at all. Self-efficacy and goal striving. Consider extrapolating the processes described regarding goal choice and planning mentioned above. That is, if one chooses not to pursue a task or accept a difficult goal, which is more likely with lower self-efficacy, performance will suffer on that task relative to one who chooses to pursue a task or set a difficult goal (Vancouver et al., 2001). In contrast, setting aside fewer resources when self-efficacy is higher might negatively affect performance if one does not have the actual capacity to compensate for the fewer resources. Thus, if goal choice is a common issue at work, self-efficacy will likely be a positive factor in determining performance if the “performance” on goals not chosen is included in the measure of performance. Alternatively, if individuals are judiciously parsing out their resources based on believed need, miscalibrated self-efficacy might create a negative effect. Yet, it is not clear how often or when individuals choose their goals or goal levels at work; nor is it clear how often individuals must set aside the resources they think they will need to reach a goal. Moreover, if one were making resource allocation decisions based on capacity beliefs, and level of resources allocated could compensate for capacity levels, no relationship between self-efficacy and performance might arise. For example, if the song writer for the Willis Brothers’ hit (1964) actually needed 40 acres to turn a rig around and was given 40 acres, he would turn the rig around (i.e., the additional resources could completely compensate for capacity limitations). Likewise, if one could adjust resources as one was pursuing a goal and one had enough resources to reach the goal (e.g., one has 40 acres, but only needs 10), performance would be constant regardless of capacity, self-efficacy, or resources applied because of a ceiling effect (e.g., the rig is always turned around). Much more likely, though, is that capacity limitations tax resources (e.g., for some even 40 acres is not enough) or (b) insufficient compensation is applied for more difficult tasks or goals (e.g., one thought that one could turn it in 10 acres, but really needed 15). Across individuals with varying self-efficacy levels and capacities, both of these latter cases will lead to a positive relationship between self-efficacy and performance, but neither would be due to self-efficacy’s positive effect on performance. Indeed, in the last case self-efficacy would actually have had a negative effect. Given the above limitations and processes, one might ask how the Sitzmann and Yeo (2013) meta-analysis found so many studies that obtained a negative effect of self-efficacy on performance. The answer to this can be explained via a third role for self-efficacy. Specifically, Vancouver et al. (2001) speculated that when information about one’s current goal progress is missing or ambiguous, self-efficacy beliefs coupled with knowledge of resource use could be used to estimate goal progress. This notion is very similar to the processes mentioned in

Self-Efficacy  29

the goal choice and planning sections, but rather than estimating resource need, it estimates the effect of resources on goal progress. That is, a person with higher self-efficacy estimates further progress given some amount of resource use than does one with lower self-efficacy. Yet, in this case, errors in these estimates create a negative relationship between self-efficacy and performance.

A Conciliation Note that all these estimation processes are compatible with Bandura’s (1997) description of self-efficacy’s role as a key player in mental models of one’s world – and one’s place or effects on that world – in that self-efficacy beliefs are used to extrapolate goal progress when information from the environment about goal progress is weak or absent (Vancouver & Purl, 2016). Moreover, these beliefs are useful for regulating one’s world so as to meet one’s goals (Vancouver, 2005). Yet, they are difficult to dissociate from variance in actual capacity, task or goal difficulty, or resources available; thus testing for selfefficacy’s unique roles is difficult. Of some import, Locke (2007) claimed that Bandura’s social cognitive theory was a grounded theory. That is, it was derived from empirical evidence, not theoretical principles. Thus, data should hold sway. Yet, as we have noted, clean data are difficult to come by, though it is possible. For instance, to overcome the difficulty of the above-mentioned confounds Vancouver et al. (2001) used a repeated-measures design on a task where performance was partly a function of luck, partly a function of skill (i.e., capacity), and partly a function of the resources applied (i.e., motivation). Moreover, the task was one where one’s actual skill was not likely to be well-known. The result of the combination of these conditions is that self-efficacy beliefs varied as they were performing the task. In particular, when individuals worked hard or were lucky, they might assume they had high skill and therefore raised their self-efficacy, whereas when they worked less hard or were unlucky, their self-efficacy beliefs dropped. Given that luck was random and actual capacity stable across the time period examined, systematic variances in performance were likely a function of how hard participants tried on each trial. How hard they tried was hypothesized to be a negative function of the ebb and flow of self-efficacy. The results supported these assumptions. In particular, when self-efficacy was relatively low, participants worked hard (e.g., were less likely to make logical errors; Vancouver et al., 2002) compared to when self-efficacy was relatively high. Of course, this effect was weak because self-efficacy’s variance is small and luck plays a role in creating unsystematic noise in performance. The role for self-efficacy in estimating goal progress is only likely to occur when feedback about current performance is ambiguous. To test this conjecture, Schmidt and DeShon (2010) designed a study where goal progress information was or was not ambiguous. As the above role description

30  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

implies, the negative effect only occurred when goal progress information was ambiguous. When it was unambiguous, self-efficacy was positively related to performance. Presumably, the positive effect was a result of a goal choice process. Indeed, Vancouver and Purl (2016) created a computational model of the goal choice and goal striving processes as described above. The model demonstrated the dual positive and negative influences of self-efficacy on performance via the two roles (i.e., goal choice and goal striving). In particular, self-efficacy positively affected persistence via goal choice while it also negatively affected persistence via estimation of goal progress when information on goal process was ambiguous. The above describes a focused review of what the field knows about the effect of self-efficacy on motivation and performance. It provides a counterweight to the exuberant enthusiasm often associated with self-efficacy (Bandura, 2012; Latham & Pinder, 2005). It does not, however, argue that self-efficacy is a valueless epiphenomenon. Indeed, in the next section we discuss elements of selfefficacy that have not received much attention, but perhaps should. Moreover, these elements focus on the importance of the “self” prefix to self-efficacy.

Unexplored Self-Efficacy Though self-efficacy is a very popular concept in applied psychology, several aspects of the concept have not been explored in much depth. We discuss some possible avenues of exploration for self-efficacy next.

Focusing on the Self in Self-Efficacy Our first curiosity relates to the notion that self-efficacy is difficult to distinguish from the expectancy concept that is central in most non-behavioral motivational theories (e.g., Atkinson, 1964; McClelland, 1987). One way to distinguish these concepts is by emphasizing that self-efficacy, as with virtually all self-beliefs, is influenced by social comparisons (Festinger, 1954). That is, whereas the expectancy construct in traditional motivational theories entails probabilistic estimates of success or failure at a task, self-efficacy beliefs are strongly tied to assessments of how people think they might fare vis-à-vis others at the task. This might be true even when people are asked to make absolute rather than relative task judgments. For example, even if one has no idea how fast one can run a mile, that estimate is likely to be lower if one continually finds oneself at the back of the pack in gym class. That is, it seems that it might matter, psychologically and behaviorally, that “one” does or does not have what it takes to reach some level of performance in contrast to the notion that “everyone” might be affected by externalities that can affect the level of performance (e.g., luck or circumstances). Moreover, it may be that normative referents could be more relevant than absolute referents. Meanwhile, an interesting fact is that people tend to

Self-Efficacy  31

overestimate their positive characteristics and underestimate their negative ones relative to an average peer (i.e., the “better-than-average effect,” Alicke & Govorun, 2005). Also, most view themselves as more likely than average to experience positive life events and less likely to experience negative ones (i.e., optimistic bias). Finally, most tend to be overconfident in their decisions and predictions (Dunning, 2005). The inconsistency between suggesting that humans form their capacity beliefs by placing themselves on a scale relative to others, but that they appear to be particularly bad at doing that is reconciled by an evolutionary explanation provided by Kurzban (2010). Specifically, he explains findings of general overconfidence by assuming that beliefs about one’s relative competence (i.e., one’s self-efficacy) are related to attracting resources and mates, where inflated estimates of one’s competence can serve as a signal to others of one’s fitness and social attractiveness. This possibility raises numerous issues that applied psychologists have yet to explore. One such issue is whether one’s biased beliefs of competence translate into bias ratings by others of one’s competence via self-presentation processes (see the Leary & Bolino chapter in this volume). If true, this threatens the validity of interpretations of studies using performance measures that are based on subjective ratings (e.g., supervisor ratings). For example, such a bias could inflate the correlation between a self-efficacy manipulation and performance ratings. On the other hand, if Kurzban (2010) is correct that (a) more resources are lavished on those exhibiting cues of competence, (b) self-deception of one’s competence leads to these cues, and (c) the job might be impacted by such lavished resources, self-efficacy inflated above competence might be useful (e.g., voting for a candidate that radiated competence). Of course, given that the signal might not reflect true competence, this strategy may not be sustainable over many interactions or may be dangerous (e.g., not getting a second opinion because the doctor seemed so sure of the diagnosis). It is also not clear whether self-deception is needed when signaling a positively biased level of competence (i.e., does one have to believe to act it?). Of course, we know that a rater’s frame of reference will bias ratings (Bernardin & Pence, 1980), but two additional self-relevant questions should also be considered when considering the social context of competency beliefs. One question involves construct meaning and the other is measurement. In terms of construct meaning, the question is whether relative competence beliefs are something different than beliefs in competence on some absolute scale (e.g., number of widgets one can produce). If so, then in terms of measurement the question is whether a different type of scale should be used to capture the relative competence beliefs, or if the typical absolute scaling method advocated by Bandura produces capture relative competence beliefs (i.e., are biased by relative standing). For example, bogus normative feedback is sometimes used to effectively manipulate self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997).

32  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

One program of research focused on the issue of frame of reference for assessing one’s capacity is Marsh’s so-called big-fish-little-pond-effect (e.g., Marsh & Hau, 2003). Specifically, this research finds that one’s academic selfconcept, which is a rating of how good one thinks that one is at knowing and learning a topic, is highly impacted by the quality of students in the class and school one attends. That is, many students are in classes tracked to one’s previous achievements and those performing well relative to their classmates in lower achievement tracks or poorly relative to their classmates in higher achievement tracks do not sufficiently account for the quality distributions of their peers when assessing their own capacities. For example, research on the “frog pond” effect (Marsh, 1987), and on local dominance more generally (Zell & Alicke, 2009), demonstrates the prevalence and strength of social comparison for self-assessments of ability. In a large and systematic series of studies, Marsh, Hau, and Craven (2004) have shown that students in more selective schools have lower academic self-concepts than students in less selective schools, even when actual performance is equated. The apparent reason for this finding is that students at selective schools spend more time interacting with superior students, and fail to correct for this exposure bias in assessing their academic ability in the general population. Zell and Alicke (2009) have shown more generally that ability assessments are dominated by comparisons with a small group of peers at the expense of more diagnostic population information. For example, research participants who learn that they are the best in their group of five, but in the 27th percentile of the population at large on a task, report having more task ability than those who score last in the group of five, but in the 87th percentile overall. This finding is obtained even when the population information is provided in a concrete format, and when the other members of the group of five are random students from around the country. In other words, these findings are not limited to conditions in which base-rate information is abstract or vague, nor do they depend on overvaluing in-group information versus impersonal statistical data. In sum, the results of the studies described above show that, as Festinger (1954) long-ago conjectured, local comparisons with a few peers can have an overriding effect on self-beliefs. However, the studies did not use the objectively referenced self-efficacy measures advocated by Bandura (1997), so determining the degree to which such measures are affected by small group referents is still needed. More critically, the research does not provide information useful for policy choices. For example, it may be known that the self-concept is biased by the quality of the other members in a group or track, such that many of those in low-competence tracks will have a positively biased self-concept and many of those in high-competence tracks will have a negatively biased self-concept. Yet, will those self-concept biases be reflected in either less effort by those positively biased or a lesser chance of choosing to go to college by those negatively biased, as suggested by Vancouver et al.’s (2008) research? Even if these effects are true,

Self-Efficacy  33

would they undermine the benefit in learning that tracked classrooms provide? Or more generally, would exposure to high quality colleagues and the potential for learning they provide undermine the exposed employees’ performance via the likely hit on their self-efficacy? And what of Bandura’s (1997) suggestion that exposure to such models improves self-efficacy? To address these questions more attention needs to be paid to the effects of the social milieu on self-efficacy and relative-self-efficacy beliefs as well as the consequences of these beliefs on the direction, magnitude, and persistence of behavior relevance to organizations. For example, a key question organizational researchers might ask is how often individuals choose assignments or roles because of the relative competence they feel they have compared to their peers? We suspect this happens a lot.

Which Capacity? Beyond the issue of referencing to assess capacity, one of the more important elements of self-efficacy relates to the notion that its measurement be specific to the task or behavior of interest. That is, Bandura (2012) has often sought to differentiate general measures of self-worth from self-efficacy (e.g., Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001, general self-efficacy measure) in favor of more specific measures. This view has led to a proliferation of studies seeking to determine if self-efficacy for particular capacities is related to level of performance or to the probability of behavior (Bandura, 1997). Yet, some kinds of targets have received less attention than others. For example, most measures of self-efficacy ask about what future levels of performance one might achieve given current capacity. However, if capacities can change, it might be more useful to measure beliefs about the ultimate levels of capacity one might reach as well as beliefs about how rapidly one can change one’s capacity (e.g., learning capacity). Indeed, learning goal-orientation, which is presumably a belief in capacity change possibilities (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, & Salas, 1998), is often thought to positively affect performance and other outcomes, and meta-analytic findings support a modest positive effect for learning goal-orientation (Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007). A question is whether beliefs about one’s ability to increase capacity are the key ingredient to this effect. Moreover, one might ask if the negative effect found for beliefs in a current capacity (Vancouver & Kendall, 2006) generalizes to beliefs about ability to change capacity. Fortunately, two of the authors of this chapter have been examining this latter question. Specifically, the question is if one thinks they are particularly good at improving their capacity for some task, would they be highly motivated and expend a lot of resources toward improving, or would they be more likely to coast on their superior learning capacity and thus apply fewer resources? The results from our lab so far are that they are more likely to coast (Halper, 2015). What remains to be examined is cases where choices to pursue learning or improvement of certain skills over spending resources pursuing other, substitute

34  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

skills will be positively predicted by self-efficacy. Extrapolating the results from the studies of current capacity belief studies suggest that we will see a positive effect in this case. Indeed, this latter question relates to an issue of within-person variance. However, unlike the repeated-measures studies described above where variance in self-efficacy for a specific capacity changed over time, in this case we are interested in the variance in self-efficacy across capacities for different specific behaviors that might achieve the same ends. For example, if one were challenged to a duel and given the choice of weapon, should one predict the choice of sword given a belief in a high level of skill with a sword? The answer to this seems to be maybe. If one thought one’s skill with a pistol was even higher, it seems the answer would be no, because one would choose pistols. Of course, this example also takes us back to the relative competence issue. If one thought that one’s opponent was even handier with a sword and a pistol, then perhaps the choice would be bow and arrow. The point is that predicting behavior by focusing on the level of self-efficacy for that behavior misses the likely comparison processes the individuals might be doing with their selfefficacy beliefs.

Self-Efficacy as a Change Mechanism Bandura (1997) provided much advice and evidence about how to change self-efficacy beliefs. Indeed, the notion that one might form these beliefs as a function not only of experience, but also of watching others (i.e., modeling) and listening to persuasive arguments regarding one’s competence, is the cornerstone of Bandura’s (1986) contrast with behaviorism. Specifically, he argues for the symbolic, information-processing capacities of humans for purposes of shaping and thinking about the future (i.e., forethought). Nonetheless, Bandura (1997) acknowledges that the primary source of self-efficacy is experience and that it should not be driven too far from actual capacity to avoid individuals pursuing lost causes or failing to prepare for challenges. This leads to our final question in this chapter: are self-efficacy beliefs likely to be an effective change mechanism? Our short answer to that is no, but there may be some exceptions. The reason for our skepticism arises from (a) the harm that miscalibration might do and (b) the long-run futility of it. The one exception is when self-efficacy beliefs are already miscalibrated. The most egregious and perhaps common example of this latter issue is when one’s lack of confidence in learning or ultimate capacity prevents one from trying to increase capacities (e.g., not trying to learn math because “I am no good at it”). Beyond this kind of example though, much longitudinal literature confirms that self-efficacy converges on true capacity,

Self-Efficacy  35

possibly with a large universal positive bias. This suggests that if an intervention is designed to increase levels of self-efficacy, which is not uncommonly tried and found successful (Boyer et al., 2000), the results are likely not long-lived because the reality of true capacity will recalibrate the participants over time. Nonetheless, measuring self-efficacy and using the scores produced by the measure might be useful for two reasons. One, they might be a useful marker or index for prediction or an intervention targeted at what it marks (i.e., true capacity). In particular, it is a marker of capacity that can be used to predict performance or indicate capacity. Thus, an interviewer might use a candidate’s confidence to perform as a predictor of the levels of performance the candidate is capable of, or a tutor might use a student’s expressions of low self-efficacy for a subject to determine areas of focusing one’s instruction. Of course, more direct measures of competence would likely serve both these purposes better. The second reason it might be useful to measure self-efficacy along with true capacity is to gage and thus correct for miscalibration. This piece of advice is based on the assumption that self-efficacy beliefs serve a purpose of self-regulation that is best accomplished when the beliefs are accurate. However, the value, or lack of value of interventions focused on self-efficacy ultimately need to involve research focused on such interventions in organizational settings. A meta-analysis by Eden, Stone-Romero, and Rothstein (2015) provides a good example of a set of studies doing just that, but it is still a remarkably small set. Moreover, the studies did not involve either of the notions mentioned above (i.e., using low beliefs or evidence of miscalibration to target training or calibration). Such intervention research might not only be a useful role for self-efficacy beliefs in organizations, but may further elucidate on theoretical issues plaguing the literature.

Conclusion As a reader might have surmised by this point, we are not unabashed cheerleaders of the self-efficacy concept. On the other hand, we are not in the camp that suggests the concept is simply a value that can be calculated when an individual is asked a series of questions about expected performance levels. Indeed, we suspect that anyone reading this chapter can think back onto an occasion where they thought about their capacity and used it in the deliberations on whatever triggered their thoughts. Yet, this capacity to assess one’s capacity is not something that many simpler organisms could manage, suggesting that it evolved to serve one or several roles. On the other hand, beetles seem to do quite well without, we believe, such capacity. Thus, the notion that all behavior begins with such a belief (Bandura, 1997) seems untenable. What do you believe?

36  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

References Alicke, M. D., & Govorun, O. (2005). The better-than-average effect. In M. D. Alicke, D. Dunning, & J. Krueger (Eds.), The self in social judgment (pp. 85–106). New York: Psychology Press. Atkinson, J. W. (1964). An introduction to motivation. Oxford: Van Nostrand. Aydin, S. (2015). An analysis of the relationship between high school students’ self-efficacy, metacognitive strategy use and their academic motivation for learn biology. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(2), 53–59. Bandura, A. (1969). Principles of behavior modification. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215. Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37(2), 122–147. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Bandura, A. (2012). On the functional properties of perceived self-efficacy revisited. Journal of Management, 38(1), 9–44. Bandura, A. (2015). On deconstructing commentaries regarding alternative theories of self-regulation. Journal of Management, 41(4), 1025–1044. Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1983). Self-evaluative and self-efficacy mechanisms governing the motivational effects of goal systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(5), 1017–1028. Bandura, A., & Jourden, F. J. (1991). Self-regulatory mechanisms governing the impact of social comparison on complex decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 941–951. Bandura, A., & Locke, E. A. (2003). Negative self-efficacy and goal effects revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(1), 87–99. Bandura, A., Reese, L., & Adams, N. (1982). Microanalysis of action and fear arousal as a function of differential levels of perceived self-efficacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 5–21. Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4(1), 1–44. Beattie, S., Lief, D., Adamoulas, M., & Oliver, E. (2011). Investigating the possible negative effects of self-efficacy upon golf putting performance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 12(4), 434–441. Bernardin, H. J. & Pence, E. C. (1980). Effects of rater error training: Creating new response sets and decreasing accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 60–66. Boyer, D. A., Zollo J. S., Thompson C. M., Vancouver J. B., Shewring K., Sims E. (2000, June). A quantitative review of the effects of manipulated self-efficacy on performance. Poster session presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Miami, FL. Brown, K. G., & Sitzmann, T. (2011). Training and employee development for improved performance. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational

Self-Efficacy  37

psychology, volume 2: Selecting and developing members for the organization (pp. 469–503). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4, 62–83. Collins, W. E., & Lentz, J. M. (1977). Some psychological correlates of motion sickness susceptibility. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 48, 587–594. Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2000). Toward an integrative theory of training motivation: A meta-analytic path analysis of 20 years of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 678–707. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. Diefendorff, J. M., & Chandler, M. M. (2011). Motivating employees. In S. Zedeck (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, volume 3: Maintaining, expanding, and contracting the organization (pp. 65–135). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Dunning, D. (2005). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. London: Psychology Press. Eden, D., Stone-Romero, E. F., & Rothstein, H. R. (2015). Synthesizing results of multiple randomized experiments to establish causality in mediation testing. Human Resource Management Review, 25, 342–351. Eden, D., & Zuk, Y. (1995). Seasickness as a self-fulfilling prophecy: Raising self-efficacy to boost performance at sea. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(5), 628–635. Eyesenck, M. W. (1978). Levels of processing: A critique. Brain Journal of Psychology, 69, 157–169. Eysenck, S. B. G., & Eysenck, H. J. (1968). The measurement of psychoticism: A study of factor stability and reliability. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 7(4), 286–294. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. Ford, J. K., Smith, E. M., Weissbein, D. A., Gully, S. M., & Salas, E. (1998). Relationships of goal orientation, metacognitive activity, and practice strategies with learning outcomes and transfer. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), 218–233. Gist, M. E., & Mitchell, T. R. (1992). Self-efficacy: A theoretical analysis of its determinants and malleability. Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 183–211. Halper, L. R. (2015). Continuous learning: Choosing and allocating resources to strengths and weaknesses. (Master’s thesis, http://etd.ohiolink.edu). Hawkins, R. M. F. (1992). Self-efficacy: A predictor but not a cause of behavior. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychology, 23, 251–256. Heggestad, E. D., & Kanfer, R. (2005). The predictive validity of self-efficacy in training performance: Little more than past performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11, 84–97. Judge, T. A., Jackson, C. L., Shaw, C. V., Scott, B. A., & Rich, B. L. 2007. Self-efficacy and work-related performance: The integral role of individual differences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 107–127. Kirsch, I. (1985). Self-efficacy and expectancy: Old wine with new labels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 824–830.

38  Jeffrey B. Vancouver et al.

Kurzban, R. (2010). Does the brain consume additional glucose during self-control tasks? Evolutionary Psychology, 8(2), 244–259. Latham, G. P., & Pinder, C. C. (2005). Work motivation theory and research at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Annual Review Psychology, 56, 485–516. Locke, E. A. (2007). The case for inductive theory building. Journal of Management, 33, 867– 890. Locke, E. A., Frederick, E., Lee, C., & Bobko, P. (1984). Effect of self-efficacy, goals, and task strategies on task performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69(2), 241–251. Mann, D. D., & Eland, D. C. (2005). Self-efficacy in mastery learning to apply a therapeutic psychomotor skill. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 100(1), 77–84. Marsh, H. W. (1987). The big-fish-little-pond effect on academic self-concept. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), 280–295. Marsh, H. W., & Hau, K. T. (2003). Big fish little pond effect on academic self-concept: A cross-cultural (26 country) test of the negative effects of academically selective schools. American Psychologist, 58, 364–376. Marsh, H. W., Hau, K.-T., & Craven, R. (2004). The big-fish-little-pond effect stands up to scrutiny. American Psychologist, 59(4), 269–271. McClelland, D. C. (1987). Human motivation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Archive. Mitchell, T. R., Hopper, H., Daniels, D., George-Falvy, J., & James, L. R. 1994. Predicting self-efficacy and performance during skill acquisition. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 506–517. Payne, S. C., Youngcourt, S. S., & Beaubien, M. J. (2007). A meta-analytic examination of the goal orientation nomological net. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 128–150. Powers, W. T. (1991). Comment on Bandura’s “human agency.” American Psychologist, 46, 151–153. Salomon, G. (1984). Television is “easy” and print is “tough”: The differential investment of mental effort in learning as a function of perceptions and attributions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(4), 647–658. Schmidt, A. M., & DeShon, R. P. (2010). The moderating effects of performance ambiguity on the relationship between self-efficacy and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 572–581. Sitzmann, T., & Yeo, G. (2013). A meta-analytic investigation of the within-person selfefficacy domain: Is self-efficacy a product of past performance or a driver of future performance? Personnel Psychology, 66(3), 531–568. Stajkovic, A. D., & Luthans, F. (1998). Self-efficacy and work-related performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 240–261. Stone, D. N. (1994). Overconfidence in initial self-efficacy judgments: Effects on decision processes and performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 59(3), 452–474. Tolman, E. C., Hall, C. S., & Bretnall, E. P. (1932). A disproof of the law of effect and a substitution of the laws of emphasis, motivation and disruption. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15(6), 601–614. van Knippenberg, D., & Sitkin, S. B. (2013). A critical assessment of charismatic-transformational leadership research: Back to the drawing board? The Academy of Management Annals, 7(1), 1–60. Vancouver, J. B. (1996). Living systems theory as a paradigm for organizational behavior: Understanding humans, organizations, and social processes. Behavioral Science, 41(3), 165–204.

Self-Efficacy  39

Vancouver, J. B. (2005). The depth of history and explanation as benefit and bane for psychological control theories. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 38–52. Vancouver, J. B. (2012). Rhetorical reckoning: A response to Bandura. Journal of Management, 38(2), 465–474. Vancouver, J. B., & Kendall, L. N. (2006). When self-efficacy negatively relates to motivation and performance in a learning context. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 1146–1153. Vancouver, J. B., More, K. M., & Yoder, R. J. (2008). Self-efficacy and resource allocation: Support for a nonmonotonic, discontinuous model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 35–47. Vancouver, J. B., & Purl, J. D. (2016, December 19). A computational model of selfefficacy’s various effects on performance: Moving the debate forward. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000177 Vancouver, J. B., Thompson, C. M., Tischner, E. C., & Putka, D. J. (2002). Two studies examining the negative effect of self-efficacy on performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 506–516. Vancouver, J. B., Thompson, C. M., & Williams, A. A. (2001). The changing signs in the relationships among self-efficacy, personal goals, and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(4), 605–620. Vancouver, J. B., Weinhardt, J. M., & Schmidt, A. M. (2010). A formal, computational theory of multiple-goal pursuit: Integrating goal-choice and goal-striving processes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(6), 985–1008. Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wood R.E., & Bandura A. (1989). Social cognitive theory of organizational management. Academy of Management Review, 14, 361–384. Yeo, G. B., & Neal, A. (2006). An examination of the dynamic relationship between self-efficacy and performance across levels of analysis and levels of specificity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1088–1101. Zell, E., & Alicke, M. D. (2009). Contextual neglect, self-evaluation, and the frog-pond effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(3), 467–482.

3 SELF-ESTEEM Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

The investigation of self-esteem has experienced tremendous growth in the social sciences over the past 100 years (Swann, Chang-Schneider, & McClarty, 2007). There are hundreds of scholarly articles and books that appear each year to add to the tremendous number of magazine articles, internet posts, and selfhelp books concerning self-esteem (Zeigler-Hill, 2013). There are researchers who argue that the importance of self-esteem is exaggerated or that the utility of the construct may be inflated (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003), but our position in this chapter is that self-esteem is an important element of the human psyche. As we highlight in our subsequent review, self-esteem has significant motivational, affective, and information-processing implications for humans (see Zeigler-Hill, 2013, for a review) and it appears to play a key role in how people regulate themselves at work (Schaubroeck, Kim, & Peng, 2012). Despite our personal enthusiasm for research concerning self-esteem, we recognize that many industrial/organizational psychologists may throw up their hands in utter confusion upon first confronting this vast literature. There are several reasons for this response. First, it may be unclear how self-esteem fits into the broader context of the “self.” In this regard, a collection of seemingly semantically indistinguishable and highly related constructs has been proffered. Second, there has been a variety of approaches used to understand self-esteem which has created a conceptual maze that is often daunting to newcomers. For example, self-esteem has been viewed as: possessing both dispositional and statelike qualities (Kernis, 2003); differing in specificity (Brown & Marshall, 2006); operating both implicitly and explicitly (Zeigler-Hill & Jordan, 2010); a root construct for more recent approaches, such as Core Self-Evaluations (Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2002) and narcissism (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001); an epiphenomenon (Baumeister et al., 2003); and an internal regulatory guide

Self-Esteem  41

(Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Mahadevan, Gregg, Sedikides, & de Waal-Andrews, 2016). Given the diversity of approaches, it may be unclear to some new readers what self-esteem is or why it even matters. In addition, industrial/organizational psychologists themselves have been promiscuous in their usage of the construct by leveraging its predictive power across such divergent workplace literatures as: feedback seeking (Anseel, Beatty, Shen, Lievens, & Sackett, 2015), organizational justice (Schroth & Shah, 2000), work-family conflict (Aryee, Chu, Kim, & Ryu, 2013), leadership (Vogel & Mitchell, in press), deviance (Duffy, Shaw, Scott, & Tepper, 2006), motivation (Pilegge & Holtz, 1997), job attitudes (Dipboye, Zultowski, Dewhirst, & Arvey, 1978), and job search (Turban & Keon, 1993; Wanberg, 1997). Although this research has generated a rich nomological network, the underlying fundamental principles, theories, or assumptions that underscore these applications may be somewhat difficult for a researcher to discern who is new to this area. Given the above, our guiding philosophy in this chapter is that industrial/ organizational psychologists may benefit not only through a better understanding of the richness of self-esteem, but also through a better appreciation of how their own research fits within the broader self-esteem literature. To these ends, our chapter attempts to accomplish some elementary goals for readers. In the first portion of our chapter, we hope to clarify the meaning of the construct itself. To accomplish this goal, we provide a brief historical sketch of self-esteem as well as a general definition. From here, we highlight the different approaches to understanding the construct. In the second portion of the chapter, we move beyond simple definition and consider the dominant schools of thought regarding why or how self-esteem regulates human activity. Throughout these two sections, we discuss relevant literature from social psychology as well as the work of industrial/organizational psychologists. Finally, we end the chapter by highlighting the function of self-esteem. Our hope is that by the end of this chapter readers will appreciate not only what self-esteem is but why self-esteem matters and how it may be useful to industrial/organizational psychologists. Throughout our presentation, we will attempt to direct the attention of readers to how industrial/organizational psychologists have informed basic debates in social psychology as well as highlight considerations from social psychology that have not yet infiltrated the industrial/organizational literature.

What Is Self-Esteem? A Brief Historical Sketch As with many of the most influential ideas in psychology, interest in self-esteem can be traced to William James (1890), who noted that a central element of the self is the sense of self-esteem that arises from consistently meeting or exceeding important life goals. Consistent with this orientation, many early luminaries of

42  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

psychology – such as Margaret Mead, Sigmund Freud, Lev Vygotsky, and Kurt Lewin – maintained an active conceptual interest in comprehending the inner workings of the self. Despite such prominent advocates, scientific interest in the self – and self-esteem in particular – failed to gain traction during the first half of the 20th century (Swann et al., 2007). During this time, behaviorists, such as John Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner, dominated the field and argued that internal ethereal mental states, such as self-esteem, had no place in a scientific discipline which, in their view, should focus exclusively on concrete, observable, and measurable behavior (Bosson & Swann, 2009). A direct consequence of behaviorist domination over psychology was that the early conceptual work of James and his contemporaries languished, and topics such as self-esteem remained on the fringes of the discipline. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s humanistic psychologists expressed disenchantment with the behaviorist view of human nature, which not only ignored central elements of humanity, such as free-will, but also inappropriately presumed that human behavior was shaped passively by the external environment. In contrast to the behavioristic approach, these scholars convincingly argued that in order to understand human behavior it was necessary for psychologists to orient themselves toward the inner subjective experiences of the individual. Notably, self-esteem was prominently featured in these discussions. For instance, Maslow (1954) proposed that human behavior is motivated by the satisfaction of internal basic needs such as self-esteem, whereas Rogers (1959, 1961) proposed a client-centered approach to therapy that emphasized a need for positive self-regard. Although focus on the inner life of the individual continued, the dominant paradigm within the field shifted toward human cognition and information processing. Coinciding with these broader paradigm shifts, the scientific legitimacy of self-esteem was solidified by several rigorous research programs. Notably, social psychologists (e.g., Bem, 1972; Festinger, 1954) initiated influential work that was pertinent to understanding the development of self-knowledge (see Bosson & Swann, 2009, for a review) and several influential books were published on the topic (Coopersmith, 1967; Rosenberg, 1965). Although these events were certainly significant, the watershed moment for self-esteem research was most likely the publication of several measurement instruments that transformed a fuzzy hypothetical construct into something that could be quickly and easily assessed. Particularly noteworthy was Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item trait measure of self-esteem that has gone on to be utilized in more than one quarter of all published self-esteem research (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995). In addition to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a wide variety of other instruments have been developed to measure self-esteem including the Coopersmith (1967) SelfEsteem Inventory, the Self-Attributes Questionnaire (Pelham & Swann, 1989), the Self-Liking and Self-Competence Scale (Tafarodi & Swann, 2001), and the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001; see

Self-Esteem  43

Bosson, 2006, for a review). There are important differences between these instruments with regard to issues such as the structure of self-esteem (e.g., global vs. domain-specific), but one common feature shared by all of them is that they directly ask respondents to report how they feel about themselves. With the development of these self-report instruments, self-esteem research accumulated rapidly and clearly demonstrated its significance (see Zeigler-Hill & Jordan, 2010, for an extended discussion of the measurement of self-esteem). Industrial/ organizational psychologists very quickly recognized the importance of selfesteem and took advantage of these measurement tools in order to understand the practical implications of self-esteem for organizations and workers (Korman, 1966, 1967; Tharenou, 1979; Tharenou & Harker, 1982).

Self-Esteem Defined One source of confusion that immediately confronts those who begin to explore the self-esteem literature is the multiplicity of definitions that have been proffered. At various points social psychologists have proposed that self-esteem is: a favorable global evaluation of the self (Baumeister, 1998), the extent to which an individual respects himself/herself and considers himself/herself to be worthy (Rosenberg, 1965), the way people generally feel about themselves (Brown & Marshall, 2006), and the association of the self with a valence attribute (Greenwald, Banaji, Rudman, Farnham, Nosek, & Mellott, 2002). Although each definition is subtly distinct, we argue that it is reasonable to conceive of self-esteem, at least in broad terms, as an intrapersonal, subjective evaluation that reflects an assessment of one’s worth and value (Baumeister, 1998). In effect, self-esteem is the extent to which an individual likes him/herself and views him/herself as competent (Brown, 1998; Tafarodi & Swann, 1995; Wojciszke & Abele, 2008). Despite its utility, this definition takes us only part of the way toward comprehending self-esteem. Indeed, to fully appreciate self-esteem one must acknowledge that the term has not been utilized uniformly by scholars (Brown & Marshall, 2006). Rather, alternative perspectives concerning the self have inspired different conceptualizations of self-esteem. Pertinent to this chapter, in subsequent sections we consider the two dominant approaches, one that emphasizes a monolithic and stable self (i.e., trait approach) and a second that emphasizes a differentiated, dynamic, and state-based view of the self (i.e., social-cognitive view). We do not contend that one approach is superior, but simply that each approach stimulates different questions and research directions for investigating self-esteem.

The Global Trait-Based View Global self-esteem or dispositional self-esteem are interchangeable terms that have been utilized by scholars to reference overall, affectively laden, evaluations

44  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

of the self (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). Paralleling our evaluations of other animate or inanimate entities, it has been argued that each individual possesses a valenced feeling of general affection toward the self as a whole (Rosenberg, 1965). Although changes in global self-esteem across the lifespan have been documented that correspond with salient maturational and social transitions (Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy, Gosling, & Potter, 2002), literature reviews suggest that global self-evaluations exhibit a high degree of stability (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003). Moreover, although the stability of global self-esteem is reduced with longer time intervals between measurements, one’s relative standing remains remarkably consistent across the lifespan (Orth & Robins, 2014). Furthermore, longitudinal investigations that have portioned the variance in self-esteem using latent trait-state models have concluded that upwards of 85 percent of the variance in global self-esteem is accounted for by a stable trait-like factor (Donnellan, Kenny, Trzesniewski, Lucas, & Conger, 2012). Whether global self-esteem is caused by nature or nurture has been the subject of continuous interest with supportive data available for both positions. Thus, for instance, although several studies have shown that between 30 percent and 50 percent of the observed variance in global self-esteem is heritable, other studies have emphasized the importance of key socialization agents (Hart, Atkins, & Tursi, 2006; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2013). Regardless of one’s position, it seems reasonable to conclude that individuals form an overarching trait-like feeling of self-liking relatively early in life that persists and colors domain-specific self-evaluations as well as momentary feelings of self-worth.

Global Self-Esteem and the Internal World To better comprehend the core meaning of global self-esteem, personality and social psychologists have conducted hundreds of correlational studies that have assessed the associations it has with a broad spectrum of personality, emotion, and cognition variables (for reviews, see: MacDonald & Leary, 2012; O’Brien, Bartoletti, Leitzel, & O’Brien, 2006; Suls, 2006). In terms of personality, global self-esteem is weakly related to agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness, but is modestly positively associated with extraversion and strongly negatively associated with neuroticism (e.g., Judge, Erez, & Bono, 1998; Watson, Suls, & Haig, 2002). Perhaps not surprising given these findings, global self-esteem is positively related to positive affectivity and negatively related to negative affectivity (Watson et al., 2002). In fact, global self-esteem is negatively related to such emotions as anxiety, sadness, hostility, loneliness, guilt, and shame (MacDonald & Leary, 2012). Of particular importance, global self-esteem has substantial overlap with depression and depressive episodes (Suls, 2006). In line with these findings, research in industrial/organizational psychology has shown that the global self-esteem of employees relates to employee reports of negative emotional experiences and physical symptoms (Kivimäki &

Self-Esteem  45

Kalimo, 1996; Spector & Jex, 1998). In effect, the intrapsychic experience of low self-esteem corresponds to an affectively aversive and unpleasant existence whereas that of high self-esteem is the polar opposite. Why the affective experiences of high and low self-esteem individuals diverge so dramatically has been the subject of intense interest in both social and industrial/organizational psychology with critical differences in emotional regulation and information processing being frequently cited as two likely culprits. For instance, individuals with low self-esteem are less motivated to engage in mood repair (Heimpel, Wood, Marshall, & Brown, 2002), exhibit a tendency to dampen positive affect when it is experienced (Wood, Heimpel, & Michela, 2003), and experience greater negative reactions to hostile social stimuli (Richter & Ridout, 2011) relative to those with high self-esteem. Although not directly focused on understanding basic emotion regulation processes, results from industrial/organization psychology nicely dovetails with this body of findings. For example, Levy (1993) found that individuals with low self-esteem experience their work performance as being more affectively negative, whereas Brockner (1988) noted a tendency for low self-esteem individuals to recall more negative information about themselves. Further, in a sample of working adults, Cohen-Charash and Mueller (2007, Study 2) provided evidence that individuals with high self-esteem effectively regulate envy toward a co-worker by striking out, harming, or undermining the source of this aversive feeling. Work in both disciplines also points toward the critical role of information processing, particularly with regard to attributions. Here, studies have shown a relationship between self-esteem and the tendency to overgeneralize failures (Brown & Dutton, 1995), whereas early work in industrial/organizational psychology has highlighted a positive relationship between self-esteem and internal attributions for positive job conditions (Adler, 1980). Although not mutually exclusive from affective and information-processing mechanisms, an alternative perspective that has been proffered is that selfesteem reflects a psychological resource which protects or buffers individuals from the slings and arrows of life (see Zeigler-Hill, 2011, for a review). In essence, researchers have argued that self-esteem corresponds with a reservoir of self-worth that can be drawn upon when difficult circumstances arise. More precisely, self-esteem has been argued to impact one’s perceived capacity to cope with stressful situational conditions or alter the extent to which individuals interpret environmental circumstances as threatening or challenging. This conceptualization of self-esteem has received ample support in laboratory experiments. For instance, when exposed to threatening negative evaluations, individuals with high self-esteem are more resilient and less prone to experience distress compared to those with low self-esteem (Brown, 2010). Paralleling this work, industrial/organizational psychologists have documented that global selfesteem moderates one’s reactivity to common workplace stressors. For instance, Mossholder, Bedeian, and Armenakis (1981) found that nurses who were low

46  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

in self-esteem exhibited poorer job performance following the experience of role conflict relative to those who were high in self-esteem. Ganster and Schaubroeck (1991) reported that low self-esteem firefighters reported higher levels of somatic symptoms following role conflict relative to those who were high in self-esteem. Further, global self-esteem permits individuals to effectively cope with the stress of unemployment through job-search activity (Kanfer, Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001; Wanberg, Glomb, Song, & Sorenson, 2005).

Global Self-Esteem and the External World As well as impacting evaluations and internal affective experiences, self-esteem also appears to have a profound influence on how an individual orients him/ herself to the external world. Here, research suggests that individuals with high levels of self-esteem are characterized as being self-confident, sociable, secure, assertive, and motivated by approach goals, whereas those with low levels of self-esteem lack self-confidence, are insecure or uncertain about their personal characteristics, and are guided by avoidance goals (Baumeister, 1998; McGregor, Gailliot, Vasquez, & Nash, 2007). Consistent with this characterization, industrial/organizational psychologists have found that self-esteem is positively related to seeking out workplaces that maximize one’s ability to exert influence (Turban & Keon, 1993) or voice one’s opinions (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Furthermore, self-esteem relates to a tendency to engage in proactive career exploration (Cai et al., 2015). Global self-evaluations have also been shown to impact workplace behavior through the adoption of approach and avoidance goals (Ferris, Rosen, Johnson, Brown, Risavy, & Heller, 2011). Brockner’s (1988) behavioral plasticity model, which nicely bridges social and industrial/ organizational psychology, has been particularly informative in terms of understanding the importance of self-confidence and security as defining features of self-esteem. According to this model, individuals with low self-esteem are more behaviorally malleable and susceptible to their surrounding environmental conditions relative to their high self-esteem counterparts, because they are uncertain and insecure. As such, low self-esteem individuals pay closer attention to and are more profoundly impacted by the environment and social cues. Based upon our review of the literature, it would appear that this conceptual framework is not only among the most popular approaches to justify a moderating effect of self-esteem, but also strongly supported by evidence (Ganster & Schaubroeck, 1991; Mossholder et al., 1981, 1982; Pierce, Gardner, Dunham, & Cummings, 1993; Turban & Keon, 1993). Another influential theoretical approach, particularly in instances in which a direct relationship between self-esteem and an outcome is posited, are frameworks grounded in self-consistency or self-verification processes. Self-verification theory (Swann & Buhrmester, 2012) emerged from the tradition of self-consistency and balance theories (Aronson, 1969; Festinger, 1957). The central idea here is that

Self-Esteem  47

individuals want to preserve their firmly held self-conceptions which they manage by soliciting feedback from the social environment that is consistent with their own self-views. That is, individuals will attempt to verify their positive selfviews by engaging in positive behaviors and seeking positive feedback or verify their negative self-views by engaging in negative behaviors and seeking negative feedback. Multiple reasons for this self-verification process to unfold have been suggested, but the desire for a predictable and controllable world has been argued to be an integral part of the process (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). Notably, industrial/organizational researchers, such as Korman (1966, 1967), provided some of the earliest evidence regarding the efficacy of self-verification and selfconsistency processes and, not surprisingly, this theoretical orientation remains a core conceptual principle in the field of industrial/organizational psychology to this day (Ferris, Lian, Brown, & Morrison, 2015; Van Dyne, Vandewalle, Kostova, Latham, & Cummings, 2000). Among the most noteworthy issues is the longstanding theoretical debate between self-verification and self-enhancement, which predicts a universal preference for positive evaluations. For individuals who possess largely positive self-views, the processes of self-verification and self-enhancement produce similar outcomes, such that individuals will prefer positive evaluations. However, self-verification and self-enhancement processes diverge for individuals with negative self-views such that self-verification predicts that these individuals will prefer negative evaluations, whereas self-enhancement predicts that they will demonstrate a preference for positive evaluations. Which motive, self-verification versus self-enhancement, is correct, represents a longstanding debate within the social psychological literature (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strubbe, 1997). As has been the case in social psychology, within industrial/organizational psychology the evidence appears mixed regarding these two motives. Beyond the studies reported earlier in this chapter, some recent investigations have reported direct support for self-verification theory. For instance, Wiesenfeld, Swann, Brockner, and Bartel (2007) found that individuals high in self-esteem reacted more positively to fair (vs. unfair) treatment relative to low self-esteem individuals (see also Lapointe, Vandenberghe, & Panaccio, 2011). Relatedly, Cable and Kay (2012) found strong support for the role of a self-verification motive amongst new organizational entrants and Whelpley and McDaniel (2016) concluded that the evidence with respect to the relation between selfesteem and deviance supports self-verification models. In contrast to this data, however, several other findings appear contradictory. For instance, in a study of feedback reactions, Anseel and Lievens (2006) concluded that their data were in line with self-enhancement theory predictions and not self-verification theory. Similarly, Woo and his colleagues (Woo, Sims, Rupp, & Gibbons, 2008) found little support for self-verification theory, relative to self-enhancement theory, amongst participants of a developmental assessment center. Given the state of the literature, we would suggest that industrial/organizational psychologists

48  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

remain mindful of the possibility that the nature of the outcome may matter (Kwang & Swann, 2010) and that moderators may potentiate each motive (see Ferris et al., 2015 for an example). In addition, industrial/organizational psychologists should remain cognizant that challenges to these predominant views do exist and the possibility of supplanting one or both remains a possibility (Gregg, 2008).

The Benefits of Self-Esteem: Controversies and Debates As implied above, high global self-esteem is widely regarded as beneficial, whereas low global self-esteem is deemed to be problematic. In fact, the findings from numerous studies serve to bolster this common perception. Within social psychology, investigators have noted that global self-esteem is a risk factor in the development of psychopathology (Zeigler-Hill, 2011), poor physical health (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, Moffitt, Robins, Poulton, & Caspi, 2006), relationship behaviors (Murray, 2006), academic outcomes (Wylie, 1979), and deviant behavior (Trzesniewski et al., 2006). Similarly, organizational psychologists have noted the differential predictive power of global self-evaluations and workplace outcomes such as job distress (Cropanzano & Grandey, 1998), self-rated interview performance (King & Manaster, 1977), career exploration (Cai et al., 2015), job performance (Ferris et al., 2011), job satisfaction (Judge & Bono, 2001), and workplace deviance (Vogel & Mitchell, in press). Furthermore, research on unemployed workers reveals that self-esteem is positively associated with subsequent re-employment (Caplan, Vinokur, Price, & Van Ryn, 1989; Vinokur & Schul, 1997). In effect, global self-esteem generally emerges as being positively related to good outcomes and negatively related to bad outcomes. Furthermore, regardless of the implied mechanism (e.g., selfconsistency, affect regulation), the predominant narrative that has surrounded self-esteem is that it is an important cause of many life outcomes and that the higher one’s self-esteem, the better off one will be. Although this perspective likely resonates with many readers, we would be remiss if we did not highlight some of the key controversies and debates that exist regarding elements of this viewpoint, three of which we present below. Causality. Despite the seemingly unequivocal nature of the data, critical reviews have questioned whether global self-esteem is a psychological causal wellspring from which all manner of positive or negative life outcomes derive (Baumeister et al., 2003). Although global self-esteem has intuitive appeal as a causal antecedent, the fact remains that causal inferences are largely tenuous given the predominance of cross-sectional research designs in both social and industrial/organizational psychology. Thus, for instance, although one’s self-evaluations correlate with job performance (Ferris et al., 2011) and workplace deviance (Vogel & Mitchell, in press), it is unclear whether performance and deviance are the cause or the consequence of self-esteem. Both social and

Self-Esteem  49

industrial/organizational psychologists have attempted to redress this concern in recent years by incorporating stronger research designs into their empirical work. In this regard, several prospective cross-lagged studies have been published which contradict much of the earlier pessimism (Kammeyer-Mueller, Judge, & Piccolo, 2008; Kuster, Orth, & Meier, 2013; Marshall, Parker, Ciarrochi, & Heaven, 2014; Orth, Robins, Trzesniewski, Maes, & Schmitt, 2009; Orth, Robins, & Widaman, 2012; Trzesniewski et al., 2006). Within the context of understanding work, the results appear to suggest that global self-esteem is an antecedent rather than simply being a consequence. For example, Kammeyer-Mueller et al. (2008) used a cross-lagged regression design with data from 1,765 individuals across a seven-year period. Overall, their findings indicated that self-esteem at the earlier time predicted later occupational prestige and income but that the reverse was not true (i.e., occupational prestige did not predict later self-esteem). Paralleling these results, Orth et al. (2012) reported that self-esteem prospectively predicted job satisfaction, occupational status, and salary, but the reverse relationships were not significant. Although only a limited number of longitudinal studies have been completed to date, the available evidence suggests that global self-esteem is indeed an antecedent of work-related outcomes. Practical significance. Notwithstanding the ongoing causality debate, critics have also questioned the practical significance of self-esteem by arguing that its effect sizes are too small to be meaningful (Baumeister et al., 2003). In a direct rebuttal, Swann and his colleagues (2007) have argued that such criticisms are ill founded insofar as they neglect the well-established psychological principle of specificity matching (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005). In line with this thinking, several prominent self-esteem scholars have argued that self-esteem might be better conceptualized as a hierarchical construct in which individuals possess a family of self-evaluations that vary across relevant role domains (Korman, 1970; Marsh & Craven, 2006). For instance, if one were interested in assessing performance in math, then academic self-esteem should serve as a better predictor than global self-esteem. An implication of this view is that to fully comprehend the practical relevance of global self-esteem one must necessarily acknowledge that its influence may be indirect and operate through domain-specific sub-dimensions. Embracing the clear advantages of specificity matching, industrial/organizational psychology introduced the concept of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) nearly 30 years ago (Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, & Dunham, 1989). Conceptually, OBSE differs from global self-esteem insofar as it reflects an employee’s self-perception of worth and competence within the specific setting of work. Since its introduction, more than 66 independent samples have been collected using OBSE (Bowling, Eschleman, Wang, Kirkendall, & Alarcon, 2010). Although directly relevant for understanding the importance of selfesteem at work, the broader conceptual significance of this literature in our view likely lies in that it can inform the specificity debate within an important life domain. That is, given the prolonged systematic energy that has been dedicated

50  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

to investigating OBSE, it now seems possible to arrive at reliable conclusions regarding some of the key tenets of the specificity approach. Indeed, a recent meta-analysis by Bowling and his colleagues (2010) appears to support several of the key propositions laid out by global self-esteem proponents (Swann et al., 2007). First, their meta-analysis suggests that OBSE is independent of global self-esteem despite their association. Second, OBSE is significantly related to work-specific job attitudes, work performance, and work stress. Third, their findings supported the importance of specificity revealing that OBSE was generally a stronger predictor of workplace outcomes than global self-esteem. Finally, the results of this work indicated that OBSE explained much of the effect of global self-esteem on workplace outcomes. In addition to this narrowing focus, industrial/organizational psychologists have tackled criticism regarding the predictive utility of dispositional self-esteem by taking the opposite approach: broadening the nature of the construct (Judge, 2009). Of particular relevance, Judge and colleagues (2002) introduced Core Self-Evaluations (CSE), which they suggest captures a fundamental, bottom-line evaluation of one’s sense of self-worth, competence, and capability. Rather than reflecting a novel construct, CSE seemingly only differs from traditional global self-esteem in terms of its breadth since it is composed of four lower-order traits: self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and neuroticism. Indeed, considerable evidence suggests that these four lower-order traits have moderate or strong intercorrelations with each other and typically load on a single underlying factor (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998). Since the introduction of CSE to the literature, its nomological network has rapidly expanded to include diverse work outcomes such as stress, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, job-search persistence, motivation, and reduced work-family conflict (Chang, Ferris, Johnson, Rosen, & Tan, 2012). Impressively, research has also shown that the CSE of organizational owners and CEOs might impact the performance and culture of organizations (Resick, Whitman, Weingarden, & Hiller, 2009). In addition to demonstrating simple associations, remarkable advancements in our understanding of the underlying mechanisms have also occurred in this literature. For example, it has been argued that CSE alters perceptions of the work environment (Judge, Locke, & Durham, 1997), is related to effective selfregulation (Judge & Hurst, 2007), or relates to tendencies to approach and avoid certain situations (Ferris et al., 2011). Overall, CSE is a promising construct that can speak to the ongoing debate regarding self-esteem’s predictive utility. Despite our general positivity towards CSE, some significant reservations do remain regarding the legitimacy of the construct. For instance, a reoccurring and vexing issue has been the inclusion of locus of control, which does not fit the construct definition, as it does not reflect a self-evaluation (Johnson, Rosen, Chang, & Lin, 2015). In fact, recent work has suggested that locus of control may load on the latent CSE construct for methodological rather than substantive reasons (Johnson, Rosen, & Djurdejevic, 2011). Others have argued that

Self-Esteem  51

CSE may simply capture emotional stability (Bono & Judge, 2003) or primarily reflect self-esteem and generalized self-efficacy (Johnson et al., 2011). Finally, some evidence indicates that CSE may hold little predictive utility beyond the constituent elements (Gardner & Pierce, 2010). Thus, despite the popularity of CSE, it is worrisome that there is little agreement or understanding as to what constitutes this construct. To paraphrase one recent review (Chang et al., 2012), it would appear that the scientific cart may have been placed ahead of the horse. The potential pitfalls of high self-esteem. Individuals generally show a preference for high levels of self-esteem under most conditions (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008). For example, participants who were given the choice between various options often preferred receiving self-esteem enhancements more than engaging in other pleasant activities (e.g., eating a favorite food, engaging in a favorite sexual activity; Bushman, Moeller, & Crocker, 2011). However, this desire for high levels of self-esteem does not mean that it is always beneficial for individuals to feel good about themselves. This is illustrated by the fact that high levels of self-esteem have been found to be associated with negative outcomes including prejudice (Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987) and aggression (Baumeister et al., 1996). These findings suggest that high self-esteem may have a “dark side” (see Zeigler-Hill et al., 2016, for a review). One example of this approach that is of increasing interest to industrial/ organizational psychologists is recent work investigating the links between high levels of self-esteem and narcissism, which is characterized by feelings of superiority and entitlement, expectations for special treatment, the willingness to exploit others, and a tendency to exaggerate one’s own abilities (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Given that both self-esteem and narcissism involve positive self-views, it is not surprising that positive associations have emerged between these constructs across numerous studies (Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004). However, it is important to note that self-esteem and narcissism are far from interchangeable (see Bosson, Lakey, Campbell, Zeigler-Hill, Jordan, & Kernis, 2008, for a review). For example, individuals with high self-esteem perceive themselves positively on both agentic (e.g., intelligent) and communal (e.g., moral) traits, whereas narcissistic individuals only view themselves positively on agentic traits (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002). Further, it appears that narcissism may have important similarities to the fragile form of high self-esteem (i.e., feelings of self-worth that are vulnerable to challenge, require constant validation, and rely upon some degree of self-deception; see Jordan & Zeigler-Hill, 2013, for a review). That is, individuals with high levels of narcissism are similar in some respects to individuals who possess the fragile form of high self-esteem – as indicated by feelings of self-worth that are unstable or contingent – such that they appear to be preoccupied with protecting and enhancing their vulnerable feelings of self-worth which is often accomplished at the expense of

52  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

other people. This may explain why high levels of self-esteem are generally considered to be relatively “healthy,” whereas narcissism is considered to be part of the “Dark Triad” of personality traits alongside psychopathy and Machiavellianism (Brummelman, Thomaes, & Sedikides, 2016; Paulhus & Williams, 2002). One might reasonably conclude that narcissism is unquestionably negative. In line with this perspective, organizational research is fully aligned with social psychology, demonstrating harmful associations with such outcomes as satisfaction, workplace incivility, job performance, integrity, and contextual performance (Meurs, Fox, Kessler, & Spector, 2013; O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012). Moreover, some recent work has documented the conditions under which narcissists behave particularly poorly at work. Chen and his colleagues (Chen, Ferris, Kwan, Yan, Zhou, & Hong, 2013), for instance, noted that narcissists disengage from their work when confronted with self-image threatening information, such as incivility, in order to protect their self-image. Notwithstanding these findings, a closer inspection of the organizational literature suggests that a more nuanced view may be required and that narcissism may be a mixed blessing (Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011). In this respect, narcissists’ delusions of grandeur, self-promotion, and attention-seeking behaviors may be adaptive in terms of getting ahead at work (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006; O’Reilly, Doerr, Caldwell, & Chatman, 2014). Furthermore, some research suggests that narcissism may be beneficial to organizational success (Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2011; Resick et al., 2009). To reconcile these findings, organizational scholars have argued that narcissism cannot be studied in isolation, but rather must be considered in terms of the whole person. For instance, some recent research has indicated that leader narcissism is most beneficial when coupled with moral traits such as humility (Owens, Wallace, & Waldman, 2015). Beyond this possibility, other authors have recently argued that it may be advantageous to implement structural or interpersonal tactics in order to leverage the benefits of a narcissistic leader, while avoiding the potential pitfalls (Sedikides & Campbell, in press).

Social Cognition and the Dynamic Self Although the monolithic global trait-based view has been very influential, the infiltration of a cognitive approach into social psychology has provided an alternative view. Rather than conceptualizing the self-concept as a single, stable, memory structure, it has become increasingly common to view it as a system or confederation of knowledge structures (Markus & Wurf, 1987) that has important implications for how individuals feel about themselves (Greenwald, Bellezza, & Banaji, 1988; Leary & Tangney, 2012; Vazire & Wilson, 2012). This more complex and multifaceted perspective of the self includes the idea that individuals possess multiple identities as well as the idea that alterations in perspective or

Self-Esteem  53

context can bring to mind different elements of one’s self-knowledge (Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith, 2012). Although much of the theorizing regarding the functioning of self-esteem discussed previously remains applicable here, there are unique considerations that arise from adopting this perspective. Below, we discuss some of these issues. Interestingly, many of these unique considerations are either unnoticed or under researched by industrial/organizational psychologists and, thus, reflect opportunities for future research. Conceptualizing the self-concept as a confederacy suggests that individuals possess multiple self-evaluations. It is reasonable to assume that the nature of self-relevant knowledge may differ across broad contexts, such as work and school. As touched upon earlier in the context of discussing specificity matching, this idea aligns with the notion that self-esteem is arranged in a hierarchical manner and that individuals’ evaluations of themselves are likely to differ across settings (Marsh, Craven, & Martin, 2006). This approach is quite familiar to industrial/organizational psychologists insofar as it serves as the theoretical foundation of OBSE (Pierce & Gardner, 2004). In accordance with this view, domain-specific experiences generate distinct context-specific self-evaluations that in turn serve as more proximal, relative to global self-esteem, predictors of context-specific outcomes. Within industrial/organizational psychology, Pierce and Gardner (2004) have argued that elements of the workplace such as structural features of an organization, treatment and relationships with significant organizational actors, and conditions that foster a sense of competence and efficacy are important precursors to OBSE. Consistent with this argument, past studies have documented numerous links between OBSE and such factors as perceived organizational support (Chen, Aryee, & Lee, 2005), perceived overqualification (Liu, Luksyte, Zhou, Shi, & Wang, 2005), and pay level (Gardner, Van Dyne, & Pierce, 2004). Moreover, several studies have suggested that many of these contextual work features impact workplace behavior indirectly by altering OBSE (Ferris, Brown, & Heller, 2009). An interesting implication of conceptualizing the self as a confederacy for the study of self-esteem is that it presents the possibility that individuals may differentially stake their overall assessment of the self on different domains. Contingent self-esteem refers to the tendency for individuals to base their feelings of self-worth on internal or external standards (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Deci & Ryan, 1995). In essence, contingent self-esteem represents what an individual believes that he or she must do or be in order to have value and worth as a person. Contingent high self-esteem is considered to be a form of fragile high self-esteem because it can only be maintained so long as the person is able to meet the standards on which his or her self-esteem is based (Deci & Ryan, 1995; Kernis, 2003). For example, college students who base their self-esteem on their academic competence report experiencing higher levels of self-esteem after they receive good grades or an acceptance letter from a graduate program along with significant drops in their self-esteem when they

54  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

receive poor grades or a rejection letter from a graduate program (Crocker, Karpinski, Quinn, & Chase, 2003; Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002). Similar consequences have been observed for individuals who base their selfesteem on other life-domains such as the approval of others (Park & Crocker, 2008), friendships (Cambron & Acitelli, 2010), romantic relationships (Knee, Canevello, Bush, & Cook, 2008), physical appearance (Noser & Zeigler-Hill, 2014), or work performance (Ferris, 2014). Contrary to the generally negative connotations of contingent self-esteem in many domains, the findings reported by industrial/organizational psychologists seemingly suggest it might have benefits (Ferris, 2014). In this respect, work by Ferris and his colleagues (Ferris, Brown, Lian, & Keeping, 2009; Ferris, Lian, Brown, Pang, & Keeping, 2010) has shown that self-esteem that is contingent on work performance may mitigate the negative consequences of low self-esteem that would be anticipated on the basis of self-verification theory. A further logical extension of approaching the self as a dynamic system would be that self-esteem should exhibit state-like properties (Brown & Marshall, 2006). State self-esteem is used to capture temporary feelings of self-worth that people experience and contrasts with “trait” self-esteem, which reflects the way individuals feel about themselves on average. The acknowledgement amongst social scientists that self-esteem has state-like properties has led to the development of state self-esteem scales (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991), serves as an assumption of laboratory investigations which assess the impact of selfrelevant threats on self-esteem, and serves as the foundation of field studies that employ diary methods. Diary investigations, which repeatedly assess selfesteem over multiple days or episodes, have been particularly informative in this respect. As with research conducted by social psychologists (Heppner et al., 2008), studies of working samples indicate that within-person fluctuations in self-esteem exist amongst workers (Ferris, Spence, Brown, & Heller, 2012; Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009). To date, progress has been made in understanding the internal and external events that impact state self-esteem levels (Heppner et al., 2008), and recent work in industrial/organizational psychology has contributed to this understanding. In particular, studies have documented the relevance of relational devaluation as a key driver of daily self-esteem (Eatough et al., 2016; Ferris et al., 2012). Although fluctuations in self-esteem would appear to be a natural consequence of adopting a dynamic view, it is important to acknowledge that in some circles large fluctuations in state self-esteem are considered to be unhealthy. Self-esteem instability reflects the moment-to-moment changes (i.e., withinsubject standard deviation) in state self-esteem that is reported by individuals when asked to respond to the question of how they feel about themselves “right now” across multiple occasions (e.g., once per day for seven consecutive days; Kernis, 2003, 2005). Unstable high self-esteem is considered to be a form of fragile high self-esteem because these fluctuations in state self-esteem suggest

Self-Esteem  55

that the positive attitudes these individuals hold about themselves are uncertain or vulnerable to potentially threatening experiences (e.g., failure, rejection). Research concerning self-esteem instability has shown that it often moderates the association that trait self-esteem has with a variety of important life outcomes including anger (Kernis, Grannemann, & Barclay, 1989), defensiveness (Kernis, Lakey, & Heppner, 2008), interpersonal style (Zeigler-Hill, Clark, & Beckman, 2011), and aggression (Zeigler-Hill, Enjaian, Holden, & Southard, 2014). These findings suggest that accounting for self-esteem instability allows for a more nuanced understanding of the connections that trait self-esteem has with a variety of important life outcomes. To our knowledge, industrial/ organizational psychologists have not yet considered the possible importance of self-esteem instability in their own work. A further consideration, and one that industrial/organizational psychologists have ignored, is that the dynamic cognitive view of the self highlights the potential importance of structure and interconnections amongst knowledge. It is usually the case that individuals who possess more positive beliefs about themselves (e.g., believe they are “intelligent” and “physically attractive”) report higher levels of self-esteem, but there is more to the connection between the self-concept and self-esteem than the sheer number of positive and negative self-beliefs possessed by individuals. A large body of research has demonstrated that the way in which the content of the self-concept is organized (i.e., self-concept structure) is important, because this has implications for the accessibility of specific aspects of self-knowledge (Showers & Zeigler-Hill, 2012). One implication of the importance of self-concept structure is that two individuals who have identical beliefs about themselves may experience very different feelings of self-worth depending on how their self-concepts are organized (see Showers & Zeigler-Hill, 2006, for a review). For example, Zeigler-Hill and Showers (2007) found that individuals who compartmentalized their self-concepts (i.e., separated their positive selfbeliefs from their negative self-beliefs) reported higher levels of self-esteem in general, but their feelings of self-worth were unstable over time such that they experienced larger decreases in their moment-to-moment feelings of self-worth in the wake of negative events (e.g., social rejection). Finally, approaching the self as a cognitive structure highlights current thinking in cognitive and social psychology, which has argued that human mental activity can be bifurcated into two relatively independent modes of information processing. Historically, the self-esteem literature has focused on judgments that emanate solely from an explicit, conscious system and has ignored the operation of the second implicit, nonconscious system. Coinciding with the larger literature, interest has grown in terms of understanding implicit self-esteem, which is usually defined as self-evaluations that exist primarily outside of conscious awareness (see Zeigler-Hill & Jordan, 2010, for a review). Implicit self-esteem is often measured with nonreactive assessment tools such as the self-esteem version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald &

56  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Farnham, 2000; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwarz, 1998) and the Name-Letter Task (Nuttin, 1985, 1987), which rely on response latencies and associations between stimuli rather than directly asking respondents how much they like themselves. Implicit self-esteem has a great deal of potential but there are various psychometric problems surrounding the nonreactive measures that are used to capture implicit self-esteem (Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000; Buhrmester, Blanton, & Swann, 2011). Despite these psychometric issues, low implicit self-esteem has been helpful for identifying individuals with fragile forms of high self-esteem that we discussed previously (Zeigler-Hill & Jordan, 2010). For example, individuals with high scores on measures such as the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (i.e., high explicit self-esteem) but who have low implicit self-esteem have been found to base their self-worth on external contingencies (Jordan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2003), experience more fluctuations in their state self-esteem (Zeigler-Hill, 2006), employ more ethnic discrimination when their positive self-views are threatened (Jordan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2005), display more unrealistic optimism (Bosson, Brown, Zeigler-Hill, & Swann, 2003), and become more convinced of their opinions and perceive greater social support for them following self-threat (McGregor & Marigold, 2003; McGregor, Nail, Marigold, & Kang, 2005). Despite growing interest in implicit self-esteem, little consideration has been directed toward this topic in industrial/organizational psychology.

What Does Self-Esteem Actually Do? Despite the vast literature devoted to the topic of self-esteem, relatively little attention has been paid to the actual function of self-esteem. That is, questions concerning what self-esteem actually does and why it is important were largely ignored until Leary and his colleagues developed the sociometer model (Leary, 1999; Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Leary & Downs, 1995; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, & Chokel, 1998). According to the sociometer model, self-esteem is an evolutionary regulatory system that helps individuals form and maintain high-quality social relationships by monitoring perceived inclusionary status. In essence, the sociometer model argues that self-esteem has a status-tracking property such that an individual’s current level of self-esteem depends on the extent to which the individual perceives himself or herself as having relational value. That is, individuals will experience a decrease in self-esteem when they experience rejection or social exclusion because these events will signal a threat to inclusionary status. Conversely, individuals will experience an increase in self-esteem when they experience acceptance or feel included because these events signal heightened relational value. According to this perspective, people do not actually care about self-esteem for its own sake. Rather, self-esteem is only important because of what it indicates about the degree to which the individual is accepted and valued by others in the social environment (Leary et al., 1995). Leary and Downs

Self-Esteem  57

(1995) suggest that self-esteem serves as an indicator of relational value in much the same way that the fuel gauge on the dashboard of a car provides information concerning how much fuel remains in the fuel tank. An impressive amount of empirical support has been found for the sociometer model such that self-esteem is responsive to social acceptance and rejection (see Stinson, Cameron, & Huang, 2015, for a review). It is noteworthy that, despite the popularity of the sociometer model within social psychology, industrial/organizational psychologists have rarely drawn upon this framework in their own work (for exceptions, see Ferris et al., 2009; Peng & Zeng, in press; Schilpzand, Leavitt, & Lim, 2016). This oversight is somewhat astonishing, given the tendency for industrial/organizational psychologists to both position self-esteem (or OBSE) as a key mediator variable in many of their studies and investigate constructs that, on the surface, reflect relational devaluation of the individual as a key antecedent (e.g., pay, interpersonal justice, supervisor treatment, support from an organization). At first blush, limited application of such an immensely popular framework would seemingly represent a missed opportunity. If researchers do begin to embrace this theory, however, we would caution them to remain cognizant of moderating factors, such as attachment style (Srivastava & Beer, 2005) or in-group/out-group status (Reitz, Motti-Stefanidi, & Asendorpf, 2016), that might bound the operation of sociometer theory. More generally, however, we think that prior to embracing sociometer theory it is critical for industrial/organizational psychologists to better familiarize themselves with work that has both questioned and expanded upon the conceptualization of self-esteem as monitoring inclusionary status. On this latter point, Kirkpatrick and Ellis (2001, 2006) suggest that there are multiple sociometers associated with functionally distinct systems that provide information about various relationship domains (e.g., mating, coalitions). This proposed extension is consistent with the work of other researchers that has linked self-esteem with domains such as status (Barkow, 1989; Gilbert, Price, & Allan, 1995; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Mahadevan et al., 2016) and mate value (Bale & Archer, 2013; Brase & Guy, 2004; Kavanagh, Fletcher, & Ellis, 2014). These models suggest that self-esteem informs individuals about their current status in domains that are relevant to evolutionary outcomes. An example of support for extending status-tracking models beyond general relational value was provided by Mahadevan et al. (2016), who found that higher levels of prior social status promoted behavioral strategies reflecting assertiveness with self-esteem mediating this association. That is, individuals who perceived themselves as possessing greater social status experienced higher levels of self-esteem, which, in turn, was associated with higher levels of assertiveness. Somewhat troublesome for sociometer theory are recent direct competitive tests, which have contrasted it with the status perspectives. Initial findings here appear, unfortunately for sociometer theory, to better align with the notion that

58  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

self-esteem monitors status (Gebauer, Sedikides, Wagner, Bleidorn, Rentfrow, Potter, & Gosling, 2015). Given the relevance of status to the workplace context (Carson & Thau, 2014) it would seem to us that this newer data represents a promising avenue for industrial/organizational psychologists. An alternative perspective regarding the function of self-esteem is provided by Terror Management Theory (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999), which argues that self-esteem serves as a defense for individuals against the recognition of their own mortality (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004). The basic idea is that individuals develop self-esteem by meeting the standards of their cultural worldview which provides them with a sense that their lives have meaning and value. Thus, self-esteem protects individuals from the potentially paralyzing effects of existential anxiety by allowing individuals to believe their lives have significance (see Pyszczynski & Kesebir, 2013, for a review). For example, Greenberg, Simon, Pyszczynski, Solomon, and Chatel (1992) found that artificially raising the self-esteem of participants via bogus positive feedback decreased their anxiety when exposed to images of death or waiting to receive painful electric shocks. The function of self-esteem offered by proponents of Terror Management Theory is certainly intriguing, but some researchers are skeptical that the function of self-esteem is to buffer people against anxiety regarding their own deaths (Leary, 2004). Perhaps in part due to skepticism regarding the applicability of Terror Management Theory, it has received limited attention from industrial/organizational psychologists. Such neglect is surprising when considered in light of the fact that many occupations are embedded in contexts in which employees are reminded of their own mortality, exposed to death, and susceptible to accidents or other dangers (Grant & Wade-Benzoni, 2009). It would also seem to us that because organizations are more permanent than the self, they might serve a key role in buffering employees’ existential anxiety surrounding death. Highlighting the possible significance of death anxiety to the workplace, recent studies with nurses and firefighters who reported being exposed to mortality cues indicated that they experienced higher levels of burnout, but only if they were already high, versus low, in trait death anxiety (Sliter, Sinclair, Yuan, & Mohr, 2014). Other studies indicate that leadership perceptions and influence may be impacted by cues regarding one’s mortality (Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 2004; Gordijn & Stapel, 2008; Landau, Greenberg, & Sullivan, 2009). Although no workplace studies have directly examined selfesteem, indirect data does exist. In this respect, research has found that men, but not women, when cued with mortality seek power, presumably because of its association with self-worth (Belmi & Pfeffer, 2016). Despite this promising data, it would appear that numerous untapped opportunities for the application of this theory to the workplace remain to be explored (Grant & Wade-Benzoni, 2009; Stein & Cropanzano, 2011)

Self-Esteem  59

Conclusion As we have highlighted in this chapter, self-esteem has had a long, rich history within social psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. Self-esteem is a complex construct that has been investigated in numerous ways. Industrial/ organizational psychologists reasonably have positioned it as a key antecedent as well as a moderator and mediator. They have examined it both as a state and as a trait. They have drawn upon a rich litany of theories to understand important workplace phenomena. Importantly, industrial/organizational psychologists have not simply been debtors in this literature, but have also made significant contributions. They have informed important theoretical debates, introduced novel constructs, been among the earliest proponents of incredibly popular theories, and highlighted how traditional views of self-esteem may not hold in workplace contexts. Our review has also highlighted areas in which industrial/organizational psychologists still have much to learn from their social psychology colleagues. Unfortunately, industrial/organizational psychology has ignored and underutilized some of the most popular theories and approaches to understanding self-esteem that may be beneficial to their work. It is our hope that this chapter will inspire additional industrial/organizational psychologists to incorporate self-esteem into their future research.

References Adler, S. (1980). Self-esteem and causal attributions for job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 327–332. Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (2005). The influence of attitudes on behavior. In D. Albarracín, B. T. Johnson, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), The handbook of attitudes (pp. 173–221). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Anseel, F., Beatty, A. S., Shen, W., Lievens, F., & Sackett, P. R. (2015). How are we doing after 30 years? A meta-analytic review of the antecedents and outcomes of feedback-seeking behavior. Journal of Management, 41, 318–348. Anseel, F., & Lievens, F. (2006). Certainty as a moderator of feedback reactions? A test of the strength of the self-verification motive. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 79, 533–551. Aronson, E. (1969). The theory of cognitive dissonance: A current perspective. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 1–34). New York, NY: Academic Press. Aryee, S., Chu, C. W., Kim, T. Y., & Ryu, S. (2013). Family-supportive work environment and employee work behaviors: An investigation of mediating mechanisms. Journal of Management, 39, 792–813. Bale, C., & Archer, J. (2013). Self-perceived attractiveness, romantic desirability and selfesteem: A mating sociometer perspective. Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 68–84. Barkow, J. (1989). Darwin, sex, and status: Biological approaches to mind and culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

60  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed.; pp. 680–740). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Krueger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, 1–44. Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103, 5–33. Belmi, P., & Pfeffer, J. (2016). Power and death: Mortality salience increases power seeking while feeling powerful reduces death anxiety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 702–720. Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 6, 1–62. Bono, J. E., & Judge, T. A. (2003). Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 554–571. Bosson, J. K. (2006). Assessing self-esteem via self-reports and nonreactive instruments: Issues and recommendations. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 88–95). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Bosson, J. K., Brown, R. P., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). Selfenhancement tendencies among people with high explicit self-esteem: The moderating role of implicit self-esteem. Self and Identity, 2, 169–187. Bosson, J. K., Lakey, C. E., Campbell, W. K., Zeigler-Hill, V., Jordan, C. H., & Kernis, M. H. (2008). Untangling the links between narcissism and self-esteem: A theoretical and empirical review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1415–1439. Bosson, J. K., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2009). Self-esteem. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 527–546). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Bosson, J. K., Swann, W. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2000). Stalking the perfect measure of implicit self-esteem: The blind men and the elephant revisited? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 631–643. Bowling, N. A., Eschleman, K. J., Wang, Q., Kirkendall, C., & Alarcon, G. (2010). A meta-analysis of the predictors and consequences of organization-based self-esteem. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83, 601–626. Brase, G. L., & Guy, E. C. (2004). The demographics of mate value and self-esteem. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 471–484. Brockner, J. (1988). Self-esteem at work: Research, theory, and practice. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. Brown, J. D. (1998). The self. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Brown, J. D. (2010). High self-esteem buffers negative feedback: Once more with feeling. Cognition and Emotion, 24, 1389–1404. Brown, J. D., & Dutton, K. A. (1995). The thrill of victory, the complexity of defeat: Self-esteem and people’s emotional reactions to success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 712–722. Brown, J. D., & Marshall, M. A. (2006). The three faces of self-esteem. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 4–9). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Brown, R. P., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2004). Narcissism and the non-equivalence of self-esteem measures: A matter of dominance? Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 585–592.

Self-Esteem  61

Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., & Sedikides, C. (2016). Separating narcissism from selfesteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 8–13. Buhrmester, M. D., Blanton, H., & Swann Jr, W. B. (2011). Implicit self-esteem: Nature, measurement, and a new way forward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 365–385. Bushman, B. J., Moeller, S. J., & Crocker, J. (2011). Sweets, sex, or self-esteem? Comparing the value of self-esteem boosts with other pleasant rewards. Journal of Personality, 79, 993–1012. Cable, D. M., & Kay, V. S. (2012). Striving for self-verification during organizational entry. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 360–380. Cai, Z., Guan, Y., Li, H., Shi, W., Guo, K., Liu, Y., . . . & Hua, H. (2015). Self-esteem and proactive personality as predictors of future work self and career adaptability: An examination of mediating and moderating processes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 86, 86–94. Cambron, M. J., & Acitelli, L. K. (2010). Examining the link between friendship contingent self-esteem and the self-propagating cycle of depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 29, 701–726. Campbell, W. K., Hoffman, B. J., Campbell, S. M., & Marchisio, G. (2011). Narcissism in organizational contexts. Human Resource Management Review, 21, 268–284. Campbell, W. K., Rudich, E. A., & Sedikides, C. (2002). Narcissism, self-esteem, and the positivity of self-views: Two portraits of self-love. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 358–368. Caplan, R. D., Vinokur, A. D., Price, R. H., & Van Ryn, M. (1989). Job seeking, reemployment, and mental health: A randomized field experiment in coping with job loss. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 759–769. Carson, M. J., & Thau, S. (2014). Falling from great (and not-so-great) heights: How initial status position influences performance after status loss. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 223–248. Chang, C. H., Ferris, L., Johnson, R. E., Rosen, C. C., & Tan, J. A. (2012). Core self-evaluation: A review and evaluation of the literature. Journal of Management, 38, 81–128. Chatterjee, A., & Hambrick, D. C. (2011). Executive personality, capability cues, and risk taking: How narcissistic CEOs react to their successes and stumbles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56, 202–237. Chen, Y., Ferris, D. L., Kwan, M., Yan, M., Zhou, M., & Hong, Y. (2013). Self-love’s lost labor: A self-enhancement model of workplace incivility. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 1199–1219. Chen, Z. X., Aryee, S., & Lee, C. (2005). Test of a mediation model of perceived organizational support. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 457–470. Cohen, F., Solomon, S., Maxfield, M., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2004). Fatal attraction: The effects of mortality salience on evaluations of charismatic, taskoriented, and relationship-oriented leaders. Psychological Science, 15, 846–851. Cohen-Charash, Y., & Mueller, J. S. (2007). Does perceived unfairness exacerbate or mitigate interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors related to envy? Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 666–680. Coopersmith, S. (1967). The antecedents of self-esteem. San Francisco, CA: Freeman. Crocker, J., Karpinski, A., Quinn, D. M., & Chase, S. (2003). When grades determine self-worth: Consequences of contingent self-worth for male and female engineering and psychology majors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 507–516.

62  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Crocker, J., Sommers, S. R., & Luhtanen, R. K. (2002). Hopes dashed and dreams fulfilled: Contingencies of self-worth and graduate school admissions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1275–1286. Crocker, J., Thompson, L., McGraw, K., & Ingerman, C. (1987). Downward comparison, prejudice, and evaluations of others: Effects of self-esteem and threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 907–916. Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108, 593–623. Cropanzano, R., & Grandey, A. A. (1998). If politics is a game, then what are the rules? Three suggestions for ethical management. In M. Schminke (Ed.), Organizations and ethics: Morally managing people and processes (pp. 133–152). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1995). Human agency: The basis for true self-esteem. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Efficacy, agency, and self-esteem (pp. 31–50). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Dipboye, R. L., Zultowski, W. H., Dewhirst, H. D., & Arvey, R. D. (1978). Selfesteem as a moderator of the relationship between scientific interests and the job satisfaction of physicists and engineers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63, 289–294. Donnellan, M. B., Kenny, D. A., Trzesniewski, K. H., Lucas, R. E., & Conger, R. D. (2012). Using trait-state models to evaluate the longitudinal consistency of global selfesteem from adolescence to adulthood. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 634–645. Duffy, M. K., Shaw, J. D., Scott, K. L., & Tepper, B. J. (2006). The moderating roles of self-esteem and neuroticism in the relationship between group and individual undermining behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1066–1077. Eatough, E. M., Meier, L. L., Igic, I., Elfering, A., Spector, P. E., & Semmer, N. K. (2016). You want me to do what? Two daily studies of illegitimate tasks and employee well-being. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37, 108–127. Ferris, D. L. (2014). Contingent self-esteem: A review and applications to organizational research. In M. Gagne (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory (pp. 117–142). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2009). Organizational supports and workplace deviance: The mediating role of organization-based self-esteem. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 279–286. Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Lian, H., & Keeping, L. (2009). Self-esteem level and contingencies of self-worth. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1345–1353. Ferris, D. L., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., & Morrison, R (2015). Ostracism, self-esteem, and job performance: When do we self-verify and when do we self-enhance? Academy of Management Journal, 58, 279–297. Ferris, D. L., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., Pang, F. X. J., & Keeping, L. M. (2010). Selfesteem and job performance: The moderating role of self-esteem contingencies. Personnel Psychology, 63, 561–593. Ferris, D. L., Rosen, C. R., Johnson, R. E., Brown, D. J., Risavy, S. D., & Heller, D. (2011). Approach or avoidance (or both?): Integrating core self-evaluations within an approach/avoidance framework. Personnel Psychology, 64, 137–161. Ferris, D. L., Spence, J., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2012). Interpersonal injustice and workplace deviance: An esteem threat perspective. Journal of Management, 38, 1788–1811. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.

Self-Esteem  63

Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Ganster, D. C., & Schaubroeck, J. (1991). Role stress and worker health: An extension of the plasticity hypothesis of self-esteem. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6, 349–360. Gardner, D. G., & Pierce, J. L. (2010). The Core Self-Evaluation Scale: Further construct validation evidence. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 70, 291–304. Gardner, D. G., Van Dyne, L., & Pierce, J. L. (2004). The effects of pay level on organization-based self-esteem and performance: A field study. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 307–322. Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., Qagner, J., Bleidorn, W., Rentfrow, P. J., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2015). Cultural norm fulfillment, interpersonal belonging, or getting ahead? A large-scale cross cultural test of three perspectives on the function of selfesteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 526–548. Gilbert, P., Price, J., & Allan, S. (1995). Social comparison, social attractiveness, and evolution: How might they be related? New Ideas in Psychology, 13, 149–165. Gordijn, E.H. & Stapel, D.A. (2008). When controversial leaders with charisma are effective: The influence of terror on the need for vision and impact of mixed attitudinal messages. European Journal of Social Psychology, 88, 389–411. Grant, A. M., & Wade-Benzoni, K. A. (2009). The hot and cool of death awareness at work: Mortality cues, aging, and self-protective and prosocial motivations. Academy of Management Review, 34, 600–622. Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Chatel, D. (1992). Terror management and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one’s worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212–220. Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L. A., Farnham, S. D., Nosek, B. A., & Mellott, D. S. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review, 109, 3–25. Greenwald, A. G., Bellezza, F. S., & Banaji, M. R. (1988). Is self-esteem a central ingredient of the self-concept? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 34–45. Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the implicit association test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1022–1038. Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480. Gregg, A. P. (2008). Is identity per se irrelevant? A contrarian view of self-verification effects. Depression and Anxiety, 26, 49–59. Hart, D., Atkins, R., & Tursi, N. (2006). Origins and developmental influences on self-esteem. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 157–162). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Heatherton, T. F., & Polivy, J. (1991). Development and validation of a scale for measuring state self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 895–910. Heimpel, S. A., Wood, J. V., Marshall, M. A., & Brown, J. D. (2002). Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 128–147. Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22, 165–196.

64  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Heppner, W. L., Kernis, M. H., Nezlek, J. B., Foster, J., Lakey, C. E., & Goldman, B. M. (2008). Within-person relationships among daily self-esteem, need satisfaction, and authenticity. Psychological Science, 19, 1140–1145. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Johnson, R. E., Rosen, C. C., Chang, C. H. D., & Lin, S. H. J. (2015). Getting to the core of locus of control: Is it an evaluation of the self or the environment? Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1568–1578. Johnson, R. E., Rosen, C. C., & Djurdjevic, E. (2011). Assessing the impact of common method variance on higher order multidimensional constructs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 744–761. Jordan, C. H., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2003). I love me . . . I love me not: Implicit self-esteem, explicit self-esteem, and defensiveness. In S. J. Spencer, S. Fein, M. P. Zanna, & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Motivated social perception: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 9, pp. 117–145). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Jordan, C. H., Spencer, S. J., & Zanna, M. P. (2005). Types of high self-esteem and prejudice: How implicit self-esteem relates to ethnic discrimination among high explicit self-esteem individuals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 693–702. Jordan, C. H., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2013). Fragile self-esteem: The perils and pitfalls of (some) high self-esteem. In V. Zeigler-Hill (Ed.), Self-esteem (pp. 80–98). London: Psychology Press. Judge, T. A. (2009). Core self-evaluations and work success. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 58–62. Judge, T. A., & Bono, J. E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits – selfesteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability – with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 80–92. Judge, T. A., Erez, A., & Bono, J. E. (1998). The power of being positive: The relation between positive self-concept and job performance. Human Performance, 11, 167–187. Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E., & Thoresen, C. J. (2002). Are measures of selfesteem, neuroticism, locus of control, and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core construct? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 693–710. Judge, T. A., & Hurst, C. (2007). Capitalizing on one’s advantages: Role of core selfevaluations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1212–1227. Judge, T. A., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2006). Loving yourself abundantly: Relationship of the narcissistic personality to self- and other perceptions of workplace deviance, leadership, and task and contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 762–776. Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., & Durham, C. C. (1997). The dispositional causes of job satisfaction: A core evaluations approach. Research in Organizational Behavior, 19, 151–188. Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., Durham, C. C., & Kluger, A. N. (1998). Dispositional effects on job and life satisfaction: The role of core evaluations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 17–34. Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2008). Self-esteem and extrinsic career success: Test of a dynamic model. Applied Psychology, 57, 204–224. Kanfer, R., Wanberg, C. R., & Kantrowitz, T. M. (2001). Job search and employment: A personality-motivational analysis and meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 837–855.

Self-Esteem  65

Kavanagh, P. S., Fletcher, G. J., & Ellis, B. J. (2014). The mating sociometer and attractive others: A double-edged sword in romantic relationships. Journal of Social Psychology, 154, 126–141. Kernis, M. H. (2003). Toward a conceptualization of optimal self-esteem. Psychological Inquiry, 14, 1–26. Kernis, M. H. (2005). Measuring self-esteem in context: The importance of stability of self-esteem in psychological functioning. Journal of Personality, 73, 1569–1605. Kernis, M. H., Grannemann, B. D., & Barclay, L. C. (1989). Stability and level of selfesteem as predictors of anger arousal and hostility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 1013–1022. Kernis, M. H., Lakey, C. E., & Heppner, W. L. (2008). Secure versus fragile high self-esteem as a predictor of verbal defensiveness: Converging findings across three different markers. Journal of Personality, 76, 477–512. King, M. R., & Manaster, G. J. (1977). Body image, self-esteem, expectations, selfassessments, and actual success in a simulated job interview. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 589–594. Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Ellis, B. J. (2001). Evolutionary perspectives on self-evaluation and self-esteem. In G. Fletcher & M. Clark (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Vol. 2: Interpersonal processes (pp. 411–436). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Ellis, B. J. (2006). The adaptive functions of self-evaluative psychological mechanisms. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem issues and answers: A sourcebook of current perspectives (pp. 334–339). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Kivimäki, M., & Kalimo, R. (1996). Self-esteem and the occupational stress process: Testing two alternative models in a sample of blue-collar workers. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 187–196. Knee, C. R., Canevello, A., Bush, A. L., & Cook, A. (2008). Relationship-contingent self-esteem and the ups and downs of romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 608–627. Korman, A. K. (1966). Self-esteem variable in vocational choice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 50, 479–486. Korman, A. K. (1967). Relevance of personal need satisfaction for overall satisfaction as a function of self-esteem. Journal of Applied Psychology, 51, 533–538. Korman, A. K. (1970). Toward an hypothesis of work behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 54, 31–41. Kuster, F., Orth, U., & Meier, L. L. (2013). High self-esteem prospectively predicts better work conditions and outcomes. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 668–675. Kwang, T., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? A review of critical tests of self-enhancement versus self-verification. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 263–280. Landau, M.J., Greenberg, J., & Sullivan, D. (2009). Managing terror when self-worth and worldviews collide: Evidence that mortality salience increases reluctance to selfenhance beyond authorities. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 68–79. Lapointe, E., Vandenberghe, C., & Panaccio, A. (2011). Organizational commitment, organization-based self-esteem, emotional exhaustion and turnover: A conservation of resources perspective. Human Relations, 64, 1609–1631. Leary, M. R. (1999). The social and psychological importance of self-esteem. In R. M. Kowalski & M. R. Leary (Eds.), The social psychology of emotional and behavioral

66  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

problems: Interfaces of social and clinical psychology (pp. 197–221). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Leary, M. R. (2004). The function of self-esteem in Terror Management Theory and Sociometer Theory: Comment on Pyszczynski et al. (2004). Psychological Bulletin, 130, 478–482. Leary, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). The nature and function of self-esteem: Sociometer theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 32, pp. 1–62). New York, NY: Academic Press. Leary, M. R., & Downs, D. L. (1995). Interpersonal functions of the self-esteem motive: The self-esteem system as a sociometer. In M. Kernis (Ed.), Efficacy, agency, and selfesteem (pp. 123–144). New York, NY: Plenum. Leary, M. R., Haupt, A., Strausser, K., & Chokel, J. (1998). Calibrating the sociometer: The relationship between interpersonal appraisals and state self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1290–1299. Leary, M. R., Tambor, E., Terdal, S., & Downs, D. L. (1995). Self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor: The sociometer hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 518–530. Leary, M. R., & Tangney, J. P. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press. LePine, J. A., & Van Dyne, L. (1998). Predicting voice behavior in work groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 853–868. Levy, P. E. (1993). Self-appraisal and attributions: A test of a model. Journal of Management, 19, 51–62. Liu, S., Luksyte, A., Zhou, L., Shi, J., & Wang, M. (2005). Overqualification and counterproductive work behaviors: Examining a moderated mediation model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 250–271. MacDonald, G., & Leary, M. R. (2012). Individual differences in self-esteem. In M. Leary & J. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 354–377). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Mahadevan, N., Gregg, A. P., Sedikides, C., & de Waal-Andrews, W. G. (2016). Winners, losers, insiders, and outsiders: Comparing hierometer and sociometer theories of self-regard. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 334. Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337. Marsh, H. W., & Craven, R. G. (2006). Reciprocal effects of self-concept and performance from a multidimensional perspective: Beyond seductive pleasure and unidimensional perspectives. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 133–163. Marsh, H. W., Craven, R. G., & Martin, A. (2006). What is the nature of self-esteem? Unidimensional and multidimensional perspectives. In M. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 16–25). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Marshall, S. L., Parker, P. D., Ciarrochi, J., & Heaven, P. C. (2014). Is self-esteem a cause or consequence of social support? A 4-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 85, 1275–1291. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York, NY: Harper & Row. McGregor, I., Gailliot, M. T., Vasquez, N. A., & Nash, K. A. (2007). Ideological and personal zeal reactions to threat among people with high self-esteem: Motivated promotion focus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1587–1599. McGregor, I., & Marigold, D. C. (2003). Defensive zeal and the uncertain self: What makes you so sure? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 838–852.

Self-Esteem  67

McGregor, I., Nail, P. R., Marigold, D. C., & Kang, S-J. (2005). Defensive pride and consensus: Strength in imaginary numbers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 978–996. Meurs, J. A., Fox, S., Kessler, S. R., & Spector, P. E. (2013). It’s all about me: The role of narcissism in exacerbating the relationship between stressors and counterproductive work behaviors. Work and Stress, 27, 368–382. Morf, C. C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 177–196. Mossholder, K. W., Bedeian, A. G., & Armenakis, A. A. (1981). Role perceptions, satisfaction, and performance: Moderating effects of self-esteem and organizational level. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 28, 224–234. Mossholder, K. W., Bedeian, A. G., & Armenakis, A. A. (1982). Group process-work outcome relationships: A note on the moderating impact of self-esteem. Academy of Management Journal, 25, 575–585. Murray, S. L. (2006). Self-esteem: Its relational contingencies and consequences. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 350–358). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Noser, A., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2014). Investing in the ideal: Does objectified body consciousness mediate the association between appearance contingent self-worth and appearance self-esteem in women? Body Image, 11, 119–125. Nuttin, J. M. (1985). Narcissism beyond Gestalt awareness: The name letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 353–361. Nuttin, J. M. (1987). Affective consequences of mere ownership: The name letter effect in twelve European languages. European Journal of Social Psychology, 17, 381–402. O’Boyle, E. H., Forsyth, D. R., Banks, G. C., & McDaniel, M. A. (2012). A metaanalysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: A social exchange perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 557–579. O’Brien, E. J., Bartoletti, M., Leitzel, J. D., & O’Brien, J. P. (2006). Global self-esteem: Divergent and convergent validity issues. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 26–35). New York, NY: Psychology Press. O’Reilly, C. A., Doerr, B., Caldwell, D. F., & Chatman, J. A. (2014). Narcissistic CEOs and executive compensation. The Leadership Quarterly, 25, 218–231. Orth, U., & Robins, R. W. (2014). The development of self-esteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 381–387. Orth, U., Robins, R. W., Trzesniewski, K. H., Maes, J., & Schmitt, M. (2009). Low self-esteem is a risk factor for depressive symptoms from young adulthood to old age. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 472–478. Orth, U., Robins, R. W., & Widaman, K. F. (2012). Life-span development of selfesteem and its effects on important life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 1271–1288. Owens, B. P., Wallace, A. S., & Waldman, D. A. (2015). Leader narcissism and follower outcomes: The counterbalancing effect of leader humility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1203–1213. Oyserman, D., Elmore, K., & Smith, G. (2012). Self, self-concept, and identity. In M. Leary & J. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 69–104). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Park, L. E., & Crocker, J. (2008). Contingencies of self-worth and responses to negative interpersonal feedback. Self and Identity, 7, 184–203.

68  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556–563. Pelham, B. W., & Swann, W. B. (1989). From self-conceptions to self-worth: On the sources and structure of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 672–680. Peng, A. C., & Zeng, W. (in press). Workplace ostracism and deviant and helping behaviors: The moderating role of 360 degree feedback. Journal of Organizational Behavior. Pierce, J. L., & Gardner, D. G. (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context: A review of the organization-based self-esteem literature. Journal of Management, 30, 591–622. Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., & Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organizationbased self-esteem: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 622–648. Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Dunham, R. B., & Cummings, L. L. (1993). Moderation by organization-based self-esteem of role condition-employee response relationships. Academy of Management Journal, 36, 271–288. Pilegge, A. J., & Holtz, R. (1997). The effects of social identity on the self-set goals and task performance of high and low self-esteem individuals. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 17–26. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (1999). A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts: An extension of Terror Management Theory. Psychological Review, 106, 835–845. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435–468. Pyszczynski, T., & Kesebir, P. (2013). An existential perspective on the need for selfesteem. In V. Zeigler-Hill (Ed.), Self-esteem (pp. 124–144). London: Psychology Press. Reitz, A. K., Motti-Stefandi, F., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2016). Me, us, and them: Testing sociometer theory in a socially diverse real-life context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110, 908–920. Resick, C. J., Whitman, D. S., Weingarden, S. M., & Hiller, N. J. (2009). The bright-side and the dark-side of CEO personality: Examining core self-evaluations, narcissism, transformational leadership, and strategic influence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1365–1381. Richter, A., & Ridout, N. (2011). Self-esteem moderates affective reactions to briefly presented emotional faces. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 328–331. Robins, R. W., Hendin, H. M., & Trzesniewski, K. H. (2001). Measuring global selfesteem: Construct validation of a single item measure and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 151–161. Robins, R. W., Trzesniewski, K. H., Tracy, J. L., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2002). Global self-esteem across the life span. Psychology and Aging, 17, 423–434. Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science (Vol. 3, pp. 184–256). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Self-Esteem  69

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schaubroeck, J., Kim, Y. J., & Peng, A. C. (2012). The self-concept in organizational psychology: Clarifying and differentiating the constructs. International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 27, 1–38. Schilpzand, P., Leavitt, K., & Lim, S. (2016). Incivility hates company: Shared incivility attenuates rumination, stress, and psychological withdrawal by reducing self-blame. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 133, 33–44. Schroth, H. A., & Shah, P. (2000). Procedures: Do we really want to know them? An examination of the effects of procedural justice on self-esteem. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 462–471. Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the self-evaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317–338. Sedikides, C., & Campbell, W. K. (in press). Narcissistic force meets systemic resistance: The energy clash model. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-enhancement: Food for thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 102–116. Sedikides, C., & Strubbe, M. J. (1997). Self-evaluation: To thine own self be good, to thine own self be sure, to thine own self be true, and to thine own self be better. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 209–269. Showers, C. J., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2006). Pathways among self-knowledge and selfesteem: How are self-esteem and self-knowledge linked? Are these links direct or indirect? In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem issues and answers: A source book of current perspectives (pp. 216–223). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Showers, C. J., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2012). Organization of self-knowledge: Features, functions, and flexibility. In M. R. Leary & J. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 105–123). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Sliter, M. T., Sinclair, R. R., Yuan, Z., & Mohr, C. D. (2014). Don’t fear the reaper: Trait death anxiety, mortality salience, and occupational health. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 759–769. Spector, P. E., & Jex, S. M. (1998). Development of four self-report measures of job stressors and strain: Interpersonal conflict at work scale, organizational constraints scale, quantitative workload inventory, and physical symptoms inventory. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3, 356–367. Srivastava, S., & Beer, J. S., (2005). How self-evaluations relate to being liked by others: Integrating sociometer and attachment perspectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 966–977. Stein, J. H., & Cropanzano, R. (2011). Death awareness and organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32, 1189–1193. Stinson, D. A., Cameron, J. J., & Huang, E. T. (2015). Your sociometer is telling you something: How the self-esteem system functions to resolve important interpersonal dilemmas. In V. Zeigler-Hill, L. L. M. Welling, & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Evolutionary perspectives on social psychology (pp. 137–148). New York, NY: Springer. Suls, J. (2006). On the divergent and convergent validity of self-esteem. In M. H. Kernis (Ed.), Self-esteem: Issues and answers (pp. 36–43). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

70  Douglas J. Brown and Virgil Zeigler-Hill

Swann, W. B., & Buhrmester, M. D. (2012). Self-verification: The search for coherence. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 405–424). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Swann, W. B., Jr., Chang-Schneider, C., & Larsen McClarty, K. (2007). Do people’s self-views matter? Self-concept and self-esteem in everyday life. American Psychologist, 62, 84–94. Swann, W. B., Jr., Pelham, B. W., & Krull, D. S. (1989). Agreeable fancy or disagreeable truth? Reconciling self-enhancement and self-verification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 782–791. Tafarodi, R. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1995). Self-linking and self-competence as dimensions of global self-esteem: Initial validation of a measure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 65, 322–342. Tafarodi, R. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr., (2001). Two-dimensional self-esteem: Theory and measurement. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 653–673. Tharenou, P. (1979). Employee self-esteem: A review of the literature. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 15, 316–346. Tharenou, P., & Harker, P. (1982). Organizational correlates of employee self-esteem. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 797–805. Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., Moffitt, T. E., Robins, R. W., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2006). Low self-esteem during adolescence predicts poor health, criminal behavior, and limited economic prospects during adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 42, 381–390. Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Robins, R. W. (2003). Stability of self-esteem across the life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 205–220. Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Robins, R. W. (2013). Development of selfesteem. In V. Zeigler-Hill (Ed.), Self-esteem (pp. 60–79). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Turban, D. B., & Keon, T. L. (1993). Organizational attractiveness: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 184–193. Van Dyne, L., Vandewalle, D., Kostova, T., Latham, M. E., & Cummings, L. L. (2000). Collectivism, propensity to trust and self-esteem as predictors of organizational citizenship in a non-work setting. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 3–23. Vazire, S., & Wilson, T. D. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of self-knowledge. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Vinokur, A. D., & Schul, Y. (1997). Mastery and inoculation against setbacks as active ingredients in the JOBS intervention for the unemployed. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 65, 867–877. Vogel, R. M., & Mitchell, M. S. (in press). The motivational effects of diminished selfesteem for employees who experience abusive supervision. Journal of Management. Wanberg, C. R. (1997). Antecedents and outcomes of coping behaviors among unemployed and reemployed individuals. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 731–744. Wanberg, C. R., Glomb, T. M., Song, Z., & Sorenson, S. (2005). Job-search persistence during unemployment: A 10-wave longitudinal study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 411–430. Watson, D., Suls, J., & Haig, J. (2002). Global self-esteem in relation to structural models of personality and affectivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 185–197. Whelpley, C. E., & McDaniel, M. A. (2016). Self-esteem and counterproductive work behaviors: A systematic review. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31, 850–863.

Self-Esteem  71

Wiesenfeld, B. M., Swann, W. B., Brockner, J., & Bartel, C. A. (2007). Is more fairness always preferred? Self-esteem moderates reactions to procedural justice. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1235–1253. Wojciszke, B., & Abele, A. E. (2008). The primacy of communion over agency and its reversals in evaluations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38, 1139–1147. Woo, S. E., Sims, C. S., Rupp, D. E., & Gibbons, A. M. (2008). Development engagement within and following developmental assessment centers: Considering feedback favorability and self-assessor agreement. Personnel Psychology, 61, 727–759. Wood, J. V., Heimpel, S. A., & Michela, J. L. (2003). Savoring versus dampening: Self-esteem differences in regulating positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 566–580. Wylie, R. C. (1979). The self-concept: Vol. 2. Theory and research on selected topics. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2009). Work engagement and financial returns: A diary study on the role of job and personal resources. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 183–200. Zeigler-Hill, V. (2006). Discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem: Implications for narcissism and self-esteem instability. Journal of Personality, 74, 119–143. Zeigler-Hill, V. (2011). The connections between self-esteem and psychopathology. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 41, 157–164. Zeigler-Hill, V. (2013). The importance of self-esteem. In V. Zeigler-Hill (Ed.), Selfesteem (pp. 1–20). London: Psychology Press. Zeigler-Hill, V., Clark, C. B., & Beckman, T. E. (2011). Fragile self-esteem and the interpersonal circumplex: Are feelings of self-worth associated with interpersonal style? Self and Identity, 10, 509–536. Zeigler-Hill, V., Enjaian, B., Holden, C. J., & Southard, A. C. (2014). Using self-esteem instability to disentangle the connection between self-esteem level and perceived aggression. Journal of Research in Personality, 49, 47–51. Zeigler-Hill, V., Holden, C. J., Southard, A. C., Noser, A. E., Enjaian, B., & Pollock, N. C. (2016). The dark sides of high and low self-esteem. In V. Zeigler-Hill & D. K. Marcus (Eds.), The dark side of personality: Science and practice in social, personality, and clinical psychology (pp. 325–340). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Zeigler-Hill, V., & Jordan, C. H. (2010). Two faces of self-esteem: Implicit and explicit forms of self-esteem. In B. Gawronski & B. K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications (pp. 392–407). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Zeigler-Hill, V., & Showers, C. J. (2007). Self-structure and self-esteem stability: The hidden vulnerability of compartmentalization. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 143–159.

4 SOCIAL IDENTIFICATIONS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

It has long been recognized that being a member of an organization can, sometimes to a significant extent, become part of how people see themselves. Such organizational identification is not without consequence. In organizational psychology and organizational behavior, the study of organizational identification took off when Ashforth and Mael (1989) proposed a conceptualization of it based on social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Since then, the study of social identity processes in organizations has flourished, in part because it has continued to draw on research in social psychology outside of the organizational domain (e.g., Hogg & Terry, 2000). In this chapter, we outline the development of the social identity perspective in organizational psychology and organizational behavior, noting along the way how this has been infused and continues to be infused by work in social psychology.

Origins of the Social Identity Perspective in Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Group memberships to a greater or lesser extent influence how we see ourselves. People not only have a sense of “I” as a unique individual separate and different from others, but also a sense of “we” as part of a group defined by characteristics they share with others in the group. This sense of “we,” this self-definition in terms of what we share with our group, is captured by the concept of social identity, and social identification reflects the process through which a group membership becomes part of our identity (Abrams & Hogg, 2010; Hogg, in press; Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). (Note that social identity research generally uses the terms social identity and social identification interchangeably, but

Social Identifications in Organizations  73

research in management and organizational behavior tends to draw a sharper distinction between organizational identification as individual self-definition and organizational identity as a shared perception of the organization’s characteristics that are central, enduring, and distinctive; Pratt, Schultz, Ashfort, & Ravasi, 2016.) Social identity theory was originally developed as a theory of intergroup relations (e.g., Tajfel, 1978). The core notion was that people have a natural tendency to categorize self and others, with the most fundamental categorization being the distinction between ingroup and outgroup, between “us” and “them.” Such us–them distinctions can be highly consequential, because they may invite intergroup biases; perceiving self and others in terms of “us” and “them” can sponsor a tendency to view ingroup members more positively than outgroup members, to trust ingroup members more than outgroup members, and to treat ingroup members better than outgroup members, out of a desire to positively distinguish “us” from “them.” Research in organizational psychology and organizational behavior has much more of an individual and intragroup focus than an intergroup focus. The emphasis in developing the social identity perspective within organizational behavior was much more on individual and group processes than on intergroup processes (even though the earliest applications of social identity theory in organizations were to intergroup relations; Brown, 1978). Early research on organizational identification by and large treated organizational identification as a loosely defined concept without a clear underlying theory (Rotondi, 1975). All this changed when Ashforth and Mael (1989) proposed in their seminal Academy of Management Review article that organizational identification was best understood from the perspective of social identity theory – as a self-definition that revolved around a view of the self in terms of a social group membership and the characteristics associated with that membership. This conceptualization not only sparked the development of a measure of organizational identification that has become the most widely used organizational identification measure (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; cf. Mael & Tetrick, 1992; van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006), but also powerfully introduced the social identity perspective to the study of organizational behavior by articulating implications for such outcomes as performance and turnover. In the following section, we first provide a review in broad strokes capturing the application and development of social identity research in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. This review revolves around five areas of research: (a) individual attitudes and behavior capturing a focus on serving the organization’s best interest, as evidenced first and foremost in performance, prosocial behavior, and reduced turnover; (b) the interface of social identity and social exchange; (c) leadership; (d) organizational change; and (e) intergroup relations. We then follow up with a more future-oriented look at the possible further development of the field.

74  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

Social Identity and Organizational Behavior: A Review in Broad Strokes Serving the Organization’s Best Interest At its heart, social identification is an individual level concept; it captures the extent to which the individual conceives of the self in terms of a certain group membership. Perhaps not surprisingly, the research following directly in the footsteps of the Ashforth and Mael (1989) argument for a social identity conceptualization of organizational behavior tended to focus on individual level outcomes. One of the key influences of social identification from an organizational behavior perspective is that it leads individuals to experience collective interest as self-interest (i.e., the interest of the “collective self”; Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Accordingly, organizational identification can be expected to result in a motivation to pursue the organization’s collective interest (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994; van Knippenberg, 2000). One key implication of this is that people who identify more with the organization should be more motivated to perform well in their jobs, as well as to display prosocial behavior (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior) that helps others and the organization as a whole to function effectively. Higher identification should also result in more loyalty to the organization, as evidenced in lower turnover and turnover intentions. Research has consistently supported this proposition for turnover (intentions) (Mael & Ashforth, 1995; van Knippenberg & van Schie, 2000) as well as discretionary prosocial actions such as alumni’s financial support for their school and employee citizenship behavior (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; van Dick, van Knippenberg, Kerschreiter, Hertel, & Wieseke, 2008). A meta-analysis by Riketta (2005) established these conclusions quantitatively in a comprehensive review of the empirical evidence available at the time. Importantly, however, for what is perhaps the outcome of core interest to many students of organizational behavior – performance – the overall effect size in the Riketta (2005) analysis was very small. This is consistent with the notion that the relationship between identification and performance is moderated by, and contingent on, a number of factors; these include the extent to which social identity is salient, high performance is perceived as group-normative, and high performance falls within the individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as resources and opportunities (van Knippenberg, 2000). Indeed, both experimental and field research have painted a picture of the identification– performance relationship as moderated. The core idea here is well captured by Hekman and associates’ suggestion to view organizational identification as a source of “unchanneled” motivation to serve the organization’s best interest, with situational influences moderating how this motivation is channeled towards certain behaviors (Hekman, van

Social Identifications in Organizations  75

Knippenberg, & Pratt, 2016). In their own research, Hekman et al. illustrated this by distinguishing between two types of performance behaviors typical of professional occupations, building on Higgins’ (1998) work on regulatory focus – promotion-focused diagnosis behavior and prevention-focused treatment behavior. They show that the extent to which identification promotes diagnosis behavior or treatment behavior is contingent on the extent to which they see their membership group norms as valuing either behavior. In other words, perceived group norms channel identification-based motivation towards normconsistent behavior (cf. Johnson, Chang, & Yang, 2010). Van Gils and associates established that the same logic holds for other desirable behavioral outcomes such as moral decision-making (van Gils, Hogg, Van Quaquebeke, & van Knippenberg, 2017). Their research showed that organizational identification was positively related to moral decision-making to the extent that the organizational had an ethical climate (cf. group norms). The notion of situational influences to channel identification-based motivation thus is not limited to performance as an outcome. Moderating influences are not limited to group norms either (also see van Knippenberg, 2000, for a review of the older literature in this respect). Individual differences can also moderate, such as in the evidence that people with a prosocial value orientation behave cooperatively regardless of their level of identification, whereas individuals with a proself orientation behave more cooperatively under higher identification (i.e., to the extent that they experience collective interest as self-interest; De Cremer, van Knippenberg, van Dijk, & van Leeuwen, 2008). In a twist to such an individual difference focus, Dietz and colleagues found that level of analysis was associated with different influences of identification (Dietz, van Knippenberg, Hirst, & Restubog, 2015). They focused on the interaction of (team) identification and performance goal orientation, and found that, because performance orientation motivates competition, it would be more positively related to individual performance under low identification (i.e., when individuals focus on interpersonal comparison and competition), but more positively related to team performance at high levels of identification (i.e., when comparison and competition would be understood at the intergroup level). The state of the science as it currently stands is that identification motivates organization-serving attitudes and behavior. This conclusion comes with the further qualification, however, that how this motivation expresses itself in behavior is contingent on moderating factors that channel the identificationbased motivation towards certain behaviors. This is not to deny the basic logic of the social identity analysis, but rather to recognize that the notion of motivation to serve the organization’s interest cannot mechanically be applied to all positive organizational attitudes and behavior unconditionally. Multiple organizational identifications. Work in which the influence of identification itself has been placed center stage also recognizes that organizational

76  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

membership typically involves multiple embedded group memberships. Employees typically are not only a member of the organization, but also of their department, work group, or team – and smaller units may actually be part of larger units that are again part of the organization as a whole, such as departments embedded in business units that together make up the organization. Organizations may not simply invite organizational identification; they may also invite multiple organizational identifications, such as organizational identification and team identification. Van Knippenberg and van Schie (2000) argued that this recognition of multiple foci of identification is important, because the membership group that would typically invite the stronger identification is not the organization but individuals’ immediate social environment – the team, work group, or department. Drawing on social psychological research in the social identity tradition that suggests social identifications only affect attitudes and behavior to the extent that they are salient (i.e., cognitively activated; Turner et al., 1987), van Knippenberg and van Schie argued that people’s stronger identification with their team as well as their day-to-day interaction with fellow team members as opposed to members from the organization as a whole has significant consequences. Employees’ team identification would typically be more salient to people than their organizational identification and therefore more predictive of attitudes and behavior than organizational identification. Results of the van Knippenberg and van Schie study support this conclusion. The stronger identification with the team was meta-analytically replicated by Riketta and van Dick (2005). These authors also extended this analysis with the meta-analytically supported proposition that organizational identifications would be most predictive of outcomes that are conceptually associated with that level of identification – team attitudes and behavior are more strongly predicted by team identification, organizational attitudes and behaviors are more strongly predicted by organizational identification (also see Olkkonen & Lipponen, 2006). In a further development of the multiple identifications analysis, van Dick et al. (2008) show that organizational identification and team identification interact in predicting job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors, such that these two identifications augmented each other’s influence. The logic here is that because team identification is nested within organizational identification (i.e., being a member of the team implies being a member of the organization) self-definition is more aligned and thus the level of identification has a stronger influence when both identifications are similar in strength. Accordingly, they predicted and found that high levels of one type of identification were more strongly associated with positive outcomes when accompanied by high levels of the other type of identification. In a different twist to this notion of alignment, Hekman, Steensma, Bigley, and Hereford (2009) focused on organizational and professional identification. They proposed that the implications of one group membership may conflict

Social Identifications in Organizations  77

with the implications of the other. This could for instance occur when group norms differ between the professional group and the organization. Taking such potential identity tensions as a starting point, Hekman et  al. predicted that organizational identification would be more predictive of work outcomes among those with lower professional identification. Also bringing in the notion of group-normative expectations, they showed that management expectations to adopt new work behavior were more strongly related to the adoption of this behavior the more people identified with the organization, and this interactive influence was stronger with lower professional identification. There is thus a clear basis to conclude that multiple social identifications at work influence organizational behavior, and that these cannot be treated interchangeably (even when they may sometimes have very similar effects; Hekman et al., 2016).

Social Identity and Social Exchange Organizational identification reflects the psychological linkage between individual and organization. It is, however, not the only concept proposed to reflect this linkage – indeed, the social identity conceptualization of organizational identification only emerged on the scene when there were already two well-established ways of thinking of this psychological linkage: organizational commitment and social exchange. There is substantial research on organizational commitment (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002; Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Organizational commitment is an attitude without accompanying theory (Solinger, van Olffen, & Roe, 2008), which does not make it the most useful platform on which to build an understanding of the psychology of organizational membership. In recognition of the established status of organizational commitment, early social identity studies of organizational identification established conceptually (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Pratt, 1998) and empirically (Mael & Tetrick, 1992; van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006) that the key difference between commitment and identification is that identification reflects selfdefinition whereas commitment reflects an attitude towards the organization – even when identification may be an antecedent to commitment (Johnson & Chang, 2006; Johnson, Chang, & Yang, 2010). There is a taxonomy of types of commitment (Meyer et al., 2002), but taxonomy is not theory and lacking theory there is not much insight to be gained in further pursuing the differentiation of organizational identification and organizational commitment. The social exchange perspective on the employment relationship is a different issue. The social identity perspective is, so to speak, the new kid on the block and the minority voice in the study of the employee–organization relationship that is dominated by the social exchange perspective (van Knippenberg, 2012). The social exchange perspective understands social relations – including the employee–organization relationship – as governed by the norm of reciprocity.

78  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

A high-quality exchange relationship is one in which parties repay benefits received in kind, exchange valued benefits, and build mutual trust in reciprocity with the other party. The core implication of the social exchange perspective for the employee– organization relationship is captured by research on perceived organizational support (POS; Eisenberger, Huntington, Huchison, & Sowa, 1986; see Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002, for a meta-analytic review). POS is understood to reflect the organization’s contributions to the social exchange relationship with the employee, and following the social exchange logic organizations can expect higher POS to be repaid with positive outcomes (e.g., loyalty, citizenship, performance; cf. Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Van Knippenberg, van Dick, and Taveres (2007) contrasted the social identity and the social exchange perspective, arguing that the key difference between the two was that whereas the social exchange logic was contingent on the employee perceiving the self and the organization as two separate psychological entities, the social identity perspective understood organizational identification to reflect a psychological merging of self and organization (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). Accordingly, van Knippenberg et al. proposed that POS would be less predictive of employee outcomes with higher organizational identification. To test this prediction they focused on turnover intentions and found support for the prediction. At the same time, however, there is evidence that treatment by the organization, as understood through an organizational justice lens, may have a stronger relationship with positive outcomes for those with a stronger social identification with the organization – with, e.g., procedural justice having stronger effects for those with a collective identification, or interactional justice having stronger effects for those with a relational identification (Johnson, Selenta, & Lord, 2006). These observations also fit with a conceptual argument that identity orientations affect the nature of social exchange rather than its importance (Flynn, 2005). In a sense building on these perspectives to provide an alternative reading of the van Knippenberg et al. (2007) findings, Tavares, van Knippenberg, and van Dick (2016) developed this analysis further to propose that high identification would not render one insensitive to POS, but rather would change what one would view as acceptable “currencies of exchange”: the influence of POS would be visible on different outcome variables under high versus low identification. The higher one’s organizational identification, the more one would consider negative behavior like turnover as inappropriate in response to low POS (i.e., being poorly treated by the organization). However, with higher identification one would be more likely to see it as appropriate to respond to low POS by withholding positive behavior like organizational citizenship behavior. That is, identification would weaken the relationship between POS and negative outcomes like turnover, but strengthen the relationship between POS and positive outcomes like citizenship. This was exactly what Tavares et al. found.

Social Identifications in Organizations  79

Hekman, Bigley, Steensma, and Hereford (2009) conducted a study that in a sense integrates part of this social identity versus social exchange analysis and the analysis of multiple identifications, focusing on the interplay of organizational identification, professional identification, and POS. They too predicted that POS would be more predictive of citizenship behavior with higher organizational identification (cf. Tavares et al., 2016). Consistent with the Hekman, Steensma, Bigley, and Hereford (2009) argument regarding conflicting identifications, they extended this analysis with the prediction and evidence that the stronger POS influence with higher organizational identification would hold more with lower professional identification. In sum, the emerging picture is a complex one. Organizational identification is a positive influence, but its influence is contingent on other identifications, situational influences that channel identification-based motivation towards behavior, and social exchange processes.

Social Identity and Leadership The social identity analysis of organizational behavior may have started out placing organizational identification center stage, but the social identity perspective is broader than purely a focus on the influence of social identification. In research in organizational psychology and organizational behavior, this has been particularly evident in the study of leadership. Leadership research may be one of the areas with the longest histories in the behavioral sciences. Traditionally a strong focus in social psychology, the emphasis in leadership research shifted from social psychology to organizational psychology and organizational behavior. Regardless of its disciplinary focus, however, there has been a long tradition of studying leadership with an understanding of leaders as somewhat set apart from the groups they lead. The social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001; Hogg, van Knippenberg, & Rast, 2012a; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003) in a sense anchored on this observation to argue that this ignores an important fact that leaders typically are also a member of the group they lead, or at least share a group membership with subordinates within the greater context in which the group is embedded (e.g., the organization; for instance, even when the CEO is not a member of one’s team, the team and the CEO share membership of the organization), and this shared group membership may provide a powerful backdrop informing perceptions of and responses to leadership. Core to the social identity theory of leadership is the concept of leader group prototypicality. The group prototype is a mental representation that captures what is defining and distinctive of the group – the prototype captures the understanding of the shared social identity. The group prototype is a potentially important source of influence because it captures what is groupnormative; it captures the shared social reality of the group including beliefs and values, dos and don’ts. Leader group prototypicality reflects the extent to

80  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

which the leader is perceived to embody the group prototype – the extent to which the leader is not only “one of us” but also represents what is core to us. To the extent that followers identify with the group (i.e., the social identity is core to their self-perception) and social identity is salient, the perception that the leader is group prototypical instills trust in the leader and an openness to the leader’s influence. As recent narrative reviews indicate (Hogg et al., 2012a; van Knippenberg, 2011), the social identity analysis of leadership is well-supported with evidence from the lab and the field, with different operationalizations of prototypicality and different indicators of leadership effectiveness (e.g., performance; van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005; creativity; Hirst, van Dick, & van Knippenberg, 2009), and with evidence from different countries on different continents. These conclusions are meta-analytically supported – there is a large overall relationship between leader prototypicality and leader support (Barreto & Hogg, in press). The analysis has also been further developed beyond the initial evidence that leader group prototypicality is more strongly related to leader effectiveness with higher social identification and social identity salience (Hains, Hogg, & Duck, 1997; Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001). Further developments, for instance, show that when leaders are not perceived to be group prototypical they can gain credentials by group-serving actions (Platow & van Knippenberg, 2001; van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005) – or put differently, leader group prototypicality substitutes for behavioral evidence of group-serving intentions (Giessner & van Knippenberg, 2008). More recent developments in social psychology have put great emphasis on the uncertainty reduction function of social identity (Hogg, 2007, 2012), and integrating these insights into the social identity analysis of leadership has also shown that individual differences and contextual influences on the desire to reduce uncertainty make followers more sensitive to leader group prototypicality (Pierro, Cicero, Bonaiuto, van Knippenberg, & Kruglanski, 2005). Research in the social identity theory of leadership emphasizes what happens at higher levels of group identification, but it has also recognized that other processes not tied to social identity may govern responses to leadership at lower levels of identification and social identity salience. These include the interpersonal relationship between leader and follower (Hogg et al., 2005) and the extent to which the leader matches stereotypical perceptions of leadership (Hains et al., 1997). The primary role for identification in the social identity theory of leadership is as a moderator, but leadership research more generally has also pointed to the role of leadership in building organizational identifications as a way to stimulate positive outcomes (i.e., a mediator role for identification). Early analyses along these lines followed in the charismatic-transformational leadership tradition (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993) that has been discredited because of conceptual

Social Identifications in Organizations  81

and empirical validity problems (van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). More recent research has, however, moved beyond charismatic-transformational leadership and has also linked identification to other aspects of leadership, such as leader fairness (Ullrich, Christ, & van Dick, 2009; see van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004, for a review). This focus on leadership as a cause of identification is an important bridge between the leadership stream of research described in this section and the stream of research on the influence of organizational identifications described in the previous section. Interestingly, part of what this research shows is that leaders are also influenced in their behavior by their social identification (Giessner, van Knippenberg, Sleebos, & van Ginkel, 2013; Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012; van Dick, Hirst, Grojean, & Wieseke, 2007).

Social Identity and Organizational Change Large-scale organizational change is challenging to implement successfully, and it has long been recognized that one of the reasons employees are often resistant to change is identity concerns (Rousseau, 1998). Organizational practices and the way in which an organization is structured can easily become experienced as an expression of the organization’s identity, and organizational changes can thus be experienced as threats to a valued identity. Organizational identification may thus invite resistance to change (also see Fiol, 2002), and change may weaken identification because employees experience a discontinuity of identity (van Dick, Ullrich, & Tissington, 2006; van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, Monden, & de Lima, 2002). Mergers and acquisitions become a focal point in this stream of research, because a merger with another organization can be a sudden disruption of organizational identity (for a review, see Giessner, Ullrich, & van Dick, 2011). This research underscores the point that organizational change may have identity implications – or at least that employees may respond to the change from the perspective of the identity implications they perceive. This research shows that pre-merger organizational identification is more likely to transfer to the post-merger organization for members of the dominant (e.g., acquiring) organization than for members of the dominated (e.g., acquired organization), presumably because the former will have a stronger sense of continuity of identity (van Knippenberg et al., 2002; cf. van Leeuwen, van Knippenberg, & Ellemers, 2003). The research also shows that the perception of permeable group boundaries attenuates negative identification effects from a merger among low status group members (Terry, Carey, & Callan, 2001), and that persuasive motives for a merger (i.e., the perception that the merger is necessary) can substitute for such perceived continuity of identity (Giessner, 2011) – arguably because if survival is at stake, merging ensures continuity of identity better than not merging.

82  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

Research in social identity and organizational change also links with the social identity analysis of leadership to show that more group prototypical leaders are better able to overcome resistance to change because they are seen more as agents of continuity of identity (van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, & Bobbio, 2008; cf. Pierro, Cicero, Bonaiuto, van Knippenberg, & Kruglanski, 2007; van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005). This leadership of change research connects with a different research tradition that adopts an organizational identity perspective in qualitative research to show that leaders may effectuate change when they are able to change employees’ understanding of the organizational identity (Chreim, 2005; Corley & Gioia, 2004; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991; Ravasi & Schultz, 2006; for a review, see van Knippenberg, 2016). Research in social identity and organizational change thus points to a leadership role that may be particularly relevant in engendering change: leaders as shaping people’s understanding of the shared social identity (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). Beyond qualitative research, this is a largely unexplored aspect of leadership that is worthy of further attention in developing the social identity analysis of leadership and organizational behavior.

Social Identity and Intergroup Relations in Organizations Social identity theory started out as a theory of intergroup relations in social psychology. Its core notion in this respect was that the mere categorization of self and others as ingroup and outgroup could be sufficient to invite intergroup biases favoring own group over other groups to the detriment of intergroup relations (Tajfel, 1978). Not surprisingly, studies of intergroup relations were among the earliest social identity studies in organizational psychology and organizational behavior (see van Knippenberg, 2003, for a review). These studies showed evidence for the social identity perspective on intergroup relations – for instance, in showing that work group identification was a negative influence on intergroup relations (Brown, 1978; Brown, Condor, Mathews, Wade, & Williams, 1986; Brown & Williams, 1984) whereas organizational identification would be a positive influence (Hennessy & West, 1999), and in showing that lower-status groups were more prone to bias than high-status groups in a merger context (Terry & Callan, 1998). Follow-up research has pointed to the interplay of organizational identification and work group identification, noting that the focus on the organization as a whole, reflected in organizational identification, can counteract the negative influence that work group identification may have on intergroup relations (Richter, West, van Dick, & Dawson, 2006). This is a view that is consistent with notions in social psychology that intergroup relationships may be more positive when there is emphasis not only on the superordinate (e.g., organizational) identity but also on the group (e.g., department) identity (i.e., “dual identity”; Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000). It is also consistent with evidence from

Social Identifications in Organizations  83

the study of multiple foci of identification (see the discussion in a previous section) that organizational identification and work group identification typically are positively related rather than in opposition (even when they in principle can vary independently; cf. van Dick et al., 2008). More recent developments in this line of research by Hogg, van Knippenberg, and Rast (2012b) have drawn on the state of the science in social psychology, however, to argue that the combination of work group identification and organizational identification may invite a process of ingroup projection (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999): members of a group within the organization (e.g., the department) may see their own group identity as capturing the identity of the organization as a whole and react negatively to other groups within the organization as deviating from that ideal type identity. That is, even when work group identification and organizational identification may be positively related, this relationship may be based on a mental representation of the organizational identity that recognizes the work group as the core of the organizational identity and other groups as more peripheral; this in turn may invite intergroup biases rather than intergroup harmony. Accordingly, Hogg and colleagues (2012b) argued in their analysis of intergroup leadership that the more effective and sustainable approach to managing intergroup relations is not a focus on the overarching identity (i.e., the organizational identity) or on dual identity, but on intergroup relational identity – i.e., self-definition in which the group identity is understood as based in important part in the group’s relationship with other groups. Intergroup relational identity is the collective identity counterpart of the notion of relational identity identified at the interpersonal level (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Hogg et al. outline how in contrast to relational identities, personal and collective identity are comparative – that is, focused on distinguishing the self (personal) or group (collective) from other individuals (personal) or groups (collective), which is associated with a striving towards superiority of the self or ingroup. Relational identities, both interpersonal and intergroup, are instead defined around salient and positive relationships and this offers a much more sustainable and natural basis for positive interpersonal or intergroup relationships than comparative identities. The current state of the science in the social identity study of intergroup relations in organizations is thus that there are competing cases for the identity emphasis that would be most effective in building positive intergroup relations – organizational identity, dual identity, and intergroup relational identity. The latter case is the newest development in this line of research and the least tested. Future research would advance our understanding here by systematically exploring the merits of these different cases and their contingencies. A different area of research that draws on social identity from an intergroup relations perspective is that of organizational (team) diversity. Research in this area has mainly focused on team diversity in demographic and functionrelated attributes. It has emphasized both the potential benefits of diversity as

84  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

an informational resource, and the potential downside of diversity as a source of interpersonal tensions and disrupted team process (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007; Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). The understanding of these potentially negative effects is strongly grounded in the social identity analysis of intergroup relations. Initially, this was mainly evident in the argument that similarities and dissimilarities between people may spark intergroup biases that disrupt team processes (see Williams & O’Reilly, 1998, for a review). Later work incorporated insights from social psychology research on the salience of social categorizations (Turner et al., 1987) to identify key contingencies of the extent to which diversity would invite intergroup bias. This perspective was also important in integrating the informational resource perspective that highlights the positive effects of diversity and the social identity perspective that tended to highlight the negative effects of diversity in the proposition that intergroup biases disrupt group information processing (van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004). The latter understanding currently seems to represent the state of the science in diversity research (van Knippenberg & Mell, 2016).

Looking Forward: Important Next Steps in Developing the Social Identity Perspective Social identity research in organizational behavior shows that from a narrowly defined perspective of an ingroup, group identification is a positive influence on group life. Research in multiple identities, intergroup relations, and change suggests important qualifications to this overly simplified conclusion, however. An organization is not a stable, homogeneous group, but is better viewed as a network of groups, with smaller groups nested within larger groups (e.g., departments within the organization as a whole, different subgroupings within a department), and moreover a group that changes over time in ways that may be experienced as disruptive to members’ sense of identity. Recent developments advancing the concept of intergroup relational identity (Hogg et al., 2012b) also underscore that group identities can be defined in ways that are more competitive or harmonious vis-à-vis other individuals or groups. What this points to for us as a key direction for future research that may integrate several of the themes reviewed here, is the issue of the social construal of one’s sense of identity. Research in the social identity analysis of leadership has outlined how leaders may be entrepreneurs of identity (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), actively shaping people’s understanding of the shared social identity. Recent social identity research in leadership of change has argued how this also would include a role for leaders as agents of continuity (van Knippenberg et al., 2008) actively shaping people’s understanding of the identity implications of organizational change. In a related vein, Hogg et al. (2012b) have argued that the core of effective intergroup leadership is the active construal of a relational

Social Identifications in Organizations  85

intergroup identity. Whereas these are all examples from leadership research, the key issue for us here is that these are all examples of the active shaping of one’s sense of identity. Leadership may be an important influence here, but it need not be the only influence. A key challenge and exciting opportunity for the future development of the social identity perspective in organizational behavior is to develop our understanding of influences on, and the process of, social identity construal from a recognition that organizational behavior is contingent on identity definition in a context of multiple foci of identification that may change over time.

Conclusion In the almost 30 years since Ashforth and Mael’s (1989) seminal study, the social identity perspective has established itself as a well-supported and broadranging perspective on organizational behavior. Our review shows how the social identity perspective is well-positioned for integration with other perspectives to build broader-ranging theory, such as with social exchange perspectives in employee–organization relationships and leadership, organizational justice research in leadership, and group information processing research in diversity. This is not an invitation for social identity researchers to lean back and be content, but rather an invitation to recognize the strength and potential of the social identity perspective and develop it further. In terms of further developing the social identity perspective in organizational psychology and organizational behavior, it is important to recognize that the social identity perspective in organizational psychology and organizational behavior not only has its roots in social psychology, but has repeatedly been stimulated in its further development by drawing on developments in social psychology (Hogg & Terry, 2000; van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Importantly, however, organizational psychology and organizational behavior is not just an area of application for social psychological theory; social identity research in organizational behavior has been a source of new social identity theory in its own right. Recent examples of this include the theory of intergroup leadership proposed by Hogg et al. (2012b) that not only advances a new theoretical perspective of leadership but also proposed a further development of our understanding of social identity as including intergroup relational identity. It also includes integrations of theories of social exchange and organizational justice with the social identity perspective (e.g., Johnson et  al., 2006), and developments of the social identity analysis of leadership integrating social psychological and organizational behavior perspectives on leadership (see van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003, for a review). Social psychology would do well to treat organizational psychology and organizational behavior as a source of new social identity theory, and not just as an area where social psychological theory is applied.

86  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

References Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2010). Social identity and self-categorization. In J. F. Dovidio, M. Hewstone, P. Glick & V. M. Esses (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination (pp. 179–193). London: SAGE. Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39. Barreto, N. B., & Hogg, M. A. (in press). Evaluation of and support for group prototypical leaders: A meta-analysis of twenty years of empirical research. Social Influence. Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”?: Levels of collective identity and self-representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83–93. Brown, R. J. (1978). Divided we fall: An analysis of relations between sections of a factory workforce. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 395–429). London: Academic Press. Brown, R., Condor, S., Mathews, A. Wade, G., & Williams, J. (1986). Explaining intergroup differentiation in an industrial organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 59, 273–286. Brown, R. J., & Williams, J. A. (1984). Group identification: The same thing to all people? Human Relations, 37, 547–564. Chreim, S. (2005). The continuity-change duality in narrative texts of organizational identity. Journal of Management Studies, 42, 567–593. Corley, K. G., & Gioia, D. A. (2004). Identity ambiguity and change in the wake of a corporate spin-off. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49, 173–208. De Cremer, D., van Knippenberg, D., van Dijk, E., & van Leeuwen, E. (2008). Cooperating if one’s goals are collective-based: Social identification effects in social dilemmas as a function of goal transformation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 1562–1579. Dietz, B., van Knippenberg, D., Hirst, G., & Restubog, S. (2015). Outperforming whom? A multi-level study of performance-prove goal orientation, performance, and the moderating role of shared team identification. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1811–1824. Dutton, J. E., Dukerich, J. M., & Harquail, C. V. (1994). Organizational images and member identification. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39, 239–263. Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 500–507. Fiol, C. M. (2002). Capitalizing on paradox: The role of language in transforming organizational identities. Organization Science, 13, 653–666. Flynn, F. J. (2005). Identity orientations and forms of social exchange in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 30, 737–750. Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. (2000). Reducing intergroup bias: The common ingroup identity model. New York: Psychology Press. Giessner, S. R. (2011). Is the merger necessary? The interactive effect of perceived necessity and sense of continuity on post-merger identification. Human Relations, 64, 1079–1098. Giessner, S. R., Ullrich, J., & van Dick, R. (2011). Social identity and corporate mergers. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 333–345. Giessner, S. R., & van Knippenberg, D. (2008) “License to fail”: Goal definition, leader group prototypicality, and perceptions of leadership effectiveness after leader failure. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 14–35.

Social Identifications in Organizations  87

Giessner, S. R., van Knippenberg, D., Sleebos, E. P., & van Ginkel, W. P. (2013). Team-oriented leadership: The interactive effects of leader group prototypicality, accountability, and team identification. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 658–667. Gioia, D. A., & Chittipeddi, K. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12, 433–448. Hains, S. C., Hogg, M. A., & Duck, J. M. (1997). Self-categorization and leadership: Effects of group prototypicality and leader stereotypicality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1087–1100. Hekman, D. R., Bigley, G. A., Steensma, H. K., & Hereford, J. F. (2009). Combined effects of organizational and professional identification on the reciprocity dynamic for professional employees. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 506–526. Hekman, D. R., Steensma, H. K., Bigley, G. A., & Hereford, J. F. (2009). Effects of organizational and professional identification on the relationship between administrators’ social influence and professional employees’ adoption of new work behavior.Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1325–1335. Hekman, D. R., van Knippenberg, D., & Pratt, M. G. (2016). Channeling identification: How perceived regulatory focus moderates the influence of organizational and professional identification on professional employees’ diagnosis and treatment behaviors. Human Relations, 69, 753–780. Hennessy, J., & West, M. A. (1999). Intergroup behavior in organizations: A field study of social identity theory. Small Group Research, 30, 361–382. Higgins, E. T. (1998). Promotion and prevention: Regulatory focus as a motivational principle. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30, 1–46. Hirst, G., van Dick, R., & van Knippenberg, D. (2009). A social identity perspective on leadership and employee creativity. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 963–982. Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184–200. Hogg, M. A. (2007). Uncertainty-identity theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 39, pp. 69–126). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Hogg, M. A. (2012). Uncertainty-identity theory. In P. A. M. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 62–80). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hogg, M. A. (in press). Social identity theory. In P. J. Burke (Ed.), Contemporary social psychological theories (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Hogg, M. A., Martin, R., Epitropaki, O., Mankad, A., Svensson, A., & Weeden, K. (2005). Effective leadership in salient groups: Revisiting leader–member exchange theory from the perspective of the social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 991–1004. Hogg, M. A., & Terry, D. J. (2000). Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational contexts. Academy of Management Review, 25, 121–140. Hogg, M. A., van Knippenberg, D., & Rast, D. E. III. (2012a). The social identity theory of leadership: Theoretical origins, research findings, and conceptual developments. European Review of Social Psychology, 23, 258–304. Hogg, M. A., van Knippenberg, D., & Rast, D. E. III (2012b). Intergroup leadership in organizations: Leading across group and organizational boundaries. Academy of Management Review, 37, 232–255. Johnson, R. E., & Chang, C.-H. (2006). “I” is to continuance as “we” is to affective: The relevance of the self-concept for organizational commitment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 549–570.

88  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

Johnson, R. E., Chang, C., & Yang, L. Q. (2010). Commitment and motivation at work: The relevance of employee identity and regulatory focus. Academy of Management Review, 35, 226–245. Johnson, R. E., Selenta, C., & Lord, R. G. (2006). When organizational justice and the self-concept meet: Consequences for the organization and its members. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 99, 175–201. Johnson, R. E., Venus, M., Lanaj, K., Mao, C., & Chang, C. H. (2012). Leader identity as an antecedent of the frequency and consistency of transformational, consideration, and abusive leadership behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 1262–1272. Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1992). Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 103–123. Mael, F., & Ashforth, B. E. (1995). Loyal from day one: Biodata, organizational identification, and turnover among newcomers. Personnel Psychology, 48, 309–333. Mael, F. A., & Tetrick, L. E. (1992). Identifying organizational identification. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 813–824. Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscovitch, L., & Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 20–52. Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (1982). Employee—organization linkages. New York: Academic Press. Mummendey, A., & Wenzel, M. (1999). Social discrimination and tolerance in intergroup relations: Reactions to intergroup difference. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 158–174. Olkkonen, M. E., & Lipponen, J. (2006). Relationships between organizational justice, identification with organization and work unit, and group-related outcomes.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100, 202–215. Pierro, A., Cicero, L., Bonaiuto, M., van Knippenberg, D., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2005). Leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness: The moderating role of need for cognitive closure. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 503–516. Pierro, A., Cicero, L., Bonaiuto, M., van Knippenberg, D., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2007). Leader group prototypicality and resistance to organizational change: The moderating role of need for closure and team identification. Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 14, 27–40. Platow, M. J., & van Knippenberg, D. (2001). A social identity analysis of leadership endorsement: The effects of leader ingroup prototypicality and distributive intergroup fairness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1508–1519. Pratt, M. G. (1998). To be or not to be? Central questions in organizational identification. In D. A. Whetten, & P. C. Godfrey (Eds.), Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pratt, M. G., Schultz, M., Ashforth, B. E., & Ravasi, D. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of organizational identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ravasi, D., & Schultz, M. (2006). Responding to organizational identity threats: Exploring the role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 433–458. Reicher, S. D., & Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and nation. London: Sage. Rhoades, L., & Eisenberger, R. (2002). Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 698–714.

Social Identifications in Organizations  89

Richter, A. W., West, M. A., van Dick, R., Dawson, J. F. (2006). Boundary spanners’ identification, intergroup contact, and effective intergroup relations. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 1252–1269. Riketta, M. (2005). Organizational identification: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 358–384. Riketta, M., & Van Dick, R. (2005). Foci of attachment in organizations: A metaanalytic comparison of the strength and correlates of workgroup versus organizational identification and commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 490–510. Rotondi, T. (1975). Organizational identification: Issues and implications. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13, 95–109. Rousseau, D. M. (1998). Why workers still identify with organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19, 217–233. Shamir, B., House, R., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4, 577–594. Solinger, O.N., van Olffen, W., & Roe, R.A. (2008). Beyond the three-component model of organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 70–83. Tajfel, H. (1978). Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. New York: Academic Press. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Tavares, S., van Knippenberg, D., & van Dick, R. (2016). Organizational identification and “currencies of exchange”: Integrating social identity and social exchange perspectives. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 46, 34–45. Terry, D. J., & Callan, V. J. (1998). In-group bias in response to an organizational merger. Group Dynamics, 2, 67–81. Terry, D. J., Carey, C. J., & Callan, V. J. (2001). Employee adjustment to an organizational merger: An intergroup perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 267–280. Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Ullrich, J., Christ, O., & van Dick, R. (2009). Substitutes for procedural fairness: prototypical leaders are endorsed whether they are fair or not. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 235–244. van Dick, R., Hirst, G., Grojean, M. W., & Wieseke, J. (2007). Relationships between leader and follower organizational identification and implications for follower attitudes and behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80, 133–150. van Dick, R., Ullrich, J., & Tissington. P. A. (2006). Working under a black cloud: How to sustain organizational identification after a merger. British Journal of Management, 17, S69–S79. van Dick, R., van Knippenberg, D., Kerschreiter, R., Hertel, G., & Wieseke, J. (2008). Interactive effects of work group and organizational identification on job satisfaction and extra-role behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 388–399. van Gils, S., Hogg, M. A., Van Quaquebeke, N., & van Knippenberg, D. (2017). When organizational identification elicits moral decision-making: A matter of the right climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 142, 155–168. van Knippenberg, B., & van Knippenberg, D. (2005). Leader self-sacrifice and leadership effectiveness: The moderating role of leader prototypicality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 25–37.

90  Daan van Knippenberg and Michael A. Hogg

van Knippenberg, D. (2000). Work motivation and performance: A social identity perspective. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 49, 357–371. van Knippenberg, D. (2003). Intergroup relations in organizations. In M. West, D. Tjosvold, & K. G. Smith (Eds.), International handbook of organizational teamwork and cooperative working (pp. 381–399). Chichester, UK: Wiley. van Knippenberg, D. (2011). Embodying who we are: Leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness. Leadership Quarterly, 22, 1078–1091. van Knippenberg, D. (2012). Social identity-based leadership and the employeeorganization relationship. In L. M. Shore, J. A-M. Coyle-Shapiro, & L. E. Tetrick (Eds.), The employee-organization relationship: Applications for the 21st century (pp. 85–111). New York: Routledge. van Knippenberg, D. (2016). Making sense of who we are: Leadership and organizational identity. In M. G. Pratt, M. Schultz, B. E. Ashforth, & D. Ravasi (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of organizational identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Knippenberg, D., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Homan, A. C. (2004). Work group diversity and group performance: An integrative model and research agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 1008–1022. van Knippenberg, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2003). A social identity model of leadership effectiveness in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25, 243–295. van Knippenberg, D., & Mell, J. N. (2016). Past, present, and potential future of team diversity research: From compositional diversity to emergent diversity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 135–145. van Knippenberg, D., & Schippers, M. C. (2007). Work group diversity. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 515–541. van Knippenberg, D., & Sitkin, S. B. (2013). A critical assessment of charismatictransformational leadership research: Back to the drawing board? Academy of Management Annals, 7, 1–60. van Knippenberg, D., & Sleebos, E. (2006). Organizational identification versus organizational commitment: Self-definition, social exchange, and job attitudes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 571–584. van Knippenberg, D., van Dick, R., & Tavares, S. (2007). Social identity and social exchange: Identification, support, and withdrawal from the job. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37, 457–477. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., & Bobbio, A. (2008). Leaders as agents of continuity: Self continuity and resistance to collective change. In F. Sani (Ed.), Self-continuity: Individual and collective perspectives (pp. 175–186). New York: Psychology Press. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., De Cremer, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2004). Leadership, self, and identity: A review and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 825–856. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., Monden, L., & de Lima, F. (2002). Organizational identification after a merger: A social identity perspective. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 233–252. van Knippenberg, D., & van Schie, E. C. M. (2000). Foci and correlates of organizational identification. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 73, 137–147. van Leeuwen, E., van Knippenberg, D., & Ellemers, N. (2003). Continuing and changing group identities: The effects of merging on social identification and ingroup bias. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 679–690. Williams, K. Y., & O’Reilly, C. A. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations: A review of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77–140.

5 SELF-ENHANCEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

The question of what motivates humans has been a central preoccupation of philosophers and psychologists, with numerous explanations given over the centuries (Sedikides & Gregg, 2008; Sedikides & Strube, 1997). Yet one of the most generative and intriguing explanations is also one of the simplest: people are motivated to feel positively about themselves and to have others view them positively. This is known as the self-enhancement motive. In both social and industrial-organizational/organizational behavior (IO/OB) research, this motive has provided a basis for many studies on, for example, why employees behave the way they do, rate others the way they do, react the way they do, and form attitudes the way they do. In fact, the self-enhancement motive, and its manifestations or strategies, have been argued to be so dominant within IO/OB that they have been proffered as a paradigm for the field (Pfeffer & Fong, 2005). In this chapter, we provide an overview of the self-enhancement motive, noting some of the many phenomena to which it has been linked as well as touching on the debate over whether self-enhancement is “good” or “bad.” We next discuss how self-enhancement has been used (and, at times, misused) in IO/OB research, including how it has typically been assessed, and we note contributions of IO/OB research to the self-enhancement literature. Finally, we consider future research directions for self-enhancement in IO/OB research.

Self-Enhancement: An Overview Self-enhancement is the principle that people desire to view the self, and to have others view the self, in the most positive light possible. This principle manifests itself in a bifurcated motive: to increase the positivity with which the self is

92  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

viewed and to protect the self from threat. These motives are typically referred to as self-enhancement and self-protection, respectively, but ultimately serve the broader goal of viewing the self (and being viewed by others) positively. The “self” that is enhanced or protected by these motives is the self-concept, the “knowledge about personality traits, abilities, values, beliefs, expectations, motives, life events, relationships with significant others, possessions, and appearance” (Sedikides & Strube, 1997, p. 212), or, more broadly “the totality of interrelated yet distinct psychological phenomena that either underlie, causally interact with, or depend upon reflexive consciousness” (Sedikides & Gregg, 2003, p. 110). The elements of the self-concept that are particularly enhanced or protected are central (important or defining) rather than peripheral to the individual (James, 1907; see also: Ferris, Brown, Lian, & Keeping, 2009; Gebauer, Wagner, Sedikides, & Neberich, 2013; Rosenberg, 1965). We will make this “centrality” assumption throughout this chapter. The bifurcated motive is perhaps best conceptualized as the manifestation of hedonistic desires to approach pleasure (i.e., self-enhancement motive) and to avoid pain (i.e., self-protection motive) in the self-evaluation domain (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Gregg & Sedikides, in press; Sedikides, 2012). The motive is used to inform other theories; indeed, it forms the bedrock for theories such as terror management theory (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004), self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988), cognitive dissonance theory (Stone & Cooper, 2001), symbolic self-completion theory (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982), social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; see also Van Knippenberg & Hogg, this volume), the self-evaluation maintenance model (Tesser, 1988), self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1997; see also Vancouver, Alicke, & Halper, this volume), self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987), and contingencies of self-worth model (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). Yet, the motive does not constitute a theory per se. This may be difficult to reconcile with IO/OB researchers’ preference for explicit and quantifiable theories (Hambrick, 2007; Lian, Yam, Ferris, & Brown, 2017), as there is not a single boxes-and-arrows model illustrating what the motive predicts, although such models can be derived for separate phenomena (and inductive models exist, as we note later). Despite this lack of a formal theoretical framework, self-enhancement research has been broad and unfettered. As Sedikides and Strube (1997, p. 214) put it: Empirical tests of the self-enhancement perspective are characterized by remarkable diversity in the choice of independent variables, dependent variables, and experimental designs. This diversity stems from the lack of a single guiding theoretical proposition or a single primary moderator that would dictate a common methodology. Instead, a general assumption that humans are self-bolstering or self-protective underlies the research.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  93

A wide variety of phenomena, then, has been linked to the self-enhancement and self-protection motives. This variety has been labeled as a “self-zoo,” with each phenomenon symbolizing a different specimen (Tesser, Crepaz, Beach, Cornell, & Collins, 2000) but all representing examples of what is known as the strategies that individuals implement to view or present the self in the best possible light. These strategies are cognitive (e.g., remembering only positive things about oneself) and behavioral (e.g., directly asking for positive feedback).

Self-Enhancement Strategies: Defensiveness, Positivity Embracement, Favorable Construals, and Self-Affirming Reflections Research has suggested different taxonomies to provide some semblance of order to self-enhancement strategies that comprise the “self-zoo” (Alicke, Zell, & Guenther, 2013; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008; Taylor & Brown, 1988). In this chapter, we follow the taxonomy developed by Hepper, Gramzow, and Sedikides (2010; see also Hepper, Sedikides, & Cai, 2013, for cross-cultural evidence). Their taxonomy was the first to use factor analysis to deduce which strategies co-occur, and hence which strategies may be fruitfully grouped together into superordinate self-enhancement strategy categories. Specifically, their analysis suggests four strategy categories: defensiveness, positivity embracement, favorable construals, and self-affirming reflections (Table 5.1). Although this taxonomy is not perfect (as indicated by a relatively poor fit for their confirmatory factor model), it provides some empirical basis for distinguishing among the various self-enhancement and self-protection strategies. Defensiveness represents cognitive and behavioral strategies that protect the self from threats (either real or anticipated), and thus primarily represents strategies that serve the self-protection motive. For example, individuals engage in selfhandicapping whereby they set up obstacles to performing well (e.g., drinking before an exam) so as to have something to blame in the case of failure (Jones & Berglas, 1978) or engage in defensive pessimism whereby they try to lower expectations of their performance (Norem & Cantor, 1986) so that they reduce disappointment in the case of bad news. Individuals also choose their friends with care, ensuring that their friends are competent – so that they can “bask in the reflected glory” of their friends – but not so competent that the friends outperform the individual himself or herself on domains central to the individual’s self-concept (Tesser et al., 2000; see also Pemberton & Sedikides, 2001). Finally, when confronted with failure, individuals engage in self-serving attributions such that they blame failure on external factors or chance, and not on internal or intrapersonal factors (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999; Zuckerman, 1979). Other defensive reactions to failure include de-emphasizing the importance of the

94  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides TABLE 5.1  Self-Enhancement Strategies

Strategy

Example

Defensiveness Self-handicapping Defensive pessimism Selective friendships, basking in reflected glory Self-serving attributions for failure Altering self-image

Discounting/Derogating negative feedback Derogating outgroups

Avoiding getting feedback from coworkers on a presentation to be given to clients Trying to convince others that you aren’t very good at a task you are about to do Associating with those who flatter you; associating with high-status people Blaming others when you fail or considering it just bad luck Reconsidering how important being a salesperson is to one’s identity if one repeatedly performs poorly as a salesperson Pointing out flaws in feedback/feedback providers or ignoring feedback Insulting other groups (e.g., other departments, companies, or minorities)

Positivity Embracement Seeking and remembering positive feedback Favorable self-presentation Self-serving attributions for success

Asking for feedback from a supervisor following a successful month of sales Emphasizing successful projects instead of failures Taking sole credit when your team succeeds

Favorable Construals Unrealistic optimism

Favorable interpretations of ambiguous feedback Overly positive self-perceptions; better-than-average beliefs

Downplaying/ignoring risks associated with one’s decisions; assuming one’s efforts will always succeed Interpreting mixed feedback as a good sign Believing one is superior than others

Self-affirming Reflections Favorable temporal comparisons Downward counterfactual thinking Focusing on unrelated positives

Thinking one has improved over time, or is improving faster than others Comparing oneself or one’s situation to others that are worse off Viewing oneself as a loving spouse when failing on a work project

domain in which one has failed (Hill, Smith, & Lewicki, 1989), attacking the credibility of the failure feedback (Ditto & Lopez, 1992), portraying one’s competitor as a genius (Alicke, LoSchiavo, Zerbst, & Zhang, 1997), or derogating outgroups (Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987).

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  95

Positivity embracement represents a set of cognitive and behavioral strategies serving the self-enhancement motive that deal with the solicitation and interpretation of positive feedback. For example, individuals expect positive feedback in social interactions (Hepper, Hart, Gregg, & Sedikides, 2011), directly solicit positive feedback (Sedikides, 1993) and surround themselves with others who are likely to view them positively (Sanitioso & Wlodarski, 2004). Individuals are also more likely to remember positive than negative feedback, when it refers to their central attributes (e.g., trustworthiness, kindness) than their peripheral attributes (e.g., predictability, agreeableness; Sedikides, Green, Saunders, Skowronski, & Zengel, 2016). Moreover, when interacting with others, individuals engage in impression management tactics to over-present their positive qualities for others to evaluate or comment on (see also the Leary & Bolino chapter in this volume). Finally, as with attributions for failure, individuals (across cultures) engage in self-serving attributions for their successes, such that they credit successes to their own enduring internal characteristics rather than to external or chance factors (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004). Favorable construals represent a set of cognitive strategies serving the selfenhancement motive through which positive self-views are maintained via flattering construals of the external world or the self. For example, individuals are unrealistically optimistic about the likelihood of positive outcomes of their actions (Regan, Snyder, & Kassin, 1995). Moreover, they interpret ambiguous feedback advantageously, emphasizing positive elements over negative ones (Audia & Brion, 2007). Furthermore, they manifest the “better than average” effect (Alicke, 1985), whereby they evaluate their own skills, abilities, and prospects as superior in comparison to peers (leading to statistical head-scratchers, such as 25 percent of people believing they are among the top 1 percent of leaders; Alicke & Govorun, 2005). More generally, individuals perceive themselves more positively than they are perceived by others (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006), even when they not asked explicitly to compare themselves to the average peer. Finally, self-affirming reflections represent cognitive strategies primarily serving the self-enhancement motive that typically involve invoking positive elements of the self in reaction to threatening situations. For example, when confronted with failure, individuals can selectively engage in favorable temporal comparisons that suggest they are at least improving over time or improving at a faster rate than others, even when the evidence for such improvement is dubious (Wilson & Ross, 2001, 2003). Individuals also engage in downward counterfactual thinking where they imagine an even worse situation (i.e., thinking “it could be worse”) so as to feel better about themselves currently (Roese, 1994), or call to mind their positive qualities in the face of information that threatens the self (i.e., they self-affirm; Sherman & Cohen, 2006). Finally, individuals genuinely believe they are better than average, and they are willing to bet money on it (Williams & Gilovich, 2008).

96  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

Is Self-Enhancement Good or Bad? Taken together, these four categories of self-enhancement strategies provide a hint of the wide variety of phenomena to which self-enhancement has been applied (for more comprehensive reviews, see: Brown, 2010; Pfeffer & Fong, 2005; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Cai, 2015). However, these strategies can also be viewed as painting a picture of self-enhancing individuals as dangerously removed from reality, ignoring very real threats in order to feel good about themselves. Indeed, a long-standing controversy in the social psychology literature (and not only) is whether using self-enhancement strategies is beneficial or harmful. It has been argued that “positive illusions,” such as thinking that one is better than one truly is, can have beneficial intrapersonal consequences, such as promoting psychological well-being, fostering creativity, and facilitating task performance (O’Mara & Gaertner, in press; O’Mara, Gaertner, Sedikides, Zhou, & Liu, 2012; Taylor, Lerner, Sherman, Sage, & McDowell, 2003). Along these lines, studies show that individuals self-enhance by devoting considerable time and effort towards those domains that they view as central to who they are (e.g., being an athlete, a hard worker, or sociable; Crocker, Karpinski, Quinn, & Chase, 2003), and such effort may be fueled by the positive illusions (e.g., perceptions of competence; Bandura, 1991) that individuals harbor about themselves in these domains. Yet even if self-enhancement has intrapersonal benefits, its interpersonal consequences may be questionable. That is, believing that one is better than one really is allows one to tackle challenging tasks, but may also make one come across as conceited or arrogant (Sedikides, Hoorens, & Dufner, 2015). For example, in a study where observers rated peer interactions, Colvin, Block, and Funder (1995) reported that those individuals who self-enhanced were rated as more likely to brag, interrupt, and behave aggressively and irritably. A recent meta-analysis by Dufner, Gebauer, Sedikides, and Denissen (2017) regarding the effects of self-enhancement strategies on intrapersonal adjustment (e.g., life satisfaction, depression, and positive affect) and interpersonal adjustment (e.g., other-rated social approval and status) can help inform the debate. Across almost 300 samples and over 125,000 participants, these authors found that self-enhancement was positively related to intrapersonal adjustment, and typically was positively related to interpersonal adjustment as well (with the exception of observer ratings of the focal participant’s communality). Notably, over time such positive effects for interpersonal adjustment weakened; that is, although self-enhancement tactics led to a positive initial impression, over time they had neither a positive nor a negative influence on impressions. These findings for intrapersonal adjustment mirror those seen by Kennedy, Anderson and Moore (2013): overconfident individuals were perceived by observers as having high status, and these perceptions lingered even after it was revealed that the observed individuals were, in fact, incorrectly overconfident.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  97

Taken together, the weight of the evidence suggests that self-enhancement is beneficial intrapersonally and neutral interpersonally. This may seem at odds with the aforementioned possibility that self-enhancement strategies sever the individual from reality. However, the Dufner et al. (2017) meta-analytic findings point to a reason that may also account for the primarily beneficial effects of self-enhancement strategies: individuals do not engage in self-enhancement strategies willy-nilly and without regard to reality. Rather, they deploy such strategies only when appropriate or feasible (Gregg, Sedikides, & Gebauer, 2011). Indeed, numerous studies have examined boundary conditions outlining when individuals do and do not engage in self-enhancement strategies. These findings have been summarized in what is known as the SCENT model (Sedikides & Strube, 1997; see also Sedikides, Gaertner, & Cai, 2015).

The SCENT Model The Self-Concept Enhancing Tactician (or SCENT) model was developed in 1997 by Sedikides and Strube as an inductive attempt to outline the circumstances under which individuals engage in self-enhancement. The model focuses on when and how individuals are likely to be motivated by self-enhancement versus other self-evaluative motives, including self-verification (i.e., the motive to maintain consistent self-perceptions as a way of elevating one’s sense of control and predictability), self-assessment (i.e., the motive to obtain accurate information about the self as a way of reducing uncertainty), and self-improvement (i.e., the motive to improve the self as a way of creating a sense of progress). The model assumes that each of the four self-evaluation motives is adaptive and pragmatic from the individual’s point of view, and that they do not operate independently of each other. This latter point – that the motives do not operate independently of each other – leads to one of the model’s more controversial postulates: that motives for self-verification, self-assessment, and self-improvement are ultimately in service of the motive to self-enhance. According to SCENT, the sense of control/predictability, certainty, and progress fostered by engaging in self-verification, self-assessment, and selfimprovement (respectively) are not ends unto themselves, but rather set the stage for long-term self-enhancement. This is perhaps most apparent in the motive for self-improvement, whose aim is to develop (over time) a more positive self, but can also be seen in motives for self-verification and self-assessment: The sense of predictability and certainty these motives engender allows the development of a coherent sense of self that, in the long run, can be enhanced. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how elements of the self could be enhanced or protected, if one is uncertain about what the elements that comprise the self actually are. In arguing that self-verification, self-assessment, and self-improvement ultimately serve self-enhancement in the long run, the SCENT model distinguishes between candid self-enhancement – or the explicit, unrestrained attempts to view the self positively or defend it against negative feedback

98  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

associated with self-enhancement strategies – and tactical self-enhancement – or the indirect attempts to self-enhance via self-verification, self-assessment, and self-improvement. This distinction also recognizes that individuals do not self-enhance recklessly in disregard of possible risks or plausibility. Instead, they scrutinize the situation and judge whether, in light of inherent risks, candid self-enhancement efforts can be completed successfully; if not, candid self-enhancement is curtailed and tactical self-enhancement emerges as more likely. Individuals may also choose to appraise objectively those traits at which they may be deficient but consider central to their self-definition, allowing short-term (self-)pain for long-term (self-)gain. What, then, determines when individuals do or do not engage in candid selfenhancement? Drawing on past research, Sedikides and Strube (1997) argued in favor of various classes of moderators. Individual differences represent one such class, as people differ in the extent to which they seek self-enhancement. For example, narcissism can be regarded as a strong disposition towards selfenhancement (Chen et al., 2013); indeed, narcissists are likely what most people picture when imagining the prototypical candid self-enhancer. On the other hand, those with a strong epistemic motivation – that is, a desire for concrete information – may prefer accurate information over enhancing information. A second class of moderators represents the availability of resources. For example, people are more likely to engage in self-enhancement in an automatic manner, meaning factors that diminish cognitive resources increase self-enhancement tendencies (Swann, Hixon, Stein-Seroussi, & Gilbert, 1990). A third class of moderators addresses what people are actually self-enhancing. As we have stated, people seek to self-enhance on aspects (e.g., traits, characteristics, skills) that are relatively central to their self-definition (Ferris et al., 2009; Ferris, Lian, Brown, & Morrison, 2015; Ferris, Lian, Brown, Pang, & Keeping, 2010). People are also more likely to self-enhance on aspects of the self that are relatively stable (vs. malleable), as being deficient on a stable aspect of the self implies that one cannot ever become proficient (Dauenheimer, Stahlberg, Spreeman, & Sedikides, 2002; Dunning, 1995). However, individuals do not self-enhance on all stable, important aspects of the self. An adult male’s height is stable (and, for many, important), but an objectively short male will still be an objectively short male. This points to another key parameter of self-enhancement: the extent to which ambiguity about an attribute exists influences the plausibility of self-enhancement (Brown, 1986; Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989). That is, it is easier to exaggerate one’s vaguely defined leadership abilities than it is to exaggerate one’s objectively obvious height. Somewhat similarly, selfenhancement is also likely to emerge when the temporal context of what is being self-enhanced is long-term (and hence more ambiguous): it is easier to say one’s sales performance will be excellent next month than it is to say one’s sales performance was excellent this past month, if it objectively was not (Heller, Stephan, Kifer, & Sedikides, 2011; Stephan, Sedikides, Heller, & Shidlovski, 2015).

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  99

A fourth class of moderators is the social context within which selfenhancement takes place. When individuals are accountable for the responses they give, they are less likely to self-enhance (Sedikides & Herbst, 2002; Sedikides, Herbst, Harbin, & Dardis, 2002). Similarly, individuals are less likely to self-enhance candidly with friends (Sedikides, Campbell, Reeder, & Elliot, 1998; Tice, Butler, Muraven, & Stillwell, 1995), who may (as noted previously) already be selected on the basis of providing positive feedback to the individual, thus reducing the need for more bald-faced attempts at self-enhancement. Alternately, close friends may know an individual well, meaning they hold relatively unambiguous perceptions of him or her, and can call the individual on obvious exaggerations of their abilities. The cultural context represents a last class of moderators that influences manifestations of candid self-enhancement. Sedikides, Gaertner, and Cai (2015) recently updated the SCENT model to address questions regarding the crosscultural nature of self-enhancement in light of arguments that self-enhancement is not prevalent, if it exists at all, in Eastern cultures (e.g., Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999). Sedikides et al. (2015) argued that this may reflect cultural norms of modesty and the prevalence of cooperative-oriented situations in Eastern cultures (vs. competition-oriented situations in Western cultures), or Eastern preferences for the use of other-mediated self-enhancement (e.g., saying that one is not good at something while expecting someone else to testify to how good you actually are). Supporting this argument, self-enhancement strategies do emerge when cultural norms of modesty are accounted for, when Easterners are placed in competitive situations, and when other-mediated selfenhancement serves the same purpose as candid self-enhancement does for Westerners. Moreover, Easterners and Westerners both self-enhance, but on different dimensions (depending on centrality to their self-definition): Westerners self-enhance on independent self-attributes (e.g., unique, free, original), whereas Easterners self-enhance on interdependent self-attributes (e.g., cooperative, loyal, patient) (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003; see also: Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea, 2005). In sum, there are several moderators that limit when candid self-enhancement occurs, consistent with the SCENT model’s postulate that individuals are not boorish braggadocios but rather careful tacticians. Individuals primarily engage in self-enhancing strategies when plausible and when such strategies are unlikely to lead to negative effects for them, which helps explain why the use of selfenhancing strategies is typically associated with desirable (or null) consequences (Dufner et al., 2017).

How Self-Enhancement Has Been Used in IO/OB Research We begin with a caveat: self-enhancement has not always been used correctly in IO/OB research. In particular, self-enhancement has occasionally

100  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

been incorrectly defined or operationalized. An oft-referenced definition of self-enhancement (Liu, Lee, Hui, Kwan, & Wu, 2013; Pierce & Gardner, 2004) is Korman’s (2001, p. 122): “the motivation to attain outcomes that signify personal growth on the part of the individual and/or the approval of others for attaining socially desirable goals.” Although it is correct that self-enhancement involves seeking the approval of others, being motivated by personal growth outcomes is better viewed as self-improvement. This motive may serve self-enhancing functions, as noted above, but it is not self-enhancement per se. Also, self-enhancement definitions should not be limited to those that involve personal growth. In addition, self-esteem is often used incorrectly as an operationalization of self-enhancement, particularly in the feedback literature (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003). Self-esteem, however, does not equal the presence of selfenhancement, but rather its purpose: People strive to view themselves positively, but not viewing themselves positively does not mean that they have terminated their efforts to self-enhance. Conflating self-esteem level with self-enhancement has led to erroneous statements that constructs which affect self-esteem level also affect one’s motive to self-enhance. For example, in discussing the effects of being granted special treatment at work, Liu et al. (2013, p. 33) argued that such treatment “would lead to the development of self-enhancement, represented by [self-esteem level].” Although such constructs may affect self-esteem level, they are unlikely to influence the self-enhancement motive. Put differently, receiving or not receiving special treatment at work is not going to affect whether individuals ultimately want to view themselves in a positive light. Thus, individuals with low self-esteem should not be viewed as lacking the self-enhancement motive. Such individuals may go about satisfying this motive using different strategies than their high self-esteem counterparts; for example, low self-esteem individuals favor self-protection strategies, whereas high self-esteem individuals favor self-enhancement strategies (Tice, 1991).

Measurement of Self-Enhancement in IO/OB How should self-enhancement be measured, in the absence of self-esteem? The assessment of the self-enhancement motive (both in IO/OB and other literatures) can be complex: its existence is typically inferred from patterns of outcomes, and not measured itself. That is, its existence is assumed based on the pattern of results across many studies, which are best explained by inferring that humans have a desire to view themselves positively (and not view themselves negatively). In this sense it is like gravity: it is not measured directly, but its existence is inferred by examining a pattern of results (i.e., the speed at which objects fall to the ground in a vacuum) and invoking the construct (i.e., gravity) as an explanation.1 Along these lines, IO/OB studies often invoke self-enhancement without directly assessing the motive. This is not meant as a criticism. Indeed,

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  101

this approach is fairly common in social psychological research, and reflects difficulties in measuring the motive itself versus manifestations of it (e.g., its effects on cognition, affect, and behavior). Organizational researchers have nevertheless operationalized self-enhancement in creative ways. The aforementioned conflation of self-esteem level (i.e., high/ low self-esteem) with the existence of the self-enhancement motive is the most common (albeit erroneous) method. Another attempt involves using the residuals of a self-deception measure regressed on measures of narcissism and self-esteem, in the belief that, once narcissism and self-esteem are accounted for, whatever remains must represent self-enhancement (Mellor, 2009). However, given that narcissism represents tendencies to self-enhance and self-esteem represents the outcome of self-enhancement, this approach would inadvertently remove a good deal of variance attributable to self-enhancement itself, and hence we do not recommend it. Rather than directly assessing the presence of the self-enhancement motive, a more common (and more laudable) approach in IO/OB is to presume its existence but measure individual differences in self-enhancement strategies. That is, while self-enhancement is thought to be a universal motive, individuals can differ in (a) the type of self-enhancement strategies they use, (b) the domains in which they self-enhance, and (c) the strength of the motive itself. The types of strategies used receive the most attention in the impression management literature (Bolino & Turnley, 1999; see also Leary & Bolino, this volume), and they are numerous (Table 5.1). The specific domains in which individuals selfenhance can also be assessed. Mirroring the empirical fact that people are most likely to enhance on aspects or domains that are central to their self-definition (Gebauer et al., 2013; Ferris et al., 2009; Sedikides et al., 2016), measures of contingencies of self-worth have been used. Such measures assess the extent to which one bases their self-esteem on success and failure, in particular life domains (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001). The domain of interest has been the workplace (Ferris et al., 2010, 2015; for a review, see Ferris, 2014). With respect to individual differences in strength of the self-enhancement motive, Yun, Takeuchi, and Liu (2007) developed a six-item measure, whereas Audia and Brion (2007) used a 42-item measure proposed by Taylor and colleagues (2003). However, one of the more common ways of assessing the self-enhancement motive is via scales of dispositional narcissism. Narcissists seek exceedingly positive self-perceptions and desire to be perceived very favorably by others (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006; Thomaes, Brummelman, & Sedikides, in press). Consequently, they use many of the self-enhancement and self-protection strategies outlined previously, often without heed to some of the more traditional barriers to candid self-enhancement. As such, narcissism has been characterized as “an unchecked desire for self-enhancement” (Chen et al., 2013, p. 1203) and has been labeled “the self-enhancer personality” (Morf, Horvath, & Torchetti, 2011, p. 399). In assessing narcissism, IO/OB

102  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

researchers typically use measures like the Narcissistic Personality Inventory or its derivations (Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006; Emmons, 1987). Interestingly, Chatterjee and Hambrick (2007, 2011) developed an unobtrusive measure to assess narcissism in chief executive officers. Their index of CEO narcissism relies on the prominence accorded to the CEO in both photographs in the company’s annual report and in company press releases, the CEO’s use of firstperson singular pronouns when interviewed, and the CEO’s cash and non-cash compensation relative to the second-highest paid executive in the company. Finally, one of the more complex methods of assessing individual differences in the self-enhancement motive involves the use of round-robin social network data to distinguish statistically between tendencies to view the self positively (i.e., to self-enhance) from tendencies to view others positively and to be viewed positively by others (for more details, see: Kwan, John, Kenny, Bond, & Robins, 2004; Kwan, John, Robins, & Kuang, 2008; for an organizational illustration of this technique, see: Van der Kam, Janssen, Van der Vegt, & Stoker, 2014). It is important to account for these latter two tendencies, in order to ensure that viewing the self positively is not simply a reflection of the tendency to view everyone positively or a reflection of reality when one is indeed being viewed positively by others. Although this method represents a useful way to assess individual differences in self-enhancement motive strength, its reliance on time- and effort-intensive round-robin social network data likely limits its utility for most IO/OB research. Moreover, whether it produces results different from other measures of individual differences in self-enhancement motive strength that are easier to collect (e.g., measures of narcissism) is unknown. Besides the Yun et al. (2007) six-item measure, the Taylor and colleagues (2003) 42-item measure, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Emmons, 1987), and round-robin designs (Van der Kam et al., 2014), researchers could consider assessing directly the self-enhancement motive with a two-time scale that Gregg, Hepper, and Sedikides (2011) developed. The items are: “In general, I would like to hear that I am a great person” and “In general, I would like to hear that have excellent qualities.” The scale has both face and construct validity, as well as high discriminant validity: it differentiates from equivalent two-item assessments of the self-verification, self-assessment, and self-improvement motives. Nevertheless, the short two-item nature of the scale presents both pros (i.e., easy to administer in field studies) and cons (i.e., reviewers may be unsympathetic towards any potential low reliability associated with shorter scales) for IO/OB researchers.

Illustrative Examples of Self-Enhancement Research in IO/OB We turn next to some of the ways in which the self-enhancement literature has been used by IO/OB researchers, drawing again on Hepper and colleagues’ (2010) taxonomy of defensiveness, positivity embracement, favorable

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  103

construals, and self-affirming reflections strategies to frame our exposition. Given space limitations, our aim is to provide an illustrative rather than comprehensive treatment. Defensiveness. A study by Park, Westphal, and Stern (2011) on CEOs and members of the board of directors provides a pointed demonstration of defensiveness strategies. These authors found that CEOs of high social status (assessed by corporate and nonprofit board appointments, elite education, membership in elite social clubs, and stock ratings of firms for which the CEO acted as an outside director) were more likely to be targets of flattery by the other board members. This showcases elements of the strategies for selective friendships and basking in reflected glory on the part of the board members. Yet likely prompted by such flattery, CEOs manifested self-enhancing perceptions of their judgment and leadership capabilities as operationalized by differences between self- and other-rated measures of these capabilities. CEOs subsequently were less likely to change the strategic direction of their firm (e.g., by altering resource allocations among advertising, research, and development) in the face of poor performance, thus manifesting discounting of negative feedback and displacing failures on others rather than their own choices. Ironically, the highstatus CEOs who were the target of the flattery eventually were more likely to be ultimately dismissed from their positions, because they failed to alter the strategic direction of their firms (see also the Energy Clash Model of narcissism in organizations; Sedikides & Campbell, in press). Jordan and Audia (2012) argued in a theoretical article that organizational decision-makers facing poor organizational performance would engage in activities that amount to altering their (organization’s) self-image. In particular, they maintained that decision-makers would change the direction of the organization away from goals on which they perform poorly (e.g., client satisfaction) towards goals on which they perform well (e.g., number of clients served), or would increase the abstractness of the relevant goal to allow more positive evaluations (e.g., considering number of clients served as part of client satisfaction). Moving beyond goals but still in line with altering self-images, other studies have suggested that organizational members disengage their sense of self from their work when self-enhancement strategies are thwarted. Specifically, Woo, Sims, Rupp, and Gibbons (2008) found that participants in an assessment center program were less engaged when they received feedback from others that was inconsistent with their own positive self-ratings. Sitzmann and Johnson (2012) similarly found that participants in an online training program were more likely to quit the training in the face of discrepant performance feedback. Finally, Chen and colleagues (2013) found that, when subject to uncivil treatment (e.g., being insulted or slighted) that presumably thwarted their desire for self-enhancement, individuals disengaged from their workplace and became poorer performers. This was particularly the case for narcissists, who have a stronger motive for self-enhancement.

104  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

In line with the notion that individuals defensively strike out when receiving negative feedback, organizational research has shown that those who are mistreated at work react with deviant behavior. For example, Tepper, Mitchell, Haggard, Kwan, and Park (2015) found that mistreated employees engaged in retaliatory hostile acts to avoid viewing themselves as a victim, whereas Ferris, Spence, Brown, and Heller (2012) demonstrated in a diary study that employees treated unfairly were more likely to engage in deviant behavior, especially those with high self-esteem (Sedikides & Gregg, 2003). Finally, evidence indicates that individuals discount negative feedback. For example, Baer and Brown (2012) found that individuals would be less likely to adopt a suggestion for a project in which they were involved, if the suggestion involved parts of the project that should be eliminated (i.e., negative feedback about the project), such as dropping items from a proposed new restaurant menu or dropping a “buy one, get one free” deal from a proposed sales initiative. However, individuals were more likely to adopt such suggestions if they were not personally involved with the project, illustrating the notion that they were particularly resistant to negative feedback about something associated with the self. Positivity embracement. Much research on organization-based self-esteem – that is, self-esteem levels within the organizational domain – has drawn upon the notion of positivity embracement, with authors arguing that organizational actions are interpreted as positive feedback from an organization that satisfies the employees’ self-enhancement motive (Pierce & Gardner, 2004; see also Brown & Zeigler-Hill, this volume). For example, Liu and colleagues (2013) proposed that employees who receive idiosyncratic deals – that is, customized deals that are better than the ones coworkers receive – interpreted them as signals that they are “valuable and special to the employer, in that the employer is willing to make special provisions for their work” (p. 834). Similarly, Gardner, Huang, Niu, Pierce, and Lee (2015) proposed that relational psychological contracts (i.e., contracts that provide training and development, fair treatment, and otherwise consider the well-being of the employee) are a form of “positive feedback” to the employee that confirms the employee is valued (p. 937). Consistent with proposals, results from both studies indicated that these organizational signals increased organization-based self-esteem. Other research on reactions to feedback also draws on the notion of positivity embracement. For example, Anseel and Lievens (2006; see also Anseel, Strauss, & Lievens, this volume) reported that employees were more satisfied with positive feedback, and Baer and Brown (2012) reported that employees would be more likely to adopt a suggestion for a project if the suggestion (i.e., feedback) entailed improvement (cf. Gaertner, Sedikides, & Cai, 2012). However, they were more likely to embrace such a suggestion when they were personally involved with the project. Taken together with their findings described under the prior Defensiveness section, the Baer and Brown study

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  105

shows that employees reject negative suggestions and embrace positive ones, but only when they are personally involved in the relevant project or view it as an extension of themselves (Belk, 1988; Gebauer et al., 2013). Consistent with the notion that individuals desire positive feedback about themselves, Stevens, Mitchell, and Tripp (1990) hypothesized that recruiters who told applicants that the organization viewed them positively would be liked better than recruiters who emphasized the fit of their organization for the candidate, but obtained mixed results. Finally, Chatterjee and Hambrick (2011) found that social rewards (i.e., media praise and awards) had a stronger relation with risky CEO actions (e.g., paying higher premiums during acquisitions) for narcissistic CEOs, suggesting that narcissistic CEOs were particularly attuned and responsive to positive feedback. Favorable construals. Via an experimental and archival study, Audia and Brion (2007) illustrated how ambiguous feedback is interpreted favorably. They proposed that decision-makers (undergraduate students in the experimental study, and CEOs in the archival study) frequently encounter multiple performance indicators (e.g., stock prices, revenue growth, international expansion) that may provide ambiguous performance feedback regarding the company’s performance, where one indicator suggests the company is doing well while another indicator suggests otherwise. Moreover, some indicators (e.g., stock prices) may be considered more valid than others (e.g., international expansion). When confronted with such ambiguous input, decision-makers were less likely to make changes to the organization’s strategy (e.g., introduce new products) so long as at least one of the indicators signaled that the company was performing well – even when decision-makers were explicitly told the indicator was less valid. Moreover, when only the less valid indicator signaled that the company was performing well, decision-makers were more likely to rate that less valid indicator as more important than the more valid one. Researchers have also been concerned with the extent to which employees perceive themselves more positively than others, such as in 360-degree performance rating contexts that include self-ratings as well as ratings by peers, subordinates, and supervisors (e.g., Brett & Atwater, 2001; Smither, London, & Reilly, 2005). For example, Van der Kam and colleagues (2014) found that leaders who perceived themselves as more transformational than subordinates were more likely to experience task and relationship conflict with subordinates at work; task conflict in particular mediated the negative effect of these excessively positive self-perceptions on ratings of the leader’s performance. Examining the source of such differences, Judge and colleagues (2006) reported that high levels of narcissism among managers were associated with greater differences between self-ratings and other-ratings of leadership ability. Finally, in a conceptual replication of the better-than-average effect, Menon and Thompson (2007) found that team members perceived their performance and qualifications as posing more of a threat to other team members than the

106  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

performance and qualifications of other team members posed a threat to themselves. In other words, members thought they were a threat to others, but that they were relatively immune to the threat others posed to them. Menon and Thompson also demonstrated that these “more threatening than average” perceptions had implications for interpersonal interactions in teams: outside individuals were less satisfied when interacting with those who thought they were more threatening than average. Also relevant to the better-than-average effect are numerous studies showing people believe that anything with which they associate is made better, as a result. For example, Schoorman (1998) found that supervisors were more likely to rate positively an employee when they participated in (and agreed with) the decision to hire the employee than when they did not participate in the hiring decision; when supervisors participated in but did not agree with the hiring decision, they were more likely to rate negatively the employee than when they both participated in the hiring decision and agreed to the hire. Hideg, Michela, and Ferris (2011) similarly reported that undergraduates were more likely to support affirmative action policies when they had participated in the creation of the policy than when not (see also Pfeffer, Cialdini, Hanna, & Knopoff, 1998), while Hsu and Elsbach (2013) reported that MBA students, faculty, and staff were more likely to view their school as having favorable attributes when they considered it an extension of the self. Self-affirming reflections. Fewer studies have examined self-affirming reflections to threats, although Jordan and Audia (2012) contended in a theoretical article that organizational decision-makers are likely to invoke downward comparisons as counterfactuals in the face of poor organizational performance; for example, decision-makers might claim that company stock prices would be even lower if the company had not introduced a new product that was a poor seller. Yet, although studies have not examined whether employees spontaneously engaged in self-affirming reflections following a threat to the self, some research has demonstrated implications of self-affirmations for organizational phenomena. For example, Hideg and Ferris (2014) found that affirmative action policies for women that address discrimination in the workplace would not be supported by either women or men, because such policies threaten an individual’s sense of competence. For men, such policies suggest that they have prospered at work due to unfair systematic advantages, and not because they are competent; for women, such policies remove a potential face-saving handicap, meaning failing to get a job can only be attributed to lack of competence and not to systematic disadvantage given to women. However, when both women and men were offered a chance to affirm values that they personally held, this mitigated the threat affirmative action policies posed; in this case, they were more likely to support the policies. Kinias and Sim (2016) also demonstrated that individuals who affirmed their personal values experienced less threat to the self and performed better than individuals who affirmed organizational values.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  107

Although the self-affirming reflection strategies outlined by Hepper and colleagues (2010, 2013) primarily reflect cognitive reactions, a behavioral reaction that affirms the sense of self may be possible as well. Along these lines, Ferris and colleagues have argued that employees whose sense of self is contingent on their workplace performance are more likely to maintain high levels of performance in reaction to threats such as workplace ostracism (Ferris et al., 2015) or ambiguity and conflict in the workplace (Ferris et al., 2009, 2010). Employees indeed maintained a higher performance level in terms of reducing deviant behaviors (Ferris et al., 2009, 2015), increasing in-role performance (Ferris et al., 2010, 2015), and increasing citizenship behaviors (Ferris et al., 2015). By maintaining high levels of job performance, employees may have behaviorally reaffirmed central aspects of the self.

Contributions of IO/OB Research to the Self-Enhancement Literature As the above review indicates, much of the IO/OB research on self-enhancement applies concepts and strategies from the self-enhancement literature in social/ personality psychology to organizational phenomena. At the same time, however, at least two areas of organizational research have contributed to the broader self-enhancement literature. The first area is feedback. Feedback is a critical component of performance appraisal systems within organizations, based on the idea that receiving feedback leads to improved employee performance. However, employee reactions to feedback are highly variable, with one metaanalysis suggesting that feedback interventions led to decreased performance in over a third of the 131 studies examined (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). From a selfenhancement perspective, this finding makes sense. Employees prefer receiving self-enhancing feedback, and so the effectiveness of received feedback should be reduced if it threatens the self. This statement has received empirical backing by Kluger and DeNisi, who found that feedback interventions that focus attention narrowly on the task itself or learning processes tend to be more effective than feedback interventions that focus attention more broadly on the self. As few employees are perfect, receiving threatening feedback is part and parcel of most performance evaluation systems. To improve reactions to such feedback, organizational research has focused extensively on factors that help to mitigate the threatening nature of it. Some of this work has shown that employee reactions to threatening feedback are ameliorated by the consistency of feedback over time (Stone & Stone, 1985) or when positive feedback precedes negative feedback (Stone, Gueutal, & McIntosh, 1984), whereas other work has focused on the context within which the feedback occurs (e.g., the organizational culture, economic conditions, or competitive environment; Levy & Williams, 2004). Moreover, reactions to feedback are improved to the extent that feedback is timely, specific, and private (Farr, Baytalskaya, & Johnson, 2012).

108  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

That is, by focusing on specific behaviors (and not the individual himself or herself) with enough lead time to allow the individual to improve before performance evaluations, and doing so in a private manner which reduces concerns about others’ perceptions of the feedback recipient’s competence, the threatening nature of feedback can be curtailed (London, 2003). The second area where organizational behavior research has made a contribution to the self-enhancement literature is methodological, addressing a long-standing controversy within the self-enhancement literature. In particular, researchers have debated whether individuals seek to self-enhance or to self-verify. From a self-enhancement perspective, an individual prefers to be viewed positively by others; from a self-verification perspective, an individual prefers that others’ views of the individual are congruent with the individual’s self-perceptions regardless of whether these are positive or negative (Kwang & Swann, 2010; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008). To compare these predictions, congruence (i.e., self-verification) effects have been empirically examined using either difference scores representing the magnitude of the difference between self-perceptions and other-perceptions, or interactions between self-perceptions and other-perceptions (Kwang & Swann, 2010). However, neither a difference score nor an interaction approach is suitable for assessing congruence effects (space limitations preclude a detailed discussion of the reasons for this; for an explanation, see Edwards, 1994, 2001). Instead, congruence analyses require the use of polynomial regression – an analytical technique widely known in organizational research, but (to our knowledge) not used in social psychological research. A study by Anseel and Lievens (2006; see also Woo et al., 2008) examining reactions to feedback illustrated how the conclusions supporting self-enhancement or self-verification perspectives are influenced by whether or not congruence effects are properly operationalized and analyzed. In the Anseel and Lievens (2006) study, prior to completing an in-basket task, participants provide self-ratings of their expected percentile (e.g., top 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent) on various management-related competencies: information management, decisiveness, problem awareness, and coordinating ability. Next, participants received feedback on those competencies using the same scale, thus mimicking 360-degree feedback procedures where self-ratings and other-ratings are provided (Brett & Atwater, 2001). By using polynomial regression, Anseel and Lievens were able to separate out self-enhancement effects (represented by a significant main effect for higher feedback scores) from self-verification effects (represented by congruence between feedback scores and self-ratings), assessed by higher-order quadratic and interactive effects between self-ratings and feedback scores (Edwards, 1994). For comparison, these authors also eschewed a polynomial regression approach and instead used the typical difference scores approach. Anseel and Lievens’ (2006) results revealed that self-enhancement effects were robustly supported: main effects for feedback valence emerged. On the

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  109

other hand, self-verification effects only emerged when difference scores – i.e., the improper analytical technique – were used. When polynomial regression analyses were used, no congruence effects emerged. Although the additional studies are needed to supplement these findings, the Anseel and Lievens study provides an indication of how an organizational analytical approach can inform a long-standing issue in the self-enhancement and self-verification literatures.

Future Research Directions and Conclusion An interesting project for future research would be to consider rehabilitating somewhat the image of narcissists. As noted above, most organizational research on narcissism regards narcissism as an extreme form of self-enhancement, and typically perceive it as an undesirable trait (although this perception may be unwarranted; Grijalva, Harms, Newman, Gaddis, & Fraley, 2015). Indeed, narcissism is sometimes referred to as part of a “dark triad” of negative personality traits along with Machiavellianism and psychopathy (O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012). Recently, however, another type of narcissism has been proposed, that of communal narcissism. These are persons who self-enhance excessively not through agentic means (e.g., focusing on being the smartest person in the room) but rather through communal means (e.g., focusing on being the most helpful person in the room; Gebauer, Sedikides, Verplanken, & Maio, 2012; see also: Giacomin & Jordan, 2015; Luo, Cai, Sedikides, & Song, 2014). Communal narcissists view themselves as very caring and helpful, and as very competent at listening and adept at making friends. Although the grandiosity associated with (agentic) narcissism is still present, their desire for self-enhancement is accomplished by the belief that they improve the lives of others. Consequently, it is possible that communal narcissism is related to engaging in helping and prosocial behaviors for the group (in contrast, agentic narcissism is associated with engaging in deviant behaviors at work; O’Boyle et al., 2012). Despite being a relatively new concept, communal narcissism represents a natural fit for interdependent organizational settings. Moving beyond specific research topics, we argue that researchers would do well to consider how the self-enhancement motive, and its related strategies, could apply to their own literatures. An article by Pfeffer and Fong (2005) is particularly instructive in this respect. These authors illustrated how organizational research on power can be viewed through a self-enhancement lens. They use the self-enhancement motive both to explain prior findings in the literature and show how it leads to new empirical questions. The approach would arguably work for virtually any research topic (Jordan & Audia, 2012). The Pfeffer and Fong (2005) approach is notable because their broader proposal was that self-enhancement should be used as a paradigm for all of IO/ OB. Although they used power as their specific example, they maintained that the self-enhancement motive and strategies are interwoven throughout

110  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

many IO/OB topic areas. As a fundamental human motive, it should not be surprising to regard self-enhancement as relevant to much of what is researched in IO/OB. Yet, at the same time, there seems to be a lack of awareness of just how pervasive self-enhancement is in IO/OB. Indeed, one observation from our reviewing of the literature was that many studies that clearly address selfenhancement themes – such as narcissism (Judge et al., 2006), social comparison (Vidyarthi, Liden, Anand, Erdogan, & Ghosh, 2010), or self-affirmation (Kinias & Sim, 2016) – do not claim that that they investigate self-enhancement: these relevant articles do not include self-enhancement in their titles, abstracts, or keywords. An optimistic interpretation of such studies is that they indicate the prevalence of the self-enhancement motive: they take it as a fact and as unnecessary of singling out. A pessimistic interpretation is that researchers do not appreciate the larger body of relevant literature, and thus perhaps miss out on the opportunity to rely on it for new insights. Failing to recognize the omnipresence of the selfenhancement motive and strategies may also obscure links among research areas. The motive connects research on affirmation action policies and mergers and acquisitions, on recruitment and creativity, as well as on feedback seeking and deviance. Like Pfeffer and Fong (2005), we advocate, in conclusion, that the self-enhancement motive and strategies are worthy of the status of a “paradigm” for the IO/OB literature. We encourage researchers to be aware of them, test them, apply them, and modify or qualify them, as it may be.

Note 1 This lack of measurement can give rise to clashes when different principles provide discrepant explanations for an observed relation. For example, this issue lies at the heart of debates over whether humans self-enhance or self-verify (Kwang & Swann, 2010; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008).

References Alicke, M. D. (1985). Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1621–1630. Alicke, M. D., & Govorun, O. (2005). The better-than-average effect. In M. D. Alicke, D. A. Dunning, & J. I. Krueger (Eds.), The self in social judgment (pp. 85–106). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Alicke, M. D., LoSchiavo, F. M., Zerbst, J., & Zhang, S. (1997). The person who outperforms me is a genius: Maintaining perceived competence in upward social comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 781–789. Alicke, M. D., & Sedikides, C. (2009). Self-enhancement and self-protection: What they are and what they do. European Review of Social Psychology, 20, 1–48. Alicke, M. D., Zell, E., & Guenther, C. L. (2013). Social self-analysis: Constructing, protecting, and enhancing the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 173–234.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  111

Ames, D. R., Rose, P., & Anderson, C. P. (2006). The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 440–450. Anseel, F., & Lievens, F. (2006). Certainty as a moderator of feedback reactions? A test of the strength of the self-verification motive. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 79, 533–551. Ashford, S. J., Blatt, R., & VandeWalle, D. (2003). Reflections on the looking glass: A review of research on feedback-seeking behavior in organizations. Journal of Management, 29, 773–799. Audia, P. G., & Brion, S. (2007). Reluctant to change: Self-enhancing responses to diverging performance measures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 102, 255–269. Bandura, A. (1991). Social cognitive theory of self-regulation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 248–297. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Freeman. Baer, M., & Brown, G. (2012). Blind in one eye: How psychological ownership of ideas affects the types of suggestions people adopt. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 118, 60–71. Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 139–168. Bolino, M. C., & Turnley, W. H. (1999). Measuring impression management in organizations: A scale development based on the Jones and Pittman taxonomy. Organizational Research Methods, 2, 187–206. Brett, J. F., & Atwater, L. E. (2001). 360° feedback: Accuracy, reactions, and perceptions of usefulness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 930–942. Brown, J. D. (2010). Across the (not so) Great Divide: Cultural similarities in self-evaluative processes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 318–330. Brown, J. D. (1986). Evaluations of self and others: Self-enhancement biases in social judgments. Social Cognition, 4, 353–376. Campbell, K. W., & Sedikides, C. (1999). Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic integration. Review of General Psychology, 3, 23–43. Chatterjee, A., & Hambrick, D. C. (2007). It’s all about me: Narcissistic CEOs and their effects on company strategy and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52, 351–386. Chatterjee, A., & Hambrick, D. C. (2011). Executive personality, capability cues, and risk taking: How narcissistic CEOs react to their successes and stumbles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56, 202–237. Chen, Y., Ferris, D. L., Kwan, M., Yan, M., Zhou, M., & Hong, Y. (2013). Self-love’s lost labor: A self-enhancement model of workplace incivility. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 1199–1219. Colvin, C. R., Block, J., & Funder, D. C. (1995). Overly positive self-evaluations and personality: Negative implications for mental health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 1152–1162. Crocker, J., Karpinski, A., Quinn, D. M., & Chase, S. K. (2003). When grades determine self-worth: Consequences of contingent self-worth for male and female engineering and psychology majors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 507–516. Crocker, J., Thompson, L. L., McGraw, K. M., & Ingerman, C. (1987). Downward comparison, prejudice, and evaluations of others: Effects of self-esteem and threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 907–916.

112  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

Crocker, J., & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108, 593–623. Dauenheimer, D. G., Stahlberg, D., Spreeman, S., & Sedikides, C. (2002). Selfenhancement, self-assessment, or self-verification? The intricate role of trait modifiability in the self-evaluation process. Revue Internationale De Psychologie Sociale, 15, 89–112. Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 568–584. Dufner, M., Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., & Denissen, J. J. A. (2017). Self-enhancement and psychological adjustment: A meta-analytic review. Manuscript under review, University of Leipzig. Dunning, D. (1995). Trait importance and modifiability as factors influencing selfassessment and self-enhancement motives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1297–1306. Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessment of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082–1090. Edwards, J. R. (1994). The study of congruence in organizational behavior research: Critique and a proposed alternative. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 58, 51–100. Edwards, J. R. (2001). Ten difference score myths. Organizational Research Methods, 4, 265–287. Emmons, R. A. (1987). Narcissism: Theory and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 11–17. Farr, J. L., Baytalskaya, N., & Johnson, J. E. (2012). Not everyone is above average: Providing feedback in formal job performance evaluations. In R. M. Sutton, M. J. Hornsey, & K. M. Douglas (Eds.), Feedback: The communication of praise, criticism, and advice (pp. 201–215). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. Ferris, D. L. (2014). Contingent self-esteem: A review and applications to organizational research. In M. Gagné (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination Theory (pp. 127–142). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Lian, H., & Keeping, L. M. (2009). When does self-esteem relate to deviant behavior? The role of contingencies of self-worth. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1345–1353. Ferris, D. L., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., & Morrison, R. (2015). Ostracism, self-esteem, and job performance: When do we self-verify and when do we self-enhance? Academy of Management Journal, 58, 279–297. Ferris, D. L., Lian, H., Brown, D. J., Pang, F. X. J., & Keeping, L. M. (2010). Selfesteem and job performance: The moderating role of self-esteem contingencies. Personnel Psychology, 63, 561–593. Ferris, D. L., Spence, J. R., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2012). Interpersonal injustice and workplace deviance: The role of esteem threat. Journal of Management, 38, 1788–1811. Gardner, D. G., Huang, G.-H., Niu, X., Pierce, J. L., & Lee, C. (2015). Organization-based self-esteem psychological contract fulfillment, and perceived employment opportunities: A test of self-regulatory theory. Human Resource Management, 54, 933–953.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  113

Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., & Cai, H. (2012). Wanting to be great and better but not average: On the pancultural desire for self-enhancing and self-improving feedback. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 521–526. Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., Verplanken, B., & Maio, G. R. (2012). Communal narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 854–878. Gebauer, J. E., Wagner, J., Sedikides, C., & Neberich, W. (2013). Agency-communion and self-esteem relations are moderated by culture, religiosity, age, and sex: Evidence for the “Self-Centrality Breeds Self-Enhancement” principle. Journal of Personality, 81, 261–275. Giacomin, M., & Jordan, C. H. (2015). Validating power makes communal narcissists less communal. Self and Identity, 14, 583–601. Gregg, A. P., Hepper, E. G. D., & Sedikides, C. (2011). Quantifying self-motives: Functional links between dispositional desires. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 840–852. Gregg, A. P., & Sedikides, C. (in press). Essential self-evaluation motives: Caring about who we are. In M. van Zomeren & J. Dovidio (Eds.), The handbook of the human essence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gregg, A. P., Sedikides, C., & Gebauer, J. E. (2011). Dynamics of identity: Between self-enhancement and self-assessment. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.),Handbook of identity theory and research (Vol. 1, pp. 305–327). New York, NY: Springer. Grijalva, E., Harms, P. D., Newman, D. A., Gaddis, B., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Narcissism and leadership: A meta-analytic review of linear and nonlinear relationships. Personnel Psychology, 68, 1–47. Hambrick, D. C. (2007). The field of management’s devotion to theory: Too much of a good thing? Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1346–1352. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106, 766–794. Heller, D., Stephan, E., Kifer, Y., & Sedikides, C. (2011). What will I be? The role of temporal perspective on predictions of affect, traits, and self-narratives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 610–615. Hepper, E. G., Gramzow, R. H., & Sedikides, C. (2010). Individual differences in self-enhancement and self-protection strategies: An integrative analysis. Journal of Personality, 78, 782–814. Hepper, E. G., Hart, C. M., Gregg, A. P., & Sedikides, C. (2011). Motivated expectations of positive feedback in social interactions. The Journal of Social Psychology, 151, 455–477. Hepper, E. G., Sedikides, C., & Cai, H. (2013). Self-enhancement and self-protection strategies in China: Cultural expressions of a fundamental human motive. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44, 5–23. Hideg, I., & Ferris, D. L. (2014). Support for employment equity policies: A self-enhancement approach. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 123, 49–64. Hideg, I., Michela, J. L., & Ferris, D. L. (2011). Overcoming negative reactions of nonbeneficiaries to employment equity: The effects of participation in policy formulation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 363–376. Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340.

114  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

Hill, T., Smith, N. D., & Lewicki, P. (1989). The development of self-image bias: A real-world demonstration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15, 205–211. Hsu, G., & Elsbach, K. D. (2013). Explaining variation in organizational identity categorization. Organization Science, 24, 996–1013. James, W. (1907). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Holt. Jones, E., & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through selfhandicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of underachievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200–206. Jordan, A. H., & Audia, P. G. (2012). Self-enhancement and learning from performance feedback. Academy of Management Review, 37(2), 211–231. Judge, T. A., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2006). Loving yourself abundantly: Relationship of the narcissistic personality to self- and other perceptions of workplace deviance, leadership, and task and contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 762–776. Kennedy, J. A., Anderson, C., & Moore, D. A. (2013). When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122, 266–279. Kinias, Z., & Sim, J. (2016). Facilitating women’s success in business: Interrupting the process of stereotype threat through affirmation of personal values. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 1585–1597. Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 254–284. Korman, A. K. (2001). Self-enhancement and self-protection: Toward a theory of work motivation. In M. Erez, U. Kleinbeck, & H. Thierry (Eds.), Work motivation in the context of a globalizing economy (pp. 121–130). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kwan, V., John, O., Kenny, D., Bond, M., & Robins, R. (2004). Reconceptualizing individual differences in self-enhancement bias: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Review, 111, 94–110. Kwan, V., John, O., Robins, R. W., & Kuang, L. L. (2008). Conceptualizing and assessing self-enhancement bias: A componential approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 1062–1077. Kwang, T. & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? A review of critical tests of self-enhancement versus selfverification.Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 263–280. Levy, P. E., & Williams, J. R. (2004). The social context of performance appraisal: A review and framework for the future. Journal of Management, 30, 881–905. Lian, H., Yam, K. C., Ferris, D. L., & Brown, D. J. (2017). Self-control at work. Manuscript submitted for publication. Liu, J., Lee, C., Hui, C., Kwan, H. K., & Wu, L.-Z. (2013). Idiosyncratic deals and employee outcomes: The mediating roles of social exchange and selfenhancement and the moderating role of individualism. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 832–840. London, M. (2003). Job feedback: Giving, seeking, and using feedback for performance improvement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Luo, Y. L. L., Cai, H., Sedikides, C., & Song, H. (2014). Distinguishing communal narcissism from agentic narcissism: A behavior genetics analysis on the agencycommunion model of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 49, 52–58.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  115

Mellor, S. (2009). Self-evaluation and union interest: The empirical relevance of a mediated model. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 369–390. Menon, T., & Thompson, L. (2007). Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful: Self-enhancing biases in threat appraisal. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104, 45–60. Mezulis, A. H., Abramson, L. Y., Hyde, J. S., & Hankin, B. L. (2004). Is there a universal positivity bias in attributions? A meta-analytic review of individual, developmental, and cultural differences in the self-serving attributional bias. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 711–747. Morf, C. C., Horvath, S., & Torchetti, L. (2011). Narcissistic self-enhancement: Tales of (successful?) self-portrayal. In M. D. Alicke & C. Sedikides (Eds.), Handbook of selfenhancement and self-protection (pp. 399–424). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Norem, J., & Cantor, N. (1986). Defensive pessimism: Harnessing anxiety as motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1208–1217. O’Boyle, E. H., Jr., Forsyth, D. R., Banks, G. C., & McDaniel, M. A. (2012). A metaanalysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: A social exchange perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 557–579. O’Mara, E., & Gaertner, L. (in press). Does self-enhancement facilitate task performance? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. O’Mara, E. M., Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., Zhou, X., & Liu, Y. (2012). A longitudinal-experimental test of the panculturality of self-enhancement: Self-enhancement promotes psychological well-being both in the West and the East. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 157–163. Park, S. H., Westphal, J. D., & Stern, I. (2011). Set up for a fall: the insidious effects of flattery and opinion conformity toward corporate leaders. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56, 257–302. Pemberton, M., & Sedikides, C. (2001). When do individuals help close others improve? Extending the self-evaluation maintenance model to future comparisons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 234–246. Pfeffer, J., Cialdini, R. B., Hanna, B., & Knopoff, K. (1998). Faith in supervision and the self-enhancement bias: Two psychological reasons why managers don’t empower workers. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 20, 313–321. Pfeffer, J., & Fong, C. T. (2005). Building organization theory from first principles: The self-enhancement motive and understanding power and influence. Organization Science, 16, 372–388. Pierce, J. L., & Gardner, D. G. (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context: A review of the organization-based self-esteem literature. Journal of Management, 30, 591–622. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 435–468. Regan, P. C., Snyder, M., & Kassin, S. M. (1995). Unrealistic optimism: Self-enhancement or person positivity? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1073–1082. Roese, N. J. (1994). The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 805–818. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sanitioso, R. B., & Wlodarski, R. (2004). In search of information that confirms a desired self-perception: Motivated processing of social feedback and choice of social interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 412–422.

116  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

Schoorman, F. D. (1988). Escalation bias in performance appraisals: An unintended consequence of supervisor participation in hiring decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 58–62. Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the self-evaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317–338. Sedikides, C. (2012). Self-protection. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed., pp. 327–353). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Sedikides, C., & Campbell, W. K. (in press). Narcissistic force meets systemic resistance: The Energy Clash Model. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Sedikides, C., Campbell, W. K., Reeder, G., & Elliot, A. J. (1998). The self-serving bias in relational context.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 378–386. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Cai, H. (2015). On the panculturality of self-enhancement and self-protection motivation: The case for the universality of self-esteem. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in Motivation Science (Vol. 2, pp. 185–241). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Vevea, J. L. (2005). Pancultural self-enhancement reloaded: A meta-analytic reply to Heine (2005). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 539–551. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Toguchi, Y. (2003). Pancultural self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 60–79. Sedikides, C., Green, J. D., Saunders, J., Skowronski, J. J., & Zengel, B. (2016). Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults. European Review of Social Psychology, 27, 1–62. Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2003). Portraits of the self. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Sage handbook of social psychology (pp. 110–138). London: Sage. Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-enhancement: Food for thought.Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 102–116. Sedikides, C., & Herbst, K. (2002). How does accountability reduce self-enhancement? The role of self-focus. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 15, 113–128. Sedikides, C., Herbst, K. C., Hardin, D. P., & Dardis, G. J. (2002).Accountability as a deterrent to self-enhancement: The search for mechanisms.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 592–605. Sedikides, C., Hoorens, V., & Dufner, M. (2015). Self-enhancing self-­presentation: Interpersonal, relational, and organizational implications. In F. Guay, D. M. McInerney, R. Craven, & H. W. Marsh (Eds.), Self-concept, motivation and identity: Underpinning success with research and practice. International Advances in Self Research (Vol. 5, pp. 29–55). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Sedikides, C., & Strube, M. J. (1997). Self-evaluation: To thine own self be good, to thine own self be sure, to thine own self be true, and to thine own self be better. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 209–269. Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 183–242. Sitzmann, T., & Johnson, S. K. (2012). When is ignorance bliss? The effects of inaccurate self-assessments of knowledge on learning and attrition.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 117, 192–207.​ Smither, J. W., London, M., & Reilly, R. R. (2005). Does performance improve following multisource feedback? A theoretical model, meta-analysis, and review of empirical findings. Personnel Psychology, 58, 33–66. Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 261–302.

Self-Enhancement in Organizations  117

Stephan, E., Sedikides, C., Heller, D., & Shidlovski, D. (2015). My fair future self: The role of temporal distance and self-enhancement in prediction. Social Cognition, 33, 149–168. Stevens, C. K., Mitchell, T. R., & Tripp, T. M. (1990). Order of presentation and verbal recruitment strategy effectiveness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 20, 1076–1092. Stone, J., & Cooper, J. (2001). A self-standards model of cognitive dissonance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 228–243. Stone, D. L., Gueutal, H. G., & McIntosh, B. (1984). The effects of feedback sequence and expertise of the rater on perceived feedback accuracy. Personnel Psychology, 3, 487–506. Stone, D. L., & Stone, E. F. (1985). The effects of feedback consistency and feedback favorability on self-perceived task competence and perceived feedback accuracy. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 36, 167–185. Swann, W. B., Jr., Hixon, G., Stein-Seroussi, A., & Gilbert, D. T. (1990). The fleeting gleam of praise: Behavioral reactions to self-relevant feedback.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 17–26. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In S. Worchel & W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210. Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sherman, D. K., Sage, R. M., & McDowell, N. K. (2003). Portrait of the self-enhancer: Well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 165–176. Tepper, B. J., Mitchell, M., Haggard, D., Kwan, H. K., & Park, H. (2015). On the exchange of hostility with supervisors: An examination of self-enhancing and selfdefeating perspectives. Personnel Psychology, 68, 723–758. Tesser, A. (1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 181–228. Tesser, A., Crepaz, N., Beach, S., Cornell, D., & Collins, J. (2000). Confluence of self-esteem regulation mechanisms: On integrating the self-zoo. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1476–1489. Tice, D. M. (1991). Esteem protection or enhancement? Self-handicapping motives and attributions differ by trait self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 711–725. Tice, D. M., Butler, J. L., Muraven, N. B., & Stillwell, A. M. (1995). When modesty prevails: Differential favorability of self-presentation to friends and strangers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1120–1138. Thomaes, S., Brummelman, E., & Sedikides, C. (in press). Narcissism: A socialdevelopmental perspective. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. Shackelford (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Personality and Individual Differences. New York, NY: Sage. Van der Kam, N. A., Janssen, O., Van der Vegt, G. S., & Stoker, J. I. (2014). The role of vertical conflict in the relationship between leader self-enhancement and leader performance. Leadership Quarterly, 25, 267–281. Vidyarthi, P., Liden, R. C., Anand, S., Erdogan, B., & Ghosh, S. (2010). Where do I stand? Examining the effects of leader-member exchange social comparison on employee work behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 849–861. Wicklund, R. A., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1982) Symbolic self-completion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

118  D. Lance Ferris and Constantine Sedikides

Williams, E. F., & Gilovich, T. (2008). Do people really believe they are above average? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1121–1128. Wilson, A. E., & Ross, M. (2001). From chump to champ: People’s appraisals of their earlier and present selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 572–584. Wilson, A. E., & Ross, M. (2003). The identity function of autobiographical memory: Time is on our side. Memory, 11, 137–149. Woo, S. E., Sims, C. S., Rupp, D. E., & Gibbons, A. M. (2008). Development engagement within and following developmental assessment centers: Considering feedback favorability and self-assessor agreement. Personnel Psychology, 61, 722–759. Yun, S., Takeuchi, R., & Liu, W. (2007). Employee self-enhancement motives and job performance behaviors: Investigating the moderating effects of employee role ambiguity and managerial perceptions of employee commitment.Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 745–756. Zuckerman, M. (1979). Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory. Journal of Personality, 47, 245–287.

6 SELF-CONTROL IN WORK ORGANIZATIONS Russell E. Johnson, Mark Muraven, Tina L. Donaldson, and Szu-Han (Joanna) Lin

In other chapters in this volume, authors discuss the importance of regulating various self-referenced identities, goals, needs, motives, emotions, and behaviors. To do so, it requires that employees have sufficient self-control at their disposal. However, this may not always be the case, especially when employees feel depleted from prior instances of suppressing thoughts, emotions, or behaviors. In this chapter we review foundational research on self-control and ego depletion theory, and how this work has informed investigations of employee self-control and depletion at work. We conclude with discussions of some of the challenges facing this line of research and fruitful directions for future research.

Overview of Self-Control and Ego Depletion Theory It seems counterintuitive that refraining from a task would use energy. However, recent research has found that when people exert self-control they may become fatigued and perform worse on later attempts at self-control (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). To understand these results, an energy model of self-control has been put forth. This model of self-control suggests that in order to override an impulse, stop a behavior, or change a mood or thought, people need to exert effort and energy. If they do not expend this energy, they will give into temptation or continue their present action. In other words, this energy or resource (often called self-control strength) is necessary for any and all acts of agency. Even more importantly, people seem to act as if this self-control strength is limited (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994) and that it is depleted in the process of exerting self-control (Muraven, Baumeister, & Tice, 1999). For example, whenever people exert self-control in order to make difficult or complex decisions, cope

120  Russell E. Johnson et al.

with stress, sustain attention, or restrain impulses, they draw upon this common reserve, which is analogous to mental energy or strength. Exerting self-control therefore depletes this mental energy or strength, so after exerting self-control, people have less strength until they are able to replenish it. This state of reduced energy or strength has profound implications for current self-control performance because the success of self-control depends upon an individual’s level of self-control strength at that moment (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). These notions that mental energy or strength is needed for successful self-control, that people treat this energy or strength as if it is limited, and that it may be reduced or consumed in the process of exerting self-control form the foundation of ego depletion theory and research.

Research on Ego Depletion Consistent with the idea that the resource underlying self-control is treated as if it is limited and depletable, resisting temptation and delaying satisfaction appear to result in a temporary decline in this resource (ego depletion; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998). When self-control strength is depleted through acts of volition, research has shown that people exhibit diminished performance on subsequent self-control efforts. The energy expenditure on the first task appears to leave the self-control strength depleted and thus there is less energy readily available for future endeavors. In short, when an individual is in an ego-depleted state they are consequently more prone to self-control failure. A seminal study conducted by Baumeister and colleagues (1998) offered initial support for the ego depletion effect. In this experiment the participants were told they would be taking part in a taste perception test. When they arrived at the lab, they had not eaten anything for at least three hours. On the table at which participants were seated were two bowls: one bowl was filled with chocolate chip cookies and chocolate candies whereas the second bowl was filled with red and white radishes. The chocolate chip cookies were baked in the room just moments before their arrival, leaving a delicious aroma. Some of the participants were told to help themselves to the chocolate chip cookies and chocolate candies, whereas others were instructed to only eat the radishes. After several minutes passed, all participants had to exert self-control on a difficult problem-solving task for as long as they wanted (unbeknownst to participants, there was no solution to the problem). Continuing to work on such an intractable problem requires self-control to overcome negative feelings and the desire to quit, so people who worked longer on the problem were assumed to have greater self-control capacity. Results showed that the participants who were instructed to eat only radishes persisted less than half the amount of time compared to those who ate the chocolate chip cookies and candies. Statistically controlling for mood, arousal, and frustration did not alter these results, suggesting that the differences in

Self-Control in Work Organizations  121

self-control performance cannot be attributed to these factors. These results are consistent with the idea that an internal resource had been utilized or depleted through the process of restraining the desires to eat a tempting food (Baumeister et al., 1998). Other studies have established the specificity of the ego depletion model. That is, the amount of self-control exerted on the initial task is the only factor that is related to subsequent changes in performance. For example, in a study on the regulation of alcohol intake, social drinkers were asked to pick up and sniff a glass containing their favorite alcohol beverage but not drink it (Muraven & Shmueli, 2006). Cue exposure tasks are frequently used as tests of self-control (Tang, Posner, Rothbart, & Volkow, 2015), thus these instructions should have depleted participants’ self-control strength. The results of this investigation showed that the stronger the temptation to drink the alcohol (and hence the more self-control exerted), the more poorly participants performed on subsequent tests of self-control. The effects of depletion are also limited only to acts that require self-control. Depletion has no effect on behaviors that do not require stopping or inhibiting a behavior or changing a thought or feeling. For instance, performance on a Stroop test where the ink color and word do not match is affected by depletion (Wallace & Baumeister, 2002). However, when the ink color and word do match, thus requiring little or no mental control, response speed is not related to prior self-control efforts (Muraven, Shmueli, & Burkley, 2006). In other words, ego depletion has no effect on tasks that do not require self-control. Intriguingly, there is evidence for this depletion effect in animals as well. Several studies have found evidence for reduced self-control performance in dogs after resisting a temptation (Miller & Bender, 2012; Miller, DeWall, Pattison, Molet, & Zentall, 2012; Miller, Pattison, DeWall, Rayburn-Reeves, & Zentall, 2010). The fact that depletion occurs in animals without (presumably) complex selves has important implications for understanding the processes underlying the depletion effect. It is important to note that recently there has been some focus on the reliability of these effects. Although this theory has been the basis of many published studies carried out in numerous labs around the world (estimates suggests over 1,000 papers based on this theory), there has been some well-publicized failures to replicate the results as well. For example, a recent meta-analysis of 198 independent tests of the ego depletion effect (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010) found the effect to be medium to large in size. However, a competing meta-analysis (Carter, Kofler, Forster, & McCullough, 2015) argued that this meta-analysis overweighed studies with small samples. After correcting for that, they found evidence for publication bias and concluded the actual effect size for the depletion model was null. This claim implies that a large number of papers reporting null or negative effect remain unpublished, although the original meta-analysis (Hagger et al., 2010) calculated that there would need to be

122  Russell E. Johnson et al.

nearly 50,000 unpublished studies to bring the published effect size back to zero (for additional commentary, see Cunningham & Baumeister, 2016). A recent study using standardized methods and multiple labs around the world also failed to find an effect (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2016). This many lab approach was criticized for using a manipulation that, although similar to previous methods, was not validated in prior studies (Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Such a large sample should have been able to detect small effects, even if the manipulation was poor, however. Regardless, it is clear that much more research is needed using a wide variety of methods to fully elucidate the boundaries of this model and to explain why there may be instances where the depletion effect is not observed.

Moderators of Depletion Fortunately, research investigating some of the boundary conditions and moderators of the depletion effect have begun to emerge. These variables are important at both the basic and applied levels, as they help inform theories of self-control depletion. They also point the way to potential interventions to help mitigate the effects of depletion on self-control performance. One critical factor that seems to moderate the effects of depletion is motivation. Evidence suggests that people are mainly unaware of their level of depletion and may not be aware that they need to compensate for the decrease in their performance (Clarkson, Hirt, Jia, & Alexander, 2010). However, if people are aware of their level of depletion, then it may be possible for them to take corrective action (e.g., seek rest to replenish). Importantly, self-awareness has also been shown to improve self-regulation by increasing motivation and adherence to goals (Carver & Scheier, 1998). Consistent with these ideas, increasing self-awareness tends to help negate the negative effects of depletion (Alberts, Martijn, & de Vries, 2011; Voce & Moston, 2016). That is, people who engage in self-control (and thus should be depleted) but who are made to increase their self-awareness perform as well on self-control tasks as people who are not depleted at all. Proper incentives may also provide people with an increase in motivation, which has been shown to attenuate the effects of depletion (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Muraven & Slessareva, 2003). In an experiment where depleted participants believed their efforts would benefit either themselves or others, their performance on subsequent self-control tasks was superior to depleted participants with less motivation (Muraven & Slessareva, 2003). As will be discussed later, this suggests that ego depletion does not necessarily result in the inability to exert self-control – even depleted people can exert self-control if sufficiently motivated. This also suggests that external contingencies can help people overcome depletion, which highlights potential ways to reduce the impact of depletion on performance.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  123

Besides external contingencies, research has suggested that the type of motivation also affects self-control performance. For example, intrinsically motivated and self-determined behavior may be less depleting than feeling obliged to exert self-control (Muraven, Gagné, & Rosman, 2008). In three experiments, it was found that when participants felt supported during acts requiring selfcontrol they performed better than participants who felt pressure to perform (Muraven et  al., 2008). Furthermore, research has found that when dieting, those who were intrinsically motivated were more successful at weight loss than people who were extrinsically motivated (Muraven, 2008). After controlling for anxiety, mood, stress, and reduced motivation, feelings of autonomy – a key ingredient of intrinsic motivation – appear to mitigate the effects of depletion. In other words, exerting self-control for personal, intrinsic reasons is less depleting than exerting self-control for extrinsic reasons. Finally, the nature of the self-control acts likely matters. For example, the automatization of behavior should decrease cognitive demand and thus may reduce the resources required for self-control (Webb & Sheeran, 2003). Implementation intentions, or pre-commitment to a goal, set a plan in place that specifies how, when, and where a goal will be accomplished. Such intentions automatize self-controlled behavior by creating associations of goal-directed actions with critical cues in the environment. For example, someone who wants to lose weight may say to him- or herself: “If I have a craving for chocolate cake, then I will go for a walk instead.” Consistent with these ideas, having an if–then plan in place eases self-control demands and increases the likelihood of successfully achieving the desired goal (Sheeran, Webb, & Gollwitzer, 2005). Compared to those who had an implementation intention, participants who had no such intention or plan were more depleted by self-control activity. The framing of the self-control tasks likely matters as well. If people perceive a task as difficult and their expectancy for success is low, performance on the task may be more affected by depletion than if they perceived the task as easy (Giacomantonio, Ten Velden, & De Dreu, 2016). In instances where success is unlikely, there is little incentive for people to invest additional effort to counteract the effects of depletion. Whether activities are framed in terms of success and approaching desired states versus in terms of failure and avoiding feared states also has implications for depletion. Avoidance-oriented tasks cause people to divide their attention amongst all possible obstacles (real and imagined) that might lead to failure (Carver & Scheier, 1998), which produces high self-control demands. Approach-oriented tasks, in contrast, are less demanding because attention is exclusively focused on movement toward the desired goal state. In short, the same activity or behavior may be more or less depleting, depending on how a person approaches it. There is a need for much more work on how perception and mindset of self-control activities affects levels of depletion.

124  Russell E. Johnson et al.

The Flip-Side of Depletion: Replenishment If people act as though self-control is a limited resource that gets depleted, there must be ways to replenish that lost energy. Although it has not been extensively investigated, there is some evidence that rest helps people recover lost energy. For example, research has linked self-reports of poor sleep or fatigue with poorer self-control (Barnes, Schaubroeck, Huth, & Ghumman, 2011; Ghumman & Barnes, 2013). More directly, periods of rest after a depleting activity have been found to lead to improved self-control performance (Tyler & Burns, 2008). There may be more direct and rapid ways to recover lost resources as well. Positive affect has received the most attention in this regard. People who were depleted through a self-control exercise and then experienced a positive event performed as well as non-depleted people on a self-control test and much better than people who were depleted and experienced a neutral and distracting event (Tice et  al., 2007). Other positive experiences such as self-affirmation (Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009), mindfulness meditation (Friese, Messner, & Schaffner, 2012), and even being outside (Chow & Lau, 2015; Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009) have been shown to help replenish lost self-control. The fact that intrinsic motivation leads to more positive affect and feelings of vitality may help to explain why people who are intrinsically motivated to exert selfcontrol exhibit less depletion than people who are extrinsically motivated (Moller, Deci, & Ryan, 2006; Muraven et al., 2008). The mechanism underlying replenishment effects is less clear. Positive affect may increase motivation, much as incentives do. If that is the case, the underlying depletion may remain and return or possibly worsen after the motivation is gone (much like drinking coffee can increase wakefulness for a while but ultimately sleep is needed). On the other hand, positive experience may truly lead to a return of lost strength. As will be discussed further, the answer to that question may help in understanding the nature of the resource itself.

Building Self-Control Through Practice Finally, research has suggested that self-control can be strengthened through practice. Much like exercising a muscle fatigues it and leads to poorer performance in the short term but greater strength and endurance in the long term, exercising self-control may have a similar effect. In the short term, self-control may get worse immediately after exerting self-control, but the regular practice of self-control interspersed with rest may produce relatively enduring gains in self-control capacity. Consistent with this idea, research suggests that practicing small acts of self-control can lead to better self-control performance overall (Muraven, 2010; Muraven, Baumeister, & Tice, 1999; Oaten & Cheng, 2006). Interestingly, the benefits of practice are not domain exclusive, such that practicing self-control in one area (e.g., physical fitness) will translate into better self-control in other areas (e.g., emotion regulation). For example, Muraven

Self-Control in Work Organizations  125

(2010) assigned smokers who were interested in quitting to either practice self-control or to a control group where they practiced a task that did not require self-control. After practicing their assigned task for two weeks, they quit smoking. Those who previously practiced self-control remained abstinent longer than those who did not practice self-control. Notably, participants in the control condition worked on tasks that were designed to increase their feelings of self-efficacy, increase self-awareness, make them think about self-control, and engage in self-monitoring, yet none of these variables were related to the subsequent ability to quit smoking. Only the amount of self-control actually exerted during the practice phase was related to the ability to quit smoking.

Organizational Research on Self-Control and Ego Depletion As reviewed above, exercising self-control consumes psychological resources, and when these resources are depleted, it is more difficult for people to control subsequent behavior. A wide range of volitional activities require self-control, from overriding impulses and coping with stress to concentrating attention and maintaining vigilance (Baumeister et al., 1998; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), and such activities are common in most jobs. Thus, it is not surprising that self-control is a necessary ingredient for optimal performance and well-being at work (Johnson, Chang, & Lord, 2006; Kanfer, Frese, & Johnson, 2017; Lord, Diefendorff, Schmidt, & Hall, 2010). As such, organizational scholars have begun exploring the antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions of employee self-control, which we summarize below.

Antecedents of Employee Depletion Performance regulation (e.g., allocating attention and effort across tasks, blocking out distractions; Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid 2005; Lord et  al., 2010) requires self-control, especially for work tasks requiring high levels of attention and effort. Although it is well-established that difficult and specific goals inspire the highest levels of attention and effort (Locke & Latham, 2002), they may also result in greater depletion. In fact, assigning difficult and specific goals on consecutive tasks results in greater depletion compared to assigning easy or “do your best” goals (Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014). Work tasks are also more depleting when irrelevant information must be suppressed. For example, rating job applicants with (vs. without) facial stigmas (e.g., a scar) is more depleting owing to the added self-control demands of suppressing the physical distractor (Madera & Hebl, 2012). The mindsets needed to complete tasks can also vary (e.g., assessment vs. locomotion), yet it is more demanding to switch between mindsets than to maintain a consistent mindset (Hamilton, Vohs, Sellier, & Meyvis, 2011), which has implications for jobs involving high levels of multitasking.

126  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Besides the self-control demands of required in-role work activities, organizational scholars have also explored those of discretionary work behaviors (e.g., helping, voice). Although providing help is beneficial for recipients, it may come at a cost for helpers. Responding to help requests is depleting because it interrupts current goal progress and it involves suppressing self-interest and mindset switching (Lanaj, Johnson, & Wang, 2016). Similarly, although expressing concerns and identifying problems regarding task outcomes and processes (i.e., prohibitive voice) is beneficial for companies, doing so is depleting for employees because it requires constant vigilance and contingency planning for all real and imagined problems (Lin & Johnson, 2015). Fortunately, self-control impairments are lessened when helping and voice behaviors generate workable solutions and have a noticeable prosocial impact on others (Lanaj et al., 2016; Lin & Johnson, 2015). Organizational scholars have also identified job stressors that tax employee self-control (e.g., Gross, Semmer, Meier, Kälin, Jacobshagen, & Tschan, 2011; Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2015). For example, being overloaded with work and facing tremendous time pressure depletes self-control resources and lessens employees’ ability to control impulses and resist distractions (Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Prem, Kubicek, Diestel, & Korunka, 2016). Dealing with uncertainty about how to do one’s job or about what the future may bring also diminishes self-control because it requires active attention and vigilance. When faced with high uncertainty, decision-makers experience greater depletion and make less optimal decisions as a result (Milkman, 2012; see also Conlon, Tinsley, Birk, Humphrey, & Ellis, 2012). Exposure to physiological stressors (e.g., pain) can also increase employee depletion (Christian, Eisenkraft, & Kapadia, 2014). Job stressors that involve interpersonal interactions can be especially depleting. For example, interacting with interracially diverse partners can be depleting, possibly because such interactions are more uncertain and require greater vigilance (Richeson & Trawalter, 2005). Experiencing abuse from supervisors, coworkers, and customers taxes self-control because employees must expend resources to understand the causes for abuse, keep negative emotions in check, and consider the ramifications of responding to the abuse (Lian, Brown, Ferris, Liang, Keeping, & Morrison, 2014; Lian, Ferris, Morrison, & Brown, 2014; Rafaeli, Erez, Ravid, Derfler-Rozin, Treister, & Scheyer, 2012; Thau & Mitchell, 2010). Mild forms of mistreatment for which intent to harm is vague (e.g., incivility, undermining) also consumes victims’ resources (Lee, Kim, Bhave, & Duffy, 2016; Rosen, Koopman, Gabriel, & Johnson, 2016). Despite being mild, such mistreatment diminishes self-control because employees may have to expend resources to make sense of whether it was intentional and why it occurred (Rosen et al., 2016). Interestingly, even company-sanctioned punishment (e.g., verbal reprimands) depletes resources because employees must cope with stress and self-doubt (Deng & Leung, 2014). Self-control is also diminished by adherence to company rules and norms (DeBono, Shmueli, & Muraven, 2011), particularly when they are incongruent

Self-Control in Work Organizations  127

with personal values (Deng, Wu, Leung, & Guan, 2015). Many companies have emotional display rules, which create dissonance when felt emotions deviate from required emotions. To relieve this dissonance, employees exercise selfcontrol to display the required emotion (Diestel, Rivkin, & Schmidt, 2015; Grandey, Fisk, & Steiner, 2005; Prem et  al., 2016). It is especially depleting when employees surface act as they must continually suppress their felt emotions and fake the required emotions (Beal, Trougakos, Weiss, & Dalal, 2013; Trougakos, Beal, Cheng, Hideg, & Zweig, 2015; Wagner, Barnes, & Scott, 2014; Yam, Fehr, Keng-Highberger, Klotz, & Reynolds, 2015). Many companies also have rules and norms regarding fair and ethical conduct. However, regulating behavior to be fair and ethical is depleting because employees must suppress self-serving motives and temptations to do “what’s profitable” as opposed to “what’s right” (Gino, Schweitzer, Mead, & Ariely, 2011; Johnson, Lanaj, & Barnes, 2014; Liao, Lee, Johnson, & Lin, 2017; Lin, Ma, & Johnson, 2016; Pitesa, Thau, & Pillutla, 2013). A final stream of research examines activities outside of the office that spill over to impact self-control at work. Sleep is a key restorative activity, and several studies verify that insufficient sleep quantity and quality leave employees depleted at the start of the workday (Barnes, Lucianetti, Bhave, & Christian, 2015; Barnes et al., 2011; Christian & Ellis, 2011; Lanaj, Johnson, & Barnes, 2014; Welsh, Ellis, Christian, & Mai, 2014). A stressful commute to work can also leave employees feeling depleted and starting off the workday on the wrong foot (Ma, Lin, Johnson, & Chang, 2016; Zhou, Wang, Chang, Liu, Zhan, & Shi, 2017). Coping with conflict in the family domain can similarly leave employees depleted at work (Courtright, Gardner, Smith, McCormick, & Colbert, in press; Dahm, Glomb, Manchester, & Leroy, 2015; Liu, Wang, Chang, Shi, Zhou, & Shao, 2015). However, being away from the office affords employees the opportunities to psychologically detach from work and replenish their self-control resources (Dai, Milkman, Hofmann, & Staats, 2015; Sonnentag & Bayer, 2005; Sonnentag, Binnewies, & Mojza, 2010). For example, Lanaj, Johnson, and Barnes (2014) found that employees had greater self-control on days when they limited their use of smartphones and other electronic devices for work purposes the previous night. Employees can also replenish self-control while at work. For example, Trougakos, Hideg, Cheng, and Beal (2014) found that engaging in relaxing activities during lunch breaks improved self-control whereas engaging in work activities during lunch diminished self-control.

Work-Based Consequences of Depletion Most renderings of the criterion space of job performance include three dimensions (i.e., task, citizenship, and counterproductive behaviors; Rotundo & Sackett, 2002), and self-control has implications for all three. Task behaviors refer to the performance of required, in-role duties and responsibilities

128  Russell E. Johnson et al.

associated with a given job. Sufficient self-control resources are needed to attend to and invest effort in focal work goals, block out distractions, and persist in the face of difficulties (Beal et  al., 2005). Supporting this idea, several empirical studies find that diminished self-control has detrimental effects on task performance (e.g., Chi, Chang, & Huang, 2015; Deng & Leung, 2014; Deng et al., 2015; Lin & Johnson, 2015). When employees are depleted, they experience information processing deficits (Rafaeli et al., 2012), show reduced job engagement (Lanaj et  al., 2014), allocate less time to required task activities (Dahm et al., 2015), and comply less with professional standards (Dai et al., 2015). Citizenship behaviors refer to discretionary activities that are not necessarily task-related yet they contribute to the social and psychological climate at work. Examples of these behaviors include helping coworkers, offering suggestions to improve work outputs and processes, and promoting the company to outsiders. Exhibiting citizenship and prosocial behaviors requires sufficient self-control resources because they are performed in addition to required, in-role tasks and they typically require individuals to set aside their own self-interests (Osgood & Muraven, 2015). Consistent with this logic, employees with diminished selfcontrol engage in less helping (Johnson et  al., 2014; Lin & Johnson, 2015; Trougakos et al., 2015), report fewer intentions to cooperate with coworkers (Christian et al., 2014), and volunteer fewer suggestions for improvements and preventing errors (Lin & Johnson, 2015). Counterproductive behaviors refer to destructive acts that harm the company (e.g., stealing or damaging company property) or its members (e.g., bullying or ostracizing coworkers). A well-established finding in the self-control literature is that people are unable to control deviant and aggressive impulses when their self-control is diminished (e.g., DeWall, Baumeister, Stillman, & Gailliot, 2007; Muraven, Pogarsky, & Shmueli, 2006), which extends to organizational contexts as well. Depleted individuals are more likely to cheat or misrepresent their performance on work tasks (Barnes et al., 2011; Christian & Ellis, 2011; Gino et al., 2011; Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014; Yam, Chen, & Reynolds, 2014), deceive (Welsh et al., 2014) and undermine (Lee et al., 2016) others, and be verbally aggressive toward peers (Christian & Ellis, 2011; Rosen et al., 2016), supervisors (Lian, Brown, et al., 2014; Thau & Mitchell, 2010), customers (Chi et al., 2015), and family members (Liu et al., 2015). Organizational scholars have examined supervisors specifically, finding that diminished self-control is a primary reason why supervisors abuse their subordinates (Barnes et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2016; Yam et al., 2015). In addition to active forms of counterproductive behavior, diminished self-control also predicts passive or withdrawn forms, such as withholding effort (Christian et al., 2014), avoiding customers (Trougakos, Jackson, & Beal, 2011) and subordinates (Liao et al., 2017), and cyberloafing (Wagner, Barnes, Lim, & Ferris, 2012).

Self-Control in Work Organizations  129

Boundary Conditions of the Work-Based Effects of Depletion Although diminished self-control tends to reduce task and citizenship behaviors and increase counterproductive behavior, certain personal and situational factors constrain these effects. In terms of personal factors, employees vary in how much self-control and cognitive resources they have at their disposal, thus it has been found that variables like self-control capacity (Diestel et al., 2015; Lian, Brown, et al., 2014; Lian, Ferris, et al., 2014; Yam et al., 2015) and cognitive ability (Rafaeli et  al., 2012) buffer depletion-based effects. Depletion-based effects are also counteracted when employees are highly motivated, such as those high in conscientiousness (Chi et al., 2015; Wagner et  al., 2012), motivation for self-control (Lian, Brown, et  al., 2014; Lian, Ferris, et al., 2014), or commitment to their company (Rivkin et al., 2015). Employees who are more resilient to stress, such as those high in extraversion (Chi, Grandey, Diamond, & Krimmel, 2011; Johnson et  al., 2014), emotional stability (Johnson et al., 2014), or core self-evaluation (Deng & Leung, 2014), are also less susceptible to depletion-based effects. The likelihood that depletion triggers counterproductive behaviors in particular is lessened for employees who care deeply about morality (Gino et  al., 2011; Lee et  al., 2016), the welfare of others (Pitesa et al., 2013), or the self-referenced meaning of their behavior (Rosen et al., 2016). Situational factors have received less attention than personal ones, but two key boundary conditions that buffer depletion-based effects are the extent to which the work environment affords autonomy (Grandey et  al., 2005; Lanaj et al., 2014; Prem et al., 2016; Trougakos et al., 2014) and social support (Liu et al., 2015). On the flip-side, organizational contexts that are rife with interpersonal stressors (Gross et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2015) and politicking (Rosen et  al., 2016) exacerbate depletion-based effects. Social norms and values also impact whether or not diminished self-control translates into counterproductive behavior (Welsh et al., 2014). For example, when social consensus agrees that a behavior is deemed unethical, employees who are depleted will refrain from exhibiting that behavior (Yam et al., 2014).

Challenges and Issues Concerning Self-Control Research Although research on self-control has uncovered numerous antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions of depletion effects, it has also uncovered pressing questions that have yet to be answered. Some of these questions concern the process and resource that underlie depletion effects, whereas others concern how depletion is measured and modeled. We review three key issues in the remainder of this section.

130  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Underlying Process Despite the strong evidence for this depletion effect in the workplace and other environments, the process underlying the decline in self-control remains a matter of debate. That is, it is not clear what causes self-control performance to decline after exerting self-control. To date, two main approaches have been proposed: biological (glucose) and psychological (expectancies). The glucose model builds on research that has shown that performance on difficult mental tasks is related to extracellular levels of glucose in the brain (Fairclough & Houston, 2004; Gage, Kelly, & Bjorklund, 1984). Moreover, brain glucose levels fluctuate based on mental effort, becoming depleted as effort is exerted (McNay, McCarty, & Gold, 2001). According to this model, the resource being depleted in the exertion of self-control is real and may be glucose. Consistent with that idea, research pioneered by Gailliot and others (Gailliot et al., 2007; Wang & Dvorak, 2010) found that blood glucose declined after people engaged in a self-control task. In addition, the ingestion of sugar-containing drinks helped to negate the effects of depletion (Denson, von Hippel, Kemp, & Teo, 2010; Gailliot, Peruche, Plant, & Baumeister, 2009). In other words, glucose may be the fuel driving self-control and it can be depleted through mental effort. Researchers have criticized these findings, suggesting that they are not biologically possible (e.g., Orquin & Kurzban, 2016). However, it is important to realize that research on glucose metabolism has made it evident that brain glucose levels are only weakly correlated with blood glucose levels. Moreover, the brain keeps a separate store of extracellular glucose that can be depleted (Fellows, Boutelle, & Fillenz, 1992). Thus, small changes in mental effort may indeed deplete these local stores of glucose, resulting in poorer performance (McNay, Fries, & Gold, 2000). Thus, there may be a biological basis for the depletion effect. On the other hand, researchers have also shown that self-control efforts fail after exerting self-control because this is what people believe should happen. This expectancy approach suggests that people may hold lay theories of selfcontrol that it is limited and therefore after exercising self-control, they exert less self-control. Consistent with that idea, people who believed self-control is not limited did not exhibit the depletion effect (Burnette, O’Boyle, VanEpps, Pollack, & Finkel, 2013; Job, Dweck, & Walton, 2010). For example, on days when managers experienced a stressful commute to work, those who believed that self-control is limited exhibited fewer effective leader behaviors throughout the workday (Ma et  al., 2016). In contrast, a stressful commute did not predict reductions in leader behavior for managers who believed that self-control is non-limited. Likewise, the perception of depletion or having exerted selfcontrol has been shown to predict self-control performance, regardless of actual effort (Clarkson, Hirt, Jia, & Alexander, 2010). Broadly, this research implies that self-control fails because people expect it to.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  131

A more reliable account of self-control failure may lie in the integration of these ideas. As noted earlier, dogs have exhibited the depletion effect (Miller, Pattison, DeWall, Rayburn-Reeves, & Zentall, 2010), despite lacking (as far as we know) clear psychological models of self-control. However, self-control likely does not fail because people have depleted all of the extracellular glucose stored in their brain (a state that may result in permanent brain damage or death; Moley & Mueckler, 2000). Instead, people may be motivated to use as little self-control as possible, in order to retain glucose reserves for future selfcontrol demands (Evans, Boggero, & Segerstrom, 2016). This may explain why manipulations that increase motivation or communicate greater resource availability may lead to improved self-control performance (Job et al., 2010; Molden et  al., 2012; Muraven & Slessareva, 2003). As such, merely swishing sugary drinks without swallowing them may increase self-control because the body senses the sugar and comes to expect more resources (Molden et  al., 2012). Exertions of self-control may increase the motivation to conserve resources (Muraven, Shmueli, & Burkley, 2006), which could account for the depletion effect. Consistent with this idea, Vohs, Baumeister, and Schmeichel (2012) found that self-control performance was related to expectancies and motivation at moderate levels of depletion but at more extreme levels of depletion the effects of psychological beliefs on self-control were minimal. In short, the idea that people are motivated to conserve the limited and depletable glucose reserves in the brain but external forces can motivate people to overcome this reluctance may be the best fit to the data.

Measurement Issues Given the lack of consensus regarding the exact resource that is being depleted by acts of self-control, it is perhaps not surprising that self-control resources and depletion have been operationalized in a variety of different ways by organizational scholars. One of the most common measures is based on an unpublished state self-control capacity scale developed by Twenge, Muraven, and Tice (2004). Several researchers (e.g., Barnes et  al., 2015; Christian & Ellis, 2011; Deng & Leung, 2014; Lanaj et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2016; Lin et al., 2016; Thau & Mitchell, 2010; Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014; Yam et  al., 2014) have assessed depletion using some or all of the 25 items on this scale. Example items include “Right now, it would take a lot of effort for me to concentrate on something,” “I feel drained,” “I feel mentally exhausted,” and “I feel like my willpower is gone.” Johnson, Lanaj, and Barnes (2014) provide evidence in support of the validity of this scale by showing that responses on the items are lower after performing cognitively demanding activities requiring self-control. Self-control resources and depletion have also been operationalized using survey-based measures of cognitive focus (e.g., Madera & Hebl, 2012), cognitive fatigue (e.g., Barnes et  al., 2011; Gross et  al., 2011), task difficulty

132  Russell E. Johnson et al.

(e.g., Gino et al., 2011), emotional exhaustion (e.g., Grandey et al., 2005; Liu et  al., 2015), emotional fatigue (e.g., Trougakos et  al., 2014), and emotional strain (e.g., Hülsheger, Lang, & Maier, 2010), among others. A critical issue with some of these measures is that they measure phenomena believed to be unique from self-control. For example, emotions, mood, and arousal do not account for the observed effects of diminished self-control (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998; Muraven & Slessareva, 2003). Thus, measures that assess or are confounded with these emotional phenomena are not suitable proxies for depletion. Because of the severe limits on the reliability of self-reports of depletion, selfcontrol resources and depletion are more commonly inferred from performance on tasks that require attention and control. For example, the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935) has been used in multiple studies as a proxy for depletion (e.g., Conlon et al., 2012; Madera & Hebl, 2012; Pitesa et al., 2013; Rosen et al., 2016). This task involves presenting individuals with color words printed in a different color (e.g., the word “red” printed in green letters), and instructing them to report the color of the letters and not the word that is written. Responding to written words is relatively automatic, thus the task requires self-control to suppress the meaning of the word. Other performance-based measures of depletion include persistence on frustrating or impossible tasks (e.g., Converse & DeShon, 2009; Hamilton et  al., 2011), persistence on visual search tasks (e.g., Barnes et  al., 2011), and suppressing facial displays of emotion (e.g., Hamilton et al., 2011). Using performance measures has advantages because people may not always be aware of their current self-control capacity and it lessens the likelihood of common method variance in survey-based research. Finally, several studies propose diminished self-control as the mechanism responsible for hypothesized effects, yet it is not directly measured (e.g., Chi et al., 2015; Dahm et al., 2015; Dholakia, Gopinath, & Bagozzi, 2005; Diestel et  al., 2015; Diestel & Schmidt, 2012; Rothbard, 2001; Lian et  al., 2014; Trougakos et al., 2011). Neglecting to measure self-control resources or depletion is not ideal, though, because alternative explanations have been put forward that predict a similar pattern of effects as ego depletion theory. Direct measures are therefore needed to verify that self-control is the mechanism in question for observed effects. We discuss alternative explanations next.

Alternative Explanations for Observed Effects of Diminished Self-Control Reductions in effort and performance following activities with high self-control and resource demands may be attributable to ego depletion, yet there are other explanations for such effects. A simple explanation is that exerting self-control may elicit negative emotions in people, and these negative moods and states carry over to reduce motivation on subsequent tasks. Although emotions do impact behavior, depletion effects are observed after accounting for mood and

Self-Control in Work Organizations  133

other affective states (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1998; Rosen et al., 2016; Wallace & Baumeister, 2002). Moreover, although demanding, many activities that require self-control are enjoyable to perform (e.g., a creative task or logic problem requiring vigilance), in which case the experience of mental depletion does not coincide with negative affect and may in fact be accompanied by positive affect. In short, the effects of depletion appear unique from affect. It has also been suggested that self-control performance suffers because exerting self-control disrupts the attentional system (Inzlicht & Gutsell, 2007). This suggests that the initial exertion of self-control weakens the neural system responsible for monitoring and activating self-control. After exerting self-control, people are less likely to realize that self-control is necessary. Thus, the dual-task design that is typically used in experimental studies of depletion may be particularly sensitive to attentional blindness. Yet research on vigilance (as reviewed in Muraven & Baumeister, 2000) finds that performance on the same task also suffers over time, so this account cannot fully explain the observed effect. There has been some intriguing research linking self-control exertion to changes in heart rate variability (Segerstrom & Nes, 2007). People who exerted self-control had more variability in their heart rate than those who did not exert self-control and this variability in heart rate was correlated with subsequent selfcontrol performance. This suggests that there may be an overlap between brain systems involved in self-control and those involved in regulating the autonomic nervous system. Other physiological measures of stress and negative affect, such as skin conductance and overall heart rate, differed from the index of heart rate variance, which again suggests that depletion effects are not just a product of negative affect or stress. Besides less conscious explanations like affect and heart rate variability, depletion effects might also owe to more cognitive and deliberative motivational processes. For example, one possibility is that declines in self-control performance represent a weakening of inhibition, an increase in desire, or both. For instance, Schmeichel et al. (2010) found that after exerting self-control, people paid more attention to cues that signaled reward as opposed to neutral cues. In other words, exercising self-control may prompt employees to believe they deserve recognition and compensation, thereby shifting their attention from self-constraint to cues for rewards (Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012). Such an effect is consistent with the finding that self-control reductions are especially likely when subsequent tasks lack incentives (Muraven & Slessareva, 2003). Another motivational process that parallels a depletion effect is moral selflicensing (Miller & Effron, 2010; Mukhopadhyay & Johar, 2009), which refers to people engaging in unethical acts following displays of morally laudable behavior. This effect occurs because initial moral acts accrue moral credits and credentials for people, which can lead them to feel ‘licensed’ to engage in questionable acts without threatening their self-concept as a moral person. Interestingly, exhibiting ethical behavior involves suppressing self-interest,

134  Russell E. Johnson et al.

abiding by social norms, and vigilantly monitoring for moral ‘slip-ups,’ all of which are depleting activities that increase people’s susceptibility to commit subsequent unethical acts (Gino et al., 2011; Johnson et al., 2014; Pitesa et al., 2013). It is therefore unclear whether unethical acts preceded by demanding moral acts are the result of depletion or licensing. Given these plausible alternative explanations for depletion effects, it is crucial that researchers measure and control for competing mechanisms when examining self-control. Fortunately, this practice is already happening. Depletion effects have persisted even after accounting for, for example, affect (Baumeister et  al., 1998), emotional exhaustion (Rosen et  al., 2016), motivation to exert self-control and attention to reward cues (Lin & Johnson, 2015), and moral credits and credentials (Lin et  al., 2016). Moreover, recent research suggests that motivation and behavior are not always aligned when depletion effects are observed. For example, people’s intentions to help others do not change when depleted, yet their actual behavior becomes more selfish (Osgood & Muraven, 2015). Nevertheless, researchers must continue to identify and model other potential mechanisms that may be confounded with depletion effects.

Future Directions for Research on Self-Control Clearly, although we have a pretty firm grasp on the basics of self-control, there remain many important questions, both theoretical and applied to be answered. As should be clear from the discussion of the underlying process of self-control depletion, this is an area of active research. There are many competing ideas. Researchers may do well to learn more about how glucose powers the brain, as there seem to be some misunderstandings and oversimplifications in the literature, as well as gaps in the literature itself. Likewise, a more thorough model of how psychological beliefs moderate the effects of self-control is necessary. As it stands now, there are many findings, like self-licensing (Lin et al., 2016; Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, & Ramanathan, 2008), the implicit theory model (Job et al., 2010), and the conservation approach (Muraven et al., 2006) that need to be integrated. Research on how people think about and process information about mental energy may be helpful in that regard (Buczny, Layton, & Muraven, 2015). Similarly, how people’s feelings and perspectives change during the process of self-control may be useful in crafting the next-generation models of depletion (Vohs & Schmeichel, 2003). There is a need for much more work on how perception and mindset of self-control activities affects levels of depletion. Overall, the best approach to understanding why depletion happens is probably a conservation model that integrates energy conservation and glucose (Evans et al., 2016; Muraven et al., 2006) with psychological resource allocation (Beedie & Lane, 2012). To that end, a better idea of what depletes people is critical. In addition, a clearer picture of extreme levels and chronic levels of depletion is needed. This is an area where research on organizations may be useful, in that

Self-Control in Work Organizations  135

they can examine situations like the workplace that are both very important and very stressful to people. Organizational researchers also have access to a suitable context for examining cyclical changes in situations (e.g., from work to home and from weekday to weekend) that may yield useful data on long-term patterns of depletion and self-control. In fact, such data are already being collected, as field studies within organizations have shown that the effects of depletion occur within the same workday (e.g., Rosen et al., 2016), across consecutive workdays (e.g., Lin et al., 2016), and even across consecutive workweeks (e.g., Lin & Johnson, 2015). Finally, the structure of workplaces may provide opportunities to test aspects of the depletion model in a rich and engaging environment (e.g., self-control in achievement and interpersonal domains, how ego depletion occurs and spreads in teams, and spillover between work and home). Besides the underlying process of depletion, the depletion effect itself also suffers from a lack of information. For example, we do not know how long the effects may last. Some evidence suggests that the decline in self-control performance may be proportional to the amount of self-control exerted (Muraven, Collins, & Nienhaus, 2002) but other evidence suggests a more non-linear effect (Vohs et al., 2012). Initial research on self-control was conducted primarily using experimental methods in the laboratory, where depletion was assessed seconds or minutes after initial acts of self-control (e.g., Muraven et al., 1998). Since then, depletion effects over longer periods of time have been examined in field studies. For example, depletion effects appear to persist after several hours within the same day (e.g., DeHart, Longua Peterson, Richeson, & Hamilton, 2014; Rosen et al., 2016), across consecutive days (e.g., Lanaj et al., 2014; Lin et al., 2016), across consecutive weeks (e.g., Lin & Johnson, 2015), and even across multiple months (e.g., Martínez-Íñigo, Poerio, & Totterdell, 2013). It is quite remarkable that depletion effects are observed over such long (e.g., weekly and monthly) time cycles, given that other phenomena are likely to be experienced which influence people’s self-control and available resources in the interim (e.g., stressors at work or home, respite opportunities, etc.). Building on this early evidence, future research is needed that speaks directly to the timing and duration of depletion effects as well as how repeated encounters with a demanding situation affect self-control. Given the applied nature of the industrial and organizational psychology and management disciplines, there are important practical issues that require further attention. For example, a complete picture of the work-based consequences of depletion is yet to be fleshed out. Currently, it is well established that depleted employees are more likely to engage in deviant acts that harm companies, such as stealing and cheating, and erode interpersonal relations, such as verbally abusing and undermining others (e.g., Barnes et al., 2015; Gino et al., 2011; Welsh & Ordóñez, 2014). Evidence is also growing that depleted employees are more likely to scale back productive work behaviors that improve the quantity, quality, and efficiency of work outputs (e.g., Deng & Leung, 2014;

136  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Lanaj et al., 2014; Lin & Johnson, 2015) and prosocial behaviors that cultivate pleasant and cooperative work relationships (e.g., Christian et al., 2014; Johnson et al., 2014; Trougakos et al., 2015). There are, however, other work criteria that contribute to company success, such as creativity and innovation, safety behavior, and adaptive behavior, among others. While it might be expected that depletion is detrimental for these other criteria, these expectations require more empirical attention. Another practical issue concerns what companies and managers can do to improve the self-control of employees and/or mitigate the effects of depletion. Some research has explored ways to counteract depletion and/or replenish selfcontrol resources, which might be accomplished by providing opportunities for respite during the workday (Trougakos et al., 2008), boosting job autonomy (Sonnentag & Zijlstra, 2006), or facilitating positive social events (Bono, Glomb, Shen, Kim, & Koch, 2013). Employees can also take steps to replenish their self-control resources outside of the office by, for example, powering off work-related smartphones and computers (Lanaj et al., 2012), pursuing non-job mastery experiences (e.g., participating in hobbies and sports; Sonnentag et al., 2008), or getting sufficient sleep (Welsh et al., 2014). Unfortunately, we still do not know much about how to best design self-control interventions to leverage these findings. Clearly, there is much theory building to be done in this area so we can design maximally effective interventions. Some open questions include what makes one intervention better than another, how long the intervention or training should last, how frequently should employees train, and, most broadly, why does the intervention work at all? We see intervention research as one of the most important and needed areas in the self-control literature that organizational scholars can contribute to.

Conclusion Many contemporary theories view work motivation and performance as a process through which employees’ available attention and cognitive resources are allocated across a range of goals and activities in response to task demands, personal values and attitudes, interpersonal dynamics, and incentives, among other impetuses (e.g., Beal et al., 2005; Lord et al., 2010; see Kanfer et al., 2017, for a review). Self-control is the key for effectively regulating behavior under these circumstances because people have a finite pool of resources to fuel on-task behaviors and block out off-task distractions. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for employees to become depleted owing to sustained acts of self-control. As we reviewed in this chapter, the effects of depletion can be quite detrimental for employees as well as their coworkers and companies. We are encouraged, however, by new avenues of research that identify ways to strengthen self-control and/or replenish available resources, which has broad implications for other aspects of employees’ self-concepts, such as their self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  137

References Alberts, H. J. E. M., Martijn, C., & de Vries, N. K. (2011). Fighting self-control failure: Overcoming ego depletion by increasing self-awareness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(1), 58–62. Barnes, C. M., Lucianetti, L., Bhave, D. P., & Christian, M. S. (2015). “You wouldn’t like me when I’m sleepy”: Leaders’ sleep, daily abusive supervision, and work unit engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1419–1437. Barnes, C. M., Schaubroeck, J., Huth, M., & Ghumman, S. (2011). Lack of sleep and unethical conduct. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 169–180. Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. M. (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1252–1265. Baumeister, R. F., Heatherton, T. F., & Tice, D. M. (1994). General patterns and mechanisms of self-regulation failure losing control: How & why people fail at self-regulation (pp. 14–34). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2016). Misguided effort with elusive implications. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 574–575. Beal, D. J., Trougakos, J. P., Weiss, H. M., & Dalal, R. S. (2013). Affect spin and the emotion regulation process at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 593–605. Beal, D. J., Weiss, H. M., Barros, E., & MacDermid, S. M. (2005). An episodic process model of affective influences on performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1054–1068. Beedie, C. J., & Lane, A. M. (2012). The role of glucose in self-control. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16, 143–153. Bono, J. E., Glomb, T. M., Shen, W., Kim, E., & Koch, A. J. (2013). Building positive resources: Effects of positive events and positive reflection on work-stress and health. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 1601–1626. Buczny, J., Layton, R., & Muraven, M. (2015). The role of implicit affective responses and trait self-control in ego resource management. Motivation and Emotion, 39, 669–679. Burnette, J. L., O’Boyle, E. H., VanEpps, E. M., Pollack, J. M., & Finkel, E. J. (2013). Mind-sets matter: A meta-analytic review of implicit theories and self-regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 655–701. Carter, E. C., Kofler, L. M., Forster, D. E., & McCullough, M. E. (2015). A series of meta-analytic tests of the depletion effect: Self-control does not seem to rely on a limited resource. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, 796–815. doi:10.1037/ xge0000083 Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1998). On the self-regulation of behavior. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chi, N. W., Chang, H. T., & Huang, H. L. (2015). Can personality traits and daily positive mood buffer the harmful effects of daily negative mood on task performance and service sabotage? A self-control perspective. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 131, 1–15. Chi, N. W., Grandey, A. A., Diamond, J. A., & Krimmel, K. R. (2011). Want a tip? Service performance as a function of emotion regulation and extraversion. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 1337–1346. Chow, J. T., & Lau, S. (2015). Nature gives us strength: Exposure to nature counteracts ego-depletion. The Journal of Social Psychology, 155(1), 70–85.

138  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Christian, M. S., Eisenkraft, N., & Kapadia, C. (2014). Dynamic associations among somatic complaints, human energy, and discretionary behaviors: Experiences with pain fluctuations at work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60, 66–102. Christian, M. S., & Ellis, A. P. (2011). Examining the effects of sleep deprivation on workplace deviance: A self-regulatory perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 913–934. Clarkson, J. J., Hirt, E. R., Jia, L., & Alexander, M. B. (2010). When perception is more than reality: The effects of perceived versus actual resource depletion on selfregulatory behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 29–46. Conlon, D. E., Tinsley, C. H., Birk, S. J., Humphrey, S. E., & Ellis, A. P. (2012). Is it sometimes better to receive than to give? Preferences for receiver roles over proposer roles in consumer behavior ultimatums. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119, 64–77. Converse, P. D., & DeShon, R. P. (2009). A tale of two tasks: Reversing the selfregulatory resource depletion effect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1318–1324. Courtright, S., Gardner, R., Smith, T., McCormick, B., & Colbert, A. (in press). My family made me do it: A cross-domain, self-regulatory perspective on antecedents to abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal. Cunningham, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2016). How to make nothing out of something: Analyses of the impact of study sampling and statistical interpretation in misleading meta-analytic conclusions. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, ArtID 1639. Dahm, P. C., Glomb, T. M., Manchester, C. F., & Leroy, S. (2015). Work-family conflict and self-discrepant time allocation at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 767–792. Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., Hofmann, D. A., & Staats, B. R. (2015). The impact of time at work and time off from work on rule compliance: The case of hand hygiene in health care. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 846–862. DeBono, A., Shmueli, D., & Muraven, M. (2011). Rude and inappropriate: The role of self-control in following social norms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 136–146. DeHart, T., Longua Peterson, J., Richeson, J. A., & Hamilton, H. (2014). A diary study of daily perceived mistreatment and alcohol consumption in college students. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 36, 443–451. Deng, H., & Leung, K. (2014). Contingent punishment as a double-edged sword: A dual-pathway model from a sense-making perspective. Personnel Psychology, 67, 951–980. Deng, H., Wu, C. H., Leung, K., & Guan, Y. (2015). Depletion from self-regulation: A resource-based account of the effect of value incongruence. Personnel Psychology, 69, 431–165. Denson, T. F., von Hippel, W., Kemp, R. I., & Teo, L. S. (2010). Glucose consumption decreases impulsive aggression in response to provocation in aggressive individuals. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 1023–1028. DeWall, C., Baumeister, R. F., Stillman, T., & Gailliot, M. (2007). Violence restrained: Effects of self-regulation and its depletion on aggression. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 62–76. Dholakia, U. M., Gopinath, M., & Bagozzi, R. P. (2005). The role of desires in sequential impulsive choices. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 98, 179–194.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  139

Diestel, S., Rivkin, W., & Schmidt, K. H. (2015). Sleep quality and self-control capacity as protective resources in the daily emotional labor process: Results from two diary studies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 809–827. Diestel, S., & Schmidt, K.-H. (2012). Lagged mediator effects of self-control demands on psychological strain and absenteeism. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 85, 556–578. Evans, D. R., Boggero, I. A., & Segerstrom, S. C. (2016). The nature of self-regulatory fatigue and “ego depletion”: Lessons from physical fatigue. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 20, 291–310. Fairclough, S. H., & Houston, K. (2004). A metabolic measure of mental effort. Biological Psychology, 66, 177–190. Fellows, L., Boutelle, M., & Fillenz, M. (1992). Extracellular brain glucose levels reflect local neuronal activity: A microdialysis study in awake, freely moving rats. Journal of Neurochemistry, 59, 2141–2147. Friese, M., Messner, C., & Schaffner, Y. (2012). Mindfulness meditation counteracts self-control depletion. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(2), 1016–1022. Gage, F. H., Kelly, P., & Bjorklund, A. (1984). Regional changes in brain glucose metabolism reflect cognitive impairments in aged rats. The Journal of Neuroscience, 4, 2856–2865. Gailliot, M. T., Baumeister, R. F., DeWall, C. N., Maner, J. K., Plant, E. A., Tice, D. M., . . . Schmeichel, B. J. (2007). Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 325–336. Gailliot, M. T., Peruche, B. M., Plant, E. A., & Baumeister, R. F. (2009). Stereotypes and prejudice in the blood: Sucrose drinks reduce prejudice and stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 288–290. Ghumman, S., & Barnes, C. M. (2013). Sleep and prejudice: A resource recovery approach. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43, E166–E178. Giacomantonio, M., Ten Velden, F. S., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2016). Framing effortful strategies as easy enables depleted individuals to execute complex tasks effectively. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 62, 68–74. Gino, F., Schweitzer, M. E., Mead, N. L., & Ariely, D. (2011). Unable to resist temptation: How self-control depletion promotes unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 191–203. Grandey, A. A., Fisk, G. M., & Steiner, D. D. (2005). Must “service with a smile” be stressful? The moderating role of personal control for American and French employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 893–904. Gross, S., Semmer, N. K., Meier, L. L., Kälin, W., Jacobshagen, N., & Tschan, F. (2011). The effect of positive events at work on after-work fatigue: They matter most in face of adversity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 654–664. Hagger, M. S., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2016). A multilab preregistered replication of the ego-depletion effect. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(4), 546–573. Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C., & Chatzisarantis, N. L. (2010). Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136(4), 495–525. Hamilton, R., Vohs, K. D., Sellier, A.-L., & Meyvis, T. (2011). Being of two minds: Switching mindsets exhausts self-regulatory resources. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 13–24.

140  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Hülsheger, U. R., Lang, J. W. B., & Maier, G. W. (2010). Emotional labor, strain, and performance: Testing reciprocal relationships in a longitudinal panel study. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15, 505–521. Inzlicht, M., & Gutsell, J. N. (2007). Running on empty: Neural signals for self-control failure. Psychological Science, 18, 933–937. Inzlicht, M., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2012). What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 7, 450–463. Job, V., Dweck, C. S., & Walton, G. M. (2010). Ego depletion—is it all in your head?: Implicit theories about willpower affect self-regulation. Psychological Science, 21, 1686–1693. Johnson, R. E., Chang, C.-H., & Lord, R. G. (2006). Moving from cognition to behavior: What the research says. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 381–415. Johnson, R. E., Lanaj, K., & Barnes, C. M. (2014). The good and bad of being fair: Effects of procedural and interactional justice behaviors on actors’ regulatory resources. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 635–650. Kanfer, R., Frese, M., & Johnson, R. E. (2017). Motivation related to work: A century of progress. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 338–355. Lanaj, K., Johnson, R. E., & Barnes, C. M. (2014). Beginning the workday yet already depleted? Consequences of late-night smartphone use and sleep. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124, 11–23. Lanaj, K., Johnson, R. E., & Wang, M. (2016). When lending a hand depletes the will: The daily costs and benefits of helping. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 1097–1110. Lee, K., Kim, E., Bhave, D. P., & Duffy, M. K. (2016). Why victims of undermining at work become perpetrators of undermining: An integrative model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 915–924. Lian, H., Brown, D. J., Ferris, D. L., Liang, L. H., Keeping, L. M., & Morrison, R. (2014). Abusive supervision and retaliation: A self-control framework. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 116–139. Lian, H., Ferris, D. L., Morrison, R., & Brown, D. J. (2014). Blame it on the supervisor or the subordinate? Reciprocal relations between abusive supervision and organizational deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 651–664. Liao, C., Lee, H. W., Johnson, R. E., & Lin, S.-H. (2017). Serving today, laissezfaire tomorrow? An actor-centric examination of daily servant leader behaviors and the moderating role of perspective taking. Manuscript under review, Michigan State University. Lin, S.-H., & Johnson, R. E. (2015). A suggestion to improve a day keeps your depletion away: Examining promotive and prohibitive voice behaviors within a regulatory focus and ego depletion framework. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1381–1397. Lin, S.-H., Ma, J., & Johnson, R. E. (2016). When ethical leader behavior breaks bad: How ethical leader behavior can turn abusive via ego depletion and moral licensing. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 815–830. Liu, Y., Wang, M., Chang, C.-H., Shi, J., Zhou, L., & Shao, R. (2015). Work-family conflict, emotional exhaustion, and displaced aggression toward others: The moderating roles of workplace interpersonal conflict and perceived managerial family support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 793–808. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57, 705–717.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  141

Lord, R. G., Diefendorff, J. M., Schmidt, A. M., & Hall, R. J. (2010). Self-regulation at work. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 543–568. Ma, J., Lin, S.-H., Johnson, R. E., & Chang, C.-H. (2016, April). Commute stressor and effective leader behaviors: An ego depletion perspective. Paper presented at the 31st Annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, Anaheim, California. Madera, J. M., & Hebl, M. R. (2012). Discrimination against facially stigmatized applicants in interviews: An eye-tracking and face-to-face investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 317–330. Martínez-Íñigo, D., Poerio, G. L., & Totterdell, P. (2013). The association between controlled interpersonal affect regulation and resource depletion. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 5, 248–269. McNay, E. C., Fries, T. M., & Gold, P. E. (2000). Decreases in rat extracellular hippocampal glucose concentration associated with cognitive demand during a spatial task. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 2881–2885. McNay, E. C., McCarty, R. C., & Gold, P. E. (2001). Fluctuations in brain glucose concentration during behavioral testing: dissociations between brain areas and between brain and blood. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 75, 325–337. Milkman, K. L. (2012). Unsure what the future will bring? You may overindulge: Uncertainty increases the appeal of wants over shoulds. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119, 163–176. Miller, H. C., & Bender, C. (2012). The breakfast effect: Dogs (Canis familiaris) search more accurately when they are less hungry. Behavioural Processes, 91, 313–317. Miller, H. C., DeWall, C. N., Pattison, K., Molet, M., & Zentall, T. R. (2012). Too dog tired to avoid danger: Self-control depletion in canines increases behavioral approach toward an aggressive threat. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 19(3), 535–540. Miller, D. T., & Effron, D. A. (2010). Psychological license: When it is needed and how it functions. In P. Z. Mark & M. O. James (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 43, pp. 115–155). Boston: Elsevier Academic Press. Miller, H. C., Pattison, K. F., DeWall, C. N., Rayburn-Reeves, R., & Zentall, T. R. (2010). Self-control without a “Self”? Psychological Science, 21(4), 534–538. Molden, D. C., Hui, C. M., Scholer, A. A., Meier, B. P., Noreen, E. E., D’Agostino, P. R., & Martin, V. (2012). Motivational versus metabolic effects of carbohydrates on selfcontrol. Psychological Science, 23, 1137–1144. Moley, K., & Mueckler, M. (2000). Glucose transport and apoptosis. Apoptosis, 5, 99–105. Moller, A. C., Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2006). Choice and ego-depletion: The moderating role of autonomy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(8), 1024–1036. Mukhopadhyay, A., & Johar, G. V. (2009). Indulgence as self-reward for prior shopping restraint: A justification-based mechanism. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 334–345. Mukhopadhyay, A., Sengupta, J., & Ramanathan, S. (2008). Recalling past temptations: An information-processing perspective on the dynamics of self-control. Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 586–599. Muraven, M. (2010). Practicing self-control lowers the risk of smoking lapse. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 24(3), 446–452. Muraven, M. (2008). Autonomous self-control is less depleting. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(3), 763–770.

142  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126(2), 247–259. Muraven, M., Baumeister, R. F., & Tice, D. M. (1999). Longitudinal improvement of self-regulation through practice: Building self-control strength through repeated exercise. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 139(4), 446–457. Muraven, M., Collins, R. L., & Nienhaus, K. (2002). Self-control and alcohol restraint: An initial application of the self-control strength model. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16, 113–120. Muraven, M., Gagné, M., & Rosman, H. (2008). Helpful self-control: Autonomy support, vitality, and depletion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 573–585. Muraven, M., Pogarsky, G., & Shmueli, D. (2006). Self-control depletion and the general theory of crime. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 22, 263–277. Muraven, M., & Shmueli, D. (2006). The self-control costs of fighting the temptation to drink. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 20(2), 154–160. Muraven, M., Shmueli, D., & Burkley, E. (2006). Conserving self-control strength. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 524–537. Muraven, M., & Slessareva, E. (2003). Mechanisms of self-control failure: Motivation and limited resources. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 894–906. Muraven, M., Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Self-control as a limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 774–789. Oaten, M., & Cheng, K. (2006). Improved self-control: The benefits of a regular program of academic study. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 28(1), 1–16. Orquin, J. L., & Kurzban, R. (2016). A meta-analysis of blood glucose effects on human decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 142, 546–567. Osgood, J. M., & Muraven, M. (2015). Self-control depletion does not diminish attitudes about being prosocial but does diminish prosocial behaviors. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 37, 68–80. Pitesa, M., Thau, S., & Pillutla, M. M. (2013). Cognitive control and socially desirable behavior: The role of interpersonal impact. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122, 232–243. Prem, R., Kubicek, B., Diestel, S., & Korunka, C. (2016). Regulatory job stressors and their within-person relationships with ego depletion: The roles of state anxiety, selfcontrol effort, and job autonomy. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 92, 22–32. Rafaeli, A., Erez, A., Ravid, S., Derfler-Rozin, R., Treister, D. E., & Scheyer, R. (2012). When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 931–950. Richeson, J. A., & Trawalter, S. (2005). Why do interracial interactions impair executive function? A resource depletion account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 934–947. Rivkin, W., Diestel, S., & Schmidt, K. H. (2015). Affective commitment as a moderator of the adverse relationships between day-specific self-control demands and psychological well-being. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 185–194. Rosen, C. C., Koopman, J., Gabriel, A. S., & Johnson, R. E. (2016). Who strikes back? A daily investigation of when and why incivility begets incivility. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 1620–1634. Rothbard, N. P. (2001). Enriching or depleting? The dynamics of engagement in work and family roles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 655–684.

Self-Control in Work Organizations  143

Rotundo, M., & Sackett, P. R. (2002). The relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: A policycapturing approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 66–80. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. Schmeichel, B. J., Harmon-Jones, C., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2010). Exercising selfcontrol increases approach motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 162–173. Schmeichel, B. J., & Vohs, K. (2009). Self-affirmation and self-control: Affirming core values counteracts ego depletion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 770–782. Segerstrom, S. C., & Nes, L. S. (2007). Heart rate variability reflects self-regulatory strength, effort, and fatigue. Psychological Science, 18, 275–281. Sheeran, P., Webb, T. L., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2005). The interplay between goal intentions and implementation intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(1), 87–98. Sonnentag, S., & Bayer, U.-V. (2005). Switching off mentally: Predictors and consequences of psychological detachment from work during off-job time. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10, 393–414. Sonnentag, S., Binnewies, C., & Mojza, E. J. (2008). “Did you have a nice evening?” A day-level study on recovery experiences, sleep, and affect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 674–684. Sonnentag, S., Binnewies, C., & Mojza, E. J. (2010). Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 965–976. Sonnentag, S., & Zijlstra, F. R. H. (2006). Job characteristics and off-job activities as predictors of need for recovery, well-being, and fatigue. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 330–350. Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662. Tang, Y.-Y., Posner, M. I., Rothbart, M. K., & Volkow, N. D. (2015). Circuitry of selfcontrol and its role in reducing addiction. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(8), 439–444. Thau, S., & Mitchell, M. S. (2010). Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 1009–1031. Tice, D. M., Baumeister, R. F., Shmueli, D., & Muraven, M. (2007). Restoring the self: Positive affect helps improve self-regulation following ego depletion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(3), 379–384. Trougakos, J. P., Beal, D. J., Cheng, B. H., Hideg, I., & Zweig, D. (2015). Too drained to help: A resource depletion perspective on daily interpersonal citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 227–236. Trougakos, J. P., Beal, D. J., Green, S. G., & Weiss, H. M. (2008). Making the break count: An episodic examination of recovery activities, emotional experiences, and positive affective displays. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 131–146. Trougakos, J. P., Hideg, I., Cheng, B. H., & Beal, D. J. (2014). Lunch breaks unpacked: The role of autonomy as a moderator of recovery during lunch. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 405–421.

144  Russell E. Johnson et al.

Trougakos, J. P., Jackson, C. L., & Beal, D. J. (2011). Service without a smile: Comparing the consequences of neutral and positive display rules. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 350–362. Twenge, J., Muraven, M., & Tice, D. (2004). Measuring state self-control: Reliability, validity, and correlations with physical and psychological stress. Unpublished manuscript, San Diego State University. Tyler, J. M., & Burns, K. C. (2008). After depletion: The replenishment of the self’s regulatory resources. Self and Identity, 7(3), 305–321. Voce, A. C., & Moston, S. (2016). Does monitoring performance eliminate the egodepletion phenomenon and influence perception of time? Self and Identity, 15(1), 32–46. Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R. F., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2012). Motivation, personal beliefs, and limited resources all contribute to self-control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 943–947. Vohs, K. D., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2003). Self-regulation and the extended now: Controlling the self alters the subjective experience of time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 217–230. Wagner, D. T., Barnes, C. M., Lim, V. K., & Ferris, D. L. (2012). Lost sleep and cyberloafing: Evidence from the laboratory and a daylight saving time quasi-experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 1068–1076. Wagner, D. T., Barnes, C. M., & Scott, B. A. (2014). Driving it home: How workplace emotional labor harms employee home life. Personnel Psychology, 67, 487–516. Wallace, H. W., & Baumeister, R. F. (2002). The effects of success versus failure feedback on further self-control. Self and Identity, 1(1), 35–42. Wang, X., & Dvorak, R. D. (2010). Sweet future fluctuating blood glucose levels affect future discounting. Psychological Science, 21, 183–188. Webb, T. L., & Sheeran, P. (2003). Can implementation intentions help to overcome ego-depletion? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(3), 279–286. Welsh, D. T., Ellis, A. P., Christian, M. S., & Mai, K. M. (2014). Building a selfregulatory model of sleep deprivation and deception: The role of caffeine and social influence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99, 1268–1277. Welsh, D. T., & Ordóñez, L. D. (2014). The dark side of consecutive high performance goals: Linking goal setting, depletion, and unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 123, 79–89. Yam, K. C., Chen, X. P., & Reynolds, S. J. (2014). Ego depletion and its paradoxical effects on ethical decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124, 204–214. Yam, K. C., Fehr, R., Keng-Highberger, F. T., Klotz, A. C., & Reynolds, S. J. (2015). Out of control: A self-control perspective on the link between surface acting and abusive supervision. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 292–301. Zhou, L., Wang, M., Chang, C.-H., Liu, S., Zhan, Y., & Shi, J. (2017). Commuting stress process and self-regulation at work: Moderating roles of daily task significance, family interference with work, and commuting means efficacy. Personnel Psychology. doi: 10.1111/peps.12219

7 EMPHASIZING THE SELF IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH ON SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY James M. Diefendorff, Nathalie Houlfort, Robert J. Vallerand, and Daniel Krantz

Work is a central aspect of most individuals’ lives. Not surprisingly, happiness and success on the job are positively linked with life satisfaction and subjective well-being (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Pursuing work tasks that align with one’s interests, provide a sense of accomplishment, and offer a chance to connect with others can help workers satisfy their psychological needs and feel happier (Deci & Ryan, 2014). Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985) emphasizes the importance of pursuing activities that align with the self (i.e., one’s core interests and values) as well as the processes by which individuals satisfy their psychological needs for autonomy (i.e., being self-determined), competence (i.e., feeling effective), and relatedness (i.e., feeling close to others; Deci & Ryan, 1991). Building on early work by White (1959) and de Charms (1968), SDT has accumulated an impressive body of empirical support over the last 45 years (Deci, 1971; Van den Broeck, Ferris, Chang, & Rosen, 2016). Indeed, today SDT may be considered one of the dominant theories of human motivation and thriving (Diefendorff & Chandler, 2011). In the workplace, the growth of interest in SDT over the past 15 years has far outpaced conceptually related topics (see Figure 7.1). Although the name of the theory makes it obvious that SDT has implications for the self, an explicit discussion of the self when applying SDT to organizational research is often lacking. As such, one objective of the current chapter is to reinvigorate the discussion of the self in organizational research on SDT, as well as consider ways in which future applications of SDT in organizational settings focused on the self can be advanced. Foreshadowing this discussion, we suggest that organizational researchers can more fully investigate the dual self-development-related processes of pursuing one’s natural desires and inclinations (and satisfying the needs for autonomy and competence)

146  James M. Diefendorff et al. 10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 SDT

FIGURE 7.1 

SDT (organizaon, job)

Work Movaon

Self-Determination Theory Citations in Google Scholar from 2000 to 2015.

Note: In this figure, we plot the number of Google Scholar citations per year for “Self-Determination Theory” and “Self-Determination Theory” combined with “organization” or “job” keywords. As a comparison, we also plot the number of citations per year for the phrase “work motivation” during the same time period. While citations for “work motivation” have grown nearly 8 fold per year during the time period between 2000 and 2015 (from 870 to 6470), the citations for the term “self-determination theory” have grown by nearly 45 times (from 198 to 8900) and for “selfdetermination theory” plus “job” or “organization” by nearly 54 times (from 97 to 5230). These Google Scholar citation numbers were retrieved on 1/2/2017.

and striving to have positive relationships (and satisfying the need for relatedness). Although these processes can sometimes be at odds in a conflicted or fragmented self-structure (e.g., doing what one wants vs. doing what will make others happy), they can also be pursued in conjunction with a well-integrated and coherent self-structure (e.g., doing what is best for the self and one’s relationships). In the sections that follow we present the theoretical underpinnings of SDT with specific regard to the self, review areas of organizational research to which SDT has made significant contributions, and propose multiple research applications of how SDT can further our understanding of the self at work.

Self-Determination Theory: Basic Concepts In general, SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2002) focuses on the extent to which behavior is autonomous (i.e., self-authored) versus controlled (i.e., other-determined). Two core tenets of SDT set it apart from other motivation theories. First, SDT

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  147

takes an organismic view of the self, meaning it assumes that all individuals have innate tendencies towards psychological growth through the process of actively integrating experiences, behaviors, and values into a unified sense of self (Ryan, 1995). Second, SDT specifies that people have certain evolved psychological needs, the satisfaction of which facilitates intrinsic motivation, growth, and thriving. Differing from need “strength” theories that focus on the value or importance people attach to a need (McClelland, 1985), SDT argues that reaching goals out of a strong desire for achievement may not necessarily satisfy our psychological needs and can even thwart them (Deci & Ryan, 2014). That is, not all goal pursuit is truly self-authored and spending time and energy pursuing activities that are not well-integrated with the self can actually harm psychological need satisfaction and well-being. SDT is a meta-theory on human motivation comprised of six mini-theories. We provide an overview of two of these mini-theories that form the core foundation of SDT.

Basic Psychological Needs Theory SDT stipulates three universal psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. The need for competence is defined as a need to feel effective in one’s interactions with the environment and able to master challenges and overcome obstacles (Deci & Ryan, 2002). This need is most satisfied when both skill and task challenge are relatively high and is thwarted when skills are higher than task challenge or vice versa. Further, the competence need is not likely to be satisfied when both skill and challenge are low (Deci & Ryan, 2002). Rather, satisfaction of the competence need requires at least a moderate level of skill or ability and a matching level of task difficulty. The need for relatedness reflects the need to feel connected with others and have meaningful social interactions (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 2002). This need is satisfied when one pursues activities that enhance interpersonal relationships and strengthen interpersonal bonds (Deci & Ryan, 2014). Satisfying the need for relatedness often involves doing what valued others want or see as worthwhile, building positive emotions between people. Autonomy, the most central and unique need to SDT, is defined as a need to be the perceived origin of one’s behavior and act out of a sense of volition and personal interest (Deci & Ryan, 2002). The need for autonomy pertains to having a sense of choice and that one is personally endorsing one’s actions. The autonomy need is satisfied when individuals have an internal perceived locus of causality for one’s actions and feel like they are the ‘origin’ (de Charms, 1968) of their actions, as opposed to a ‘pawn’ that is controlled or coerced by others. In SDT, psychological needs are viewed as innate and universal nutriments that are essential for long-term psychological health, integrity, and growth (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Hence, basic psychological needs differ from desires and

148  James M. Diefendorff et al.

wishes (Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, & Deci, 1996) as need satisfaction contributes to optimal development and well-being, and need thwarting is associated with ill-being. Understanding how psychological needs can be satisfied is thus an important research area in SDT. Accordingly, SDT has focused on how environmental factors and individual differences can help to satisfy or thwart one’s needs. Moreover, while certain needs may be more proximal or necessary for autonomous motivation in certain circumstances (e.g., Dyvisk, Kuvaas, & Gagné, 2013), SDT stresses the importance of satisfying all three needs to achieve optimal functioning and vitality. Consequently, SDT research often focuses on overall need satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 2014).

Cognitive Evaluation Theory The concept of intrinsic motivation is necessary for explaining why individuals perform an activity in the absence of external reinforcers or tissue deficits (as in hunger driving eating). Indeed, sometimes individuals engage in activities because of the feelings and thoughts that spontaneously accompany the behaviors, because of the interest, challenge, and positive experiences that spontaneously accompany the task. Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET; Deci, 1980) is focused on intrinsic motivation – the purest form of autonomous regulation – defined as the pursuance of an activity out of spontaneous interest, and how social factors can enhance or hinder such motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The theory originated from the work of Deci (1971) which found that introducing a monetary reward for an intrinsically motivating task can decrease the appeal of the task and cause a change in one’s motivation: moving from intrinsic motivation to extrinsic motivation. In later work, ego-investment and interpersonal controls were also found to produce greater extrinsic motivation, in other words the sense that one is performing an activity or behaving in some way for a separable outcome (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The theory holds that such social factors can cause an individual to cognitively re-evaluate the reason for performing a behavior from one of personal causation to one of external control (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999).

The Self in Self-Determination Theory The self can be defined as someone’s essence or core, what defines him or herself (Baumeister, 1998; Swann & Bosson, 2010). Although some authors have described the self as being a set of knowledge structures and social evaluations (Bandura, 1978; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Markus & Wurf, 1987), Deci and Ryan (1991) argued for the self being a set of motivational processes that is defined and elaborated as one pursues intrinsic interests and integrates the values and goals of important others and society. Ryan (1993) suggested that individuals are born with a nascent self that develops through the acts of doing what

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  149

one finds enjoyable as we all as pursuing activities that valued others endorse as important. A behavior that is determined by the self is one that is either (a) inherently interesting or enjoyable and satisfies one’s needs for autonomy and competence or (b) reflects well-integrated values that one acquires from important others or society, which satisfies the need for relatedness as well as the needs for autonomy and competence. Fundamental to SDT’s conceptualization of the self is a focus on the integration of motivational processes. To explicate exactly what is meant by integration, we first discuss the integration of extrinsic motivation as described by Organismic Integration Theory (OIT), a third mini-theory of SDT. Second, we discuss the integration of intrinsic motivation as explained by the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP), an extension of SDT. We then tie these together with an overall discussion of the self in light of these frameworks.

Integrating Extrinsic Motivation: Organismic Integration Theory Relatively early in research on CET, it became apparent that not all extrinsic motivation is the same. That is, not all tasks lacking intrinsic motivation (i.e., tasks not pursued solely for fun) are experienced as equally controlling (Ryan, 1995). Indeed, some extrinsic activities may even be experienced as selfauthored and autonomous. Intertwined with this notion was the observation that satisfying the need for relatedness can involve doing things to build positive relationships with others even though the tasks themselves are not inherently interesting or enjoyable. As such, Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) focuses on how extrinsically motivated behaviors can become internalized or “taken in” by the self and experienced as self-authored (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Consistent with an organismic view of the self, internalization is defined as “part of the overall thrust of development toward assimilation to the self” (Ryan, 1993, p. 32). OIT specifies a continuum of internalization on which different subtypes of extrinsic motivation fall along, ranging from regulations that are completely external to the self to regulations that have been fully internalized and integrated with the core self. External regulation represents the prototypical form of extrinsic motivation, in which behavior has not been internalized, is purely instrumental, and the reasons for action involve only explicit reward or sanction (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Behavior emanating from this motivation is experienced as controlled. Introjected regulation represents motivation that is partially internalized, but only to the extent that the person has come to self-administer the rewards or punishments (Deci & Ryan, 2000). External forces are prominent in this motivation as the person tries to obtain the approval of others and avoid feeling the guilt that would occur if he/she didn’t perform the behavior. Associated with high ego involvement in which a person performs a behavior in order to maintain

150  James M. Diefendorff et al.

a feeling of worth (Ryan, 1982), introjected regulation is considered a controlled form of extrinsic motivation. Identified regulation occurs when the reasons underlying a behavior are accepted and endorsed by the self and the person understands and identifies with the importance and values underlying the behavior (Deci & Ryan, 2000). A nurse who bathes and toilets a patient, for example, may not enjoy the task, but identifies with the importance of the task and views the behavior as being aligned with his/her identity as a nurse. This form of regulation is experienced as autonomous. Lastly, integrated regulation represents fully autonomous motivation in that the person not only identifies with the value of the behavior, but also views the behavior as being in full congruence and harmony with the self (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Gagné & Deci, 2005). Here, the behavior is fully endorsed by the self and experienced as self-determined, yet it is still an extrinsic form of motivation because it is performed for instrumental reasons. To illustrate the distinction between integrated regulation and intrinsic motivation, consider again the nurse who bathes and toilets patients. While likely not inherently enjoying the behavior (what would be intrinsic motivation), a nurse with an integrated regulation would view the task as fully congruent not only with his/her values but also with his/her sense of identity as a person and perform it with a pure sense of autonomy. Though an integrated regulation is conceptually distinct from identified and intrinsic motivation, it should be noted that scale development research has often failed to clearly distinguish integrated regulation from identified or intrinsic regulations (Gagné et  al., 2014). This hints at the possibility that integrated regulation may not be consciously experienced as distinct from these other regulations for goal pursuit. In sum, OIT views autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation (which better align with the self) as more sustainable and more likely to lead to well-being, vitality, and lower psychological distress than controlled forms of extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2008). The process of internalizing extrinsic behaviors occurs as people strive to have meaningful relationships with others, which may involve accommodating their requests, adopting their values, or following the example they set. With the proper social supports, people develop an interest and desire to perform these behaviors and integrate them into their sense of self, allowing them to feel valued and agentic (Ryan & Deci, 2012).

Integrating Intrinsic Motivation: The Dualistic Model of Passion Although not a sub-theory of SDT, the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP; Vallerand, 2010; Vallerand et  al., 2003) builds on SDT and posits that people engage in various activities throughout life in the hope of satisfying basic psychological needs (see Deci & Ryan, 2000) and experiencing self-growth (see Vallerand, 2015). With time and experience, most people eventually start

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  151

to display preference for some activities, particularly those that are enjoyable, important, and that have some resonance with the self. These activities can become passionate activities. In line with the above, passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an activity that one loves (or strongly likes), finds important, in which one invests time and energy (Vallerand et al., 2003), and that is part of one’s identity. Clearly, work can be such an activity. When passionate about their work, people do not merely work as an accountant or as a teacher, they are an accountant or a teacher. As mentioned previously, SDT posits, and research has shown, that extrinsic elements can be internalized in the self in a controlled or autonomous fashion (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Vallerand, 1997) leading to less (introjected regulation) or more (identified and integrated regulations) autonomous forms of extrinsic regulation. In a similar fashion, the DMP further posits that intrinsic elements (not extrinsic as in OIT), including the activity that one loves, can be internalized into one’s identity, leading to two types of passion, harmonious and obsessive, depending on the type of internalization process that takes place. Obsessive passion results from a controlled internalization of the activity that one loves into identity and self. Such an internalization process leads not only to activity representation becoming a part of the person’s identity, but also to values and regulations associated with the activity to be at best partially internalized in the self, and at worst to be internalized in the person’s identity but completely outside the integrative self (Deci & Ryan, 2000). People with an obsessive passion can thus find themselves in the position of experiencing an uncontrollable urge to partake in their work that they view as important and enjoyable. Consequently, they risk engaging in their work with a rigid persistence, experiencing conflicts with other life activities, as well as negative affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences during and after work engagement. Conversely, harmonious passion results from an autonomous internalization of the activity into the person’s identity and self. An autonomous internalization occurs when individuals have freely accepted the activity as important for them without any contingencies attached to it. This type of internalization emanates from the intrinsic and integrative tendencies of the self (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and produces a motivational force to willingly engage in the activity that one loves and engenders a sense of volition and personal endorsement about pursuing the activity. With harmonious passion, work occupies a significant but not overpowering space in the self and is in harmony with other aspects of the person’s life. In other words, with harmonious passion the person fully partakes in one’s work in a mindful (Brown & Ryan, 2003) and open way (Hodgins & Knee, 2002) that is conducive to flexible persistence, adaptive self-processes, and positive outcomes. In sum, with obsessive passion one is controlled by the passion, whereas with harmonious passion the person controls the passion.

152  James M. Diefendorff et al.

The Self Deci and Ryan (1991) pointed out that there is often a struggle between doing what one finds naturally enjoyable and doing what others want. The self grows and develops as individuals explore their environments and have new experiences that help them discover their natural capabilities and interests. This exploration leads to new areas of interest and further elaboration of the self. As one’s interests expand, individuals assimilate and synthesize these new elements into a coherent sense of self (Deci & Ryan, 1991). Deci and Ryan (1991) discuss how a principal way we satisfy our need for relatedness is through doing things that valued others want and see as important. As noted previously, sometimes doing what others want can be antagonistic to one’s natural inclinations and can even thwart one’s psychological needs for autonomy and competence. Development of the self happens, in part, by internalizing or ‘taking in’ the values and desires of others (via the aforementioned OIT processes) and attempting to make them one’s own, as doing so can enhance interpersonal relationships and satisfy one’s need for relatedness. Thus, attempts to satisfy the need for relatedness help to make sure that societal concerns and values are taken into account by giving individuals insight into which activities close others value and that they too should value and come to internalize. Over time, the self comes to reflect a combination of intrinsic interests and desires along with socially valued rules and objectives. Successful internalization involves converting a socially derived activity into something that feels selfdetermined and personally endorsed (Ryan, 1995). Of course, not all social norms and desires can or should be fully internalized by individuals. As such, some activities that even healthy and happy individuals pursue will be experienced as peripheral, inauthentic, and controlling. Poor social supports can pit the need for autonomy and relatedness against each other, such that an individual may choose to do something to feel socially accepted at the cost of feeling pressured or conflicted with pursuing the activity (Ryan & Deci, 2012). In other words, some socially derived pursuits may never be fully integrated with the self because they do not align with the person’s core nature. One stream of SDT research that has specifically focused on the alignment of behaviors and goals with the self is the self-concordance model (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon, 2014). This work acknowledges that there may be many reasons underlying goal pursuit, but that the balance should emphasize the pursuit of activities that are aligned with the self and not compelled by the situation (Sheldon, 2014). Self-concordance is operationalized similarly to the Relative Autonomy Index (RAI; Ryan & Connell, 1989) in which the different SDT motivations are summed into a single score by positively weighting intrinsic and integrating motivations and negatively weighting the extrinsic and introjected regulations (e.g., Sheldon & Elliot, 1998, 1999; Sheldon & Houser-Marko, 2001; Sheldon, Ryan, Deci, & Kasser, 2004). In addition, the self-concordance

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  153

model outlines a longitudinal process by which pursuit of goals differing in their level of self-integration can produce effort allocation, goal attainment, psychological need satisfaction, and well-being (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Propositions of the self-concordance model have been largely supportive, with research showing that more positive core self-evaluations (Judge et al., 2005), more proactive personalities (Greguras & Diefendorff, 2010), and individuals who had transformational leaders (Bono & Judge, 2003) were more likely to pursue selfconcordant goals and experience the associated positive outcomes.

Organizational Research on SDT Offering a more humanistic and organismic approach to understand workers’ behaviors, work-related attitudes, affect and performance, SDT has become an essential theory in organizational research (see Figure 7.1). The first organizational research using the SDT framework appeared in 1989. Deci, Connell, and Ryan (1989) examined managers’ interpersonal style, how it supported or thwarted employees’ autonomy, and its influence on employees’ work-related attitudes. Hence, instead of examining how job design or how the decisionmaking process contributed to workers’ attitudes – reflecting the more traditional organizational research approach – Deci and his colleagues examined managers’ interpersonal orientation and the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible for good and bad outcomes. This study paved the way to a vast literature on the applications of SDT in the workplace. This section provides a short overview of organizational research on SDT and related topics. Five key themes are explored: (1) the role of rewards for employee motivation, (2) leadership and SDT, (3) job characteristics, (4) need satisfaction as a mediating variable in organizational behavior models, and (5) passion research in organizational contexts.

The Role of Rewards for Employee Motivation Although the world of work has and still is witnessing unprecedented changes, compensation (e.g., salaries, bonuses, rewards) will always be an integral part of work. The psychological contract that bonds employees and employers stipulates, inter alia, that in return for the work done, employees shall receive a salary. A persistent thought that has settled strongly in the world of work is that money and rewards are key motivators of work performance (e.g., Kohn, 1993). After all, rewards do convey a sense of acknowledgement for good work, enhancing one’s feeling of competence. Hence, most organizations have implemented incentive programs intended to motivate their employees to do a better job, be more committed, work harder, and spend longer hours in the office. Unfortunately (or not), scientific evidence frequently contradicts the success of such incentive programs and has shown that they can even produce the opposite effect to what is desired

154  James M. Diefendorff et al.

(e.g., Pohler & Schmidt, 2016). SDT, and more specifically CET (Deci, 1980), has largely contributed to exposing this myth. Acclaimed by behaviorists (e.g., Cameron & Pierce, 1994; Skinner, 1953), performance-contingent rewards were introduced in the workplace as an effective way to control behaviors and motivate employees to perform better and faster. Indeed, introducing a reward immediately after a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated. For managers, organizational researchers, and standard economic theory, performance-contingent rewards (e.g., wages incentive, piece-rate payments, bonus plans, sales commissions) became a simple and straightforward way to increase performance (e.g., Gerhart & Rynes, 2003). Refuting the operant tradition, Edward Deci spoke of the “hidden cost of rewards” (1976). His series of initial studies in the 1970s (Deci, 1971, 1972a, 1972b) culminating with a meta-analysis of 128 studies (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999) reached the overarching conclusion that tangible, expected rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. As posited by CET, the undermining effect occurs because the extrinsic reward changes a person’s perceived locus of causality (de Charms, 1968) from internal to external. In other words, when a reward contingency becomes salient, a behavior that was inherently interesting and self-driven has become externally regulated by an outside factor contingency such as a bonus, raise, or to avoid job loss. Fifteen years later, Cerasoli, Nicklin, and Ford (2014) took a slightly different take on the rewards-intrinsic motivation issue, and presented results from a meta-analysis that examined how incentives and intrinsic motivation interact in predicting performance. Their results suggest that intrinsic motivation positively predicted performance quality, whereas incentives positively predicted performance quantity. In addition, less controlling incentives were found to have a positive relation with intrinsic motivation, furthering the idea that rewards can provide feedback on one’s performance and satisfy one’s need for competence. However, as stipulated by CET, these authors indicate that one should be careful in using rewards, as they can backfire, depending on the situation and how they are used. As noted by Gagné and Deci (2005), many tasks at work are not inherently interesting, highlighting the need for researchers to focus on how compensation practices influence the varying types of extrinsic motivation. While significant research is still needed in this area (see Fall & Roussel, 2014), initial findings highlight the need to focus on the informational value of the reward, enhanced through the interpersonal style of a manager and also through making rewards “[. . .] nonsalient, reflective of good performance, non-competitive, and equitable” (Deci & Ryan, 2014, p. 27).

Leadership and SDT Leaders’ vision, values, and goals craft the organizational structure, policies, incentive programs, and climate. Hence, leaders through their management

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  155

style can greatly influence subordinates’ motivation and work experience. Based on experimental studies investigating the impact of the interpersonal context on intrinsic motivation (e.g., Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims, & Koestner, 1983), organizational research on SDT has examined how managers’ interpersonal style, and more specifically managers’ autonomy support, can enhance workers’ autonomous motivation. Autonomy support involves “understanding and acknowledging the subordinate’s perspective, providing meaningful information in a non-manipulative manner, offering opportunities for choice, and encouraging self-initiation” (Baard, Deci, & Ryan, 2004, p. 2048). Deci et al. (1989) showed that through an organizational development intervention managers could learn to engage in a more autonomy-supportive management style, which subsequently predicted greater overall employee job satisfaction and higher trust in the organization. Similarly, using an intervention-based experimental design, Hardré and Reeve (2009) provided training to 25 managers on how to support their employees’ autonomy. Five weeks after the intervention, managers involved in the training program displayed a more autonomy-supportive managerial style than did the managers in a control group. In addition, employees supervised by trained managers reported higher levels of self-determined motivation and work engagement. In a study examining organizational change, Gagné, Koestner, and Zuckerman (2000) found that autonomy support provided by managers could facilitate acceptance of organizational change among employees from a Canadian telecommunications company. In other words, by giving employees a certain level of control over the implemented change, taking into account their opinions and ideas for the implementation, and providing a strong rationale for why the changes are necessary, managers can provide an interpersonal context that supports workers’ autonomy and allows for easier transitions. Leadership behaviors are shown to strongly influence subordinate performance (Bass, 2008), and SDT emphasizes that autonomy-supportive management, through its provision of opportunities for subordinates to satisfy their basic needs, is the best way to enhance performance (Deci & Ryan, 2008). A study conducted in an investment-banking firm by Baard et al. (2004, Study 2) revealed that perceived autonomy support from one’s manager was indeed positively related to performance evaluation and psychological adjustment. Similarly, a study done with a sample of nurses established that supervisor autonomy support was positively related to work satisfaction, organizational identification, and job performance (Gillet et al., 2013). However, leaders are not only accountable for performance and productivity: they are also liable for their subordinates’ well-being. Indeed, Blais and Brière (1992) found that when managers were perceived as more autonomysupportive, subordinates reported greater job satisfaction, less absenteeism and better physical and psychological well-being. Relatedly, Fernet, Guay, Senécal, and Austin (2012) revealed in a study among teachers that school principals’

156  James M. Diefendorff et al.

autonomy-supportive management style was positively related to autonomous motivation and personal accomplishment, while negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Autonomy-supportive management can even affect work-family balance; results from a study with working parents found that perceived autonomy support from one’s manager was negatively related to work-family conflict, family alienation and emotional exhaustion (Senécal, Vallerand, & Guay, 2001). Finally, Deci et  al. (2001) found that autonomy support was positively related to engagement and self-esteem, while negatively related to anxiety among samples of US and Bulgarian workers. This study provided an initial look at the cross-cultural validity of autonomy support, with more recent work pointing to its value for global well-being regardless of country or culture (Gagné & Bhave, 2011). Overall, organizational research on SDT shows that providing a rationale for the tasks that workers have to do, offering choices on how to do it, acknowledging feelings and perspectives of their subordinates, and providing feedback in a non-controlling style can help managers create an interpersonal work climate that fosters professional (and personal) growth and well-being. In addition, recent research suggests that leaders who promote autonomy support for their employees benefit from doing so, by having their own needs satisfied (Lanaj, Johnson, & Lee, 2016).

Job Characteristics and SDT Job characteristics1 encompass the division of labor, the means used to coordinate the different tasks and communicate important information, as well as the necessary skills to perform the tasks (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). One model of job characteristics, the Job Characteristics Model (JCM - Hackman & Oldham, 1976), today expanded to also include social and work context characteristics (Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007), stipulates that five job characteristics affect workers’ experience: (1) task significance, (2) task identity, (3) skill variety, (4) feedback, and (5) autonomy. A second popular model, proposed by Karasek (the job demands/job resources model; Karasek, 1979; Karasek & Theorell, 1990) and later modified (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001), examined how job characteristics impact workers’ stress and well-being. This model posits the existence of two central characteristics: (1) job demands – the social, physical, psychological and organizational aspects of the job that require sustained efforts, and (2) job resources – the social, physical, psychological, and organizational aspects that support workers in carrying out their tasks. If the demands exceed the resources, workers will experience ill-being, whereas if resources are sufficient to counterbalance or even surpass job demands, workers will experience well-being (e.g., Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwena, 2005; Houkes, Winants, & Twellaar, 2008). SDT has contributed to this literature by providing a motivational explanation as to why job characteristics can be beneficial or detrimental to workers’

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  157

experience. In a study investigating the relationships between proximal job characteristics, empowerment, and intrinsic motivation among workers of a telephone company, Gagné, Senécal, and Koestner (1997) found that task significance, feedback, and autonomy predicted intrinsic motivation at work.2 Similar results were obtained among volunteer workers (Millette and Gagné, 2008) and employees in the insurance industry (Güntert, 2015). These findings suggest that working in a context where task significance is salient, performance effectiveness feedback is offered, substantial independence and discretion is provided, and a variety of activities is necessary to carry out the tasks, facilitates high quality motivation. A closer look at these characteristics suggests that their presence helps create an autonomy-supportive context, one that is conducive to self-determined motivation. The JD-R (job demands-resources) framework has also been used by SDT researchers to further understand how one’s job characteristics influence wellbeing. For instance, Fernet et al. (2013) used structural equation modeling to show that perceived competence, autonomy, and relatedness each acted as a unique mediator for both the favorable relationships between job resources (job control and social support) and personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion as well as the unfavorable relationships between job demands such as role overload and role ambiguity and these outcomes. A recent experience sampling study by Benedetti, Diefendorff, Gabriel, and Chandler (2015) found that the impact of pursuing work tasks for either intrinsic or extrinsic reasons depended on when during the day the task was pursued. Specifically, while both reasons for task pursuit had favorable relationships with vitality and exhaustion early in the day, later in the day only intrinsic task pursuit continued to have favorable relationships (though weaker than earlier in the day), with effects of extrinsic motivation on outcomes becoming harmful. The authors argued that time of day acted as a proxy for the resources available to individuals with fewer resources available late in the day compared to early in the day, suggesting that resources play a role in determining whether intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for task pursuit were harmful or beneficial.

Need Satisfaction as a Mediating Variable In the same sense that the nascent self develops out of the dialectical struggle between the social context and innate desire for self-integration (Ryan, 1993), SDT posits that work environments will be conducive to positive individual, group and organizational outcomes as long as they can provide the essential nutriments needed to fulfill workers’ basic psychological needs (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Yet, the many controlling contextual factors in organizations (e.g., employee monitoring, compensation, demanding customers) leave the distinct possibility for the work environment to thwart psychological needs and the consequent internalization process. As discussed previously,

158  James M. Diefendorff et al.

numerous studies have pinpointed organizational characteristics likely to influence workers’ experience (e.g., motivation, engagement, well-being, performance, absenteeism, etc.), and many of these aforementioned studies have confirmed the important mediating role of psychological need satisfaction in the relationship linking various workplace characteristics to work-related outcomes. For instance, studies have shown that an autonomy-supportive management style helps satisfy workers’ need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which in turn facilitates a positive working experience (Baard et al., 2004, Study 2; Deci et al., 2001). Gillet and colleagues (2013) found that procedural justice positively predicted work identification, job performance, and job satisfaction through its effect on need satisfaction. Investigating the work environment at a more macro level, Marescaux, De Winne and Sels (2013) examined the relationships between five human resources practices (career development, training, direct employee participation, developmental appraisal and mentoring) and human resource management outcomes; results from a sample of over 5,000 employees revealed that satisfaction of the need for autonomy and relatedness partially mediated these relationships. Rosen, Ferris, Brown, Chen, and Yan (2014), pitting the SDT paradigm of need satisfaction against other research paradigms (strain: Ferris et al., 1989; social exchange: Rosen et al., 2006), showed that need satisfaction was the only variable to mediate the relationship between organizational politics and contextual performance, creativity, and proactive behavior above and beyond the other mediators. Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) found that perceived person-job (PJ) fit (demands-abilities fit), personorganization (PO) fit (value congruence with the company), and person-group (PG) fit (value congruence with one’s teammates) predicted affective organizational commitment and supervisor ratings of job performance through basic need satisfaction. Specifically, PO fit operated through all three psychological needs, whereas PG fit operated through relatedness need satisfaction, and PJ fit through competence need satisfaction. Consequently, the concept of need satisfaction at work creates a heuristic to predict the conditions under which many performance, attitudes, and wellbeing based outcomes will emerge (Baard et al., 2004). In a certain way, SDT has given organizations and managers a powerful, yet simple tool to develop and sustain individuals’ positive experience at work: as long as subordinates’ needs are considered, they “ought to be able to provide conditions that will allow need satisfaction and lead to positive work outcomes” (Baard et al., 2004, p. 2064).

Passion Research in Organizational Contexts Since 2003, well over 200 studies have been conducted on the concept of passion, including several in the work domain. Below, we briefly summarize some of this research. Additional information is presented in a recent book

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  159

devoted to passion (Vallerand, 2015) and a meta-analysis on intrapersonal outcomes involving more than 94 studies and over 1,300 independent effect sizes (Curran et al., 2015). Although both types of passion are very powerful and provide energy while engaging in the passionate activity (Przybylski et al., 2009), harmonious passion is more adaptive than obsessive passion and should typically lead to more optimal outcomes. Research has provided support for this major hypothesis in a number of settings, including work (for a review in the work domain, see Vallerand, Houlfort, & Forest, 2014) and while using different research designs, including cross-lagged panel designs (e.g., Carbonneau et al., 2008; Lavigne et al., 2012) and experimental designs (e.g., Bélanger et al., 2013; Lafrenière et al., 2012). The overall findings can be summarized as follows. First, harmonious passion for one’s work leads to higher levels of optimal functioning (e.g., psychological, physical, relational well-being, flow, positive emotions, high performance, and contributions to one’s work environment) than obsessive passion. Second, obsessive passion positively predicts some maladaptive outcomes (e.g., general negative affect, anxiety, work-life conflict, work ruminations, burnout, negative physical symptoms, PTSD), whereas harmonious passion is either unrelated or negatively associated with such negative outcomes. Specifically regarding the work domain, longitudinal studies have shown that obsessive passion for work predicts the experience of burnout in both teachers (Carbonneau et al., 2008) and nurses (Vallerand et al., 2010), as well as failing to adjust psychologically following retirement from work (Houlfort et al., 2015). Conversely, harmonious passion for one’s work predicts increases in psychological well-being (Carbonneau et al., 2008; Houlfort et al., 2013) over time while working, adapting well psychologically to retirement (Houlfort et  al., 2015), and not falling prey to burnout (Vallerand et  al., 2010). Furthermore, while both types of passion typically facilitate persistence and high-level performance (Vallerand et al., 2007, 2008), obsessive passion may at times lead to higher or lower performance, depending on the task difficulty level and leader competence (Omorede, Thorgren, & Wincent, 2013). Much less research has been conducted on the determinants of passion. Research in different fields has shown that personal, social, and task factors that promote autonomy facilitate the development and maintenance of harmonious passion, while those that foster control and coercion promote obsessive passion (for reviews see Vallerand, 2010, 2015). Thus, with respect to the work domain, overall organizational support (e.g., Liu et al., 2011), autonomy as to how to do one’s work (e.g., Fernet et al., 2014), having access to resources in the face of challenging task demands (e.g., Trépanier et al., 2014), and using one’s core strengths or best personal skills at work (Dubreuil et  al., 2014; Forest et  al., 2011) facilitate harmonious passion. Conversely, factors that foster control and coercion, such as controlling behavior from leaders (Lafrenière et  al., 2008), imposing high task demands without the proper resources (e.g., Trépanier et al.,

160  James M. Diefendorff et al.

2014), or being highly perfectionistic (Verner-Filion & Vallerand, in press) all promote the development and maintenance of obsessive passion. In addition, research has shown that need satisfaction experienced at work increases both the harmonious and obsessive passions for work, although the effects are significantly more important for harmonious passion. Of major interest, however, is that lack of need satisfaction outside of work (in the person’s life outside of work) predicts increases in obsessive passion for work (Lalande et  al., 2015). Thus, obsessive passion can be seen as compensatory in nature.

Future Directions for Investigating SDT and the Self at Work Although it might be argued that SDT has officially “arrived” in organizational research, we contend that there is still much work to be done and that our understanding of worker motivation and well-being can be enhanced by continuing to elaborate on the role of SDT for employees and organizations (Diefendorff & Chandler, 2011).

More Attention to the Interface Between the Organization and the Self The SDT view of the self as a set of motivational processes aimed at pursuing and elaborating one’s interests as well as internalizing the interests and values of key others seems ripe for exploration in organizational contexts. How do these self-related processes impact vocational interests, organizational attraction, job search, job choice, reactions to training and socialization, the development of organizational commitment and identification, promotion, retention, and turnover? At the heart of many of these processes is whether and to what extent individuals experience congruence or fit with their work tasks and social environments (Edwards & Shipp, 2007; Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005). As previously noted, Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) found that need satisfaction mediated the relationships of perceived person-environment (PE) fits and worker attitudinal and performance outcomes, suggesting that achieving high fit on the job may be a key way in which work environments can satisfy employees’ psychological needs. The general idea of fit research is that “the congruence, match, similarity, or correspondence between the person and the environment” (Edwards & Shipp, 2007, p. 211) produces positive outcomes for individuals and organizations. Person-Environment (PE) fit is divided into the general categories of complementary and supplementary fit (Cable & Edwards, 2004; Edwards & Shipp, 2007; Kristof, 1996). Complementary fit occurs when a “weakness or need of the environment is offset by the strength of the individual, and vice versa” (Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987, p. 271), with one example being

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  161

person-job (PJ) fit. High PJ fit occurs when the person has the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to meet the demands of the work, whereas low PJ fit occurs when either demands exceed abilities or abilities exceed demands. Supplementary fit exists when a person possesses similar or matching characteristics with the environment. Value congruence frequently is used to operationalize fit (Kristof, 1996), with person-organization (PO) being an example. PO fit refers to the extent to which the employee’s values match or are congruent with the values of the organization (Chatman, 1991; Kristof, 1996). Similarly, person-group (PG) fit and person-supervisor (PS) fit are variations on the idea of value congruence between a person and another entity in the organization (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer, Beehr, & Wagner, 2003). Consistent with Greguras and Diefendorff (2009), we suspect that the experience of fit with the environment can satisfy individuals’ psychological needs and that the process of developing fit with the environment may be achieved by developing competence on the job, having opportunities to act autonomously and pursue one’s interests, and internalizing the values and expectations of valued others in the organization. The role of PJ fit for need satisfaction is relatively straightforward – individuals with KSAs that meet the requirements of the job are more likely to feel autonomous and competent. Further, we suspect that by pursuing one’s passions, individuals can develop KSAs in an area, thereby improving PJ fit over time. For instance, Forest et al. (2012) found that when encouraged to use one’s signature strengths at work, workers increased their level of harmonious passion for work. The role of value congruence in impacting need satisfaction may be a bit more complicated. Greguras, Diefendorff, Carpenter, and Troester (2014) argued that individuals achieve need satisfaction at work through the process of internalizing the values of the organization and specific entities (e.g., supervisor, group) at work. In essence, coming to understand coworkers’ or supervisors’ reasons for performing work activities and adopting those reasons as one’s own can lead individuals to better internalize the organization’s values and goals, enabling workers to better satisfy their psychological needs. Thus, there may be a developmental or socialization process at work that enables newcomers to understand, value, and identify with broader norms and objectives. This idea is consistent with the attraction-selection-attrition processes (Schneider, 1987). Achieving fit over time may lead employees to increasingly internalize organizational goals and values, which should result in the experience of greater autonomous motivation and self-concordant goal-striving, as well as enhanced need satisfaction and well-being (Sheldon, 2002). High value congruence between employees and their organizations can infuse more meaning into the daily goals workers pursue by enabling them to experience the tasks as self-determined. The internalization process outlined by SDT describes how individuals can come to adopt external reasons for performing an activity as their own, thus how the working self develops has a clear link to the socialization processes employed by companies.

162  James M. Diefendorff et al.

Adopting a Person-Centric View of the Self in SDT Processes Though the different forms of motivation are often described in terms of a continuum in which self-regulation can vary from more autonomous (i.e., integrated and identified) to more controlled (i.e., introjected and external) regulation, empirical research has begun to show how this continuum is not an accurate portrayal of the self. That is, the self can be simultaneously defined by an individual’s standing on several different motivations rather than by looking at one motivation or combining the motivations through addition and subtraction to arrive at a single summary score. In other words, the self can be viewed as a constellation of motivations. As noted by Chemolli and Gagné (2014), combining motivations into one score can result in an oversimplification and even misrepresentation of how the different motivations function. Presenting evidence showing that the different motivation types differ in kind rather than in degree of internalization, they advocate person-centered analyses as one option for better understanding how different motivation types combine. Person-centered research should be viewed as a complement to variablecentered research, in that while variable-centered research tests relationships and provides pathways for antecedents and outcomes of key variables, it assumes these relationships are homogeneous throughout the sample. In contrast, person-centered research assumes there are subgroups within a sample in which the variables of interest combine differentially. Thus, it is a particularly useful approach when one expects that a group of variables will emerge into multiple qualitatively distinct patterns (Moran et al., 2012). This is particularly relevant to SDT, in which each motivation type, psychological need, and passion are conceptually distinct and form their own factor on commonly used scales (Gagné et al., 2014; Deci et al., 2001). At the same time that a person may identify with the values and goals of his/her organization (identified regulation), the person may feel varied levels of pressure to please his/her manager or customer (introjected regulation) and a certain motivation to get a raise at the next performance review (external regulation). Consequently, multiple motivations can co-occur differentially among people, opening the possibility that certain motivations may be experienced differently by certain subgroups depending on the profile in which it resides. Three recent organizational psychology studies with varied samples provide insight into the benefits of this analytical strategy (Moran et al., 2012; Graves et  al., 2015; Van den Broeck et  al., 2013). One overarching finding among these studies is that high controlled motivation may not necessarily be detrimental if it is coupled in a profile with high autonomous motivation. Currently, it is unknown how a profile of motivations may emerge over time within a person or how situational factors influence changes in a profile. For example, while autonomy-supportive management positively influences autonomous motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008), how it may differentially affect motivation profiles is

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  163

unknown. Longitudinal research could test how profiles change in response to an established SDT intervention (e.g., Deci et al., 1989). Extending the person-centered view to other SDT topics, it might be useful to understand whether need satisfaction or passions exhibit distinct profiles and the implications of such profiles for the self. A recent meta-analysis has provided evidence that the commonly used composite measure of overall need satisfaction neither accurately portrays the psychological need measures nor SDT theory (Van den Broeck et  al., 2016). Research has begun to shed light on how each need can have distinct correlates (Greguras & Diefendorff, 2009) and interact with each other (Dysvik et al., 2013). Other research has shown that the balance in the satisfaction of basic needs explains unique variance above the composite need satisfaction score (Sheldon & Niemiec, 2006). One can infer from these studies that various profiles of need satisfaction are likely to emerge within people. A logical next step in building SDT theory is to examine how basic needs or passions combine into distinct profiles to predict different forms of motivation and levels of well-being. In sum, the methodological benefits of person-centered research provide a clear research avenue for providing a holistic and nuanced view of the self through the lens of SDT as well as further developing and refining theory within SDT.

Elaborate the Role of Passion for Work in Understanding the Self As discussed previously and described by Vallerand (2015), work passion is inexorably tied to our identity and is developed by how we internalize the behaviors of others and activities we take part in. SDT posits that our identity is formed through our inherent search to satisfy our basic needs and that multiple identities form within a person; these identities can become integrated over time (resulting in a harmonious passion for work) into a coherent self-structure or reside in conflict within the self (resulting in an obsessive passion) (Ryan & Deci, 2012). As such, research incorporating work passion provides a clear opportunity to enhance our understanding of the self at work.

Conclusion SDT views one’s sense of self as dynamic and ever interacting with the social environment. Individuals are thus continually grappling with social norms, values, and pressures that they may fully, partially, or fail to internalize with the innate motivational tendencies that comprise the self (Deci & Ryan, 1991; Ryan & Deci, 2012). During a review of key findings the theory has added to our understanding of motivation at work since its inception into organizational psychology, and we have also presented multiple avenues for organizational researchers to further SDT’s understanding of the self.

164  James M. Diefendorff et al.

Due to the variety of pressures and extrinsic factors inherent in the work environment, research in organizations provides the perfect avenue to examine the process of internalization that plays such a central role in our sense of self. Namely, we have discussed how the materialization and persistence of perceptions of fit help individuals internalize the goals and values of the organization and others. Gaining more popularity over the last few years, a person-centered analytic strategy provides an opportunity to take a more holistic view of the self by taking into account the many co-occurring behavioral regulations within a person. Lastly, the Dualistic Model of Passion (Vallerand, 2015) provides a theoretical foundation to the formation of our multiple identities that comprise the self (Ryan & Deci, 2012). We conclude by reiterating that though the self is rarely specifically addressed in SDT organizational research, the avenues for organizational researchers to elaborate SDT’s conception of the self are many.

Notes 1 The term job characteristics is used as a synonym of job design. 2 Results from path analysis revealed partial and full mediations between job characteristics and intrinsic motivation, with four dimensions of empowerment acting as mediator variables. See Gagné et al. (1997) for a full account of the results.

References Baard, P. P., Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2004). Intrinsic need satisfaction: A motivational basis of performance and well-being in two work settings. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34, 2045–2068. Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22, 309–328. Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Euwema, M. C. (2005). Job resources buffer the impact of job demands on burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 10, 170–180. Bandura, A. (1978). The self system in reciprocal determinism. American Psychologist, 33(4), 344–358. Bass, B. M., & Bass, R. (2008). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research and applications. New York, NY: The Free Press. Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (pp. 680–740). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. Bélanger, J., Lafrenière, M.-A., Vallerand, R. J., Kruglanski, A.W. (2013). When passion makes the heart grow colder: The role of passion in alternative goal suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 126–147. Benedetti, A. A., Diefendorff, J. M., Gabriel, A. S., & Chandler, M. M. (2015). The effects of intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation on well-being depend on time of day: The moderating effects of workday accumulation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 38–46.

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  165

Blais, M. R. & Brière, N. M. (1992). On the meditational role of feelings of selfdetermination in the workplace: Further evidence and generalization. Unpublished manuscript. University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, Canada. Bono, J. E., & Judge, T. A. (2003). Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the motivational effects of transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal, 46(5), 554–571. Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822–848. Cable, D. M., & Edwards, J. R. (2004). Complementary and supplementary fit: A theoretical and empirical integration. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 822–834. Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64, 363–423. Carbonneau, N., Vallerand, R. J., Fernet, C., & Guay, F. (2008). The role of passion for teaching in intra and interpersonal outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 977–987. Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 980–1009. Chatman, J. A. (1991). Matching people and organizations: Selection and socialization in public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 459–484. Chemolli, E., & Gagné, M. (2014). Evidence against the continuum structure underlying motivation measures derived from self-determination theory. Psychological Assessment, 26(2), 575–586. Curran, T., Hill, A.P., Appleton, P.R., Vallerand, R.J., & Standage, M. (2015). The psychology of passion: A meta-analytical review of a decade of research on intrapersonal outcomes. Motivation and Emotion, 39, 631–655. De Charms, R. (1968). Personal causation: The internal affective determinants of behaviour. New York, NY: Academic Press. Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18, 105–115. Deci, E. L. (1972a). Effects of contingent and non-contingent rewards and controls on intrinsic motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 8, 217–229. Deci, E. L. (1972b). Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic reinforcement, and inequity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22, 113–120. Deci, E. L. (1976). The hidden cost of rewards. Organizational Dynamics, 4, 61–72. Deci, E. L. (1980). The psychology of self-determination. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath: Lexington Books. Deci, E. L., Connell, J. P., & Ryan, R. M. (1989). Self-determination in a work organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 580–590. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1991). A motivational approach to self: Integration in personality. In R. Dienstbier (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation. Vol. 38. Perspectives on motivation (pp. 237–288). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Deci, E. L., Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum.

166  James M. Diefendorff et al.

Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behaviour. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 319–338. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). Overview of self-determination theory: An organismic dialectical perspective. Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 3–33). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Facilitating optimal motivation and psychological well-being across life’s domains. Canadian Psychology, 49, 14–23. Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2014). The importance of universal psychological needs for understanding motivation in the workplace (pp. 13–32). In M. Gagné (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Deci, E. L., Ryan, R. M., Gagné, M., Leone, D. R., Usunov, J., & Kornazheva, B. P. (2001). Need satisfaction, motivation, and well-being in the work organizations of a former eastern bloc country: A cross-cultural study of self-determination. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 930–942. Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 499–512. Diefendorff, J. M., & Chandler, M. M. (2011). Motivating employees. In S. Zedeck, H. Aguinis, W. F. Cascio, M. J. Gelfand, K. Leung, S. K. Parker, & J. Zhou (Eds.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology: Maintaining, expanding, and contracting the organization (Vol. 3, pp. 65–135). Washington DC: APA. Dubreuil, P., Forest, J., & Courcy, F. (2014). From strengths use to work performance: The role of harmonious passion, subjective vitality, and concentration. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9, 335–349. Dysvik, A., Kuvaas, B., & Gagné, M. (2013). An investigation of the unique, synergistic and balanced relationships between basic psychological needs and intrinsic motivation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(5), 1050–1064. Edwards, I. R., & Shipp, A. I. (2007). The relationship between person-environment fit and outcomes: An integrative theoretical framework. Perspectives on organizational fit (pp. 209–258). New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fall, A., & Roussel, P. (2014). Compensation and work motivation: Self-determination theory and the paradigm of motivation through incentives. In M. Gagné (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory. (pp. 199–217). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Fernet, C., Austin, S., Trépanier, S. G., & Dussault, M. (2013). How do job characteristics contribute to burnout? Exploring the distinct mediating roles of perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 22(2), 123–137. Fernet, C., Guay, F., Senécal, C., & Austin, S. (2012). Predicting intraindividual changes in teacher burnout: The role of perceived school environment and motivational factors. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28, 514–525. Fernet, C., Lavigne, G., Vallerand, R. J. & Austin, S. (2014). Fired up with passion: Investigating how job autonomy and passion predict burnout at career start in teachers. Work and Stress, 28, 270–288. Ferris, G. R., Russ, G. S., & Fandt, P. M. (1989) Politics in organizations. In R. A. Giacalone & P. Rosenfeld (Eds.), Impression management in organizations (pp. 143–170). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  167

Forest, J., Mageau, G. A., Crevier-Braud, L., Bergeron, É., Dubreuil, P., & Lavigne, G. L. (2012). Harmonious passion as an explanation of the relation between signature strengths’ use and well-being at work: Test of an intervention program. Human Relations, 65(9), 1233–1252. Forest, J., Mageau, G. A., Sarrazin, C., & Morin, E. M. (2011). “Work is my passion”: The different affective, behavioural, and cognitive consequences of harmonious and obsessive passion toward work. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l’Administration, 28(1), 27–40. Gagné, M., & Bhave, D. (2011). Autonomy in the workplace: An essential ingredient to employee engagement and well-being in every culture. In Human autonomy in crosscultural context (pp. 163–187). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Gagné, M., & Deci, E. L. (2005). Self-determination theory and work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26(4), 331–362. Gagné, M., Guntert, S. T., Forest, J., Vansteenkiste, M., Crevier-Braud, L., Van den Broeck, A., Aspeli, A. K., Bellerose, J., Benabou, C., & Chemolli, E. (2014). The multidimensional work motivation scale: Validation evidence in seven languages and nine countries. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24, 178–196. Gagné, M., Koestner, R., & Zuckerman, M. (2000). Facilitating acceptance of organizational change: The importance of self-determination. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30(9), 1843–1852. Gagné, M., Senécal, C., & Koestner, R. (1997). Proximal job characteristics, feelings of empowerment, and intrinsic motivation: A multidimensional model. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27, 1222–1240. Gerhart, B., & Rynes, S. L. (2003). Compensation, theory, evidence, and strategic implications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gillet, N., Berjot, S., Vallerand, R. J., Amoura, S., & Rosnet, E. (2012). Examining the motivation-performance relationship in competitive sport: A cluster-analytic approach. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 43(2), 79–102. Gillet, N., Colombat, P., Michinov, E., Pronost, A-M., & Fouquereau, E. (2013). Procedural justice, supervisor autonomy support, work satisfaction, organizational identification and job performance: The mediating role of need satisfaction and perceived organizational support. Journal of Advance Nursing, 69, 46–55. Graves, L. M., Cullen, K. L., Lester, H. F., Ruderman, M. N., & Gentry, W. A. (2015). Managerial motivational profiles: Composition, antecedents, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 87, 32–42. Greenwald, A. G., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1984). The self. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 129–178). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Greguras, G. J., & Diefendorff, J. M. (2009). Different fits satisfy different needs: Linking person-environment fit to employee commitment and performance using selfdetermination theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 465–477. Greguras, G. J., & Diefendorff, J. M. (2010). Why does proactive personality predict employee life satisfaction and work behaviors? A field investigation of the mediating role of the self-concordance model. Personnel Psychology, 63(3), 539–560. Greguras, G. J., Diefendorff, J. M., Carpenter, J., & Troester, C. (2014). Personenvironment fit and self-determination theory. In M. Gagne (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and self-determination theory (pp. 143–161). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

168  James M. Diefendorff et al.

Güntert, S. T. (2015). The impact of work design, autonomy support, and strategy on employee outcomes: A differentiates perspective on self-determination. Motivation & Emotion, 39, 74–87. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 250–279. Hardré, P. L. & Reeve, J. (2009). Training corporate managers to adopt a more autonomy-supportive motivating style toward employees: An intervention study. International Journal of Training and Development, 13, 165–184. Hodgins, H. S., & Knee, C. R. (2002). The integrating self and conscious experience. Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 87–100). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Houkes, I., Winants, Y., & Twellaar, M. (2008). Specific determinants of burnout among male and female general practitioners: A cross-lagged panel analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81, 249–276. Houlfort, N., Philippe, F. L., Vallerand, R. J., & Ménard, J. (2013). On passion and heavy work investment: Personal and organizational outcomes. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29, 25–45. Houlfort, N., Vallerand, R.J., Laframboise, A., Fernet, C., & Koestner, R. (2015). The role of passion for work and need satisfaction in post-retirement psychological adjustment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 84–94. Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1332–1356. Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Erez, A., & Locke, E. A. (2005). Core self-evaluations and job and life satisfaction: The role of self-concordance and goal attainment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(2), 257–268. Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285–308. Karasek, R. A., & Theorell, T. (1990). Healthy work. New York, NY: Basic Books. Kasser, T. (2002). Sketches for a self-determination theory of values. Handbook of selfdetermination research (pp. 123–140). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Kohn, A. (1993). Why incentive plans cannot work. Harvard Business Review, SeptemberOctober, 54–63. Kristof, A. L. (1996). Person-organization fit: An integrative review of its conceptualizations, measurement, and implications. Personnel Psychology, 49(1), 1–49. Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of person–job, person–organization, person– group, and person–supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281–342. Lafrenière, M-A., Jowett, S., Vallerand, R.J., Donahue, E. G., & Lorimer, R. (2008). Passion in sport: On the quality of the coach-player relationship. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 30, 541–560. Lafrenière, M.-A. K., St-Louis, A. C., Vallerand, R. J., & Donahue, E. G. (2012). On the relation between performance and life satisfaction: The moderating role of passion. Self and Identity, 11, 516–530. Lalande, D., Vallerand, R.J., Lafrenière, M-A.K., Verner-Filion, J., Laurent, F-A., Forest, J., & Paquet, Y. (2015). Obsessive passion: A compensatory response to unsatisfied needs. Journal of Personality. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12229

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  169

Lanaj, K., Johnson, R. E., & Lee, S. (2016). Benefits of transformational behavior for leaders: A daily investigation of leader behavior and need fulfillment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 237–251. Lavigne, G. L., Forest, J., & Crevier-Braud, L. (2012). Passion at work and burnout: A two-study test of the mediating role of flow experiences. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 21, 518–546. Liu, D., Chen, X.-P., Yao, X. (2011). From autonomy to creativity: A multilevel investigation of the mediating role of harmonious passion. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 295–309. Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803–855. Marescaux, E., De Winne, S., & Sels, L. (2013). HR practices and HRM outcomes: The role of basic need satisfaction. Personnel Review, 42, 4–27. Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38(1), 299–337. McClelland, D. C. (1985). How motives, skills, and values determine what people do. American Psychologist, 40(7), 812–825. Meyer, J. P., Stanley, L. J., & Vandenberg, R. J. (2013). A person-centered approach to the study of commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 23(2), 190–202. Millette, V., & Gagné, M. (2008). Designing volunteers’ tasks to maximize motivation, satisfaction and performance: The impact of job characteristics on volunteer engagement. Motivation & Emotion, 32, 11–22. Moran, C. M., Diefendorff, J. M., Kim, T. Y., & Liu, Z. Q. (2012). A profile approach to Self-Determination Theory motivations at work. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 81(3), 354–363. Muchinsky, P. M., & Monahan, C. J. (1987). What is person-environment congruence? Supplementary versus complementary models of fit. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 31(3), 268–277. O’Connor, B. P., & Vallerand, R. J. (1994). Motivation, self-determination, and person- environment fit as predictors of psychological adjustment among nursing home residents. Psychology and Aging, 9(2), 189–194. Omorede, A., Thorgren, S., & Wincent, J. (2013). Obsessive passion, competence, and performance in a project management context. International Journal of Project Management, 31, 877–888. Pohler, D., & Schmidt, J. A. (2016). Does pay-for-performance strain the employment relationship? The effect of manager bonus eligibility on nonmanagement employee turnover. Personnel Psychology, 69(2), 395–429. Przybylski, A. K., Weinstein, N., Ryan, R. M., & Rigby, C. S. (2009). Having to versus wanting to play: Background and consequences of harmonious versus obsessive engagement in video games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(5), 485–492. Rosen, C. C., Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., Chen, Y., & Yan, M. (2014). Perceptions of organizational politics: A need satisfaction paradigm. Organization Science, 25(4), 1026–1055. Rosen, C. C., Levy, P. E., & Hall, R. J. (2006) Placing perceptions of politics in the context of the feedback environment, employee attitudes, and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(1), 211–220. Ryan, R. M. (1982). Control and information in the interpersonal sphere: An extension of cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 450–461.

170  James M. Diefendorff et al.

Ryan, R. M. (1993). Agency and organization: Intrinsic motivation, autonomy and the self in psychological development. In J. Jacobs (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Developmental perspectives on motivation (Vol. 40, pp. 1–56). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Ryan, R. M. (1995). Psychological needs and the facilitation of integrative processes. Journal of Personality, 63(3), 397–427. Ryan, R. M., & Connell, J. P. (1989). Perceived locus of causality and internalization: Examining reasons for acting in two domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(5), 749–761. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54–67. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2008). From ego depletion to vitality: Theory and findings concerning the facilitation of energy available to the self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(2), 702–717. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2012). Multiple identities within a single self. Handbook of self and identity (pp. 225–256). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Ryan, R. M., Mims, V., & Koestner, R. (1983). Relation of reward contingency and interpersonal context to intrinsic motivation: A review and test using cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 736–750. Ryan, R. M., Sheldon, K. M., Kasser, T., & Deci, E. L. (1996). All goals were not created equal: An organismic perspective on the nature of goals and their regulation. In P. M. Gollwitzer, & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 7–26). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Schneider, B. (1987). The people make the place. Personnel Psychology, 40, 437–453. Sheldon, K. M. (2002). The self-concordance model of healthy goal striving: When personal goals correctly represent the person. Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 65–86). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Sheldon, K. M. (2014). Becoming oneself the central role of self-concordant goal selection. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(4), 349–365. Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1998). Not all personal goals are personal: Comparing autonomous and controlled reasons for goals as predictors of effort and attainment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(5), 546–557. Sheldon, K. M., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 482. Sheldon, K. M., & Houser-Marko, L. (2001). Self-concordance, goal attainment, and the pursuit of happiness: Can there be an upward spiral?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 152. Sheldon, K. M., & Niemiec, C. P. (2006). It’s not just the amount that counts: Balanced need satisfaction also affects well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(2), 331–341. Sheldon, K. M., Ryan, R. M., Deci, E. L., & Kasser, T. (2004). The independent effects of goal contents and motives on well-being: It’s both what you pursue and why you pursue it. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(4), 475–486. Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY: Macmillan. Swann, W.B., & Bosson, J.K. (2010). Self and identity. In S. Fiske, D. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., pp. 589–628). New York, NY: Wiley.

The Self in Organizational Research on SDT  171

Trépanier, S.-G., Fernet, C., Austin, S., Forest, J., & Vallerand, R. J. (2014). Linking job demands and resources to burnout and work engagement: Does passion underlie these differential relationships? Motivation and Emotion, 38, 353–366. Vallerand, R. J. (1997). Toward a hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Advances in Experimental and Social Psychology, 29, 271–360. Vallerand, R.J. (2010). On passion for life activities: The dualistic model of passion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 97–193. New York, NY: Academic Press. Vallerand, R.J. (2015). The psychology of passion: A dualistic model. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Vallerand, R. J., Blanchard, C. M., Mageau, G. A., Koestner, R., Ratelle, C. F., Léonard, M., Gagné, M., & Marsolais, J. (2003). Les passions de l’âme: On obsessive and harmonious passion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 756–767. Vallerand, R.J., Houlfort, N., & Forest, J. (2014). Passion for work: Determinants and outcomes. In M. Gagné (Ed.), Oxford handbook of work engagement, motivation, and selfdetermination theory (pp. 85–108). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Vallerand, R. J., Mageau, G. A., Elliot, A. J., Dumais, A., Demers, M. A., & Rousseau, F. (2008). Passion and performance attainment in sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9(3), 373–392. Vallerand, R. J., Paquet, Y., Philippe, F. L., & Charest, J. (2010). On the role of passion for work in burnout: A process model. Journal of Personality, 78(1), 289–312. Vallerand, R. J., Salvy, S. J., Mageau, G. A., Elliot, A. J., Denis, P. L., Grouzet, F. M., & Blanchard, C. (2007). On the role of passion in performance. Journal of Personality, 75(3), 505–534. Van den Broeck, A., Lens, W., De Witte, H., & Van Coillie, H. (2013). Unraveling the importance of the quantity and the quality of workers’ motivation for well-being: A person-centered perspective. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 82(1), 69–78. Van den Broeck, A., Ferris, D. L., Chang, C. H., & Rosen, C. C. (2016). A review of self determination theory’s basic psychological needs at work. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1195–1229. Verner-Filion, J., & Vallerand, R. J. (in press). On the differential relationships involving perfectionism and academic adjustment: The mediating role of passion and affect. Learning and Individual Differences. Verquer, M. L., Beehr, T. A., & Wagner, S. H. (2003). A meta-analysis of relations between person–organization fit and work attitudes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63(3), 473–489. White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review, 66, 297–333.

8 THE ROLE OF GUILT IN THE WORKPLACE Taking Stock and Moving Ahead Rebecca L. Schaumberg, Francis J. Flynn, and Jessica L. Tracy

Many popular self-help books dole out advice about how to lead a guilt-free life. On the face of it, this advice seems appealing. After all, guilt is a dysphoric emotion that most people try to avoid if they can. However, early management scholars proposed that guilt could have a useful purpose, at least in the workplace. In particular, equity theorists claimed that feeling overpaid triggered guilty feelings that, in turn, spurred an increase in work performance (Adams, 1965; Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978). Unfortunately, these overpayment predictions did not bear out in subsequent empirical research. As a result, the notion that guilt could operate as a positive force in work organizations began to lose its appeal (cf. Barker, 1993), prompting one organizational scholar to declare, “The field has basically given up on the fact that guilt can be harnessed into productive work” (Staw, 1984, p. 637). Recent advances in the study of self-conscious emotions suggest that the potential positive relationship between guilt and productive work deserves a second look, but from a new vantage point. In this chapter, we synthesize some of these new insights in order to identify a path forward for future research. In particular, we identify three insights that help account for weak findings regarding the role of guilt in explaining important employee outcomes: (1) the experience of guilt (and shame) often has more to do with the person than the situation; (2) guilt can be channeled into productive work to the extent that global negative self-evaluation is minimized; and (3) heterogeneity in standards of worthy behavior can make it difficult to predict toward whom, or about what, people feel guilty. We hope that drawing attention to these three insights will help researchers fully realize guilt’s potential as a primary construct in organizational behavior theory and research.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  173

The Negative Self-Conscious Emotions Any discussion of guilt tends to include at least some mention of shame. In popular parlance, people use the terms “guilt” and “shame” interchangeably to refer to the same affective experience. However, personality and social psychology researchers carefully distinguish these two dysphoric emotions – noting their clear differences as well as their similarities. As for their similarities, these emotions share much in common. Guilt and shame travel with us throughout our daily lives, whether we want them to or not (Cooley, 1922; Scheff, 1987). Both emotions attune us to social and moral standards and provide immediate, aversive feedback when we fall short of these standards (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney & Fischer, 1995; Tracy, Robins, & Tangney, 2007). A pang of guilt or a sting of shame lets us know that we have hurt someone’s feelings or failed to acknowledge a person’s contribution to a group’s success. These experiences have a basic adaptive social function of encouraging behaviors that promote collective goals and constraining behaviors that do not (Barrett, 1995). Guilt and shame are founded in social relationships in which people not only interact with others, but evaluate and judge themselves from the perspective of others (Tangney & Fischer, 1995; Tracy et al., 2007). Nevertheless, one’s sense of self is central to the experience of self-conscious emotions (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Indeed, self-awareness and self-representations are necessary conditions for the experience of any self-conscious emotion (cf. Buss, 2001; James, 1890; Leary, 2007; Lewis, Sullivan, Stangor, & Weiss, 1989; Lindsay-Hartz, de Rivera, & Mascolo, 1995; Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007; Tracy & Robins, 2007). For this reason, guilt and shame are not seen in animals who lack the capacity for self-reflection or in human infants who have not yet acquired the ability to think consciously about themselves (Hart & Karmel, 1996; Leary, 2007). Although self-conscious emotions are fundamentally social, their experience is not constrained to social situations; they can arise simply when people think about what others think about them (Leith & Baumeister, 1998; James, 1890). This representation of the self from a “meta-aware” viewpoint can evoke these emotions in the privacy and solitude of one’s own home (and often, lamentably, when one is trying to fall asleep) (cf. Higgins, 1987).

Guilt, Shame, and the Regulation of Behavior One might assume that guilt and shame regulate people’s behavior in accordance with normative or moral standards because both emotions are aversive experiences that people seek to minimize (cf. Tangney & Dearing, 2002). However, work in social psychology has shown time and again that “shame

174  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

and guilt are not equally ‘moral’ emotions” (Tangney et  al., 2007). Guilt is positively associated with perspective taking and other-oriented empathy (Leith & Baumeister, 1998; Tangney, Wagner, Hill-Barlow, Marschall, & Gramzow, 1996), which can prompt a desire for reconciliation (Jordan, Flynn, & Cohen, 2015; Lindsay-Hartz et al., 1995). Because guilt orients people to the impact of their actions on others, it spurs people to behave in ways that support collective goals even at the expense of personal goals (Cohen, Panter, & Turan, 2012; Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2006; Wiltermuth & Cohen, 2014). Shame, in contrast, disrupts these processes by igniting a painful self-focus that short-circuits people’s ability to experience empathy for others (Hoffman, 1984; Tangney, 1991, 1995). Moreover, the self-directed hostility associated with shame often morphs into outward hostility as shamed individuals seek to blame others as a means of regaining a sense of control, agency, and self-worth (Tangney, 1995; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992; Tangney et al., 1996). These stark contrasts between shame and guilt lead to opposing effects on moral and ethical behavior (Cohen et  al., 2012; Tangney et  al., 2007). The anticipation of guilt is negatively associated, and the anticipation of shame is positively associated, with risk-taking and delinquent behaviors among adolescents (Stuewig & Tangney, 2007), lying for personal gain in situations that require cooperation (Cohen, 2010), and recidivism rates among previously incarcerated populations (Tangney, Stuewig, & Martinez, 2014). These different correlates of guilt and shame (and a frequent failure to measure the two emotions separately) may help explain some of the weak findings surrounding guilt in the workplace. In line with equity theory, some employees may feel guilty when they are overpaid, when they fail to contribute fairly to a group project, or when they harm a colleague, client, supervisor, or subordinate in the workplace. Such feelings of guilt may even spur the same employees to work harder and to perform better, as scholars have long contended. However, these same experiences can also evoke feelings of shame—leading employees to avoid the problem or to blame others for it rather than working to amend past mistakes. This completely different reaction presents a thorny issue when trying to determine the effects of guilt and shame on productive work: feelings of guilt and shame tend to be highly correlated with each other, but also show divergent correlations with a range of important outcome variables (see Tangney & Dearing, 2002 for a review). To understand how each emotion relates to productive work requires empirically and theoretically distinguishing the two emotions in order to ascertain their unique relationship to a given behavior. The majority of contemporary social psychological research on moral emotions has focused on resolving both of these issues. In the following section, we summarize the key takeaways from this line of research.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  175

Distinguishing Guilt and Shame: I Did a Terrible Thing vs. I’m a Terrible Person Feelings of guilt and shame arise when people have failed, or anticipate failing, to live up to standards of worthy behavior in the eyes of others – either doing something they should not have done or failing to do something they should have done (Tangney et al., 2007; Tangney & Tracy, 2012). Despite their similarity, these emotions arise from different attributions for a transgression, and prompt different (often opposite) responses (Tracy & Robins, 2006). Shame arises when people attribute the source of their failures to something core and unchangeable about the self; guilt arises when people attribute the source of their failures to a changeable action (Niedenthal, Tangney, & Gavanski, 1994; Tracy & Robins, 2006). Consider an employee who overlooks a deadline and fails to submit a report on time to her boss. If this employee attributes the transgression to her behavior (e.g., I overlooked the deadline because I didn’t mark my calendar), she is likely to experience guilt. If she attributes the transgression to something core about herself (e.g., I overlooked the deadline because I am a lazy, unconscientious person), she is likely to experience shame. Because guilt does not involve a negative evaluation of the whole self, it tends to be a less devastating emotional experience than shame (Harder, 1995; Tangney, Wagner, & Gramzow, 1992), and it tends to promote more constructive responses to one’s mistakes and misdeeds (see Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney et al., 2007 for reviews). Guilt and shame relate to separate aspects of agency and control (Tangney, 1995; Tracy & Robins, 2006). In guilt episodes, people focus on what they could have done differently, or what they could do differently in the future (Niedenthal et  al., 1994). In shame episodes, people think about how things would be better if they were a different person (Niedenthal et al., 1994). People who experience guilt remain focused on the implications of their actions for others, whereas people who experience shame remain focused on the implications of their actions for their own character (Tangney et al., 2007). Consider an employee who made a mistake in a report that caused a delay in a group project. If this employee were to feel guilt, she might think that she was not careful enough and that she should be more careful in the future. If this same employee then starts to make internal, stable attributions for this behavior (e.g., “I wasn’t careful enough because I am not conscientiousness”), such feelings of guilt transform into more debilitating feelings of shame. The inward focus associated with shame can be problematic because it prompts people to engage in behaviors that minimize their feelings of selfreproach (Lindsay-Hartz et al., 1995), even if these behaviors are unproductive for themselves or their organization (e.g., avoiding interpersonal interaction or blaming others for their mistakes, Stuewig, Tangney, Heigel, Harty, &

176  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

McCloskey, 2010; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992). In contrast, guilt is associated with a strong action orientation that motivates people to restore the moral order by amending what they have done wrong or changing their behavior to ensure that no future wrong occurs (Tangney, 1990, 1995). These two different action orientations correspond to different attributional antecedents (Tracy & Robins, 2006). With guilt, people take action to amend their mistakes because they believe the source of their transgressions is mutable. With shame, people avoid being reminded of their mistakes because they believe the source of their transgression is an immutable feature of their character. Because they can’t change “who they are,” the “best” route to minimizing shame seems to be removing oneself from situations that are likely to elicit it again (cf. Lindsay-Hartz et al., 1995).

A Person-Centered Perspective on Shame and Guilt Whether people experience guilt or shame depends on the attributions they make for the cause of their mistakes and misdeeds. But what leads someone to make more immutable, self-focused attributions (and feel shame) or more mutable, behavior-focused attributions (and feel guilt)? Some scholars suggest that specific features of the transgression or the situation – such as whether individual behavior is private or public – can influence whether people are likely to experience guilt or shame (Scheff, 2003; Smith, Webster, Parrott, & Eyre, 2002; Wolf, Cohen, Panter, & Insko, 2010). However, this point about public attention has sparked debate. Tangney and Dearing (2002) acknowledge the public perception that “shame is seen as arising from public exposure and disapproval of some shortcoming or transgression, whereas guilt is seen as a more ‘private’ experience arising from self-generated pangs of conscience” (p. 14). At the same time, the authors point out that empirical support for this view is weak (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996). The idea that features of the transgression determine whether people experience guilt or shame has also been controversial. On the one hand, Scheff (2003) argued that shame is the primary emotional response to perceptions of low social attention, low social attractiveness, or declining social status, whereas guilt is thought to arise in response to perceived moral transgressions – especially those that relate to harm and fairness violations. People feel guilty when they benefit at the expense of others, or when they inflict harm, loss, distress, or disappoint another person – all factors that can be triggered by situational circumstances (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1995a, 1995b). On the other hand, some scholars contend, “[The] type of event has surprisingly little to do with the distinction between shame and guilt” (Tangney et al., 2007, p. 348). In support of this latter stance, according to contemporary views of guilt and shame in personality psychology, the experience of these emotions may have more to do with the characteristics of the person than with the characteristics

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  177

of the situation (see Tangney, 1991; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Faced with the same transgression, some people tend to experience shame, some people tend to experience guilt, some people tend to experience both emotions, and some people tend to experience neither. These general tendencies reflect one’s overall “moral affectivity” – the extent to which an individual is guilt-prone and shame-prone (Cohen, Wolf, Panter, & Insko, 2011; Tangney, 1990; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Guilt proneness and shame proneness are similar to positive and negative affectivity insofar as they capture general tendencies, or individual differences, in an affective propensity (Cohen et  al., 2011; Tangney, 1990). They reflect people’s dispositions across time and across situations to feel and anticipate guilt or shame, rather than people’s moment-to-moment (or state) experiences of these emotions. Another similarity to positive and negative affectivity is the fact that guilt proneness and shame proneness emerge early in life. They may arise in part from early interactions with one’s immediate caregiver, eventually stabilizing across the lifespan as behavioral patterns (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Indeed, a person’s level of guilt proneness at age 12 predicts his or her level of guilt proneness at age 18 (Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Moreover, a study of 83 monozygotic and 78 dizygotic twins revealed a stronger genetic (than environment) component for shame and a stronger environment (than genetic) component for guilt (Zahn-Waxler & Robinson, 1995). Together, these findings provide compelling evidence that guilt and shame spring from deep-rooted dispositional drivers. To be clear, this does not mean that state self-conscious emotions are unimportant. On the contrary, when it comes to self-conscious emotion, personality is far from destiny. In this summary, we choose to highlight the person-centered approach for understanding self-conscious emotions in order to identify the key ways in which our affective dispositions prime us to experience (or not to experience) certain state emotions throughout our daily lives.

Empirical Approaches to Assessing Guilt Proneness and Shame Proneness The preceding sections have summarized the social psychological perspectives on the distinctions between guilt and shame and the person-centered drivers of these emotions. These theoretical insights have formed the basis for contemporary measures of guilt and shame. The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) (Tangney 1990; Tangney & Dearing, 2002), which shows high levels of predictive, discriminant, and convergent validity is the most widely used measure aimed at capturing an individual’s dispositional proneness toward guilt and shame. To separately account for guilt and shame, the TOSCA includes unique items designed to measure each. Various versions of the TOSCA are used in clinical psychiatric settings, social psychological studies, and organizational

178  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

research (e.g., Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Sanftner, Barlow, Marshall, & Tangney, 1995; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992). The TOSCA includes 16 brief scenarios, each describing routine personal experiences that may evoke feelings of guilt, shame, or some combination thereof. Respondents report how they would react to each of these scenarios. For example, one scenario reads, “You are driving down the road and you hit a small animal.” The two items associated with this scenario are “You would think ‘I’m terrible’” (shame-prone) and “You’d feel bad you hadn’t been more alert driving down the road” (guilt-prone). For each scenario, respondents indicate their likelihood of responding both in a guilt-prone way and a shame-prone way. Shame proneness and guilt proneness scores are calculated by taking an average across the 16 shame-prone and 16 guilt-prone responses, respectively. This approach allows for shame proneness and guilt proneness to be orthogonal so that someone could be high in guilt proneness and high in shame proneness, high in one of these affective dispositions and low in the other, or low in both. To determine the unique correlates of guilt proneness and shame proneness, it is common practice to measure and control for the other moral affectivity when assessing the relationship between either guilt proneness or shame proneness and an outcome variable (see Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012 as examples). Another approach is to generate measures of shame-free guilt and guilt-free shame (Tangney, 1990; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). These measures are achieved by regressing shame proneness on guilt proneness and using the residuals as a measure of guilt-free shame and regressing guilt proneness on shame proneness and using the residual as a measure of shame-free guilt. The development of the TOSCA has been instrumental for delineating the unique effects of guilt proneness and shame proneness (see Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Tangney et al., 2007 for reviews), but it is not without its critics (e.g., Cohen et al., 2011). The Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP) was developed to address some of the perceived shortcomings with the TOSCA, namely the fact that the TOSCA does not separate the attributional antecedents and action tendencies of guilt and shame (see Cohen et  al., 2011). The GASP is similar to the TOSCA in that it is a scenario-based measure designed to assess people’s proneness to guilt and shame. It is different from the TOSCA in that it aims to produce four subscales corresponding to negative behavior evaluation, negative self-evaluation, repair motivation, and avoidance motivation. According to the authors, the negative behavior-evaluation subscale is considered indicative of guilt proneness, and it is often used as a stand-alone measure separate from the full GASP scale (see Cohen et al., 2012; Wiltermuth & Cohen, 2014). Indeed, Cohen and colleagues now recommend a revised and expanded edition of this scale as a measure of guilt proneness (Cohen, Kim, & Panter, 2014). The other scales have been used less widely, but provide useful means for teasing apart the components of shame proneness and guilt proneness.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  179

Guilt Proneness, Shame Proneness, and Productive Work Behaviors The person-centered perspective on guilt and shame provides an updated answer to the question: Can guilt be channeled into productive work? Rather than assume that state guilt is universally experienced to the same degree (by all individuals), recent research suggests that people’s proneness to experience guilt and shame – as traits – can better account for a range of employee outcomes such as ethical behavior, job performance, leadership effectiveness, and conflict management skills.

Prosocial and Ethical Behavior The relationship between guilt proneness and shame proneness and prosocial and ethical behavior has been explored at length in previous research, some of which we have already described (and has been reviewed elsewhere, see Cohen & Morse, 2014; Cohen et al., 2012; Tangney et al., 2007). We note two of the most prominent themes to emerge from this work. The first is that high guilt-prone individuals are some of the most moral and cooperative members of society (Cohen, Panter, Turan, Morse, & Kim, 2014; Cohen & Morse, 2014). The second is that shame and guilt are not equally moral emotions (Tangney et al., 2007). In a diverse set of populations including teenagers, inmates, and working adults, guilt proneness shows strong, negative relationships with antisocial and risk-taking behaviors (Stuewig & Tangney, 2007). As one example, a person’s level of guilt proneness at age 12 is negatively associated with their tendency to engage in unprotected sex or to abuse drugs during their teenage years (Dearing, Stuewig, & Tangney, 2005). As another example, in a longitudinal study of incarcerated adults, guilt proneness assessed shortly after incarceration negatively predicted recidivism and substance abuse in the year following one’s release (Tangney et al., 2014). As a final example, guilt proneness related positively to organizational citizenship behavior and negatively to counterproductive work behaviors in a diverse sample of working adults (Cohen et  al., 2014). In contrast, in each of the above studies, shame proneness showed either a positive relationship or no relationship to antisocial or risk-taking behaviors.

Task Effort and Job Performance Guilt proneness is positively related to task effort and job performance (Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg, Chavez, Merritt, & Flynn, 2016). High guilt-prone employees exert greater effort at their job-related tasks and perform better than their low guilt-prone counterparts – over and above other established predictors such as the Big Five personality traits (Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg et al., 2016). This enhanced effort translates

180  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

into higher performance, both in terms of employees’ end-of-the-year performance appraisals as well as more objective, anonymous evaluations of their contributions (Schaumberg et al., 2016). In one study, Workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk were recruited to complete a standard measure of guilt proneness. Their guilt proneness scores predicted Workers’ lifetime approval ratings across all tasks they had completed for previous “employers” on the crowd-sourcing website: Workers with higher levels of guilt proneness had higher lifetime worker approval ratings than did Workers with lower levels of guilt proneness (Schaumberg et al., 2016). The story with shame is different. Unlike anticipated feelings of guilt, anticipated feelings of shame motivate people to avoid shame-inducing situations, which may lead them to lessen their task effort on challenging tasks rather than “double down” and work harder. High shame-prone people are more likely than low shame-prone people to make stable, internal attributions for their poor behavior. If they fail to achieve a performance objective, a high shame-prone person is inclined to think, “I’m a terrible worker,” or “I’m terrible at this task.” Because they attribute their failures to something immutable about themselves, they do not believe they can change their actions to produce better outcomes. From the high shame-prone person’s perspective, the “best” option to reduce or avoid future feelings of shame is to avoid the tasks they have performed poorly. As a result, unlike guilt proneness, shame proneness tends to be negatively related (or, at best, unrelated) to task effort and task performance (Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg et al., 2016).

Leadership When people think about the traits that predispose people to be good leaders, guilt is probably not the first trait that comes to mind. Nevertheless, high guiltprone individuals may be effective leaders because they have a strong sense of responsibility for the welfare and socioemotional needs of others. They also have a strong sense of agency to act on their felt responsibility. High shameprone individuals may also feel responsibility for others, but because they lack a sense of agency, they avoid these responsibilities. In line with these ideas, guilt proneness was positively related to peer and supervisor judgments of leadership ability, whereas shame proneness was either negatively related or unrelated to these judgments (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012). Moreover, people rated high guilt-prone behaviors as being more indicative of good leadership relative to low guilt-prone behaviors, but they did not express the same view toward shame-prone behaviors (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012). In a separate study by Schaumberg and Flynn (2012), guilt-prone people were more likely to emerge as leaders in situations where leadership was needed but no one had been designated to serve as a leader. In a pair of leaderless tasks

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  181

in which small groups were expected to collaborate and generate solutions to a challenging problem, high guilt-prone individuals were more likely to assume control of the group, provide direction, and steer the group toward a successful outcome than were less guilt-prone individuals (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012). It may be that this willingness to assume an informal leadership role was borne from feelings of duty and obligation (“If no one else will do this, I guess I’ll have to do it”), rather than ambition. Future research is needed to clarify this point – whether guilt-prone people are effective, but reluctant, leaders.

Negotiation and Conflict Management Guilt proneness is associated with positive conflict management skills such as perspective taking, forgiveness, and reconciliation (Covert, Tangney, Maddux, & Heleno, 2003; Jordan et  al., 2015; Tangney et  al., 1992; Tangney et  al., 1996). In contrast, shame proneness is associated with externalization of blame, anger and hostility, and a lack of empathy (Covert et al., 2003; Tangney et al., 1992; Tangney et al., 1996). These different associations may have important consequences for negotiators and their potential success. In particular, high guilt-prone negotiators may be more likely than low guilt-prone negotiators to find integrative (win–win) solutions, whereas high shame-prone negotiators may be less likely than low shame-prone negotiators to do so. Because guilt proneness is negatively associated with lying during negotiations and positively associated with perceptions of trustworthiness (Cohen, 2010; Cohen et  al., 2011), high guilt-prone negotiators may be particularly successful in repeated bargaining contexts, in which reputation matters greatly.

Job Attitudes and Job Burnout Compared to their less guilt-prone colleagues, high guilt-prone employees work harder, perform better, and take on leadership roles more readily. Given the amount they contribute to their organization, do high guilt-prone employees feel dissatisfied, used, or burnt out? The short answer appears to be “no.” Guilt proneness is positively associated with job satisfaction (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017) and affective commitment (Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012), but is not associated with absenteeism or other types of withdrawal behavior (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017). In this way, the job attitudes associated with guilt proneness mirror work in clinical psychology on the relationships between guilt proneness and psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety (see Tangney & Dearing, 2002 for a review). Whereas shame proneness predisposes people to negative psychosocial outcomes, guilt proneness does not. If anything, high guilt-prone people appear to be well adjusted both in and out of the workplace.

182  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

The Discriminant Validity of Guilt Proneness The positive association between guilt proneness and each of the above outcome variables may evoke questions about the discriminant validity of the trait. “Is this just about conscientiousness?” is a common question to arise in response to work that posits guilt proneness as a powerful predictor of employee outcomes. This question makes intuitive sense. Guilt proneness and conscientiousness parallel each other in many ways. Nevertheless, at both the conceptual and empirical levels, the traits are distinct. Conscientiousness, as a personality trait, reflects the extent to which a person is orderly, responsible, dependable, competent, and self-disciplined (John & Srivastava, 1999). While both conscientiousness and guilt proneness relate positively to job performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Schaumberg et al., 2016), task effort (Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993; Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Yeo & Neal, 2004), leadership (Judge, Bono, Iles, & Gerhardt, 2002; Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012), and ethical behavior (Cohen et al., 2012; Cohen et al., 2014), the underlying motivation that gives rise to these positive outcomes is different for guilt proneness and conscientiousness. For the highly conscientious individual, a personal desire for achievement tends to drives these positive behaviors (Barrick et al., 1993; Judge & Ilies, 2002), whereas for the high guilt-prone individual, these behaviors arise more from a desire to do well by others (Cohen et al., 2014; Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012, 2017). High guilt-prone people exhibit high levels of communal orientation and consideration of others; it is these relational concerns and their strong sense of responsibility to the collective that motivate high guilt-prone people’s behaviors, not their own personal desire for achievement. In line with this conceptual distinction, guilt proneness tends to overlap more with individual differences in agreeableness than it does with individual differences in conscientiousness, because agreeableness also captures an other-orientation (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017). At an empirical level, conscientiousness and guilt proneness are positively correlated, but the magnitude of this correlation is often modest or, at times, decidedly weak (see Cohen et al., 2011; Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012). In regression models predicting a range of outcomes including job performance, task effort, leadership, and ethical behavior, guilt proneness predicts these behaviors over and above conscientiousness (Cohen et al., 2011; Flynn & Schaumberg, 2012; Schaumberg & Flynn, 2012). Thus, while there is an understandable knee-jerk reaction in that effects attributed to guilt proneness are just a repackaging of conscientiousness effects, there is substantial conceptual and empirical evidence to support the discriminant validity of guilt proneness.

Future Directions for the Study of Guilt Proneness and Shame Proneness in Organizations Being able to theoretically and empirically differentiate guilt proneness from shame proneness has advanced the study of self-conscious emotions in

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  183

organizations. From reducing absenteeism to making people better leaders, guilt proneness might seem like a panacea for unethical behaviors, lack of motivation, and underperformance, while shame proneness might seem like a cancer. However, the impact of guilt proneness and shame proneness on employee outcomes is likely more complicated than extant work has suggested. To date, research has focused on differentiating these two forms of moral affectivity and seeing whether each can relate to productive work. Now it is time to ask not just whether guilt proneness and shame proneness predict positive employee behaviors, but also when and for whom they do. In the sections that follow, we identify two promising directions for future research that may help answer these questions.

Overcoming the Undermining Effect of Shame Proneness The study of shame proneness has focused almost exclusively on how it can negatively affect individual well-being, interpersonal behaviors, and organizational outcomes. Little evidence suggests that shame proneness has any positive consequences (see Tangney et al., 2007 for a review). In some ways, the deleterious effects of shame proneness on individual and collective achievement are surprising. High shame-prone people, much like high guilt-prone people, are attuned to, and concerned about, fulfilling standards of worthy behavior, feel bad when they fail to act in accordance with these standards, and harbor a keen sense of responsibility toward others (Barrett, 1995; Scheff, 2003). Thus, it would seem that shame proneness should lead people to be good citizens and good colleagues, and yet it does not. But, why not? The negative effects of shame proneness can be linked to one primary factor: negative global self-evaluations. Because shame involves global, stable, and uncontrollable attributions about the self (e.g., “I’m a bad person, I’ll always be a bad person, and I can’t change that”), high shame-prone individuals tend to be highly self-critical (Tangney, 1995; Tangney et al., 2007). Their thoughts are filled with self-loathing and personal failures (Stuewig et al., 2010). Countless studies have documented the damaging effects of harboring shame. Rather than continuing to catalog the negative behaviors associated with shame proneness, we believe that future research may benefit from identifying ways to turn off the negative self-evaluation associated with shame in order to unlock its positive potential (particularly in the workplace). We now suggest some ways this could be done. Uniformly negative global self-evaluations represent the source of many ills associated with shame proneness. For shame proneness to translate into productive work, these problematic self-evaluations must be minimized. People have a general desire for global self-integrity, to see themselves as “competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, and capable of controlling important outcomes” (Steele, 1988). Threats to one’s global self-integrity spur people to reduce or manage the threat, often by avoidance (Steele, 1988).

184  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

For instance, people avoid getting tested for infections or diseases or learning information about health behaviors that would threaten their global integrity (Sherman, Nelson, & Steele, 2000). For high shame-prone individuals, their global self-integrity is constantly under siege, and thus these individuals may especially benefit from behaviors or situations that affirm their global self-integrity. In support of this, Sherman and Cohen (2006) note that people are more receptive to threatening information and less likely to avoid it when they have affirmed an important value before receiving such information. Such interventions have been credited with boosting the self-esteem, sense of belonging, and performance of first-generation college students and members of disadvantaged groups (G. Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Harackiewicz et al., 2014). Self-affirmation may be particularly beneficial for high shame-prone people. Future research should assess how self-affirmation can dampen the negative self-evaluation associated with shame proneness, which, in turn, causes people to experience better psychosocial outcomes and improved employee performance. Job challenges may be another means of minimizing the negative self-focus associated with shame proneness because job challenges can down-regulate (or mute) the experience of negative affect (cf. Van Dillen & Koole, 2007). Job challenges refer to the degree to which people must work hard, fast, and/or under time pressure (Van den Broeck, De Cuyper, De Witte, & Vansteenkiste, 2010). Distraction theories of emotion regulation suggest that working memory is a fixed resource. When working memory is used for one task (e.g., a cognitive demanding exercise), less of it is available for regulating other tasks (e.g., the maintenance of one’s negative self-view) (Van Dillen, Heslenfeld, & Koole, 2009; Van Dillen & Koole, 2007). Job challenges can “down-regulate” emotional circuits because increased involvement of the cognitive system decreases involvement of the emotional system (cf. Van Dillen et  al., 2009; Van Dillen & Koole, 2007). Indeed, when people are cognitively taxed, they have a harder time acquiring or sustaining any type of emotional mood, either positive or negative (Van Dillen et al., 2009; Van Dillen & Koole, 2007). Because job challenges can down-regulate the experience of negative affect, they may benefit high shame-prone individuals’ well-being and job performance by silencing the negative affect that undermines high shame-prone people’s ability to thrive. Recent findings support this possibility. In a laboratory study, Schaumberg and Wiltermuth (2016) found that job challenges boosted the task performance of high shame-prone people, but had an opposite effect on low shame-prone people. While these findings are relatively nascent, they point to a potentially effective, albeit counterintuitive, means of unlocking the positive benefits of shame proneness.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  185

Guilt Proneness in the Context of Heterogeneous Standards Daily life is filled with competing demands for one’s time and resources. People are aware of and committed to multiple sets of goals and expectations within and outside their organization. These foci of commitment might include their professions, unions, organizations as well as occupations, top management, supervisors, co-workers, customers, and of course family and other non-work entities (Becker, 1992; Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Glibert, 1996; Reichers, 1985). Standards and expectations associated with each group can diverge and sometimes conflict with each other. Given fixed resources, and the inability to do everything or to please everyone, employees often find themselves faced with a dilemma – no matter what they choose to do, someone will be harmed or feel let down. A focal employee may stay late to finish a project for his boss, but miss his child’s soccer game in the process. Another employee may choose to forgive a customer’s debt, but by doing so hurt the organization’s bottom line. Senior executives may have to choose between meeting their shareholders’ cost-cutting goals and harming their employees’ livelihoods in a mass layoff. How do guilt-prone people manage these different foci of commitment and reconcile conflicting behavioral standards? Answers to this question remain unknown because previous research on guilt proneness and shame proneness has examined contexts in which little variability in standards of worthy behavior exists (Tangney et al., 2007). Rather, desired behavior seemed quite clear in each study. To address this limitation, future research must identify the content of various standards that employees face, highlight potential conflict between these standards, and investigate the manner in which people reconcile such conflict. The effects of guilt proneness in the context of clear versus ambiguous standards. Does guilt influence behavior more in contexts of clear or ambiguous performance standards? We predict that role clarity (or clarity of performance standards, generally) moderates the relationship between guilt and productive work behaviors. However, there are two competing hypotheses as to what the nature of this interaction would look like. One hypothesis suggests that guilt proneness relates more strongly to productive work in contexts of clear performance expectations (e.g., explicit sales quotas). A key theme with guilt is that it promotes alignment between one’s behaviors and standards of worthy behavior (cf. Lindsay-Hartz et al., 1995). So long as standards of worthy behavior are clear and widely held, a proneness to experience guilt should more tightly align employees’ behaviors with these standards. Thus, it would seem that high task clarity or clear performance standards would be a necessary condition for guilt to promote productive work. However, an alternative hypothesis can be derived from the mood-as-input model of emotions (Forgas & George, 2001; George & Zhou, 2002). In the

186  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

absence of clear performance standards it can be difficult to answer the question: Have you worked hard enough today? When dealing with nebulous performance standards, the mood-as-input model of emotions suggests that people rely on their emotional state as a cue for whether their task effort has been sufficient. Positive emotions signal that one’s efforts have been sufficient, which causes one to relax. In contrast, negative emotions signal that one’s efforts have been insufficient and thus one should work harder. From this perspective, without an objective criterion to evaluate one’s performance against, high guilt-prone people may be more likely than low guilt-prone people to infer that their effort has been insufficient because high guilt-prone people’s chronic anticipatory guilt signals to them that they have not worked hard enough. These competing predictions regarding the effect of clear versus amorphous performance standards on the task effort of high and low guilt-prone people may be worth investigating, and hopefully reconciling, in the future. Reconciling the conflict between one’s own interests and the interests of others. Personal and collective interests do not always align. When conflict occurs, high guilt-prone individuals may follow a reliable approach to resolve it – prioritizing the collective interest over their own personal interest. Psychologists argue that the self-system is made up of three separate components: the individual self, the relational self, and the collective self (Sedikides, Gaertner, Luke, O’Mara, & Gebauer, 2013). These separate selves may not be valued equally. For most individuals, the individual self will be considered the most meaningful and therefore dominate their decision making. However, guilt-prone individuals may be less inclined to prioritize the individual self. Indeed, personal satisfaction or what one wants to do has relatively less influence on the behavior of high guilt-prone people than on the behavior of low guiltprone people (Schaumberg & Flynn, 2017). Guilt is the foremost emotion for regulating one’s immediate self-interest, especially when one’s self-interest conflicts with collective or long-term goals (Barrett, 1995; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Guilt minimizes id-like impulses (Barrett, 1995); it regulates behavior so that people do not harm others, do not take more than their fair share of a collective resource, and do not indulge their short-term interests in ways that incur long-term costs (Baumeister et al., 1995b; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Put simply, the behavior of high guilt-prone people is governed more by what they should do than what they personally want to do, which results in less freeriding off of others’ efforts, lying for personal gain, or playing hooky from work when they are dissatisfied with their job. In short, high guilt-prone individuals may be more likely than low guilt-prone individuals to put collective interests ahead of their own interests (or prioritize their collective self over their individual self). Reconciling the competing interests of multiple foci of commitment. What about cases in which the conflict is not between one’s own interest and the interest of the collective, but between the competing interests

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  187

of different collectives or differently valued entities? It may be difficult to make predictions a priori about how high guilt-prone people behave in these circumstances. For instance, in an intergroup mixed-motive setting, would guilt proneness lead people to compete or cooperate with out-group rivals? The answer may seem perfectly clear. Compared to their less guilt-prone counterparts, high guilt-prone people should be more likely to cooperate because they would feel bad for causing harm to their competitor. However, the answer to this question may not be straightforward. Rather, it may require knowing to which foci guilt-prone people attend. If high guilt-prone people feel a strong sense of loyalty to their focal group, and improving the group’s interest is of central importance, then high guilt-prone people may feel motivated to compete harder against a rival out-group than low guilt-prone people. This is precisely what Cohen and colleagues have found in several studies (T. Cohen, Montoya, & Insko, 2006). In an experiment, participants played a mixed-motive behavioral decision-making game in which they had to decide whether their group would cooperate or compete with an out-group. They instructed participants to either be objective or empathic to their ingroup. This manipulation of focus had no impact on low guilt-prone participants’ decisions to compete or cooperate, but it altered high guilt-prone participants’ decisions. High guilt-prone participants were more likely to compete with the out-group when they focused on their ingroup compared to other high guilt-prone participants who focused on being objective and to low guilt-prone participants who took the perspective of their ingroup. These findings do not mean that high guilt-prone people show higher levels of group loyalty, on average. Rather, they suggest that their tendency to show loyalty depends on specific cues in their environment – cues that sometimes conflict. Consider some recent work by Schaumberg and Flynn (2017) on the relationship between guilt proneness and absenteeism. The authors evoke the concept of competing foci to explain the puzzling absence of a negative relationship between guilt proneness and absenteeism. Being absent from work when one is expected to be there would seem to violate an employer’s standards of worthy behavior, and thus compel high guilt-prone employees to show up at the office. However, people face multiple sets of expectations, many of which may be at odds (Becker et al., 1996). Which expectations will high guilt-prone individuals feel more motivated to fulfill? If they prioritize their employer’s expectations then guilt proneness would likely relate negatively to absenteeism. If they prioritize the expectations of non-work entities (e.g., family, friends), this relationship may change. Some evidence suggests that high guilt-prone people may reconcile competing standards by adhering to the standards that deliver the most instrumental value. People report higher levels of guilt for harming someone who can help them in the future than harming someone who cannot help them. This has left some people to propose a relational utility to guilt that would lead people to

188  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

prioritize the interests of parties who have high relational value over low relational value (Nelissen, 2014). At the same time, high guilt-prone people appear to be highly principled and less concerned than low guilt-prone people with maximizing their own instrumental outcomes (cf. Wiltermuth & Cohen, 2014). Given these competing predictions, future research would benefit from assessing how perceptions of an entity’s instrumental value influences the extent to which high guilt-prone people prioritize its interests. We propose a different idea. We suspect that guilt-prone people resolve conflicts of interest between competing foci of commitment, in part, by judging which choice will deliver the highest moral value. Guilt is, after all, a moral emotion. When faced with a decision that has strong moral implications (betraying a long-term client) and strong instrumental implications (gaining a lucrative new client), guilt-prone people will attend to the former more than the latter. Of course, not all decisions involve choosing between moral and instrumental concerns. Rather, moral judgment often involves choosing between two options that carry moral implications. These dilemmas are particularly difficult for guiltprone people to resolve because they present a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” paradox. In this case, for the guilt-riddled person, the option that carries the greatest relative value in terms of supporting her view of herself as moral and righteous will be adopted. At present, it remains unclear how high guilt-prone people behave in the face of competing interests – when someone will be harmed regardless of what choice is made. We believe that identifying (1) whether there are particular foci of commitment that high guilt-prone people tend to prioritize, and/or (2) what types of strategies high guilt-prone people use to reconcile competing standards of worthy behavior, are critical (and fruitful) questions for future work on guilt in the workplace.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have sought to address a longstanding question among organizational scholars and managers alike: Can guilt be channeled into productive work? Empirical findings regarding the relationship between guilt and employee behavior have been mixed. In synthesizing more recent social psychological and organizational behavior research on negative self-conscious emotions, we identify three key insights regarding the potential benefits of guilt in the workplace. First, whether people experience guilt or shame has more to do with their own personal characteristics than the characteristics of the situation. Second, guilt may be channeled into productive work to the extent that global negative self-evaluation is minimized. Finally, guilt increases the alignment between one’s behaviors and standards of worthy actions, but it is not always clear which standards of worthy behavior guilt-prone people prioritize. People’s daily work

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  189

and non-work lives are filled with competing standards of worthy behavior, and thus it is critical to understand which standards high guilt-prone people value most in order to predict which behaviors guilt proneness is likely to uphold. In identifying these themes, we hope this chapter serves as a reference and guide for future research on the re-emerging study of guilt in the workplace.

References Adams, J.S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 267–297). New York, NY: Academic Press. Barker, J. R. (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(3), 408–437. Barrett, C. K. (1995). A functionalist approach to shame and guilt. In J.P. Tangney & K.W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 25–63). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1–26. Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Strauss, J. P. (1993). Conscientiousness and performance of sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(5), 715–722. Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1995a). Personal narratives about guilt: Role in action control and interpersonal relationships. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17(1–2), 173–198. Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1995b). Interpersonal aspects of guilt: Evidence from narrative studies. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Selfconscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 255–273). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Becker, T. E. (1992). Foci and bases of commitment: Are they distinctions worth making? Academy of Management Journal, 35(1), 232–244. Becker, T. E., Billings, R. S., Eveleth, D. M., & Gilbert, N. L. (1996). Foci and bases of employee commitment: Implications for job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 464–482. Buss, A. H. (2001). Psychological dimensions of the self. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science, 313(5791), 1307–1310. Cohen, T. R. (2010). Moral emotions and unethical bargaining: The differential effects of empathy and perspective taking in deterring deceitful negotiation. Journal of Business Ethics, 94(4), 569–579. Cohen, T. R., Kim, Y., & Panter, A. T. (2014). The five-item guilt proneness scale (GP-5). Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Cohen, T. R., Montoya, R. M., & Insko, C. A. (2006). Group morality and intergroup relations: Cross-cultural and experimental evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(11), 1559–1572. Cohen, T.R. & Morse, L. 2014. Moral character: What it is and what it does. In A.P. Brief & B.M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior: Vol. 34 (pp. 43–61). Greenwich, CN: Elsevier.

190  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

Cohen, T. R., Panter, A. T., & Turan, N. (2012). Guilt proneness and moral character. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(5), 355–359. Cohen, T. R., Panter, A. T., Turan, N., Morse, L., & Kim, Y. (2014). Moral character in the workplace. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5), 943–963 Cohen, T. R., Wolf, S. T., Panter, A. T., & Insko, C. A. (2011). Introducing the GASP scale: A new measure of guilt and shame proneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(5), 947–966. Cooley, C.H. (1922). Human nature and the social order. New York, NY: Scribners. Covert, M. V., Tangney, J. P., Maddux, J. E., & Heleno, N. M. (2003). Shameproneness, guilt-proneness, and interpersonal problem solving: A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 22(1), 1–12. Dearing R. L., Stuewig, J., Tangney J. P. (2005). On the importance of distinguishing shame from guilt: Relations to problematic alcohol and drug use. Addictive Behavior, 30(7), 1392–404. Flynn, F. J., & Schaumberg, R. L. (2012). When feeling bad leads to feeling good: Guiltproneness and affective organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), 124–133 Forgas, J. P., & George, J. M. (2001). Affective influences on judgments and behavior in organizations: An information processing perspective. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86(1), 3–34. George, J. M., & Zhou, J. (2002). Understanding when bad moods foster creativity and good ones don’t: The role of context and clarity of feelings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 687–697. Harackiewicz, J. M., Canning, E. A., Tibbetts, Y., Giffen, C. J., Blair, S. S., Rouse, D. I., & Hyde, J. S. (2014). Closing the social class achievement gap for first-generation students in undergraduate biology. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(2), 375–389. Harder, D. W. 1995. Shame and guilt assessment, and relationships of shame and guilt proneness to psychopathology. In J.P. Tangney & K.W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 274–300). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Hart, D., & Karmel, M. P. (1996). Self-awareness and self-knowledge in humans, apes, and monkeys. In A. E. Russon, K. A. Bard, & S. T. Parker (Eds.), Reaching into thought: The minds of the great apes (pp. 325–347). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340. Higgins, E. T. (1989). Self-discrepancy theory: What patterns of self-beliefs cause people to suffer? Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 93–136. Hoffman, M. L. (1984). Interaction of affect and cognition in empathy. In C. Izard, J. Kagan, & R. Zajonc (Eds.), Emotion, cognition, and behavior (pp. 103–131). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. John, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research: Vol 2 (pp. 102–138). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Jordan, J., Flynn, F. J., & Cohen, T. R. (2015). Forgive them for I have sinned: The relationship between guilt and forgiveness of others’ transgressions. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(4), 441–459. Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765–780.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  191

Judge, T. A., & Ilies, R. (2002). Relationship of personality to performance motivation: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 797–807. Leach, C. W., Iyer, A., & Pedersen, A. (2006). Anger and guilt about ingroup advantage explain the willingness for political action. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(9), 1232–1245. Leary, M. R. (2007). How the self became involved in affective experience: Three sources of self-reflective emotions. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 38–52). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Leith, K. P., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Empathy, shame, guilt, and narratives of interpersonal conflicts: Guilt-prone people are better at perspective taking. Journal of Personality, 66(1), 1–37. Lewis, M., Sullivan, M. W., Stanger, C., & Weiss, M. (1989). Self development and self- conscious emotions. Child Development, 60(1), 146–156. Lindsay-Hartz, J. de Rivera J., & Mascolo, M. F. (1995). Differentiating guilt and shame and their effects on motivation. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 274–300). New York, NY: Guilford Press Nelissen, R. (2014). Relational utility as a moderator of guilt in social interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 257–271. Niedenthal, P. M., Tangney, J. P., & Gavanski, I. (1994). “If only I weren’t” versus “If only I hadn’t”: Distinguishing shame and guilt in counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 585–595. Reichers, A. E. (1985). A review and reconceptualization of organizational commitment. Academy of Management Review, 10(3), 465–476. Sanftner, J. L., Barlow, D. H., Marshall, D. E., & Tangney, J. P. (1995). The relation of shame and guilt to eating disorder symptomatology. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14(4), 315–324. Schaumberg, R. L., Chavez, K., Merritt, A., & Flynn, F. J. (2016). Guilt is good: The benefits of guilt proneness and anticipated guilt for job performance. Manuscript submitted for publication. Schaumberg, R. L., & Flynn, F. J. (2012). Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown: The link between guilt proneness and leadership. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(2), 327–342. Schaumberg, R. L. & Flynn, F. J. (2017). Clarifying the link between job satisfaction and absenteeism: The role of guilt proneness. Journal of Applied Psychology. Manuscript published online ahead of print. Schaumberg, R. L., & Wiltermuth, S. C. (2016). Who benefits from a hard day’s work? The benefits of job challenges for the self-evaluation and performance of dispositional procrastinators and high shame-prone people. Unpublished manuscript. Scheff, T. J. (1987). The shame/rage spiral: Case study of an interminable quarrel. In H. B. Lewis (Ed.), The role of shame in symptom formation (pp. 109–149). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Scheff, T. J. (2003). Shame in self and society. Symbolic Interaction, 26(2), 239–262. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., Luke, M. A., O’Mara, E. M., & Gebauer, J. E. (2013). A three-tier hierarchy of self-potency: Individual self, relational self, collective self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 48(1), 235–295. Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology: Vol. 38. (pp. 183–242). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

192  Rebecca L. Schaumberg et al.

Sherman, D. A., Nelson, L. D., & Steele, C. M. (2000). Do messages about health risks threaten the self? Increasing the acceptance of threatening health messages via selfaffirmation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(9), 1046–1058. Smith, R. H., Webster, J. M., Parrott, W. G., & Eyre, H. L. (2002). The role of public exposure in moral and nonmoral shame and guilt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(1), 138–159. Staw, B. M. (1984). Organizational behavior: A review and reformulation of the field’s outcome variables. Annual Review of Psychology, 35, 627–666. Steele, C. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology: Vol. 21 (pp. 181–227). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Stuewig, J., & Tangney, J. P. (2007). Shame and guilt in antisocial and risky behaviors. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 371–388). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Stuewig, J., Tangney, J. P., Heigel, C., Harty, L., & McCloskey, L. (2010). Shaming, blaming, and maiming: Functional links among the moral emotions, externalization of blame, and aggression. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(1), 91–102. Tangney, J. P. (1990). Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: Development of the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(1), 102–111. Tangney, J. P. (1991). Moral affect: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(4), 598–607. Tangney, J. P. (1995). Shame and guilt in interpersonal relationships. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 114–139). New York, NY: Guilford Press Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. (2002). Shame and guilt. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tangney J. P, & Fischer, K. W. (1995). Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1256–1269. Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Martinez, A. G. (2014). Two faces of shame: The roles of shame and guilt in predicting recidivism. Psychological Science, 25(3), 799–805. Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Mashek, D. J. (2007). Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 345–372. Tangney, J. P. & Tracy, J. L. (2012). Self-conscious emotions. In M. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 446–478). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P., Fletcher, C., & Gramzow, R. (1992). Shamed into anger? The relation of shame and guilt to anger and self-reported aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(4), 669–675. Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P., & Gramzow, R. (1992). Proneness to shame, proneness to guilt, and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101(3), 469–478. Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P. E., Hill-Barlow, D., Marschall, D. E., & Gramzow, R. (1996). Relation of shame and guilt to constructive versus destructive responses to anger across the lifespan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(4) 797–809. Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: A theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103–125.

The Role of Guilt in the Workplace  193

Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2006). Appraisal antecedents of shame and guilt: Support for a theoretical model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(10), 1339–1351. Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2007). The self in self-conscious emotions: A cognitive appraisal approach. In J. L. Tracy, R. W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 3–20). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Tracy, J. L., Robins, R. W., & Tangney, J. P. (2007). The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Van den Broeck, A., De Cuyper, N., De Witte, H., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2010). Not all job demands are equal: Differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands–Resources model. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 19(6), 735–759. Van Dillen, L. F., Heslenfeld, D. J., & Koole, S. L. (2009). Tuning down the emotional brain: an fMRI study of the effects of cognitive load on the processing of affective images. Neuroimage, 45(4), 1212–1219. Van Dillen, L. F., & Koole, S. L. (2007). Clearing the mind: A working memory model of distraction from negative mood. Emotion, 7(4), 715–723. Walster, E. H., Walster, G. W., & Berscheid, A. W. (1978). Equity: Theory and research. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Wiltermuth, S. S., & Cohen, T. R. (2014). “I’d only let you down”: Guilt proneness and the avoidance of harmful interdependence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5): 925–942. Wolf, S. T., Cohen, T. R., Panter, A. T., & Insko, C. A. (2010). Shame proneness and guilt proneness: Toward the further understanding of reactions to public and private transgressions. Self and Identity, 9(4), 337–362. Yeo, G. B., & Neal, A. (2004). A multilevel analysis of effort, practice, and performance: effects; of ability, conscientiousness, and goal orientation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(2), 231–247 Zahn-Waxler, C. & Robinson, J. (1995). Empathy and guilt: Early origins of feelings of responsibility. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 143–173). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

9 CONTEXTUALIZING SOCIAL POWER RESEARCH WITHIN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Michael Schaerer, Alice J. Lee, Adam D. Galinsky, and Stefan Thau

Social power, defined as asymmetric control over valued resources (Blau, 1964; Dépret & Fiske, 1993; Emerson 1962; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), is a fundamental feature of individual, social, and organizational life. Power has been shown to have transformative effects on the self as it influences how individuals think, feel, and behave (see Galinsky, Rucker, & Magee, 2015 for a review). It is also a foundational force governing relationships, both within and outside of organizations (e.g., Emerson, 1962). Gaining power and control over resources leads people to engage in business transactions, take up employment, or marry powerful partners (e.g., Baumeister & Vohs, 2004; Coleman, 1990). Having power is desirable not only because power allows people to meet their needs with less dependence on others and affords the freedom to act with less constraint, but power is also self-reinforcing: having power allows one to control even more resources by obtaining better outcomes in mixed-motive interactions, and disproportionately persuading and influencing others (Anderson & Brion, 2014; Magee & Galinsky, 2008). The questions of what leads to power and what consequences follow from power have long been of interest to social scientists (Freud, 1930; Fromm, 1941; Weber, 1947). Building off this historical importance, there has been an increasing interest in social power by organizational behavior and social psychological researchers in the past decades. In fact, a recent analysis found that the number of articles about power published in social psychology journals over the past twenty years has almost doubled every five years (Galinsky, Rucker, & Magee, 2015). This explosion of research has found that people in powerful positions – as opposed to those with less power – tend to think more abstractly (Smith & Trope, 2006), have an enhanced view of the self (Wojciszke & StruzynskaKujalowicz, 2007; Tost, Gino, & Larrick, 2012), are less likely to be swayed

Contextualizing Social Power Research  195

by contextual influences (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008; Pitesa & Thau, 2013), obtain more profitable negotiation outcomes (Galinsky, Schaerer, & Magee, 2017; Schaerer, Swaab, & Galinsky, 2015), engage in greater risk-taking (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006; Pitesa & Thau, 2013) and are better able to perform under stressful conditions (Lammers, Dubois, Rucker, & Galinsky, 2013). Despite the plethora of studies documenting the pervasive effects of power, the lion’s share of this research has relied on experiments conducted in laboratory and online settings. One potential concern with this approach is that the experiments do not effectively capture the features and complexities of the organizational context in which power is embedded. The logic of the situation in many laboratory studies also fails to control for the consequential impact of organizational decisions (e.g., the number of people affected by an individual’s decision; variation in the costliness of “wrong decisions”), and ignores the impact of other defining features of organizations, such as the continued interdependence between people, accountability mechanisms, or attentional demands (e.g., Pitesa & Thau, 2013; Smith & Hofmann, 2016). In a recent review, Sturm and Antonakis (2015) even speculated that some effects in the experimental power literature may be difficult to reproduce in field settings because the study paradigms used in social psychological research tend to have “little or no ecological validity” (p. 150). Although their conclusion may be overstated, it is relevant to the extent that defining features of organizational contexts are systematically neglected. Specifically, many study designs in past research have lacked organizational and experimental realism. By organizational realism we refer to a specific form of mundane realism, i.e., the extent to which experimental cover stories, manipulations, and dependent tasks correspond to the organizational context of a given situation (Miner, 2015). Experimental realism is the degree to which participants’ psychological experience in the experiment corresponds to the psychological experience of power in organizations (Aronson, Carlsmith, & Ellsworth, 1990). To address the lack of organizational context in past research on social power, the current review aims to place established findings of the social power literature in the context of organizational behavior. Furthermore, we propose ways in which defining features of organizations can be effectively manipulated in experimental designs. We have structured our review to both capture the advances made using the social psychological approach and to identify how taking the organizational context seriously may moderate some of these conclusions. First, we briefly review the evolution of social power research. Second, we discuss potential shortcomings of existing power research for our understanding of organizational behavior. Third, we systematically review how some of the most widely established conclusions about the effects of power may change once organizational realities are taken into consideration, ranging from the intrapersonal level

196  Michael Schaerer et al.

(by considering the multifaceted, dynamic nature of power, as well as the role of attentional demands), to the interpersonal level (by considering the role of repeated interactions and continued interdependence), to the organizational level (by considering the role of accountability, culture, and virtuality). Finally, we discuss ways to systematically incorporate organizational complexities into the study of social power and recommend fruitful avenues for future research.

The Evolution of Experimental Research on Social Power Some of the earliest known social psychological investigations of power were inspired by the horrific acts reported before and during World War II. Trying to understand these historic events, psychologists started to examine whether and why individuals in positions of power and authority engage in dehumanizing, antisocial, and immoral behavior. Notably, Milgram’s (1963) and Zimbardo’s (1973) seminal studies demonstrated the shocking consequences that power can have; everyday-people recruited through newspaper ads behaved in disrespectful and aggressive ways towards others when they were given authority or showed a striking propensity to inflict harm on others when instructed by an authority. Follow-up research by Kipnis (1972) further cemented Lord Acton’s notion that “power corrupts” by showing that people put in the position of a “manager” derogated their subordinates, devalued their work, and viewed them as manipulable objects. Kipnis showed that these effects were driven by power by showing that they only occurred when the manager was given the ability to reward and punish their “subordinates” but not when they were not given such abilities. The reorientation of social psychology around social cognition (Fiske & Taylor, 1991) changed the focus of power research from examining the behavioral and interpersonal consequences of power towards understanding its impact on thinking. For example, Fiske and colleagues (Fiske, 1993b; Fiske & Dépret, 1996) formulated a power-vigilance hypothesis which states that power determines information-seeking and processing in social relationships. They speculated that those with little power would seek more diagnostic information, but the powerful, in contrast, would engage in more superficial informationseeking and stereotyping. Although there was steady interest in the topic of power throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it was the combination of Keltner and colleagues’ (2003) approach-inhibition theory combined with a new experimental manipulation that same year (“recall-a-time with power,” Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003) that sparked what has since become one of the most burgeoning literatures in social psychology and micro-organizational behavior (Galinsky et al., 2015). One reason for the success of this theoretical lens is the simple proposition by Keltner and colleagues that high and low power map onto the behavioral approach and inhibition systems, two biopsychological systems thought to

Contextualizing Social Power Research  197

control behavioral activity (Carver & White, 1994). Keltner and colleagues (2003) claim that because having power is associated with rewards and freedom, it triggers approach-related tendencies, whereas the threat and constraints that accompany having less power leads to the activation of inhibitory tendencies. Although many of the basic propositions of Keltner’s theory have received empirical support (see Galinsky et al., 2015 for a review), some study findings are inconsistent with the approach-inhibition framework. Consequently, more refined and focused theories have emerged to address some of these inconsistencies (Anicich & Hirsh, in press; Guinote, 2007; Hirsh, Galinsky, & Zhong, 2011; Magee & Smith, 2013; Rucker & Galinsky, 2016). Despite the increasing theoretical diversity in the field, power has been studied using a narrow range of manipulations. Indeed, more than half (54 percent) of the manipulations used to induce differences in power are comprised of experiential manipulations, especially the recalling of a personal episode with high or low power from Galinsky et al. (2003). Less than a third of power manipulations used by past research are structural manipulations (31 percent) mimicking defining features of power in organizational life, such as assigning participants to the role of a manager or subordinate or being given control over actual resources (Schaerer, du Plessis, Yap, & Thau, 2016). Although these simple and efficient experimental manipulations allow researchers to easily and efficiently manipulate power in laboratory, online, and classroom settings, the ease of implementation may have come at the expense of organizational and experimental realism.

Can Organizational Power Be Studied in the Lab? The proliferation of laboratory research in the social power literature raises the question of whether power as it plays out in organizations can be realistically studied in the lab. On the one hand, using laboratory settings to study power has important advantages. First, experiments are the only method allowing for causal inferences and thus are “currently the best available method to build strong and robust knowledge about causes of organizational behavior” (Thau, Pitesa, & Pillutla, 2014, p. 434). Second, laboratory environments offer a clean and isolated platform to test causal effects free of noise and contextual influences. Laboratory experiments are an ideal method for capturing “the intended essence of the theoretical variables” with great accuracy and precision (Berkowitz & Donnerstein, 1982, p. 248). On the other hand, laboratory research has certain limitations in terms of its ability to provide insight into the dynamics of social power within organizations. Specifically, two limitations of experiments are directly relevant to the study of social power. A first limitation is the inherent difficulty of manipulating the construct of power in a valid way. Experimental manipulations are often noisy representations of the constructs they intend to capture (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). Several scholars have raised concerns that popular power

198  Michael Schaerer et al.

manipulations may not capture the underlying constructs in a very effective way. As a case in point, the often-used “recall-a-time” procedure, which asks participants to recall a time when they had high or low power, may differ from having real power (Flynn, Gruenfeld, Molm, & Polzer, 2011). In addition, the type of relationships that people recall are widely varied, including manager– subordinate, teacher–student, coach–player, and parent–child relationships (Galinsky et  al., 2003). Recalling having power over a child’s schedule may produce a different psychological experience compared to determining budget assignments; these two situations may differ on, for example, the number of people affected by making a wrong decision, the imagined audience when making the decision, the anticipated resistance for a particular decision, or the amount of experience with making similar decisions. A related problem is that experimental power studies may suffer from the use of confounded manipulations that can give rise to third-variable effects and demand characteristics. For instance, asking participants to take on (or imagine) a high- or low-power role may inadvertently activate a strategic orientation, or a sense of competition (Tost, 2015). However, the relationship between managers and subordinates may or may not be competitive, and in many cases, the outcomes of managers and subordinates are positively linked (Hollander, 1992). In addition, these straightforward manipulations may communicate to participants what is expected of them in this role or task (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015). Indeed, activating the schemas and scripts as to how powerful and powerless individuals ought to behave can lead to fundamentally different outcomes than the actual experience of high and low power. For example, a series of studies found that when people focused on the experience of power, the powerless processed information more carefully and showed a stronger preference for status than the powerful, but when people focused on the expectations of power the powerful processed information more thoroughly and had an increased preference for status than those with less power (Rucker, Hu, & Galinsky, 2014). A final constraint of experimental power research lies in its limited organizational realism. There is growing concern that many of the findings in the power literature may not generalize to organizational contexts (Flynn et  al., 2011). Smith and Hofmann (2016) noted that “it is not a given that theories developed in the experimental laboratory will generalize to real-world power experiences” (p. 1). Even if power manipulations are based on meaningful operationalizations, the tasks laboratory participants encounter often do not involve consequential outcomes or real decisions that reflect organizational realities. Three differences between organizations and laboratory environments. Building on these constraints of psychology-based social power research, we highlight three substantive ways in which organizational environments deviate from the way laboratory studies have been designed in past social power research: diversity of participant samples, richness of social context, and dynamics over time.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  199

First, past laboratory research has largely been based on narrow and homogeneous participant samples from a limited subpopulation. A study conducted by Henrich and colleagues estimated that as many as four out of five participant samples in social psychology studies are based exclusively on undergraduate students in psychology courses and that an American undergraduate is more than 4,000 times as likely to participate in experiments than a randomly selected person elsewhere (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). In contrast, many modern work organizations are a collection of a diverse set of individuals with different demographics, roles, educational backgrounds, abilities, beliefs, and cultural values (Katz & Kahn, 1978; March & Simon, 1958; Mintzberg, 1979). Thus, the typical laboratory study sample used in past social power research may not accurately represent the characteristics of a typical organizational workforce. In addition, one could argue that laboratory settings – by nature – induce differences in power that are exogenous to the experimental paradigm. Experimenters take on a powerful, authoritative role in a laboratory as they tell participants what to do and provide financial rewards to participants (e.g., Milgram, 1963; Minor, 1970). Study participants, on the other hand, are on the receiving side of rewards and under constant supervision by laboratory staff. Consequently, participants may be actively trying to discern the experimenter’s intentions to achieve positive evaluations and maximize potential rewards (Riecken, 1962; Rosenberg, 1965). It is thus possible that study participants already experience a state of low power even before being exposed to an actual power manipulation. This raises the question of whether existing high-power manipulations can elevate participants’ power to a level that corresponds to a true highpower state and how the consequences of low power can be studied effectively. This is particularly important as it is possible that each level of power, ranging from low to middle to high power, comes with its own unique cognitive, motivational, and behavioral characteristics (Anicich & Hirsh, in press). Second, individuals in organizations are part of a broader social context full of ongoing interdependencies whereas laboratory settings in many social power studies tend to be relatively context agnostic. A significant share of recent research on social power has focused on examining isolated actors and treated power as an individual characteristic (Flynn et al., 2011). Furthermore, the primary approach to recent social power research has been treating power as a psychological state, with sense of power being the underlying mechanism driving the effects of power (Galinsky et al., 2015). Yet, individuals in organizations interact with other individuals, often multiple ones at the same time, both within and outside of their institutional environment. In organizations, power is not merely a property of an individual but is embedded in interpersonal relationships (Emerson, 1962; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) and a broader social and institutional context (Zhong, Magee, Maddux, & Galinsky, 2006; Sturm & Antonakis, 2015). Furthermore, Tost (2015) argued that the experience of psychological power, which is rooted in the individual, is unlikely to function in the same way as structural power that is often found in hierarchical organizations.

200  Michael Schaerer et al.

In addition to neglecting relational and structural elements, psychological research on social power neglects key features of organizational realities. For example, laboratory-based scenarios and tasks barely hold participants accountable for their behavior or performance (Pitesa & Thau, 2013). Accountability is assumed to be a boundary condition of social power rather than a baseline assumption (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015). Yet, institutional arrangements that constrain potentially self-serving behaviors are often purposefully incorporated in groups and organizations (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Frink & Klimoski, 1998) and thus the rule rather than the exception. A third substantive difference between recent laboratory-based power research and organizations is the dynamic nature of real-world settings. Social psychological power research is primarily based on mono-episodic situations and interactions. But people in organizations tend to interact with others on a continuous basis, often over the course of several months or years. Interactions and relationships, including power-dependence relations, are dynamic phenomena that change and evolve over time (Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003). Whether people expect to interact with others in the future can fundamentally alter the dynamics of interpersonal interactions and the effect of power on personal and collective outcomes (e.g., Axelrod, 1984; San Martin, Swaab, Sinaceur, & Vasiljevic, 2015). In addition, psychology studies tend to place people in new positions of power, making it challenging to discern whether people’s reactions are due to differences in the psychological experience of power or sudden changes in power (Flynn et al., 2011); this is true of many experiments in which immediate reactions to experimental stimuli are tested. It is possible that people adapt to certain levels of power over time and that one-shot experiments overestimate the long-term effects of power on individuals’ experiences and reactions.

Increasing Organizational Realism for Social Power Research Given that past social power research may not have sufficiently captured organizational realities, we believe there is a need to systematically examine how defining characteristics of the organizational context impact the effects of power. Although there is merit in understanding power dynamics in more general or context-independent settings, scholars of organizational behavior are tasked with understanding the decisions and behaviors within the organizational context (Robbins & Judge, 2003). In the following, we review major findings from social psychological research on power and discuss whether and why the existing causal relationships that have been established in the lab (or online) may change in organizational settings. We do so by looking at differences at the individual level, the interpersonal level, and the organizational level (see Figure 9.1).

Contextualizing Social Power Research  201

Defining features of organizaons Individual level  Mulple dimensions of hierarchy  Changes and dynamics in power over me  Aenonal demands Interpersonal level  Interdependence  Repeated interacons Organiza onal level  Accountability  Organizaonal culture  Virtual work

Consequences Social Power

FIGURE 9.1 

   

Cognion Affect Movaon Behavior

The Influence of Organizational Features on the Effects of Power

Individual Level At the individual level, we examine three ways in which organizational contexts may affect the conclusions regarding the effects of power that have been observed in the laboratory. Multiple dimensions of hierarchical differentiation. A typical social power experiment involves a participant taking on a single role of high or low power. For instance, the popular hierarchical role manipulation involves randomly assigning participants to the role of a boss or a subordinate, ostensibly based on the scores of a leadership questionnaire (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Kunstman & Maner, 2011; Pitesa & Thau, 2013). Yet, within any organization, people are part of multiple power relationships. As people go about their day, they engage in multiple interactions, in some of which they are the low-power party and others in which they are the powerful party (Smith & Hofmann, 2016). In an organization, managers may be high in power because they have asymmetric control over their subordinates, but are simultaneously low in power when dealing with their bosses who have asymmetrical control over them (Anderson & Brion, 2014). Even a CEO, the individual with the most power in an organizational hierarchy, is accountable to the board of directors and a company’s shareholders.

202  Michael Schaerer et al.

What do the daily fluctuations in power imply for the effects of power? Being in a high- or low-power position is not always a clear distinction. Indeed, recent theorizing suggests that people are often simultaneously in high- and low-power relationships. As a result, they undergo a fundamentally different biophysical and psychological experience than when they are exclusively in high- or low-power relationships. Anicich and Hirsh (in press) proposed that people who interchangeably interact with both high- and low-power interaction partners may experience heightened role conflict and, consequently, behavioral inhibition tendencies – an outcome that has previously been associated exclusively with being low in power (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Keltner et al., 2003). In addition to balancing multiple power-based relationships at the same time, people are also part of other hierarchies that create hierarchical differentiation between people, most notably status hierarchies. In contrast to power, which is a property of the actor, status reflects the extent to which an individual is admired and respected by others (Ridgeway & Walker, 1995). Whether power affects people’s behavior depends not only on their relative level of power but also on how much status they enjoy. For example, social psychological research has suggested that the powerful tend to be less effective perspective-takers than those with less power (Galinsky et al., 2006). But Blader and colleagues (2016) have shown that the reverse effect occurs for status: those higher in status are better perspective-takers than those with less status. Similarly, research has found that the powerful tend to be more demeaning and aggressive towards others compared to those who hold less power (Bargh, Raymond, Pryor, & Strack, 1995; Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky, 2008; Kipnis, 1972). Yet, more recent research has started to take organizational complexities into consideration and investigated whether one’s level of status modulates the effects of power. Indeed, this research found that power is especially likely to fuel demeaning behavior and conflict when the powerful party also lacks status, such as an immigration officer who has the power to deny the entry of an individual at the border but is in a position that is not very esteemed (Anicich, Fast, Halevy, & Galinsky, 2015). In contrast, power is less likely to lead to demeaning behavior when the powerful individual also enjoys high status. In sum, the straightforward and compelling theories of power may not hold in complex organizational settings. These settings critically influence how organizational members navigate the multitude of power relationships they are part of, and organizational members often find themselves being in high and low power at the same time (e.g., middle power). In addition, the effects of power also depend on whether the powerful position one is in also holds respect and admiration in the eyes of others; when the powerful lack status they behave very differently than when power and status are in unison with each other. Changes and dynamics in power over time. Another organizational reality at the individual level is the fact that social hierarchies are changing over time. Individuals may gain power when they accumulate expertise (Emerson,

Contextualizing Social Power Research  203

1962), get promoted, associate themselves with powerful others (Goldstein & Hays, 2011), or gain control over other valuable resources. However, power is also easily lost. The powerful can be challenged and replaced by a more capable individual (De Waal, 2007; Fleming & Spicer, 2008) when they don’t attend to their relationships and alliances (Brion & Anderson, 2013, Gould, 2002), when their decision biases hurt their performance (e.g., Weick & Guinote, 2010), or when an external shock occurs to the power hierarchy (e.g., Hambrick & Cannella, 1993). In contrast to the idea that power can be gained and lost, most social psychological experiments implicitly assume power to be fixed and stable over time (Galinsky et al., 2015; Flynn et al., 2011). This raises the question of how adding the stability of power influences the psychological experience and consequences of power within organizations. There are several studies that hint at the idea that dynamic social hierarchies may fundamentally alter the effects of power. For example, some initial studies have investigated the moderating effects of hierarchy stability. Stability refers to the extent to which one’s current position in a hierarchy is constant or seen as possibly changing (Cummings, 1980; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). When hierarchies become unstable, the powerful may experience reduced freedom with which they can act and increased threat-related emotions as their position may be in jeopardy (Keltner et al., 2003). In contrast, unstable hierarchies may be an opportunity for the powerless to act and speak out to challenge the powerful and improve their position in the hierarchy. Such tendencies have been observed in research on power and risk-taking. Qualifying the finding that being powerful is associated with elevated risk-taking (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006), follow-up research suggests that the powerful may become more risk-averse when their position is threatened due to unstable hierarchies (Maner, Gailliot, Butz, & Peruche, 2007). Similarly, low-power individuals may have a particularly high propensity to take risk when they are part of an unstable power hierarchy (Hiemer & Abele, 2012). In stark contrast to this research, Jordan, Sivanathan, and Galinsky (2011) concluded the exact opposite. They found that the unstable powerful and the stable powerless were the most likely to engage in risky behaviors in organizational decision-making scenarios. Such inconsistencies can emerge due to differences in whether high power, low power, or both are being studied (Schaerer, du Plessis, Yap, & Thau, 2016) and whether the risk-taking is relevant or irrelevant to the stability of one’s power position (Galinsky et al., 2015). Beyond risk-taking, other research also points at the idea that hierarchy stability matters for how power is experienced and enacted. Karremans and Smith (2010) found that power was positively associated with forgiveness, but that this effect was much weaker when the powerful were in relatively unstable relationships. In addition, research by Sligte, de Dreu, and Nijstad (2011) suggests that when power positions are unstable, powerless individuals become more flexible thinkers and generate more creative insights. This finding qualifies more static

204  Michael Schaerer et al.

research that has assumed creativity to be the sole property of the powerful (Galinsky et al., 2008; Duguid & Goncalo, 2015). Overall, a number of studies strongly suggest that (a) whether hierarchies are stable or unstable fundamentally changes the psychological experience of one’s power position, and that (b) the results observed in static laboratory research may not generalize well to dynamic organizational settings. Thus, we believe more research is needed to better understand the exact effects power has on risk-taking and other behaviors in organizational contexts. Attentional demands. Another characteristic of organizations that may alter the impact of social power is attentional demands. Simon (1947) was among the first management scholars to recognize that organizational members have limited cognitive resources to complete their daily routines and make decisions. Attentional demands emerge in work environments with chronically high workload pressures and cognitively challenging tasks. Organizational members often work under high time pressures when completing tasks, are frequently interrupted by coworkers, complete tasks that conflict with each other, or have little control over the pacing, timing, and quality of their work (Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006; Perlow, 1999). Given that organizational environments significantly constrain individuals’ cognitive resources, it is useful to consider how such constraints influence power dynamics at the workplace. Having high levels of attentional demands implies that the total amount of mental capacity utilized by working memory is relatively high, leaving relatively few resources available for task completion, learning, and decision-making (Sweller, 1988). We believe that the high attentional demands produced by workplace settings likely attenuate some of the differences that have been documented between high and low power. Many theories of power suggest that the powerful engage in less careful processing of information because they face high attentional demands (Fiske, 1993a; Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske, & Yzerbyt, 2000). In contrast, the powerless are predicted to pay close attention to others to recognize and avoid environmental threats (Dépret & Fiske, 1999) and are thus less likely to engage in superficial processing of social cues. However, those in low-power situations often experience higher levels of stress than those in high-power situations (Smith & Hofmann, 2016). Furthermore, research shows that stress impairs the attentional focus of individuals (Todd et al., 2015). Thus, systematic processing by the powerless is less likely when their lack of power produces high levels of stress. A related argument has also been made by Hirsh and colleagues (2011) who suggested that a reduction of cognitive resources likely leads to an increased state of disinhibition. According to Keltner and colleagues (2003), disinhibition is a major driver of power effects, including an increased automaticity of social cognition responsible for stereotyping. Thus, the same behavioral tendencies that are activated by being powerful can also emerge because of workplace pressures. Therefore, there may be little difference in the extent to

Contextualizing Social Power Research  205

which high- and low-power individuals engage in systematic processing; this lack of difference may be driven, however, by different factors, such as the many decisions the powerful must make relative to the stress of lacking power. The same logic may apply to other work-related outcomes. For instance, several studies support the notion that the possession of power reduces perspective-taking (Blader, Shirako, & Chen, 2016; Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006). Yet, similar tendencies have been found for individuals who were put under attentional demands (Roxβnagel, 2000). Thus, organizational pressures may reduce the perspective-taking abilities of those low in power, thereby attenuating differences in perspective-taking between high- and lowpower individuals. Similarly, research suggests that reduced power can impair creativity as it increases the extent to which the powerless are influenced by contextual cues during the creative process (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008). However, attentional demands may similarly impair the ability of powerful individuals to be creative. Indeed, intense workload, time pressures, and frequent interruptions have been shown to be detrimental to creativity (Amabile, Hadley, & Kramer, 2002). In sum, the powerful and the powerless face different forms of attentional demands, from the many decisions and competing forces of the powerful to the stress of the powerless. Given that both the powerful and the less powerful face significant demands on their attention, it would not be surprising to see some differences found in the lab to not replicate within an organizational context.

Interpersonal Level Organizational contexts not only have implications for individuals’ own personal experiences but also change how people interact with each other. In the following, we discuss two important characteristics of organizations at the interpersonal level – interdependence and repeated interactions – that can alter how power operates. Interdependence. Organizations are collections of individuals with the purpose of achieving a collective goal (Baum, 2002). Thus, the individuals within an organization are inherently interdependent in the pursuit of their higherorder goal. Interdependence involves two or more actors being emotionally, economically, and ecologically reliant on each other (Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003). For example, a salesperson relies on the company’s IT specialist providing functioning information technology, while the IT specialist relies on the salesperson generating revenue for the company to pay his or her salary. More generally, interdependence requires frequent interaction between organizational members to share information, coordinate activities, negotiate the allocation of resources, and make collective decisions. Like the individual factors discussed above, the level of interdependence between individuals can alter the experience of power. One illustration of

206  Michael Schaerer et al.

how interdependence affects power lies in the distinction between social and personal power. While social power involves exercising control over other people, such as the power of managers over their employees (Magee & Galinsky, 2008), personal power is defined as the ability to control one’s outcomes and being personally independent (Van Dijke & Poppe, 2006). Thus, social power involves a certain level of interdependence while personal power is based on the idea of independence. Based on this distinction, Lammers and colleagues (2009) argued that these two types of power would have differential effects on social impression formation. Past studies that found a positive effect of power on stereotyping generally manipulated power in independent settings (Fiske & Dépret, 1996), whereas studies that documented a negative effect manipulated power in interdependent settings (Overbeck & Park, 2001). In line with this prediction Lammers and colleagues (2009) found that the more independent type of power (personal power) increased stereotyping, whereas the more interdependent type of power (social power) decreased stereotyping. High levels of interdependence also emerge in mixed-motive interactions such as negotiations and teamwork. For instance, power research suggests that because the powerful tend to be more confident in their abilities and can more easily overcome environmental constraints, they tend to achieve better outcomes for themselves than those with little power (for reviews, see Anderson & Brion, 2014; Galinsky et al., 2015; Galinsky et al., 2017). However, negotiation research finds that the answer is not so straightforward once interdependencies are taken into consideration. For instance, Mannix and Neale (1993) found that equal-power dyads (i.e., both negotiators had the same amount of power) created significantly more value than unequal-power dyads (i.e., where one negotiator has high and the other has low power), suggesting that not only does one’s absolute level of power matter but also that of the opponent. While actual power structures play an important role, perceptions about another individual’s power can be sufficient to change the outcomes of interdependent situations. In a similar vein, another study found that although alternatives, a negotiator’s primary source of power, strongly influence the ambitiousness of one’s first offer, this effect was attenuated when negotiators thought that their opponent was powerful (Schaerer, Swaab, & Galinsky, 2015). To conclude, individual outcomes not only depend on one’s own power but are also affected by the actual or perceived power of other individuals. These effects are most likely to occur when social interactions are characterized by high levels of interdependence. Repeated interactions. In addition to being highly interdependent, interactions between individuals in organizations also occur repeatedly over longer periods of time. This stands in contrast to psychological power research that has primarily relied on one-shot interactions between strangers (Flynn et al., 2011). In light of such a mono-episodic approach it is perhaps not surprising that the literature documents numerous negative consequences of being powerful,

Contextualizing Social Power Research  207

such as stereotyping (Fiske & Dépret, 1996), cheating (Lammers, Stapel, & Galinsky, 2010; Yap, Wazlawek, Lucas, Cuddy, & Carney, 2013), denigration of subordinates (Kipnis, 1972), objectification (Gruenfeld et al., 2008), and suppression of group minorities (Nemeth, 1986). However, organizational and game theoretic research highlighted that there can be profound differences in individuals’ behavior, depending on their reputation and relational history (“shadow of the past”; e.g., Milinski, Semmann, & Krambeck, 2002; Poppo, Zhou, & Ryu, 2008) and whether they expect to interact again in the future or not (“shadow of the future”; e.g., Heide & Miner, 1992). A key difference between one-shot and repeated interactions is that the latter enables individuals to employ strategies based on contingencies and reciprocity, such as tit-for-tat strategies that penalize negative behavior (Axelrod, 1984; Murnighan & Roth, 1983). Consequently, actions that individuals have been documented to use in mono-episodic interactions may not occur to the same extent in repeated interactions (Halevy, Weisel, & Bornstein, 2012). Although there has been relatively little research investigating the effect of repeated interactions on power dynamics in organizational behavior, one notable study should be mentioned. San Martin and colleagues (2015) investigated how group members’ expectations about future interactions affected the influence of minority group members. Groups are often split into a majority faction (the high-power party) and a minority faction (the low-power party) based on diverse attributes such as opinions, expertise, gender, and race (Latané & Wolf, 1981; Nemeth, 1986). In such settings, the less powerful minority often struggles to get their viewpoints heard and the powerful majority tends to ignore minority viewpoints when making decisions on behalf of the group. The studies by San Martin and colleagues (2015) found that when majority group members expected future interactions, they were more likely to consider the group minority’s dissenting opinions. Paradoxically, however, minorities were more likely to share their diverging views when they did not expect future interactions. The authors concluded that group decision-making performance was highest when minorities did not expect future interactions (because they had a lower need for approval by the majority) and when majorities did expect future interactions (because they were more open towards the opinion of others) (San Martin et al., 2015). We have highlighted how the shadow of the future of repeated interactions may alter the effects of power that have been found in single-shot situations in the lab. We believe more research is needed to better understand whether findings from mono-episodic laboratory experiments generalize to dynamic organizational settings.

Organizational Level Power not only depends on an individual’s personal attributes or those of an interaction partner, but is contingent on the institutional environment in which

208  Michael Schaerer et al.

actors are embedded (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015). In the following section, we highlight three ways in which organizational contexts deviate from laboratory experiments: organizational members are often held accountable for their actions and decisions, organizations vary in their culture, and modern work settings often involve virtual interactions. Accountability. Accountability refers to the implicit or explicit expectation that one may be asked to justify one’s beliefs, feelings, and actions to others (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Tetlock, 1992). People who fail to justify their actions in a compelling way often face negative consequences (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999). In organizations, individuals are held accountable through various ways, such as transparency (e.g., Bernstein, 2012), codes of ethical conducts (Somers, 2001), performance evaluations (DeNisi & Murphy, 2017), or financial incentives (Gerhart, Rynes, & Fulmer, 2009). According to the social contingency model (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Tetlock, 1992), accountability is a universal feature of organizational decision-making that regulates individuals’ actions. Accountability exerts a powerful force on individuals’ decision-making and has been shown to mitigate workplace prejudice (Tetlock & Mitchell, 2009), reduce cognitive biases in feedback settings (Schaerer, Swaab, Kern, Berger, & Medvec, 2015), and increase information sharing in teams (Scholten, van Knippenberg, Nijstad, & De Dreu, 2007). In existing social psychological studies on social power, people are rarely held responsible for their behavior or decisions; for example, participants were not punished for being selfish in negotiations (e.g., Maner & Mead, 2010), for cheating on performance tasks (e.g., Yap et al., 2013), or for denigrating others (e.g., Kipnis, 1972). Such behaviors may, however, be less likely to occur when the powerful are held accountable to a diverse set of stakeholders. Indeed, Keltner and colleagues (2003) suggested that accountability is already implicit in the psychology of being powerless, in that low-power individuals tend to carefully consider how their behavior will be seen and evaluated by others. In contrast, if high-power individuals are held accountable “their affect, cognition, and behavior will shift toward a pattern of increased inhibition” (p. 278) – a state commonly associated with being powerless (Keltner et  al., 2003). This implies that accountability is likely operating as a hierarchical equalizer, in that it makes the powerful behave more like the powerless. This idea was tested by Pitesa and Thau (2013), who investigated the influence of power and accountability on financial investment decisions. Their studies showed that although elevated power led to more self-serving decisions in systems of outcome accountability (i.e., in which people have to justify their outcomes), this effect no longer occurred when people were held accountable to the process by which they arrived at an investment decision, as process accountability is more likely to cause individuals to carefully think about their decisions (Pitesa & Thau, 2013). Another study found that the risk-seeking tendency of powerful individuals was attenuated when they felt a sense of responsibility for their decisions (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006).

Contextualizing Social Power Research  209

More recent studies have found that accountability can combine with power to produce synergistic benefits for decision notifications (Galinsky, Magee, Rus, Rothman, & Todd, 2014). Galinsky and colleagues (2014) suggested that holding the powerful accountable may cause them to communicate their decisions more effectively. In their study, they had executives take part in a layoff scenario in which they had to communicate a layoff decision to an employee over email. They manipulated power through the recall task. They also manipulated accountability; half of the participants were held accountable by being told that they would have to justify their responses to the rest of the class, explaining how and why they arrived at their decision. The researchers then coded the layoff notifications for interactional justice, the tendency for decision makers to explain the reasoning behind their decisions candidly and respectfully. Galinsky and colleagues (2014) found that when the powerful were held accountable for their decisions, they communicated their decisions more candidly and sensitively. Organizational culture. In addition to the presence or absence of accountability mechanisms, a second contextual feature of organizations that has the potential to alter power dynamics is culture. Organizational culture is typically defined as “a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business” (Barney, 1986, p. 657). Organizational cultures can vary across different countries (Hofstede, 1980), across organizations in similar locations (Barney, 1986), and even across different sub-groups within the same organization (Schein, 2009). Culture not only determines the mundane details of everyday life (e.g., the clothes people wear, the languages they speak, what they eat), but it also serves as the broader context within which people perceive, think, and act (Kitayama & Uskul, 2011). Numerous studies have shown how cultural differences among organizational members affect a broad range of work-related behavior such as communicating requests (Hirokawa & Miyahara, 1986), mediation and negotiation strategies (Brett & Okumura, 1998; Brett & Gelfand, 2006), decision-making processes (Stewart, 1986), and even firm performance (Barney, 1986). Because of culture’s pervasive influence on interpersonal and organizational behavior (for reviews, see Bond & Smith, 1996; Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013), it is almost inevitable that culture affects how people in high- and low-power positions behave. Power is an inherently social and contextually embedded phenomenon and so the cultural context in which individuals are in influences how they gain, use, challenge, and lose power (Anderson & Brion, 2014). For example, numerous studies have demonstrated that how hierarchical a culture is determines whether low-power people have the ability to express themselves. For example, low-power individuals from cultures characterized by high power-distance are less likely to share their perspectives. This lack of voice for the powerless can have devastating consequences. Anicich, Swaab, and Galinsky (2015) found that when a Himalayan expedition came from a

210  Michael Schaerer et al.

country with a hierarchical culture, they were more likely to have climbers die on the mountain. They speculated that the less powerful members of these expeditions didn’t feel comfortable sharing their perspectives and those insights might have prevented disaster. Similarly, studies have found that organizational culture affects the safety and efficacy that employees feel speaking up within an organization (Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison, Wheeler-Smith, & Kamdar, 2011). For instance, Detert and Burris (2007) found that employees of a restaurant chain were more likely to voice improvement-oriented suggestions to their higher-power counterparts when the organizational culture provided psychological safety to do so. Cultural differences can also affect how power is experienced and affects basic psychological processes. Building on the cultural distinction of independence versus interdependence (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), Zhong and colleagues (2006) developed a model to explain how culture differentially affects the perception and use of power. Western cultures (e.g., US, Canada) tend to be relatively individualistic as people construe themselves as separate from others and focus on attributes that makes them unique (Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In contrast, Eastern cultures (e.g., Southeast Asia) tend to be relatively interdependent. Interdependent cultures focus more on the relationships among people and are characterized by a higher level of interconnectedness and intra-group harmony (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Because of this distinction, power is conceptualized in terms of influence and entitlement in independent cultures. In other words, independent cultures tend to focus their behaviors on satisfying oneself. In contrast, power is conceptualized as a responsibility in interdependent cultures, with people focusing on how their actions affect others (Zhong et al., 2006). Culture not only affects the accessibility of cultural constructs, but also affects behavior. Kopelman (2009) compared how managers from Western countries (US, Germany, and Israel) and managers from Eastern countries (Hong Kong) allocated resources in a commons dilemma. She found that Westerners took more resources for themselves when they were high rather than low in power. However, the opposite pattern emerged for Hong Kong-based managers who voluntarily took fewer resources when they were high in power. Similar cultural variability has also been found in a large-scale cross-cultural comparison of ultimatum game outcomes. The ultimatum game is an economic game that measures what percentage of an initial endowment people allocate to others versus themselves. For example, the percentage of money that was given to others by the “allocators” ranged from a very low 26 percent in a Peruvian sample to a rather high 58 percent in an Indonesian sample (Henrich et al., 2001). Culture also influences the ways in which people embody power and infer power from others. For instance, a study by Park and colleagues (2013) compared different types of postural displays of power. While certain postures were

Contextualizing Social Power Research  211

universally seen as displaying powerfulness (e.g., an expansive posture with the hands spread on a desk), other postures (e.g., an expansive posture with the feet on the desk) only signaled power in Western cultures. The latter posture was perceived as inconsistent with East Asian cultural norms such as humility, modesty, and restraint (Park, Streamer, Huang, & Galinsky, 2013). Virtual work. A third factor that differentiates organizational environments from most social power research settings is the emerging trend of virtual interactions. The nature of collaboration within organizations has been changing at an accelerating pace. Over the past two decades, virtual work has become increasingly common as organizations try to access new talent, resources, and markets (Hinds & Mortensen, 2005; Wageman, Gardner, & Mortensen, 2012). For example, a recent survey found that up to 80 percent of knowledge workers report working frequently in dispersed settings (Ferrazzi, 2014). Whether interactions between people take place in a face-to-face or virtual setting matters, because communication channels vary in the extent to which visual and vocal cues can be exchanged (Daft & Lengel, 1986), influence to what extent positive and meaningful relationships can be developed (Walther, 1992, 1994), and affect social influence processes in dyadic and team interactions (Spears & Lea, 1994). This idea is supported by a recent meta-analysis suggesting that communication channels can fundamentally change the dynamics of mixed-motive interactions such as negotiations and decision-making in groups (Swaab, Galinsky, Medvec, & Diermeier, 2012). One way in which virtual environments can affect power dynamics is by equalizing power differentials. Sproull and Kiesler (1991) were one of the first to note that virtual communication can increase upward influence and “decrease the power of traditional gatekeepers” (p. 107). For example, virtual interactions can decrease a powerful individual’s opportunities to use that power or increase a powerless individual’s likelihood to exert influence on a powerful individual. First, the absence of vocal and visual cues makes it harder for high-power individuals to use such cues in their favor. People often infer others’ power through verbal behaviors such as voice pitch and volume (Ko, Sadler, & Galinsky, 2015), and through nonverbal behaviors such as interruptions, less positive emotions, and touching of others (Hall, Coats, & LeBeau, 2005). In the context of negotiations, for example, negotiating using asynchronous communication channels such as email can make it harder for powerful negotiators to intimidate their less powerful opponent by using power tactics such as the expression of anger (Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni, & Manstead, 2006). Second, the communication environment also affects people’s information processing in group decision-making contexts. For example, Swaab and colleagues (2016) found that when team members were given the opportunity to engage in secret conversations with other team members by using private chat windows during group deliberations, the less powerful group had more

212  Michael Schaerer et al.

influence on final group decisions compared to when all group members had to communicate using the same public channel. This occurred because the presence of secret communication opportunities reduced the perceived power of the dominant group and increased their motivation to attend to the diverging views of the minority (Swaab, Phillips, & Schaerer, 2016). Although virtual environments seem to operate as an equalizing force of power differentials, at times this may come as a disadvantage for the powerless. For instance, one study found that in allocation games, the powerful allocators were more generous when their opponents had no power rather than low power (Handgraaf, Van Dijk, Vermunt, Wilke, & De Dreu, 2008). The reason for this generosity is that the powerful showed heightened feelings of responsibility when their opponents were completely powerless. The increased physical and social distance of virtual environments may make it harder for the powerless to evoke sympathy in their powerful counterparts (Wilson, Crisp, & Mortensen, 2013).

Final Conclusions Our review has demonstrated that social power research would benefit by systematically considering the organizational context of powerful and powerless actors. Features of the organizational context – from the temporal dynamics and type of hierarchical differentiation (e.g., power vs. status) that regulate behavior, to the interdependencies and history of interaction that alter interpersonal dynamics, to the accountability systems, culture, and virtuality that provide constraints on behavior – are all amenable to experimental manipulation and likely qualify the conclusions drawn from context-free social power research that has been conducted in the past. We also believe that there is benefit in increasing the organizational realism of experimental manipulations of power and in combining experimental work with archival and survey studies on the paper level. Such methods allow researchers to observe people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior in their natural environment where people have (or lack) meaningful power, engage in ongoing interactions, and are embedded in consequential organizations. For example, Smith and Hofmann (2016) surveyed people several times per day over a period of three days while participants went about their daily routines. Although they could confirm several findings derived from laboratory studies (e.g., power is positively associated with mood and perceived control), it also led to some novel insights at odds with prior research. For example, Smith and Hofmann (2016) found that those in high-power positions felt closer to others than those in low-power positions, which directly contradicts the social distance theory of power (Magee & Smith, 2013) which has argued that power increases social distance. We realize that archival and survey-based methods have their own validity threats, but the variety in methods used is necessary for building a robust body of research.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  213

Finally, our review also suggests that research on social power could gain external validity by examining the effect of manipulations that are higher in experimental realism. One option is to more frequently manipulate power using role assignments. In their critique of the writing prime, Sturm and Antonakis (2015) suggest that researchers adopt the approach used by behavioral economists, asking participants to engage in strategic allocation games (e.g., the dictator game). For example, Handgraaf and colleagues (2008) endowed participants with monetary resources in an ultimatum game context where the sender proposes an initial allocation that can then be accepted or rejected by the recipient. The level of power was manipulated by varying the delta factor, an exogenously determined discount factor (0 ≤ δ ≤ 1) that is used to calculate the final payoff of the players involved in an ultimatum game. In case the proposal of the sender is rejected by the recipient, the offer is multiplied by the delta. The appealing feature of this manipulation is that it not only captures the relational nature of power by having two people interact with each other, but also has real financial consequences for participants. This approach may well hold promise, but it is also important to point out that such games often evoke a confrontational or competitive orientation on the part of the powerful individual (Larrick & Blount, 1997). Yet another approach is the manipulation of real alternatives in negotiations. For example, Schaerer and colleagues manipulated the presence, strength, and/or number of alternatives with the help of a confederate who provided alternative offers during the first part of a multi-stage negotiation (Schaerer, Loschelder, & Swaab, 2016) or by having participants listen to pre-recorded voicemail messages that contained alternative offers (Schaerer, Loschelder, & Swaab, 2016). Although our review has offered constructive criticism on the field of social power, we are hopeful that with some important but easily implementable adjustments, social power research will truly represent organizational behavior. We look forward to this organizational turn in social power research, where increasing levels of organizational and experimental realism in laboratory tasks will more effectively capture the realities of organizational actors.

References Amabile, T. M., Hadley, C. N., & Kramer, S. J. (2002). Creativity under the gun. Harvard Business Review, 3–11. Anderson, C., & Berdahl, J. L. (2002). The experience of power: Examining the effects of power on approach and inhibition tendencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1362–1377. Anderson, C., & Brion, S. (2014). Perspectives on power in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 67–97. Anderson, C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, optimism, and risk-taking. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(4), 511–536. Anicich, E. M., Fast, N. J., Halevy, N., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). When the bases of social hierarchy collide: Power without status drives interpersonal conflict. Organization Science, 27(1), 123–140.

214  Michael Schaerer et al.

Anicich, E., & Hirsh, J. (in press). The psychology of middle power: Vertical codeswitching, role conflict, and behavioral inhibition. Academy of Management Review. Anicich, E. M., Swaab, R. I., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). Hierarchical cultural values predict success and mortality in high-stakes teams. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(5), 1338–1343. Aronson, E., Carlsmith, J. M., & Ellsworth, P. C. (1990). Methods of research in social psychology (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Bargh, J. A., Raymond, P., Pryor, J. B., & Strack, F. (1995). Attractiveness of the underling: An automatic power → sex association and its consequences for sexual harassment and aggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(5), 768–781. Barney, J. B. (1986). Organizational culture: Can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage? Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 656–665. Baum, J. (2002). The Blackwell companion to organizations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2004). Sexual economics: Sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual interactions. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 339–363. Berkowitz, L., & Donnerstein, E. (1982). External validity is more than skin deep: Some answers to criticisms of laboratory experiments. American Psychologist, 37(3), 245–257. Bernstein, E. S. (2012). The transparency paradox: A role for privacy in organizational learning and operational control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 57(2), 181–216. Blader, S. L., Shirako, A., & Chen, Y.-R. (2016). Looking out from the top: Differential effects of status and power on perspective taking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(6), 723–737. Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction. Bond, R., & Smith, P. B. (1996). Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch’s (1952b, 1956) line judgment task. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 111–137. Brett, J. M., & Gelfand, M. J. (2006). A cultural analysis of the underlying assumptions of negotiation. In L. Thompson (Ed.), Negotiation theory and research (pp. 173–201). New York: Psychology Press. Brett, J. M., & Okumura, T. (1998). Inter- and intracultural negotiation: U.S. and Japanese negotiators. Academy of Management Journal, 41(5), 495–510. Brion, S., & Anderson, C. (2013). The loss of power: How illusions of alliance contribute to powerholders’ downfall. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(1), 129–139. Carver, C. S., & White, T. L. (1994). Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(2), 319–333. Coleman, J. S. (1990).Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cummings, E. M. (1980). Caregiver stability and day care. Developmental Psychology, 16, 31. Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. Management Science, 32(5), 554–571. De Waal, F. (2007). Chimpanzee politics: Power and sex among apes. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. DeNisi, A. S., & Murphy, K. R. (2017). Performance appraisal and performance management: 100 years of progress? Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 421–433.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  215

Dépret, E. F., & Fiske, S. T. (1993). Social cognition and power: Some cognitive consequences of social structure as a source of control deprivation. In G. Weary, F. Gleicher, & K. Marsh (Eds.), Control motivation and social cognition (pp. 176–202). New York: Springer-Verlag. Dépret, E., & Fiske, S. T. (1999). Perceiving the powerful: Intriguing individuals versus threatening groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(5), 461–480. Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 869–884. Duguid, M. M., & Goncalo, J. A. (2015). Squeezed in the middle: The middle status trade creativity for focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(4), 589–603. Elsbach, K. D., & Hargadon, A. B. (2006). Enhancing creativity through “mindless” work: A framework of workday design. Organization Science, 17(4), 470–483. Emerson, R. M. (1962). Power-dependence relations. American Sociological Review, 27(1), 31–41. Ferrazzi, K. (2014). Getting virtual teams right. Harvard Business Review, 92(12), 120–123. Fiske, S. T. (1993a). Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48(6), 621–628. Fiske, S. T. (1993b). Social cognition and social perception. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 155–194. Fiske, S. T., & Dépret, E. (1996). Control, interdependence and power: Understanding social cognition in its social context. European Review of Social Psychology, 7(1), 31–61. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition: From brains to culture. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2008). Beyond power and resistance: New approaches to organizational politics. Management Communication Quarterly, 21(3), 301–309. Flynn, F. J., Gruenfeld, D., Molm, L. D., & Polzer, J. T. (2011). Social psychological perspectives on power in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56(4), 495–500. Freud, S. (1930). Civilization and its discontents. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. Frink, D. D., & Klimoski, R. J. (1998). Toward a theory of accountability in organizations and human resource management. Research in Personnel and Human Resources, 16, 1–51. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Galinsky, A. D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Magee, J. C. (2003). From power to action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 453–466. Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Inesi, M. E., & Gruenfeld, D. H. (2006). Power and perspectives not taken. Psychological Science, 17(12), 1068–1074. Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Gruenfeld, D. H., Whitson, J. A., & Liljenquist, K. A. (2008). Power reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(6), 1450–1466. Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Rus, D., Rothman, N. B., & Todd, A. R. (2014). Acceleration with steering: The synergistic benefits of combining power and perspective-taking.Social Psychological and Personality Science,5(6), 627-635. Galinsky, A. D., Rucker, D. D., & Magee, J. C. (2015). Power: Past findings, present considerations, and future directions. In M. Mikulincer, P. R. Shaver, J. A. Simpson, & J. F. Dovidio (Eds.), APA handbook of personality and social psychology, Volume 3: Interpersonal relations (pp. 421–460). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

216  Michael Schaerer et al.

Galinsky, A., Schaerer, M., & Magee, J. C. (2017). The four horsemen of power at the bargaining table. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 32(4), 606–611. Gerhart, B., Rynes, S. L., & Fulmer, I. S. (2009). Pay and performance: Individuals, groups, and executives. Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 251–315. Goldstein, N. J., & Hays, N. A. (2011). Illusory power transference: The vicarious experience of power.Administrative Science Quarterly,56(4), 593–621. Goodwin, S. A., Gubin, A., Fiske, S. T., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2000). Power can bias impression processes: Stereotyping subordinates by default and by design. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 3(3), 227–256. Gould, R. V. (2002). The origins of status hierarchies: A formal theory and empirical test. American Journal of Sociology, 107(5), 1143. Gruenfeld, D. H., Inesi, M. E., Magee, J. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Power and the objectification of social targets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), 111–127. Guinote, A. (2007). Power and goal pursuit. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(8), 1076–1087. Halevy, N., Weisel, O., & Bornstein, G. (2012). “In-group love” and “out-group hate” in repeated interaction between group. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 25(2), 188–195. Hall, J. A., Coats, E. J., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Nonverbal behavior and the vertical dimension of social relations: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 898–924. Hambrick, D. C., & Cannella, A. A. (1993). Relative standing: A framework for understanding departures of acquired executives. Academy of Management Journal, 36(4), 733–762. Handgraaf, M. J. J., Van Dijk, E., Vermunt, R. C., Wilke, H. A. M., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2008). Less power or powerless? Egocentric empathy gaps and the irony of having little versus no power in social decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1136–1149. Heide, J. B., & Miner, A. S. (1992). The shadow of the future: Effects of anticipated interaction and frequency of contact on buyer-seller cooperation. Academy of Management Journal, 35(2), 265–291. Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological Review, 106(4), 766–794. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., & McElreath, R. (2001). In search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies.The American Economic Review, 91(2), 73-78. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). Most people are not WEIRD. Nature, 466(7302), 29. Hiemer, J., & Abele, A. E. (2012). High power = motivation? Low power = situation? The impact of power, power stability and power motivation on risk-taking. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(4), 486–490. Hinds, P. J., & Mortensen, M. (2005). Understanding conflict in geographically distributed teams: The moderating effects of shared identity, shared context, and spontaneous communication. Organization Science, 16(3), 290–307. Hirokawa, R. Y., & Miyahara, A. (1986). A comparison of influence strategies utilized by managers in American and Japanese organizations. Communication Quarterly, 34(3), 250–265. Hirsh, J. B., Galinsky, A. D., & Zhong, C.-B. (2011). Drunk, powerful, and in the dark: How general processes of disinhibition produce both prosocial and antisocial behavior. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(5), 415–427.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  217

Hofstede, G. (1980). Motivation, leadership, and organization: Do American theories apply abroad? Organizational Dynamics, 9(1), 42–63. Hollander, E. P. (1992). Leadership, followership, self, and others. The Leadership Quarterly, 3(1), 43–54. Jordan, J., Sivanathan, N., & Galinsky, A. D. (2011). Something to lose and nothing to gain: The role of stress in the interactive effect of power and stability on risk taking. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56, 530–558. Karremans, J. C., & Smith, P. K. (2010). Having the power to forgive: When the experience of power increases interpersonal forgiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(8), 1010–1023. Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations. New York: Wiley. Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Anderson, C. (2003). Power, approach, and inhibition. Psychological Review, 110(2), 265–284. Kipnis, D. (1972). Does power corrupt? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24(1), 33–41. Kitayama, S., & Uskul, A. K. (2011). Culture, mind, and the brain: Current evidence and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 419–449. Ko, S. J., Sadler, M. S., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). The sound of power: Conveying and detecting hierarchical rank through voice. Psychological Science, 26(1), 3–14. Kopelman, S. (2009). The effect of culture and power on cooperation in commons dilemmas: Implications for global resource management. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 153–163. Kunstman, J. W., & Maner, J. K. (2011). Sexual overperception: Power, mating motives, and biases in social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 282–294. Lammers, J., Dubois, D., Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2013). Power gets the job: Priming power improves interview outcomes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(4), 776–779. Lammers, J., Stapel, D. A., & Galinsky, A. D. (2010). Power increases hypocrisy moralizing in reasoning, immorality in behavior. Psychological Science, 21, 737–744. Lammers, J., Stoker, J. I., & Stapel, D. A. (2009). Differentiating social and personal power: Opposite effects on stereotyping, but parallel effects on behavioral approach tendencies. Psychological Science, 20, 1543–1548. Larrick, R. P., & Blount, S. (1997). The claiming effect: Why players are more generous in social dilemmas than in ultimatum games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(4), 810–825. Latané, B., & Wolf, S. (1981). The social impact of majorities and minorities. Psychological Review, 88(5), 438–453. Lee, A. Y., Aaker, J. L., & Gardner, W. L. (2000). The pleasures and pains of distinct self-construals: The role of interdependence in regulatory focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(6), 1122. Lerner, J. S., & Tetlock, P. E. (1999). Accounting for the effects of accountability. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 255–275. Magee, J. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Social hierarchy: The self-reinforcing nature of power and status. The Academy of Management Annals, 2(1), 351–398. Magee, J. C., & Smith, P. K. (2013). The social distance theory of power. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 17(2), 158–186. Maner, J. K., Gailliot, M. T., Butz, D. A., & Peruche, B. M. (2007). Power, risk, and the status quo: Does power promote riskier or more conservative decision making? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(4), 451–462.

218  Michael Schaerer et al.

Maner, J. K., & Mead, N. L. (2010). The essential tension between leadership and power: When leaders sacrifice group goals for the sake of self-interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(3), 482–497. Mannix, E. A., & Neale, M. A. (1993). Power imbalance and the pattern of exchange in dyadic negotiation. Group Decision and Negotiation, 2(2), 119–133. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. Oxford: Wiley. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378. Milinski, M., Semmann, D., & Krambeck, H.-J. (2002). Reputation helps solve the “tragedy of the commons”. Nature, 415(6870), 424–426. Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. London: Routledge. Minor, M. W. (1970). Experimenter-expectancy effect as a function of evaluation apprehension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15(4), 326–332. Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations: A synthesis of the research. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Morrison, E. W., Wheeler-Smith, S. L., & Kamdar, D. (2011). Speaking up in groups: A cross-level study of group voice climate and voice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 183–191. Murnighan, J. K., & Roth, A. E. (1983). Expecting continued play in prisoner’s dilemma games. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27(2), 279–300. Nemeth, C. J. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychological Review, 93(1), 23–32. Overbeck, J. R., & Park, B. (2001). When power does not corrupt: Superior individuation processes among powerful perceivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4), 549–565. Park, L. E., Streamer, L., Huang, L., & Galinsky, A. D. (2013). Stand tall, but don’t put your feet up: Universal and culturally-specific effects of expansive postures on power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 965–971. Perlow, L. A. (1999). The time famine: Toward a sociology of work time. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(1), 57–81. Pitesa, M., & Thau, S. (2013). Compliant sinners, obstinate saints: How power and self-focus determine the effectiveness of social influences in ethical decision making. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3), 635–658. Poppo, L., Zhou, K. Z., & Ryu, S. (2008). Alternative origins to interorganizational trust: An interdependence perspective on the shadow of the past and the shadow of the future. Organization Science, 19(1), 39–55. Ridgeway, C. L., & Walker, H. A. (1995). Status structures. In K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine, & J. S. House (Eds.), Sociological perspectives on social psychology (pp. 281–310). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Riecken, H. W. (1962). A program for research on experiments in social psychology. In N. F. Washburne (Ed.), Decisions, values, and groups (pp. 25–41). New York: Macmillan. Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2003). Essentials of organizational behavior (Vol. 7). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  219

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image (Vol. 11). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roxßnagel, C. (2000). Cognitive load and perspective-taking: Applying the automaticcontrolled distinction to verbal communication. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(3), 429–445. Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2016). The agentic-communal model of power: Implications for consumer behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, 1–5. Rucker, D. D., Hu, M., & Galinsky, A. D. (2014). The experience versus the expectations of power: A recipe for altering the effects of power on behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 41(2), 381–396. Rusbult, C. E., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2003). Interdependence, interaction, and relationships. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 351–375. San Martin, A., Swaab, R. I., Sinaceur, M., & Vasiljevic, D. (2015). The double-edged impact of future expectations in groups: Minority influence depends on minorities’ and majorities’ expectations to interact again. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 128, 49–60. Schaerer, M., Loschelder, D. D., & Swaab, R. I. (2016). Bargaining zone distortion in negotiations: The elusive power of multiple alternatives. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 156–171. Schaerer, M., du Plessis, C., Yap, A. J., & Thau, S. (2016). Psychological science’s preoccupation with the powerful. Academy of Management Proceedings,1, 14097. Schaerer, M., Swaab, R. I., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). Anchors weigh more than power: Why absolute powerlessness liberates negotiators to achieve better outcomes. Psychological Science, 26(2), 170–181. Schaerer, M., Swaab, R., Kern, M., Berger, G. A., & Medvec, V. H. (2015). Transparency illusions in performance appraisals: How egocentric bias explains feedback inflation. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1, 10885. Schein, E. H. (2009). The corporate culture survival guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., & Macey, W. H. (2013). Organizational climate and culture. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 361–388. Scholten, L., van Knippenberg, D., Nijstad, B. A., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2007). Motivated information processing and group decision-making: Effects of process accountability on information processing and decision quality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(4), 539–552. Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Statistical conclusion validity and internal validity. In Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference (pp. 45–48). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. Oxford: Macmillan. Sinaceur, M., & Tiedens, L. Z. (2006). Get mad and get more than even: When and why anger expression is effective in negotiations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(3), 314–322. Sligte, D. J., de Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2011). Power, stability of power, and creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(5), 891–897. Smith, P. K., & Hofmann, W. (2016). Power in everyday life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(36), 10043–10048.

220  Michael Schaerer et al.

Smith, P. K., & Trope, Y. (2006). You focus on the forest when you’re in charge of the trees: Power priming and abstract information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(4), 578–596. Somers, M. J. (2001). Thinking differently: Assessing nonlinearities in the relationship between work attitudes and job performance using a Bayesian neural network. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 74(1), 47–61. Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1994). Panacea or panopticon? The hidden power in computermediated communication. Communication Research, 21(4), 427–459. Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1991). Computers, networks and work. Scientific American, 265(3), 116–123. Stewart, E. C. (1986). Culture and decision-making. In W. B. Gudykunst, L. P. Stewart, & S. Ting-Toomey (Eds.), Communication, culture, and organizational processes. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, pp. 177–211. Sturm, R. E., & Antonakis, J. (2015). Interpersonal power: A review, critique, and research agenda. Journal of Management, 41(1), 136–163. Swaab, R. I., Galinsky, A. D., Medvec, V., & Diermeier, D. A. (2012). The communication orientation model: Explaining the diverse effects of sight, sound, and synchronicity on negotiation and group decision-making outcomes. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1), 25–53. Swaab, R. I., Phillips, K. W., & Schaerer, M. (2016). Secret conversation opportunities facilitate minority influence in virtual groups: The influence on majority power, information processing, and decision quality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 133, 17–32. Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Tetlock, P. E. (1992). The impact of accountability on judgment and choice: Toward a social contingency model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 331–376. Tetlock, P. E., & Mitchell, G. (2009). Implicit bias and accountability systems: What must organizations do to prevent discrimination? Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 3–38. Thau, S., Pitesa, M., & Pillutla, M. (2014). Experiments in organizational behavior. In M. Webster & J. Sell (Eds.), Laboratory experiments in the social sciences (pp. 433–448). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York: Wiley. Todd, A. R., Forstmann, M., Burgmer, P., Brooks, A. W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). Anxious and egocentric: How specific emotions influence perspective taking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(2), 374–391. Tost, L. P. (2015). When, why, and how do powerholders “feel the power”? Examining the links between structural and psychological power and reviving the connection between power and responsibility. Research in Organizational Behavior, 35, 29–56. Tost, L. P., Gino, F., & Larrick, R. P. (2012). Power, competitiveness, and advice taking: Why the powerful don’t listen. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 117(1), 53–65. van Dijke, M., & Poppe, M. (2006). Striving for personal power as a basis for social power dynamics. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(4), 537–556.

Contextualizing Social Power Research  221

Van Kleef, G. A., De Dreu, C. K., Pietroni, D., & Manstead, A. S. (2006). Power and emotion in negotiation: Power moderates the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness on concession making. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(4), 557–581. Wageman, R., Gardner, H., & Mortensen, M. (2012). The changing ecology of teams: New directions for teams research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(3), 301–315. Walther, J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A relational perspective. Communication Research, 19(1), 52–90. Walther, J. B. (1994). Anticipated ongoing interaction versus channel effects on relational communication in computer-mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 20(4), 473–501. Weber, M. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization. New York: Oxford University Press. Weick, M., & Guinote, A. (2010). How long will it take? Power biases time predictions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(4), 595–604. Wilson, J., Crisp, C. B., & Mortensen, M. (2013). Extending construal-level theory to distributed groups: Understanding the effects of virtuality. Organization Science, 24(2), 629–644. Wojciszke, B., & Struzynska–Kujalowicz, A. (2007). Power influences self-esteem. Social Cognition, 25(4), 472–494. Yap, A. J., Wazlawek, A. S., Lucas, B. J., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Carney, D. R. (2013). The ergonomics of dishonesty. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2281–2289. Zhong, C.-B., Magee, J. C., Maddux, W. W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, culture, and action: Considerations in the expression and enactment of power in East Asian and Western societies. In Y.-R. Chen (Ed.), National culture and groups (pp. 53–73). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment. Cognition, 2(2), 243–256.

PART II

Integrative Themes

10 CULTURE, WORK, AND THE SELF The Mutual Influence of Social and Industrial Organizational Psychology Jasmine L. Wheeler, Michele J. Gelfand, Ying-yi Hong, and Chi-yue Chiu

Research on culture and the self has been thriving in both social and industrial organizational (IO) psychology. In the last five decades, these fields have influenced each other in important ways, paving the way for the development of new theories, new questions, and important findings in each field. In this chapter, we first review research on culture and the self in social psychology, highlighting seminal research on culture and cognition, motivation, and emotion. We then discuss the evolution of research on culture and self in IO psychology in the areas of motivation, leadership, negotiation, organizational justice, and teams. Above all, we show how research on culture and the self in social psychology influenced the development of research in IO psychology, and in turn, how research in IO psychology considerably expanded research on culture and the self in social psychology to other levels of analysis and contexts. We conclude with new directions that both fields inspire for the future.

The Social Foundation: The Self in Social Psychology While the self has been a central topic in social psychology for decades (Bandura, 1986; Baumeister, 1999; Bem, 1972; Breckler & Greenwald, 1986; Epstein, 1973; Gecas, 1982; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984; Markus & Wurf, 1987; Sampson, 1989; Tajfel, 1978) it wasn’t until the late 1980s that cultural perspectives on the self were advanced in organizational psychology. In his paper entitled “The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts,” published in Psychological Review in 1989, Triandis presented a theory on how culture shapes the self. He argued that there are three aspects of the self that lead to differences in social behavior – the private, public, and collective self. The private self refers to “cognitions that involve traits, states, or behaviors of the person” (p. 507);

226  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

therefore it is an individual’s personal view of themselves. The public self refers to “cognitions concerning the generalized other’s view of the self” (p. 507); in other words, it is the view of oneself by others. Lastly, the collective self refers to “cognitions concerning a view of the self that is found in some collective” (p. 507), which relates to how the self is viewed by a specific reference group such as family, coworkers, friends, etc. Furthermore, Triandis posited that individuals sample these selves at varying rates in different cultures. For example, he hypothesized that the private self is sampled more in individualistic, complex, and loose cultures where social norms are weakly defined and deviant behaviors are tolerated. The public and collective self, conversely, is sampled more in collective, simple, and tight cultures wherein social norms are stronger and deviant behavior is not often tolerated. This was one of the first papers to argue that culture shapes the self, and that cultural differences in behavior are a function of which self is sampled more on a chronic basis. By connecting culture and self, Triandis opened up a bridge between cross-cultural psychology and basic research on the self in social psychology. Soon after, another seminal review of culture and the self was published by Markus and Kitayama in 1991. They argued that individuals from different cultures have divergent views of personhood – independent or interdependent – and that these divergent self-construals guide how we think, feel, and behave. In Western cultures, the predominant view of the self is independent. An independent self-construal derives from the notion that everyone is unique and the cultural goal is to establish, maintain, and assert one’s independence. Aspects of the self are distinct from others and stable across context and time. While social relationships are important, they typically serve as a vehicle for social comparison and self-evaluation. In these cultures, psychological processes including cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior are more likely to be influenced by internal attributes, desires, and goals. By contrast, in cultures where the interdependent self-construal is more prevalent, like China, Africa, and Japan, the self is viewed in relation to others. Unlike the independent self-construal, those with an interdependent self-construal rely on social relationships to inform the core conception of the self (Sui, Zhu, & Chiu, 2007). An interdependent self-construal derives from the notion that everyone is interconnected and the cultural goal is to maintain the larger social unit. In these cultures, individuals are more conscientious of others’ goals and may be more likely to prioritize the goals of others. Therefore, social relationships and context have a more significant impact on cognition, emotion, and motivation. This seminal theory on culture and the self influenced research on culture and basic psychological processes for the past several decades. For example, those with an interdependent self-construal have been found to attend to interpersonal knowledge and provide context-specific descriptions of the self and other (Hong, Ip, Chiu, Morris, & Menon, 2001). Interdependents are more likely to attribute behavior to the situation as opposed to the person, while

Culture, Work, and the Self  227

independents show the opposite pattern (Miller, 1984; Morris & Peng, 1994) thus challenging the Western theory of the fundamental attribution error. Furthermore, research suggests that the self also influences basic information processing (Nisbitt, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Kühnen, Hannover, and Schubert (2001) found that independents and interdependents rely on different semantic knowledge and procedural modes of thinking when making judgments. Due to the emphasis on autonomy, independents tend to engage in more context-independent processing. Interdependents, on the other hand, are guided by a self-knowledge that incorporates social relationships and takes context into consideration and hence are more likely to engage in contextbound, holistic thinking. Culturally distinct self-systems also influence emotions (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The emotional experience, beginning with the conditions that trigger a given emotion and the frequency and intensity with which they are expressed and experienced depends on an individual’s self-construal (Mesquita & Frijda, 1992). For example, ego-focused emotions are emotions that have internal attributes as the primary referent. These emotions include anger and pride, which are thought to reinforce an independent self-construal given their focus on internal attributes. Conversely, other-focused emotions like sympathy or shame refer primarily to the other, as opposed to internal attributes. These are more prevalent among interdependent cultures and serve to bolster interpersonal relationships and cooperation (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Lastly, divergent self-construals have been found to influence motivation (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). For example, given the important role of the other, social motives are more frequent in interdependent cultures (Bond, 1986). Achievement motivation is typically consistent with one’s internalized self-system such that individuals with interdependent self-construals see achievement as a way to maintain interconnections and fulfill social obligations toward significant others (see Tao & Hong, 2013), whereas individuals with an independent self-construal see achievement as a way to reach their own internal standards and goals. Consistent with this, independents show more intrinsic motivation when they get to choose the task, yet interdependents show more intrinsic motivation when others choose it for them (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999). Furthermore, the drive and the means by which one maintains a positive self-image is also dependent on an individual’s self-construal. A positive self-image is accomplished by asserting an individual’s independence for independent selves (Taylor & Brown, 1988). However, maintaining social harmony is linked to positive feelings about the self for interdependent selves. Later research has shown that independents (vs. interdependents) are likely to display self-enhancing biases, whereas interdependents show more modest and self-critical motivational tendencies (Heine & Hamamura, 2007; Heine et al., 2001; Heine, 2001; Heine, Takata, & Lehman, 2000; Kim, 2011; Kim, Chiu, Peng, Cai, & Tov, 2010; Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1997; Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000; Paulhus, 1998).

228  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

The Industrial Organizational Foundation: Culture and the Self in IO Psychology Though research on culture was starting to gain some momentum in the 1980s in IO psychology, it was only until Erez and Earley’s (1993) book Culture, Self-Identity, and Work that research on culture and the self in social psychology began to be incorporated into research in IO psychology. Erez and Earley (1993) specifically proposed a multilevel model of cultural self-representation which incorporated cultural factors, work practices, the self, and work behavior. Their core premise was that motivational practices in organizations are interpreted through the aspects of the self that are cultivated in a particular cultural context. For these practices to adequately guide employee behavior, motivational techniques and managerial practices must match with the nature of the self cultivated in a particular cultural context. As stated by Erez and Earley (1993), “motivational practices are evaluated according to personal and cultural values as either facilitating or inhibiting opportunities for experiencing self-worth, and for fulfilling the self-derived motives” (p. 26). Failing to attend to employees’ cultural values may render motivational practices ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. In this model, Erez and Earley argue that three self-motives – self-enhancement, self-efficacy, and self-consistency – exist in all cultures, yet the specific ways they are fulfilled vary across cultures. For example, in individualistic cultures self-efficacy and self-enhancement are more important for performance, whereas group-efficacy and group enhancement are more relevant to performance outcomes among collectivists (Earley, 1993). Divergent self-construals also highlight cultural differences in self-consistency motivations. Research shows that among individuals with independent self-construals, the motivation to be consistent is more prevalent. Yet individuals with interdependent self-construal are less concerned with self-consistency, given the importance of context and maintaining social harmony (Kitayama & Markus, 2000; Suh, 2002). Furthermore, their theory stipulates that motivational practices need to provide employees with the opportunity to fulfill their specific self-derived motives. By contrast, motivational practices that are incongruent with cultural values may prevent employees from satisfying the aforementioned needs and reduce satisfaction, motivation, and performance. In this view, the self mediates the relationship between HR practices and work behavior, helping to explain why employees in Japan and Germany might respond differently to certain motivational techniques. Later research on self-efficacy, goal setting, and feedback seeking supports Erez and Earley’s Self-Representation model. For example, in an examination of job training on self-efficacy and performance, Earley (1994) showed that managers from collectivistic cultures had higher self-efficacy and performance when they received group-focused job training, while individualists showed

Culture, Work, and the Self  229

higher self-efficacy and performance when they received individual focused training (see also Earley, 1999). Other work on achievement motivation also supports the model. For example, Kurman (2001b) showed that in individualistic cultures individuals are more motivated by challenging goals because they satisfy achievement needs, which enhance the independent self. In collectivistic cultures, individuals are motivated to affiliate with others. Therefore, challenging goals that spark competition and risks of failure are less desirable. Individualists, who are more assertive, have also been found to seek more feedback than collectivists (Morrison, Chen, & Salgado, 2004; see also MacDonald, Sulsky, Spence, & Brown, 2013). In all, although self-efficacy, goal setting, and feedback are universal processes in organizations, the specific ways they drive behavior vary according to the predominant construal of the self. The way that jobs are designed in organizations also affects motivation, depending on the construal of the self. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of their model of cultural self-representation (Erez & Earley, 1993), Erez (2010) argued that in the US the job enrichment model – wherein jobs are designed to foster autonomy and personal feedback – will foster self-worth and well-being (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). In Northern Europe, where collectivistic values are more readily embedded in the self-concept, greater emphasis is placed on the needs of the group as opposed to the individual. Therefore, autonomous work-group job-design models emerged, characterized by group autonomy, group-related feedback and group-focused rewards structures (Cherns, 1976; Emery & Thorsrud, 1976). Likewise, the cultural values of collectivism and power distance allowed for the emergence of the quality control circles in Japan, where small work groups are embedded in organizations in service of improving specific quality issues. This job design allows employees to fulfill the goals of the group and promotes harmony, which is consistent with an interdependent self-construal. In sum, in the 1990s, research in cross-cultural IO psychology (CCIO) began to incorporate research on the self and in turn expanded the focus in social psychology to the workplace context. Since establishing these bridges, there has been rapid development of the self in CCIO, in the areas of leadership, justice, negotiation, and teams, each of which is discussed next.

Leadership The field of culture and leadership in IO has been greatly influenced by research in social psychology on the self. Hanges, Lord, and Dickson (2000) proposed an information processing model of culture and leadership, wherein culture activates schemas, such as affect, values, and self-concepts, and over time, such activation becomes stable, and serves as an important filter for evaluating leadership behaviors. In order for leadership to be effective, leadership behaviors

230  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

must match how employees define themselves, whether they define themselves at the individual, interpersonal, or collective levels (Lord, Brown, Harvey, & Hall, 2001). Empirical research provides support for this notion. Collectivistic leaders engage in higher and more frequent transformational leadership behaviors (Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Change, 2012), and moreover, Jung and Avolio (1999) found that Asian individuals were more productive when their leader exhibited transformational as compared to transactional leadership behaviors. The reverse was true for Caucasians, who hold an individualistic self-construal. Later, Walumbwa, Lawler, and Avolio (2007) found further support for the differential reaction to transformational and transactional leadership among Chinese, Indian, Kenyan, and American employees. Transactional contingentreward leadership behaviors encourage individual competition and autonomy, and employees receive extrinsic rewards when they perform well (Bass, 1985). This leadership style garnered a more positive response (greater satisfaction with the supervisor and organizational commitment) from people who had an independent self-construal (whom they called “idiocentrics”). By contrast, individuals with an interdependent self-construal (whom they called “allocentrics”) were more satisfied with their supervisor and committed to the organization when they displayed transformational attributes that highlight individuals’ positive contributions to group performance (Bass, 1998). The magnitude of these relationships was also stronger in collectivistic (China, India, Kenya) and individualistic countries (US), for allocentrics and idiocentrics respectively. Indeed, research shows that self-construals shape the behavior of leaders as well as followers, such that collectivistic leaders engage in higher and more frequent transformational leadership behaviors (Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012). Thus, consistent with Erez and Earley’s (1993) self-representation model, leadership practices are influenced by culture and interpreted differently depending on the nature of the self and in turn affects important organizational attitudes (see also Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993 for an illustration of this in Israeli army units). Later, the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project (GLOBE) examined how culture affects the perception of leadership practices across 17,000 middle managers in 62 societies (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). The authors argued that leader prototypes vary as a function of shared cultural values. While some leadership traits (e.g., charismatic and team-oriented leadership) are universally appealing, other traits were seen as ineffective (i.e., asocial, non-cooperative, irritable, non-explicit, egocentric, ruthless, and dictatorial; House et al., 2004). Yet, preferred leadership style varies across cultures. For example, participative leadership receives a strong endorsement from Anglo cultures. Self-protective and humane-oriented leadership, on the other hand, is rated the highest among South Asian cultures. Autonomous leadership receives higher ratings among Eastern European

Culture, Work, and the Self  231

cultures (Javidan, House, & Dorfman, 2004). In a subsequent phase of the GLOBE study, Dorfman, Javidan, Hanges, Dastmalchian, and House (2012) found that leaders are more effective when leadership behavior matches subordinates’ expectations. For example, they found that when leaders exhibit team-oriented behaviors in a society that is partial to team-oriented leaders, subordinates are more likely to feel a strong commitment, expend more effort, and feel a greater sense of team solidarity. Taken together, this body of research demonstrates the importance of understanding how self-construal, which impacts how individuals think, feel, and react to different forms of leadership, varies across cultures. This knowledge should help inform organizations, especially those operating in the global market, about how to train and/or select leaders that will be effective.

Culture and Justice Cross-cultural research on organizational justice also advanced because of the inclusion of the self. Organizational justice refers to an employee’s perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace (Shao, Rupp, Skarlicki, & Jones, 2013). Fairness has been linked to work outcomes such as satisfaction, organizational citizen behavior, job performance, as well as aggression, retaliation, and counterproductive behaviors in the workplace (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). Justice judgments are based on perceptions of distributive justice, the perceived fairness of the distribution of outcomes; procedural justice, the perceived fairness of the procedures that lead to the distribution of outcomes; and interactional justice, or the perceived fairness of interpersonal interaction (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996; Folger, 1986; Konovsky, 2000; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler & Bies, 1990). What constitutes fairness, however, is subject to cross-cultural variation, given the differences in cultural values, practices, and the dominant self-construal. For example, preferences for the distributive justice principles of equity, equality, and need in reward allocation vary considerably across cultures (Sama & Papamarcos, 2000). Equity refers to the distributive justice norm of comparing your inputs and outputs with others, to ensure those who give more, receive greater rewards (Adams, 1963). Equality norms, however, suggest that rewards should not be based on relative contributions, but distributed equally, whereas the need norm dictates that those under distress or deprivation should receive more rewards. In a meta-analysis, Sama and Papamarcos (2000) found that equity norms were preferred in individualistic countries, given the emphasis on independence and greater attention to pursuing personal goals. Among collectivists, in contrast, norms of equality or need are deemed fairer. In these contexts, maintaining group harmony is essential and individuating information is perceived as a threat. Importantly, however, this pattern is found only when collectivists consider reward allocations of ingroup

232  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

members. When collectivists are confronted with outgroup members they will be more likely to prefer the equity norm since motivations to maintain group harmony are no longer present (Leung & Bond, 1984). People also attend to different types of justice depending on the self. Employees with individual, relational, and collective self-concepts vary in the degree to which they use justice information to assess attitudes and work outcomes. For example, Johnson, Selenta, and Lord (2006) examined how employees’ individual, relational, and collective self-concepts affect justice concerns and outcomes such as satisfaction with pay, promotions, supervisors and management, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Their findings suggest that different self-concepts make distinct justice-related information more salient. Distributive justice information is weighed more among individuals with an independent self, interactional justice is weighed more heavily among individuals with a relational self, and procedural justice is weighed more by people with a collective self when evaluating organizational attitudes. Overall, this research shows how important one’s self-concept is in determining which justice information affects attitudes and work outcomes (see also Brockner, Chen, Mannix, Leung, & Skarlicki, 2000; Brockner, De Cremer, van den Bos, & Chen, 2005; Holmvall & Bobocel, 2008; Li & Cropanzano, 2009; Paul, Costley, Howell, Dorfman, & Trafimow, 2001). Justice beliefs have also been shown to differentially impact organizational outcomes depending on the nature of the self. Goncalo and Kim (2010) examined distributive justice beliefs, self-construal, and idea generation in a group setting. In a lab experiment, participants were primed with either an independent or interdependent self-construal in addition to an equality vs. equity reward-allocation manipulation. Their findings suggest that equity beliefs only aid in productivity when individuals in a group are primed with an independent self-construal because a competitive orientation is activated. Therefore, understanding which forms of justice are most relevant to individuals, as they relate to their self-construal, may help inform organizational management practices to effectively motivate their employees. Relatedly, Brockner, De Cremer, van den Bos, and Chen (2005) also suggest there are different underlying motives associated with procedural justice perceptions. For example, the instrumental perspective has been linked to selfinterest motivation (e.g., independent self-construal), and suggests that people care about fairness because fair procedures lead to beneficial material outcomes (Adams, 1965; Thibaut & Walker, 1975). By contrast, social psychological models, such as the group value model (Lind & Tyler, 1988), suggests that fairness concerns are centered on interpersonal relationships and social standing and signal that one is a valued member of the group (e.g., interdependent selfconstrual). Yet another model is grounded in the notion that fairness is a “basic human value that people want to see affirmed in social encounters” (Brockner et al., 2005, p. 156; see also Folger, 1998, 2001) and that concern for ethical

Culture, Work, and the Self  233

behavior is important to individuals, independent from its effects on other outcomes. Given the importance of relationships and ethical values, the authors suggest that social psychological models of justice are more relevant among individuals with an interdependent self-construal. The authors indeed found that procedural fairness perceptions were positively related to cooperation, positive affect, and greater desire for future interaction only when individuals were high in the interdependent self-construal. In all, this area of research has shown how incorporating the self into theories and research on culture and organization provides a richer understanding of why there are cultural differences in perceptions and reactions to fairness. Next, we examine the impact of the self and culture at the negotiation table. As we have seen with research in motivation and leadership research, the self and culture have a profound effect on how we interpret negotiations and thus how we behave in these contexts.

Culture and Negotiation Negotiation research is yet another field that has benefited from the joint influence of theoretical advancements in social and IO psychology. Individuals all over the world must negotiate to bring about desired results on behalf of themselves, their groups, or for their organizations or clients. While the foundation of negotiation research is grounded in predominantly Western samples, research shows that culture impacts negotiator cognition, motivation, emotion, behavior, and outcomes, and that these differences are related to how the self is construed across cultures. For example, the United States is characterized as highly individualistic (reinforcing the need to assert independence and uniqueness), loose (fewer social constraints on behaviors and penalties associated with deviance), and egalitarian (power is equally distributed). These values and practices are not only reinforced in everyday American life, but also are reflected in the prevalence of weak social ties (Morris, Podolny, & Ariel, 2000), and high job, residential, and relational mobility (Oishi, 2010; Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010; Schug, Yuki, Horikawa, & Takemura, 2009). Individuals in these contexts consider a rational negotiation strategy to be one that focuses on self-interests and the need for self-expression (Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2009). These contexts are often characterized by competition, which allows individuals to satisfy the characteristically individualistic need for self-enhancement. By contrast, East Asian contexts are more collectivistic, prioritizing group interests and maintaining harmonious relations (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998), tight (behavior is constrained and deviant behavior is more likely to be punished; Gelfand et al., 2011), and high in power distance (individuals accept and expect power to be distributed unequally; Hofstede, 1980). Collectivist values are reinforced by structural conditions such as stronger social ties (Morris et al., 2000) and lower relational, job, and residential mobility

234  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

(Chen, Chiu, & Chan, 2009; Oishi, 2010; Schug et al., 2009, 2010). Individuals in these ecologies consider a rational negotiation strategy as one that focuses on group interests and the need for cooperation (Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2009), lest one be ostracized by the group. Numerous studies have illustrated that negotiators in different cultures have different negotiation frames, fall prey to different negotiation biases, and see different negotiation strategies as appropriate (Gelfand, Severance, Fulmer, & Dabbagh, 2012). For example, competitive negotiator frames and judgment biases have been found to loom larger in individualistic versus collectivistic cultures. Gelfand et al. (2001) showed that Americans interpret conflict situations in terms of their individual rights and competition whereas Japanese interpret the same episodes in terms of their obligations and cooperation (see Gelfand & Realo, 1999 for how these construals are even amplified when negotiators expect to be evaluated by their constituents). Gelfand and Christakopoulou (1999) furthermore found evidence that individualistic negotiators (i.e., Americans) fell prey to fixed pie biases – wherein my win is seen as your loss and vice versa – as compared to collectivistic negotiators (i.e., Greeks). Maddux et al. (2010) also found that individuals in Western cultures, or those primed with an independent self-construal, were more likely to experience the endowment effect – wherein the mere ownership of an object seemingly increases its value – making them behave more competitively than East Asian negotiators. Moreover, Western negotiators are more likely to assume their counterparts’ behavior is a result of dispositional reasons (e.g., their personality) whereas East Asian negotiators, like those in South Korea and Hong Kong, are more likely to assume their negotiation partner’s behavior is a result of situational factors (Morris, Leung, & Iyenger, 2004; Valenzuela, Srivastasva, & Lee, 2005). This research supports the notion that cultural values, practices, and self-construal are reflected in judgment biases within negotiation. Culture also affects motivational processes in negotiations. Negotiators in the West have been found to be more likely to engage in self-enhancement as compared to East Asians, which explained differences in negotiation outcomes. For example, Gelfand et al. (2002) showed that individuals in the United States, an individualistic culture, are more likely to display self-serving biases of fairness in conflict and negotiation contexts as compared to individuals from Japan. In particular, individuals in the United States were more likely to (1) attribute fair behaviors to themselves and unfair behaviors to others; (2) assume that an objective third party would evaluate their behavior more fairly than their counterparts; (3) perceive a counterpart’s offer as unfair and in turn reject it; (4) are more self-serving during a negotiation simulation; and (5) obtain less favorable negotiation outcomes. In all, their research shows how culturally contingent self-construals, which emphasize divergent cultural ideals, result in distinct negotiator cognitions such as self-serving biases, which in turn have an important impact on negotiation outcomes.

Culture, Work, and the Self  235

Trust in negotiation also varies as a function of the ecological niche and the accompanying self-construal. In tight cultures with strong social ties, and infrequent changes in job positions, relationship partners, and residences, strangers are perceived as less trustworthy (Bohnet, Greig, Herrmann, & Zeckhauser, 2008; Gunia, Brett, Nandkeolyar, & Kamdar, 2011; Realo, Allik, & Greenfield, 2008; Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990), and individuals are hyper aware of trust violation potential (Branzei, Vertinsky, & Camp, 2007; Fulmer & Gelfand, 2015). Furthermore, individuals from collectivistic cultures base their trust on interactions, or situational signs of trustworthiness, and interpersonal links (even indirect ones). Individualists, on the other hand, tend to be more trusting of individuals that share their category membership and display dispositional signs like competence and ability (Branzei et  al. 2007; Yuki, Maddux, Brewer, & Takemura, 2005). In honor cultures, where trust with strangers is low, dyads perform better when they use “honor” language which includes references to moral integrity, whereas in dignity cultures (e.g., those that are individualistic), language referring to logic and facts predicts better outcomes (Gelfand, Severance, Lee, Bruss, Lun, Abdel-Latif, et al., 2015). Cultural differences in trust also impact negotiators’ behaviors and outcomes. For example, Gunia, Brett, Kamdar, and Nandkeolyar (2010) found that as compared to American negotiators, Indian negotiators had a lower propensity to trust, were more likely to use the substantiation and offer strategy than the question and answer strategy, were less informed about their counterpart’s interests, and left the negotiation table with reduced trust and less favorable outcomes. Other research shows that trust repair processes vary across cultures. Fulmer and Gelfand (2015) showed that highly collectivistic individuals are less forgiving of severe trust violations and more forgiving for mild violations for ingroup members and do not differentiate their behavior for outgroup members. Individualists, conversely, do not show the same pattern of differentiation between severe and minor trust violations of ingroup or outgroup members. Self-construals are also related to the effectiveness of apologies. Fehr and Gelfand (2010) found that individuals that hold an independent self-construal were more likely to associate an offer for compensation with a good apology. Conversely, expressing empathy was an indicator of a good apology to those who held a relational self-construal, and acknowledging norm violation was indicative of a good apology among those with a collective self-construal. These relationships were distinct, such that the self-construals did not predict other components of apology. Additionally, forgiveness was more likely when an offender included the apology component that was congruent with the victim’s self-construal (see also Maddux, Kim, Okumura, & Brett, 2011 on culture and apology). Emotional expressions also play a key role in negotiations, and vary as a function of cultural values and implications of the self. For example, research on anger in negotiation shows that emphasis on group harmony

236  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

(collectivists/interdependents) versus self-interest (individualists/independents) leads to different interpretations and responses to emotional anger displays during negotiations. When individualists express anger they receive larger concessions from their opponent. In contrast, anger is less effective for collectivists who view these emotional displays as inappropriate (Adam et al., 2010; Kopelman & Rosette, 2008). In another example, Fulmer, Gelfand, Salmon, Van Kleef, and Adam (2017) found that collectivists conceded more to negotiators who expressed shame, which signals submission, deference, dependence, failure, and focus on social harmony (Barrett, 1995; Dickerson, Gruenewald, & Kemeny, 2004; Gilbert & McGuire, 1998; Keltner & Harker, 1998), as compared to pride which signals dominance, independence, superiority, and victory (Barrett, 1995; Cheng, Tracy, & Henrich, 2010; Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006; Oveis, Horberg, & Keltner, 2010), especially in intracultural negotiations, because they are perceived as more trustworthy. Individualists, on the other hand, showed a similar pattern of concession regardless of their ingroup counterpart’s emotional expression. Lastly, research also examines how culture, which shapes the self, impacts negotiators’ response to contextual cues. For example, Gelfand et  al. (2013) examined how the team context interacts with culture to predict negotiation outcomes in Taiwan and the United States. These countries differ in the cultural ideals of individualism and self-interest (US) and collectivism and social harmony (Taiwan). Their findings suggest that contrary to previous research showing the advantages of the team context (Morgan & Tindale, 2002; Thompson, Peterson, & Brodt, 1996), when Taiwanese negotiators are in a team, concern for harmony is magnified, resulting in suboptimal negotiation outcomes as compared to solo Taiwanese negotiators, as well as Americans in a solo or team context. In this regard, the negotiation context enhanced the salient norms in each country, making the divergent norms of value creation and harmony more apparent. In sum, infusing research on the self into cross-cultural negotiation research has resulted in strong theoretical development and has opened the door for additional empirical examinations in IO and social settings. At the same time, research on culture and self in negotiation has expanded social psychological research to the dyadic level of analysis and the implication of research on culture and the self for social interactions. Lastly, we examine how the self shapes perceptions of teamwork, team processes, and outcomes across cultures and how it affects multicultural teams who operate in an increasingly globalized work context.

Culture and Teams Culture and the self are inherently tied to the perception and effectiveness of teamwork. Teams are a common feature of work life. Salas, Dickinson, Converse, and Tannenbaum (1992) described a team as “being composed of

Culture, Work, and the Self  237

two or more individuals who interact adaptively and interdependently toward a common goal” (p. 4). As Markus and Kitayama (1991) suggest, divergent construals of the self can impact how we think about and manage our interdependence. Drawing on this, research in IO psychology has examined how one’s sense of independence or interdependence can lead to cross-cultural differences in attitudes, cognition, motivation, behavior, and effectiveness as it relates to teamwork. For example, cultural values and self-construals predict resistance to selfmanaging work teams and teams in general (Kirkman & Shapiro 1997, 2001a, 2001b). Self-managing work teams differ from other organizational teams in that members share management responsibilities such as task assignment, scheduling, decision-making, and implementing solutions to solve problems (Wellins et al., 1990). At the individual level, individualism is positively related to resistance to team settings (Kirkman & Shapiro 1997, 2001a). Further, in a study of employees from Belgium, Finland, the Philippines, and the United States, Kirkman and Shapiro (2001b) showed that at the team level collectivism was negatively related to resistance to teams in general, which predicted greater team effectiveness (productivity, cooperation, and empowerment). In addition, doing orientation was negatively related to resistance to self-managing work teams, which predicted increased team empowerment. In other words, when team members have strong work ethic and are goal-oriented they show less resistance to self-managing work teams, which results in more team empowerment. Other research shows that Americans, who typically hold independent selfconstruals and strive for autonomy, are more likely to hold a negative view of teams when their individual performance exceeds the performance of the group (Chen, Brockner, & Katz, 1998). In their assessment of Irish employees, Ramamoorthy and Flood (2002) found that individualists expend more effort in work teams when they perceived the reward system as equitable (rewards are based on individual performance). By contrast, collectivists were more likely to feel obligated to make a contribution to the team; however, they showed a decline in their obligations towards the team when equity perceptions increased. Similarly, Harrison, McKinnon, Wu, and Chow (2000) found that Taiwanese, as compared to Australian employees, responded more negatively to the concept of fluid, changing work teams, which presumably are disruptive to social harmony and cooperation. The nature of cognition in teams also varies across cultures. In a study of the meaning of teamwork in French, Puerto Rican, Filipino, and American work contexts, Gibson and Zellmer-Bruhn (2001) showed that individuals use different metaphors to describe teamwork, which “serve as cognitive reference points for team members” (p. 276). These metaphors provide insight into the expected scope, roles, membership, and objectives within the work team and vary as a function of cultural values such as individualism/collectivism. Individualists, with their weaker social ties as compared to collectivists, were more likely to

238  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

associate teamwork with sports or associate metaphors. Sports metaphors are characterized by explicit roles and objectives, relatively nonexistent hierarchy, voluntary membership, and a low scope of activity. Although associate metaphors are also characterized by narrow activity scope and explicit objectives, the roles are less well defined. By contrast, collectivists were more likely to view teamwork as a metaphor for family or community. The family metaphor is associated with a broad scope of activity, social objectives, and a paternalistic hierarchical structure. Community metaphors are related to expectations of shared and informal roles, coupled with a wide range of activities and objectives. In another study of cognitive schemas, Sanchez-Burks, Nisbett, and Ybarra (2000) examined what it means to be a successful work group among Mexicans and Americans. Mexico has a socio-emotional orientation, which captures an interdependent self-construal, such that attention and effort are directed toward maintaining social harmony. Therefore, socio-emotional behaviors are associated with group success in Mexico. Americans, who are more individualistic and task oriented, by comparison, feel that low socio-emotional and high task orientation are critical for a group to be successful. These studies demonstrate the impact that the culture has on the self, which in turn influences teamrelated cognitions. Individualists are predominantly focused on personal interests, therefore they attend to and are more motivated by individual tasks and less influenced by the group interests. The opposite is true for collectivists, who prioritize others and shared goals and are less concerned with personal goals and outcomes (Earley, 1989; Triandis, 1995; Wagner & Moch, 1986). In an interesting study, Earley (1993) found that individualists are more prone to social loafing when they are in a group setting. Collectivists, on the other hand, are more prone to “individual loafing” or lower performance when they work alone. Moreover, efficacy beliefs and perceptions of anticipated performance outcomes partially mediate this relationship. Interestingly, Hong, Wyer, and Fong (2008) also found that although both individualists and collectivists were sensitive toward other members’ performance in a team, they responded in an opposite pattern. Specifically, collectivists showed lower performance when other team members were performing at a low level but showed higher performance when other team members were performing at a high level. By contrast, individualists showed compensatory responses such that they increased their performance when other members were performing at a low level but were idle when others were performing well. Furthermore, Erez and Somach (1996) showed that performance losses in teams were greatest when individualists were not given a specific goal, were unable to communicate, and were not incentivized. The performance of collectivists in group settings, on the other hand, did not depend on the type of group goal. Taken together, this research underlines the importance of understanding how culture shapes the self and in turn influences motivation and teamwork outcomes.

Culture, Work, and the Self  239

As mentioned previously, trust formation varies across culture, and is closely related to how cultural values shape individuals’ conceptualization of interdependence (Branzei, Vertinsky, & Camp, 2007; Yuki, Maddux, Brewer, & Takemura, 2005). Man and Lam (2003) examined factors that lead to group cohesion among bank employees in the US and Hong Kong, cultures with divergent self-construals. Collectivists are naturally predisposed to value teams and cooperation, whereas individualists are naturally predisposed to thrive in independent settings. Therefore, factors that promote group cohesion such as job complexity (Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999; Wood, 1986) and autonomy should have a greater effect on individualists. Their findings support this prediction. More specifically, job complexity and job autonomy increased group cohesion to a greater degree among team members in the US as compared to Hong Kong. Individualistic and collectivistic employees develop trust and cohesion with team members in different ways that can typically be traced back to internalized cultural values. Culture and the self also influence team behavioral patterns. As one would expect, individualists and collectivists differ in terms of their tendency to cooperate. Eby and Dobbins (1997) found that self-efficacy for teamwork, positive past experiences working in teams, and need for social approval were all positively related to an individual’s collectivistic orientation. In a theoretical paper, Chen, Chen, and Meindl (1998) developed a culturally contingent theory of cooperation, suggesting that individualists should be motivated to cooperate when it is in an individual’s best interest (individual rationality) and when it promotes a sense of individuality. Collectivists, by comparison, are more motivated to pursue group goals (collective rationality) and express dedication of the self to the collective (sociality). Furthermore, cooperation mechanisms for individualists include goal interdependence, personal identity enhancement, cognition-based affect, individual accountability and formal control, partial communication, and equity-based reward distribution. In contrast, goal sharing, group identity enhancement, affect-based trust, group accountability and social pressure, full channel communication, and equality-based reward distributions are thought to foster cooperation among collectivistic cultures. Research has also examined the role of culture and the self in social influence processes in teams. Research suggests that individuals benefit from exposure to a minority perspective (Nemeth & Kwan, 1985); however, patterns may differ as a function of value orientations. Ng and Van Dyne (2001) found that when presented with a minority perspective, individuals high on horizontal individualism and low on horizontal collectivism (both of which emphasize equality) demonstrated higher quality decisions. Vertical collectivism (which emphasizes authority) was related to higher quality decisions when the minority influencer was a high-status group member. Creativity in teams can also differ based on the dominant self-construal of a group. Goncalo and Staw (2006) found that individualistic groups will have

240  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

higher levels of creativity as compared to collectivistic groups, especially when they are instructed to be creative (see also Bechtoldt, Choi, & Nijstad, 2012). Nouri, Erez, Lee, Liang, Bannister, and Chiu (2015) later examined how the social context moderates the relationship between culture and creativity. They suggest that the social context (working under a supervisor, in the presence of peers, and alone) activates cultural values of power distance and control as well as values of individualism. They found that Chinese employees displayed less originality when working under a supervisor, as compared to working privately. Americans generated fewer ideas when they were in the presence of a group, as compared to when they worked alone. Taken together, their findings indicate that certain contexts are congruent with cultural values while others are incongruent and therefore activate cultural values and norms that guide behavior. Other research has examined the self in relation to multicultural teams (Erez, Lisak, Harush, Glikson, Nouri, & Shokef, 2013; Shokef & Erez, 2006). Shokef and Erez (2006) extend Erez and Gati’s (2004) multilevel model of culture to include global work culture, global identity, and multicultural team effectiveness. Shokef and Erez (2006) argue that for multicultural teams to be effective they must develop a “shared understanding of the visible rules, regulations and behaviors, and the deeper values and ethics of the global work context” (p. 327) which aids in group functioning (see also Earley & Gibson, 2002). Within the global work context, global work values and a global identity emerge and reinforce each other, resulting in more effectiveness among multicultural teams. For example, Glikson and Erez (2013) recently showed that multicultural teams have more agreement on emotional display norms, whereas homogeneous teams show more national variation in what was seen as appropriate. They also showed that in culturally homogeneous teams, but not multicultural teams, national identity was related to agreement on emotional norms. Conversely, in multicultural teams, but not local teams, global identity was related to expectations regarding emotional norms. In all, global identity is beginning to be very important in the new global work context. In sum, research on culture and teams has greatly benefited from a focus on the self, and has shown how attitudes toward teamwork, motivation, and teams processes, all vary considerably across the globe. This research has expanded social psychology research on culture and the self to include the team level of analysis, and increasingly is exploring new aspects of the self (e.g., global identity).

Discussion In this chapter, we have shown how seminal research on culture and the self in social psychology has influenced research in IO psychology, which in turn has greatly expanded the focus of culture and self in social psychology. Research by Triandis (1989) and Markus and Kitayama (1991) and that which followed, showed that independent and interdependent self-construals reflect divergent

Culture, Work, and the Self  241

cultural values that impact how we view ourselves in relation to others and guides how we selectively attend to information that is relevant to the self. In turn, self-construals affect how individuals think, feel, and behave in various social contexts (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Thereafter, research on culture in social psychology illustrated the wide-ranging implications the self has for cognition, motivation, and emotion. These theories, in turn were fruitfully incorporated into research in IO psychology. Erez and Earley’s (1993) theory of cultural self-representation in motivation was among the first to include the self as a mediator between HR practices and work behavior. A key insight was that the self, which varies across cultures, is used to interpret and evaluate different organizational practices, affecting downstream behaviors in work settings. From there, more researchers have seen the value in including self into theory in cross-cultural IO psychology topics – from work motivation to justice, leadership, negotiation, and teams – shedding new light on many aspects of organizational behavior across cultures. In all, research on culture and the self in the last few decades facilitated the mutual influence and growth in IO and social psychology. The inclusion of the self and culture in IO expanded social psychology, which has largely focused on intraindividual processes regarding cognition, emotion, attitudes, and behavior (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Research in organizational psychology was infused with theory from social psychology on the self and, in turn, expanded research on culture in the self into levels of analysis formally not explored, including dyadic, team, and organizational processes. Given this attention to different levels of analysis, issues of culture fit – for example, when organizational practices align or misalign with the nature of the self – became particularly salient in organizational psychology research with important implications for managing global organizations. Above all, the theoretical bridges that developed across social and IO psychology has expanded both fields, with both showing that what is rational and expected in one culture may not be in another, given how we internalize cultural values into the self-concept.

Future Directions While the field of social psychology and IO psychology has greatly benefited from the inclusion of the self into theory, there are several new avenues for research to consider. For example, research in social psychology has marked a shift in viewing the self as dynamic as opposed to static. In the area of culture and cognition research, Hong, Morris, Chiu, and Benet-Martínez (2000) suggest that a fixed concept of culture does not allow for the possibility of biculturalism (or multiculturalism), holding two or more cultural identities. These identities become more or less salient depending on the social context. Therefore, it is common for individuals with multiple cultural identities to frame switch based on the cultural cues (Bell, 1991; Shore, 1996). They draw on cultural

242  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

constructivist approaches and knowledge activation to explain the processes involved in frame switching. First, internalization of culture is typically domainspecific as opposed to an overarching and consistent value orientation (Bruner, 1990; Shore, 1996). Second, individuals can internalize multiple cultural meaning systems, and these knowledge structures guide our interpretations depending on when they are accessible. One way to make a cultural knowledge structure accessible is via priming, or exposing bicultural individuals to symbols that activate one of their cultural knowledge networks. Hong and colleagues’ (2000) findings suggest that Chinese primes activated Chinese cultural constructs, leading individuals to generate external attributes for a social event and increase cooperation with ingroup (vs. outgroup) members. However, priming Western cultural symbols showed a reduction in external attributions and less cooperation in general (Wong & Hong, 2005; see review Hong & Khei, 2014). This work demonstrates how the self is dynamic and malleable, producing interesting situation effects in cultural research. Their work also underscores the importance of understanding biculturalism and how social information and contexts can activate elements of one’s culture and guide behavior (Benet-Martínez, Leu, Lee, & Morris, 2002; Hong, Zhan, Morris, & Benet-Martínez, 2016). The static view of culture has lost its relevance, especially in this era of globalization (Morris, Chiu, & Liu, 2016), and needs to be capitalized upon in future crosscultural IO psychology research (Gelfand et al., 2017). Relatedly, other theories have been developed to examine how culture and context interact. Leung and Morris (2015), for instance, proposed a situated dynamics framework of culture. In this framework, they integrate the value (trait), schema (constructivist), and norm approach to explain why and how contexts and culture affect behavior. The framework suggests that in weak situations where norms are less rigid, values play a critical role in accounting for cultural differences. Schemas, on the other hand, are more likely to account for cultural differences when situational cues implicate the relevance of schemas. Lastly, when a context makes social evaluation, norms drive cultural differences. Overall, their model emphasizes the importance of including context in the measurement and discussion of cultural differences. Yet another framework was developed by Zellmer-Bruhn and Gibson (2013) to explain how culture and context interact to predict cultural differences. They suggest that the physical, cognitive, and affective features of the “intercultural interaction space” result in the mitigation or intensification of cultural differences. For example, they argue that cross-cultural interactions that take place over the phone, with clear role expectations, and lack of surprise in instances of planned interaction, may result in a reduction in conscious adaptive behavior because cultural cue recognition is low, and therefore culture is less likely to be perceived as relevant. Research in both social and IO psychology needs to examine the dynamic self as well as the effects of context. Cultural dynamics should also be examined

Culture, Work, and the Self  243

not only at the individual level, but at the dyadic and group level within intercultural negotiations and virtual teams, factors that aid in or impede the success of cross-cultural mergers and acquisitions, and in respect to substantial shifts in culture in societies around the world (Gelfand et al., 2017). It is also worth noting that research on the self in both social and IO psychology should move beyond the distinction of independent and interdependent selves to specify the exact nature of the self being theorized upon. For example, Brewer and Gardner (1996) as well as Kashima et al. (1995) differentiated the independent, relational, and collective self, the latter often being confounded in theories and research on culture and the self. Moreover, other aspects of the self that were originally theorized upon by Triandis (1989) – namely the public self, which has been associated with cultural tightness – should also be examined in future research. The increase in globalization, and changes to the work context from local to global warrant a new stream of theorizing, examinations, and methodologies on global identity as noted above (Chiu & Kwan, 2016; Morris et  al., 2015; cf. Hong & Cheon, in press). Today’s employees are more likely to contribute to the global work force, which will affect the way the self is construed in ways that have not been examined in previous research. Key questions, such as when is global identity activated, and with what consequence for individuals, teams, and organizations, need to be addressed in future research. Indeed, a growing literature on global identity that emerges in response to global work contexts suggests that it is linked to greater effectiveness and is also a component linked to emergent leaders in multicultural virtual teams (Erez & Gati, 2004; Erez et al., 2013; Lisak & Erez, 2015; Shokef & Erez, 2008). Overall, understanding how the self is activated in the global context is important to the future of cross-cultural organizational research. Above all, time is ripe for us to develop more dynamic and broader tool boxes of the self for social and organizational psychology. Culture and the self are pervasive concepts that shape how individuals view and respond to the work around them. This review of research shows how the fields of social and IO psychology have grown and informed each other, as they have in other areas discussed in this volume. Research in cross-cultural IO psychology will continue to theorize and empirically examine how the self impacts employees around the world, especially as the world becomes even more interconnected, which will in turn spark new questions in social psychological research on the self in the years to come.

References Adam, H., Shirako, A., & Maddux, W. W. (2010). Cultural variance in the interpersonal effects of anger in negotiations. Psychological Science, 21(6), 882–889. Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(5), 422.

244  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267–299. Bandura, A. (1986). The explanatory and predictive scope of self-efficacy theory. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 4(3), 359–373. Barrett, K. C. (1995). A functionalist approach to shame and guilt. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions: The psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride (pp. 25– 63). New York: Guilford Press. Bass, B.M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Bass, B.M. (1998). Transformational leadership: Industry, military, and educational impact. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Baumeister, R. F. (1999).The self in social psychology. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Bechtoldt, M. N., Choi, H. S., & Nijstad, B. A. (2012). Individuals in mind, mates by heart: Individualistic self-construal and collective value orientation as predictors of group creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 838–844. Bell, E. (1991). The bicultural life experience of career-oriented Black women. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11, 459–478. Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 6, 1–62. Benet-Martínez, V., Leu, J., Lee, F., & Morris, M. W. (2002). Negotiating biculturalism cultural frame switching in biculturals with oppositional versus compatible cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33(5), 492–516. Bohnet, I., Greig, F., Herrmann, B., & Zeckhauser, R. (2008). Betrayal aversion: Evidence from Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States. The American Economic Review, 98(1), 294–310. Bond, M. H. (1986). The psychology of the Chinese people. New York: Oxford University Press. Branzei, O., Vertinsky, I., & Camp, R. D. (2007). Culture-contingent signs of trust in emergent relationships. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104(1), 61–82. Breckler, S. J., & Greenwald, A. G. (1986). Motivational facets of the self. In R. M. Sorrention & E. T. Higgins, (Eds)., Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (pp. 145–164). New York: Wiley. Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “We”? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 83. Brockner, J., Chen, Y., Mannix, E. A., Leung, K., & Skarlicki, D. P. (2000). Culture and procedural fairness: When the effects of what you do depend on how you do it. Administrative Science Quarterly, 45, 138–159. Brockner, J., De Cremer, D., van den Bos, K., & Chen, Y. R. (2005). The influence of interdependent self-construal on procedural fairness effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 96(2), 155–167. Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B. M. (1996). An integrative framework for explaining reactions to decisions: Interactive effects of outcomes and procedures. Psychological Bulletin, 120(2), 189. Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chen, J., Chiu, C-y., & Chan, F. S-F. (2009). The cultural effects of job mobility and the belief in a fixed world: Evidence from performance forecast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 851–865. Chen, Y. R., Brockner, J., & Katz, T. (1998). Toward an explanation of cultural differences in in-group favoritism: The role of individual versus collective primacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(6), 1490.

Culture, Work, and the Self  245

Chen, C. C., Chen, X. P., & Meindl, J. R. (1998). How can cooperation be fostered? The cultural effects of individualism-collectivism. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 285–304. Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., & Henrich, J. (2010). Pride, personality, and the evolutionary foundations of human social status. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 334–347. Cherns, A. (1976). The principles of sociotechnical design. Human Relations, 29, 783–792. Chiu, C-y., & Kwan, L. Y-y. (2016). Globalization and psychology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 44–48. Cohen-Charash, Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organizations: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86(2), 278–321. Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425–445. Dickerson, S. S., Gruenewald, T. L., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). When the social self is threatened: Shame, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1191–1216. Dorfman, P., Javidan, M., Hanges, P., Dastmalchian, A., & House, R. (2012). GLOBE: A twenty year journey into the intriguing world of culture and leadership. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 504–518. Earley, P. C. (1989). Social loafing and collectivism: A comparison of the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Administrative Science Quarterly, 34(4), 565–581. Earley, P. C. (1993). East meets West meets Mideast: Further explorations of collectivistic and individualistic work groups. Academy of Management Journal, 36(2), 319–348. Earley, P. C. (1994). Self or group? Cultural effects of training on self-efficacy and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(1), 89–117. Earley, P. C. (1999). Playing follow the leader: Status-determining traits in relation to collective efficacy across cultures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 80(3), 192–212. Earley, P. C., & Gibson, C. B. (2002). Multinational work teams: A new perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Eby, L. T., & Dobbins, G. H. (1997). Collective orientation in teams: An individual and group level analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18(3), 275–295. Emery, F. E., & Thorsrud, E. (1976). Democracy at work. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revisited: Or a theory of a theory. American Psychologist, 28(5), 404. Erez, M. (1997). A culture-based model of work motivation. In P. C. Earley & M. Erez (Eds.), New perspectives on international industrial/organization psychology (pp. 193–242). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Erez, M. (2010). Culture and job design. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31 (2–3), 389–400. Erez, M., & Earley, P. C. (1993). Culture, self-identity, and work. New York: Oxford University Press. Erez, M., & Gati, E. (2004). A dynamic, multi-level model of culture: From the micro level of the individual to the macro level of a global culture. Applied Psychology, 53(4), 583–598. Erez, M., Lisak, A., Harush, R., Glikson, E., Nouri, R., & Shokef, E. (2013). Going global: Developing management students’ cultural intelligence and global identity in culturally diverse virtual teams. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(3), 330–355.

246  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

Erez, M., & Somach, A. (1996). Group productivity loss – the rule or the exception? Effects of culture and group-based motivation. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1513–1537. Fehr, R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). When apologies work: How matching apology components to victims’ self-construals facilitates forgiveness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113(1), 37–50. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition, 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Folger, R. (1986). Rethinking equity theory. In Bierhoff, H. W., Cohen, R. L., Greenberg, J. (Eds.), Justice in social relations (pp. 145–162). New York: Springer. Folger, R. (1998). Fairness as a moral virtue. In M. Schminke (Ed.), Managerial ethics: Moral management of people and processes (pp. 12–34). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Folger, R. (2001). Fairness as deonance. In S. W. Gilliland, D. D. Steiner, & D. P. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management (pp. 3–33). New York: Information Age Publishers. Fulmer, C. A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2012). At what level (and in whom) we trust: Trust across multiple organizational levels. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1167–1230. Fulmer, C. A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2015). Trust after violations: Are collectivists more or less forgiving? Journal of Trust Research, 5(2), 109–131. Fulmer, C. A., Gelfand, M. J., Salmon, E., Van Kleef, G., & Adam, H. (2017). Culture and the expression of pride versus shame versus pride in negotiations. Paper under revision, Journal of Applied Psychology. Gecas, V. (1982). The self-concept. Annual Review of Sociology, 8(1), 1–33. Gelfand, M. J., Aycan, Z., Erez, M., & Leung, K. (2017). Cross-cultural industrial organizational psychology and organizational behavior: A hundred year journey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 514–529. Gelfand, M. J., Brett, J., Gunia, B. C., Imai, L., Huang, T. J., & Hsu, B. F. (2013). Toward a culture-by-context perspective on negotiation: Negotiating teams in the United States and Taiwan. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(3), 504. Gelfand, M. J., & Christakopoulou, S. (1999). Culture and negotiator cognition: Judgment accuracy and negotiation processes in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79(3), 248–269. Gelfand, M. J., Higgins, M., Nishii, L. H., Raver, J. L., Dominguez, A., Murakami, F.,  . . . & Toyama, M. (2002). Culture and egocentric perceptions of fairness in conflict and negotiation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(5), 833. Gelfand, M. J., Nishii, L. H., Holcombe, K. M., Dyer, N., Ohbuchi, K., & Fukuno, M. (2001). Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: Interpretations of conflict episodes in the United States and Japan. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(6), 1059–1074. Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., . . . & Aycan, Z. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332, 1100–1104. Gelfand, M. J., & Realo, A. (1999). Individualism-collectivism and accountability in intergroup negotiations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 721–736. Gelfand, M.J., Severance, L., Fulmer, C.A., Dabbagh, M.A. (2012) Explaining and predicting cultural differences in negotiation. In Bolton, G. E., Croson, R. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of economic conflict resolution (pp. 332–358). New York: Oxford University Press.

Culture, Work, and the Self  247

Gelfand, M. J., Severance, L., Lee, T., Bruss, C. B., Lun, J., Abdel-Latif, A. H., . . .  & Moustafa Ahmed, S. (2015). Culture and getting to yes: The linguistic signature of creative agreements in the United States and Egypt. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(7), 967–989. Gibson, C. B., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. E. (2001). Metaphors and meaning: An intercultural analysis of the concept of teamwork. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46(2), 274–303. Gilbert, P., & McGuire, M. T. (1998). Shame, status, and social roles: Psychobiology and evolution. In P. Gilbert & B. Andrews (Eds.), Shame: Interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture (pp. 99–125). New York: Oxford University Press. Glikson, E., & Erez, M. (2013). Emotion display norms in virtual teams. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 12(1), 22–23. Goncalo, J. A., & Kim, S. H. (2010). Distributive justice beliefs and group idea generation: Does a belief in equity facilitate productivity? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 836–840. Goncalo, J. A., & Staw, B. M. (2006). Individualism–collectivism and group creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100(1), 96–109. Gunia, B. C., Brett, J. M., Nandkeolyar, A. K., & Kamdar, D. (2011). Paying a price: Culture, trust, and negotiation consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(4), 774. Hackman J. R., & Oldham G. R.(1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Hanges, P., Lord, R., & Dickson, M. (2000). An information-processing perspective on leadership and culture: A case for connectionist architecture. Applied Psychology, 49(1), 133–161. Harrison, G. L., McKinnon, J. L., Wu, A., & Chow, C. W. (2000). Cultural influences on adaptation to fluid workgroups and teams. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(3), 489–505. Hashimoto, H., & Yamagishi, T. (2009). Self-sustaining mechanism behind Japanese interdependence. Paper presented at the GCOE 3rd International Symposium: Socio-Ecological Approaches to Cultural and Social Psychological Processes. Hokkaido. Heine, S. J. (2001). Self as cultural product: An examination of East Asian and North American selves. Journal of Personality, 69(6), 881–905. Heine, S. J., & Hamamura, T. (2007). In search of East Asian self-enhancement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(1), 4–27. Heine, S. J., Kitayama, S., Lehman, D. R., Takata, T., Ide, E., Lueng, C., & Matsumoto, H. (2001). Divergent consequences of success and failure in Japan and North America: An investigation of self-improving motivations and malleable selves. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 599–615. Heine, S. J., Takata, T., & Lehman, D. R. (2000). Beyond self-presentation: Evidence for self-criticism among Japanese. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(1), 71–78. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture and organizations. International Studies of Management & Organization, 10(4), 15–41. Holmvall, C. M., & Bobocel, D. R. (2008). What fair procedures say about me: Selfconstruals and reactions to procedural fairness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 147–168. Hong, Y., & Cheon, B. K. (in press). How does culture matter in the face of globalization? Perspectives on Psychological Science.

248  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

Hong, Y., Ip, G., & Chiu, C-y., Morris, M. W., & Menon, T. (2001). Cultural identity and the dynamic construction of the self: Collective duties and individual rights in Chinese and American cultures. Social Cognition, 19, 251–268. Hong, Y., & Khei, M. (2014). Dynamic multiculturalism: The interplay of sociocognitive, neural and genetic mechanisms. In V. Benet-Martínez & Y. Hong (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of multicultural identity: Basic and applied psychological perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press. Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7), 709–720. Hong, Y., Wyer, R. Jr., & Fong, C. (2008). Chinese working in groups: Effort dispensability versus normative influence. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 11, 187–195. Hong, Y., Zhan, S., Morris, M. W., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2016). Multicultural identity processes. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8(April), 49–53. House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (2004). Leadership, cultures and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Rethinking the value of choice: A cultural perspective on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 349. Javidan, M., House, R. J., & Dorfman, P. W. (2004). A nontechnical summary of GLOBE findings. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Leadership, culture and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies (pp. 29–48). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Johnson, R. E., Selenta, C., & Lord, R. G. (2006). When organizational justice and the self-concept meet: Consequences for the organization and its members. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 99(2), 175–201. Johnson, R. E., Venus, M., Lanaj, K., Mao, C., & Chang, C. H. (2012). Leader identity as an antecedent of the frequency and consistency of transformational, consideration, and abusive leadership behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), 1262. Jung, D. I., & Avolio, B. J. (1999). Effects of leadership style and followers’ cultural orientation on performance in group and individual task conditions. Academy of Management Journal, 42(2), 208–218. Kashima, Y., Yamaguchi, S., Kim, U., Choi, S.C., Gelfand, M. J., & Yuki, M. (1995). Culture, gender, and self: A perspective from individualism-collectivism research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 925–937. Keltner, D., & Harker, L. (1998). The forms and functions of the nonverbal signal of shame. In P. Gilbert & B. Andrews (Eds.), Interpersonal approaches to shame (pp. 78–98). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kihlstrom, J. F., & Cantor, N. (1984). Mental representations of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 1–47. Kim, Y. H. (2011). Culture and self-enhancement.In A. K.-Y. Leung, C.-y. Chiu, & Y. Hong (Eds.), Cultural processes: A social psychological perspective (pp. 139–153). New York: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Y-H., Chiu, C-y., Peng, S., Cai, H., & Tov, W. (2010). Explaining East-West differences in the likelihood of making favorable self-evaluations. Journal of CrossCultural Psychology, 41, 62–75. Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. (1997). The impact of cultural values on employee resistance to teams: Toward a model of globalized self-managing work team effectiveness. Academy of Management Review, 22(3), 730–757.

Culture, Work, and the Self  249

Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. (2001a). The impact of cultural values on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in self-managing work teams: The mediating role of employee resistance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(3), 557–569. Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. (2001b). The impact of team members’ cultural values on productivity, cooperation, and empowerment in self-managing work teams. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 32(5), 597–617. Kitayama, S., & Markus, H. R. (2000). The pursuit of happiness and the realization of sympathy: Cultural patterns of self, social relations, and well-being. In E. Diener & E. M. Such (Eds.), Culture and subjective well-being (p. 113–161). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., Matsumoto, H., & Norasakkunkit, V. (1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1245–1267. Kitayama, S., Mesquita, B., & Karasawa, M. (2006). Cultural affordances and emotional experience: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 890. Konovsky, M. A. (2000). Understanding procedural justice and its impact on business organizations. Journal of Management, 26(3), 489–511. Kopelman, S., & Rosette, A. S. (2008). Cultural variation in response to strategic emotions in negotiations. Group Decision and Negotiation, 17(1), 65–77. Kühnen, U., Hannover, B., & Schubert, B. (2001). The semantic–procedural interface model of the self: The role of self-knowledge for context-dependent versus contextindependent modes of thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(3), 397. Kurman, J. (2001a). Self-enhancement: Is it restricted to individualistic cultures? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(12), 1705–1716. Kurman, J. (2001b). Self-regulation strategies in achievement settings: Culture and gender differences. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 491–503. Lee, A. Y., Aaker, J. L., Gardner, W. L. (2000). The pleasures and pains of distinct selfconstruals: The role of interdependence in regulatory focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 1122–34. Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward allocation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(4), 793. Leung, K., & Morris, M. W. (2015). Values, schemas, and norms in the culture–behavior nexus: A situated dynamics framework. Journal of International Business Studies, 46(9), 1028–1050. Li, A., & Cropanzano, R. (2009). Fairness at the group level: Justice climate and intraunit justice climate. Journal of Management, 35(3), 564–599. Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988).The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum Press. Lisak, A., & Erez, M. (2015). Leadership emergence in multicultural teams: The power of global characteristics. Journal of World Business, 50(1), 3–14. Lord, R. G., Brown, D. J., Harvey, J. L., & Hall, R. J. (2001). Contextual constraints on prototype generation and their multilevel consequences for leadership perceptions. The Leadership Quarterly, 12(3), 311–338. MacDonald, H. A., Sulsky, L. M., Spence, J. R., & Brown, D. J. (2013). Cultural differences in the motivation to seek performance feedback: A comparative policycapturing study. Human Performance, 26(3), 211–235. Maddux, W. W., Kim, P. H., Okumura, T., & Brett, J. M. (2011). Cultural differences in the function and meaning of apologies. International Negotiation, 16(3), 405–425.

250  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

Maddux, W. W., Yang, H., Falk, C., Adam, H, Adair, W., Endo, Y., . . . Heine, S. J. (2010). For whom is parting with possessions more painful? Cultural differences in the endowment effect. Psychological Science, 21, 1910–1917. Man, D. C., & Lam, S. S. (2003). The effects of job complexity and autonomy on cohesiveness in collectivistic and individualistic work groups: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(8), 979–1001. Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253. Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38(1), 299–337. Mesquita, B., & Frijda, N. H. (1992). Cultural variations in emotions: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 112(2), 179–204. Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 961– 978. Morgan, P. M., & Tindale, R. S. (2002). Group vs individual performance in mixedmotive situations: Exploring an inconsistency. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 87(1), 44–65. Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 949. Morris, M. W., Chiu, C-y., & Liu, Z. (2015). Polycultural psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 631–659. Morris, M. W., Leung, K., & Iyengar, S. S. (2004). Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 7(2), 127–147. Morris, M. W., Podolny, J., & Ariel, S. (2000). Missing relations: Incorporating relational constructs into models of culture. In P. C. Earley & H. Singh (Eds.), Innovations in international and cross-cultural management (pp. 52–90). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Morrison, E. W., Chen, Y. R., & Salgado, S. R. (2004). Cultural differences in newcomer feedback seeking: A comparison of the United States and Hong Kong. Applied Psychology, 53(1), 1–22. Nemeth, C. J., & Kwan, J. L. (1985). Originality of word associations as a function of majority vs. minority influence.Social Psychology Quarterly, 48, 277–282. Ng, K. Y., & Van Dyne, L. (2001). Individualism-collectivism as a boundary condition for effectiveness of minority influence in decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84(2), 198–225. Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108(2), 291. Nouri, R., Erez, M., Lee, C., Liang, J., Bannister, B. D., & Chiu, W. (2015). Social context: Key to understanding culture’s effects on creativity. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(7), 899–918. Oishi, S. (2010). The psychology of residential mobility implications for the self, social relationships, and well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(1), 5–21. Oveis, C., Horberg, E. J., & Keltner, D. (2010). Compassion, pride, and social intuitions of self-other similarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(4), 618. Paul, J., Costley, D. L., Howell, J. P., Dorfman, P. W., & Trafimow, D. (2001). The effects of charismatic leadership on followers’ self-concept accessibility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 1821–1844.

Culture, Work, and the Self  251

Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait selfenhancement: A mixed blessing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1197. Ramamoorthy, N., & Flood, P. C. (2002). Employee attitudes and behavioral intentions: A test of the main and moderating effects of individualism-collectivism orientations. Human Relations, 55(9), 1071–1096. Realo, A., Allik, J., & Greenfield, B. (2008). Radius of trust: Social capital in relation to familism and institutional collectivism. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39(4), 447–462. Salas, E., Dickinson, T. L., Converse, S. A., & Tannenbaum, S. I. (1992). Toward an understanding of team performance and training. In R. W. Swezey & E. Salas (Eds.), Teams: Their training and performance (pp. 3–29). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Sama, L. M., & Papamarcos, S. D. (2000). Hofstede’s IC dimension as predictive of allocative behaviors: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Value-Based Management, 13(2), 173–188. Sampson, E. E. (1989). The challenge of social change for psychology: Globalization and psychology’s theory of the person. American Psychologist, 44, 914–921. Sanchez-Burks, J., Nisbett, R. E., & Ybarra, O. (2000). Cultural styles, relationship schemas, and prejudice against out-groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 174. Schug, J., Yuki, M., Horikawa, H., & Takemura, K. (2009). Similarity attraction and actually selecting similar others: How cross-societal differences in relational mobility affect interpersonal similarity in Japan and the USA. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(2), 95–103. Schug, J., Yuki, M., & Maddux, W. (2010). Relational mobility explains betweenand within-culture differences in self-disclosure to close friends. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1471–1478. Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4(4), 577–594. Shao, R., Rupp, D. E., Skarlicki, D. P., & Jones, K. S. (2013). Employee justice across cultures: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 39(1), 263–301. Shokef, E., & Erez, M. (2006). Global work culture and global identity, as a platform for a shared understanding in multicultural teams. In Mannix, B., Neale, M., & Chen, Y. R. (Eds.), National culture and groups: Research on managing groups and teams (Vol. 9, pp. 325–352). San Diego, CA: Elsevier JAI Press. Shokef, E., & Erez, M. (2008). Cultural intelligence and global identity in multicultural teams. In S. Ang & L. Van Dyne (Eds.), Handbook of cultural intelligence: Theory, measurement, and applications (pp. 177–191). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Shore, B. (1996). Culture in mind: Cognition, culture, and the problem of meaning. New York: Oxford University Press. Suh, E. M. (2002). Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1378. Sui, J., Zhu, Y., & Chiu, C-y. (2007). Bicultural mind, self-construal, and recognition memory: Cultural priming effects on self- and mother-reference effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 818–824. Tajfel, H. E. (1978).Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. London: Academic Press. Tao, V. Y. K., & Hong, Y. (2013). When academic achievement is an obligation – Perspectives from social-oriented achievement motivation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. DOI: 10.1177/0022022113490072

252  Jasmine L. Wheeler et al.

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193–210. Tesluk, P. E., & Mathieu, J. E. (1999). Overcoming roadblocks to effectiveness: Incorporating management of performance barriers into models of work group effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(2), 200–217. Thibaut, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975).Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Thompson, L., Peterson, E., & Brodt, S. E. (1996). Team negotiation: An examination of integrative and distributive bargaining. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 66–78. Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96(3), 506–520. Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism & collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Triandis, H. C., & Gelfand, M. J. (1998). Converging measurement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 118–128. Triandis, H. C., McCusker, C., & Hui, C. H. (1990). Multimethod probes of individualism and collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1006–1020. Tyler, T. R., & Bies, R. J. (1990). Beyond formal procedures: The interpersonal context of procedural justice. In J. S. Carroll (Ed.), Applied Social Psychology and Organizational Settings (77–98). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Valenzuela, A., Srivastava, J., & Lee, S. (2005). The role of cultural orientation in bargaining under incomplete information: Differences in causal attributions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 96(1), 72–88. Wagner, J. A., & Moch, M. K. (1986). Individualism-collectivism: Concept and measure. Group & Organization Studies, 11(3), 280–304. Walumbwa, F. O., Lawler, J. J., & Avolio, B. J. (2007). Leadership, individual differences, and work-related attitudes: A cross-culture investigation. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 56(2), 212–230. Wellins, R. S., Wilson, R., Katz, A. J., Laughlin, P., Day, C. R. & Price, D. (1990). Self directed teams: A study of current practice. Pittsburgh, PA: DDI. Wong, R. Y-M., & Hong, Y. (2005). Dynamic influences of culture on cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Psychological Science, 16, 429–434. Wood, R. E. (1986). Task complexity: Definition of the construct. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 37(1), 60–82. Yuki, M., Maddux, W. W., Brewer, M. B., & Takemura, K. (2005). Cross-cultural differences in relationship-and group-based trust. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(1), 48–62. Zellmer-Bruhn, M., & Gibson, C. B. (2013). How does culture matter? A process view of cultural interaction in groups. In M. Yuki & M. Brewer (Eds.), Culture and Group Processes (pp. 166–194). New York: Oxford University Press.

11 AN ACTOR–PERCEIVER MODEL OF IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Many important outcomes in life are affected by the impressions that people have of one another, with implications for friendship development, romantic relationships, membership in groups, academic grades, leadership effectiveness, jury decisions, and sexual opportunities, to name just a few (Leary, 1995). In organizational settings, the impressions that people make of superiors, colleagues, and subordinates can influence people’s employment opportunities, job effectiveness, career advancement, status, attainment of leadership positions, and influence within the organization (Bolino, Kacmar, Turnley, & Gilstrap, 2008). Not surprisingly, then, people are attuned to the impressions that others have of them, try to control those impressions in ways that promote their goals, and take steps to repair the inevitable damage that occasionally occurs to their image at work. Well-executed impression management helps people to project the “right” images in their personal and professional lives (Bolino, Long, & Turnley, 2016), so it is beneficial for them to have some understanding of the dynamics of impression management and of how to manage their impressions more successfully. As Adam Grant (2016) wrote in the New York Times, the common admonition to “be yourself” is often “terrible” advice. Theory and research on impression management within social psychology and organizational behavior have developed along two rather independent paths. Although theorists and researchers sometimes cite key contributions in the other domain, the areas have developed in parallel and few efforts have been made to integrate them (but see Bolino et al., 2008; Bolino et al., 2016; Giacalone & Rosenfeld, 1991; Rosenfeld, Giacalone, & Riordan, 1995). Both fields trace their beginnings to Goffman’s (1959) seminal book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. From there, social psychologists turned primarily to laboratory studies that examined the situational influences on self-presentation and

254  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

personality moderators of these effects, as well as the role of self-presentational processes in other phenomena, such as cognitive dissonance, social anxiety, eating, health behaviors, and the impostor phenomenon. After a surge of interest in the 1960s and 1970s (for reviews, see Baumeister, 1982; Leary, 1995; Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Schlenker, 1980, 2012), the topic took a back seat within social and personality psychology, possibly because the standard paradigms for studying self-presentation do not adequately capture the power and reach of self-presentational concerns outside of the laboratory (Leary, Allen, & Terry, 2011). Even so, steady progress continues to be made (see Schlenker, 2012). Within organizational behavior and management, interest in impression management in organizations increased in the 1980s and early 1990s, when a number of conceptual papers, reviews, and book chapters were published on the topic (e.g., Gardner & Martinko, 1988; Giacalone & Rosenfeld, 1990, 1991; Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984). Research on impression management gained further momentum when Wayne and Ferris (1990) developed a measure of impression management and researchers became interested in the effects of impression management on performance appraisals, interviewer evaluations, and career outcomes (e.g., Ferris, Judge, Rowland, & Fitzgibbons, 1994; Judge & Bretz, 1994; Wayne & Liden, 1995). This line of work identified key impression management tactics and demonstrated their implications for important outcomes at work, including hiring decisions, performance evaluations, and promotions. Researchers also increasingly recognized that impression management motives and image concerns affect a variety of organizational behaviors, such as seeking feedback (Morrison & Bies, 1991) and going the extra mile (Bolino, 1999). More recently, impression management has also garnered attention from scholars of entrepreneurship and strategic management. For example, Parhankangas and Ehrlich (2014) examined how entrepreneurs use impression management strategies to attract funding from angel investors, and several studies have looked at the implications of CEO ingratiation (e.g., Westphal, 1998; Westphal & Deephouse, 2011). Our goal in this chapter is to examine the nature of impression management in organizational settings, drawing upon and integrating the literatures in both social psychology and organizational behavior. We also aim to broaden the study of impression management by focusing on the dynamic interplay between actors and observers in the self-presentational aspects of organizational behavior.

The Nature of Impression Management As we use the term, impression management (or self-presentation1) refers to behaviors that are enacted with the goal of influencing how others perceive the individual. Although most behaviors have the potential to influence other people’s perceptions of a person, behavior is considered to be impression management only if it has the goal of shaping how one is seen by others (Schlenker, 2012). For instance, employees may be helpful at work out of genuine concern

Impression Management in Organizations  255

for the organization’s effectiveness or because they believe that doing so will enhance their image as a dedicated employee. Only the latter case would be considered impression management; the former would be considered an example of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Bolino, 1999). Many behaviors are enacted primarily for tangibly instrumental reasons with little or no attention paid to their self-presentational implications. For example, going to the office mail room has little connection to people’s self-presentational goals. Yet, people sometimes engage in behaviors with the goal of conveying a desired impression (or not conveying an undesired impression), and the instrumental function of the behavior, if there is one, is secondary. And, whatever else they may be doing, people generally keep an eye on the implications of their actions for their social images to avoid behaving in ways that might convey undesired impressions to other people. Thus, self-presentational motives exert a pervasive influence on behavior, and this influence is particularly intense in organizations where employees are often evaluated, either formally or informally, by supervisors, subordinates, peers, clients, and customers (Latham, Almost, Mann, & Moore, 2005). In general, the self-presentations that help people achieve their goals – whether in organizations or in other areas of life – involve socially desirable images of the person (see also the Ferris & Sedikides chapter on self-enhancement in this volume). However, certain goals are better achieved via impressions that others view negatively. For example, people can avoid onerous tasks by appearing to be incompetent at them, supervisors can exert influence by appearing intolerant and hostile, and negotiators can gain the upper hand by appearing to be erratic and unpredictable (Becker & Martin, 1995; Kowalski & Leary, 1990). Yet, despite the occasional advantages of conveying undesirable impressions, trying to be seen as incompetent, intimidating, or unstable in organizational contexts can be risky (Bolino et al., 2016; Turnley & Bolino, 2001). Contrary to common conceptions, impression management is not necessarily deceptive. Although people sometimes convey impressions of themselves that they know are not accurate, they often manage their impressions to be certain that other people are aware of their actual characteristics. Many desirable characteristics are not immediately observable by others, so individuals sometimes take deliberate steps to ensure that they are seen as desired. Thus, employees who use OCB and exemplification tactics of impression management (e.g., making their boss aware that they were working at the office over the weekend) to be seen as dedicated may, in fact, be truly dedicated, hard-working employees (Bolino, 1999). Indeed, when people present themselves honestly, others’ perceptions of them are more accurate (Murphy, 2007). Most research on self-presentation has involved managing impressions of relatively stable attributes, such as one’s abilities, knowledge, personality characteristics, or attitudes. For example, in a job interview, applicants want to convey that they have the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities for the job and

256  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

that they share the organization’s values (Barrick, Shaffer, & DeGrassi, 2009; Roulin, Bangerter, & Levashina, 2015). However, people also manage impressions of their momentary states, as when people want to convey that they are displeased with another person’s performance or that they agree with another person’s suggestion. In such cases, people not only have a particular reaction but may also have the goal of showing others that they have the reaction, making the expression self-presentational.

Tactics Virtually any behavior can be employed in the service of conveying impressions of oneself to others. The most direct self-presentational tactics involve verbal expressions – whether oral or written – that explicitly convey information about one’s personality, abilities, background, likes and dislikes, accomplishments, education, roles, and so on. Although verbal self-presentations often occur in face-to-face encounters, people also present themselves in writing, such as through letters, emails, resumes, personal ads, and postings to social media sites. Virtually all theory and research have dealt with the ways in which people convey information about themselves, but people sometimes manage their impressions by withholding information – by not mentioning that they possess a particular trait, had a particular experience, or hold a particular attitude (Ellemers & Barreto, 2006). People also manage their impressions through their facial expressions, body position, direction of attention, gestures, and other nonverbal behavior – and by controlling spontaneous nonverbal behaviors that might convey an undesired impression. For example, people sometimes express, conceal, exaggerate, or fake their emotional reactions nonverbally. Unlike emotion regulation, which is used to manage one’s subjective feelings, impression management is employed to manage the emotions one appears to be feeling. The material that people post about themselves online, including photos and videos, are also selected in part to convey desired impressions of themselves. The use of social media to manage impressions can be risky because online selfpresentations usually cannot be targeted to specific audiences as in face-to-face interactions, raising the possibility that posts that make a desired impression on some observers make negative impressions on others. A study of college students found that while students who sought to project an image that they were hard-working typically posted appropriate content, those who wanted to project an image of being sexually appealing, wild, or offensive tended to post inappropriate content that could harm their chances of landing a job (Peluchette & Karl, 2009). Research also suggests that photographs posted online may influence targets’ impressions of an individual more strongly than verbal descriptions do (Van Der Heide, D’Angelo, & Schumaker, 2012). Many job applicants and employees may have realized this fact only after it was too late to remove their photographs from social media sites.

Impression Management in Organizations  257

People also use physical objects to convey information about themselves, much as theatrical props are used in plays (Schlenker, 1980). For example, people’s choices of clothing and bodily adornment (such as jewelry, make-up, or tattoos) may be selected to convey a particular impression in a particular context, and much has been made of dressing for success. How people decorate their homes and offices – and the props that they display – are partly selected for their self-presentational impact. Indeed, in many offices, it is customary to provide evidence of one’s qualifications (e.g., diplomas, certificates) in order to project an image of competence (Elsbach, 2004). People also hide possessions from public view that might convey undesired impressions and exhibit those that are consonant with the image that they wish others to have of them (Goffman, 1959; Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002). People also influence others’ impressions by touting and hiding their connections with certain people and groups. For example, people sometimes tout their connections with those who are known to be successful, powerful, attractive, popular, or simply interesting and distance themselves from undesirable others (Cialdini, Borden, Thorne, Walker, Freeman, & Sloan, 1976; Snyder, Lassegard, & Ford, 1986). Long, Baer, Colquitt, Outlaw, and Dhensa-Kahlon (2015) found that employees can enhance their image by forming supportive relationships not only with organizational “stars” (i.e., co-workers who are already top performers) but also with “projects” (i.e., co-workers who, with support, could potentially be top performers). Thus, making the “right” connections may sometimes depend on how those connections are viewed by observers.

Dimensions Some theorists have proposed taxonomies that specify the basic dimensions of impression management (Jones & Pittman, 1982; Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984), and scales have been developed to measure them (Bolino & Turnley, 1999). The most influential of these taxonomies is perhaps Jones and Pittman’s (1982) distinction among self-presentations that involve ingratiation (likeability), selfpromotion (competence), exemplification (morality, dedication), supplication (weakness), and intimidation (threateningness), although other dimensions have also been suggested. These taxonomies are often useful, but they obscure the fact that, depending on how thinly one slices the self-presentational pie, the number and variety of dimensions on which people may manage their impressions are virtually endless. People are usually quite selective in the precise dimensions that they invoke in a particular encounter. For example, employees rarely try to convey an image of omnibus competence but rather emphasize selfpresentations that are relevant to circumscribed competencies that are valued in a particular context. Likewise, exemplification encompasses many specific images, such as impressions of being ethical, moral, dedicated, conscientious, loyal, and trustworthy, which are not interchangeable as self-presentational

258  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

tactics. The broad dimensions discussed by Jones and Pittman (1982) and others are useful conceptually but are often not precise enough for either research purposes or application to organizational settings. Furthermore, although research has tended to examine only one or two dimensions in a particular study, real-world impression management often involves simultaneous attention to a set of diverse dimensions – a selfpresentational “persona” (Leary & Allen, 2011). For example, not only may an employee be motivated for co-workers to view him positively along several dimensions simultaneously (such as competent, pleasant, cooperative, conscientious, and ethical), but successfully conveying a desired image on one dimension may require self-presentational efforts on other dimensions as well. For example, emphasizing one’s competence or conscientiousness may undermine impressions of pleasantness unless the employee takes steps not to seem braggartly or compulsive (Berman, Levine, Barasch, & Small, 2014). Only a few studies have examined self-presentations on multiple dimensions simultaneously (e.g., Bolino & Turnley, 2003a; Leary, Robertson, Barnes, & Miller, 1986), and more work along these lines is needed.

Actors’ and Perceivers’ Perspectives on Impression Management Work within both social psychology and organizational behavior has examined impression management almost exclusively from the standpoint of the actor who is attempting to convey particular impressions of him- or herself. Most theory has dealt exclusively with factors that operate at the level of the actor – such as goals, self-perceptions, and judgments of one’s self-presentational efficacy – and most research has studied either situational factors that affect the actor’s selfpresentational efforts or dispositional variables that moderate the effects of those external influences. In part, this focus on the actor can be traced to Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical approach, which conceptualized self-presentation as a process by which actors play a role before an audience (see, also, Schlenker, 1980). The dramaturgical metaphor is fine as far as it goes, but in most theatrical performances, actors usually play their parts irrespective of how the audience reacts. Yet, when people manage their impressions in everyday life, they are usually engaged in an interdependent interaction in which actors and perceivers mutually influence one another. Thus, each actor is sensitive to perceivers’ reactions and often modifies his or her behaviors on the fly in response to feedback from the perceiver (Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997). To complicate matters, each actor in an encounter is simultaneously a perceiver of the self-presentations of other actors. In organizational settings, each employee tries to control others’ impressions of him or her at the same time that other employees are doing the same thing.

Impression Management in Organizations  259 Actor’s Self-Presentaon

Perceiver Inferences

The Actor Reacts

Impression Movaon Goal relevance Value of desired goals Image discrepancy Impression Construcon Desired/undesired images Target’s values Role constraints Actor’s current social image Actor’s self-concept

Vigilance Perceived importance of the characterisc to the actor’s outcomes Perceived costs of inferenal error

Receipt of direct feedback Inferences regarding indirect feedback Constrained by organizaonal roles and norms Judgment of selfpresentaon success Self-percepon biases Loss of face

FIGURE 11.1 

Prior Knowledge

 n Actor–Perceiver Model of Impression Management in A Organizations

As a result, a person’s perceptions as an observer may influence his or her own self-presentations, and one’s self-presentations may influence both others’ impressions of the actor and their self-presentations to him or her (Baumeister, Hutton, & Tice, 1989; Vorauer & Miller, 1997). Accordingly, to understand how impression management plays out in organizational settings, one must consider not only the determinants of actors’ self-presentational efforts (the standard approach) but also the inferences and interpretations that perceivers draw and the effects of those perceptions on perceivers’ own self-presentations when in the role of actor. In the sections that follow, we sketch a picture of impression management that considers actors’ self-presentations, perceivers’ impressions of the actor, and actors’ responses to perceivers’ responses. Of course, dynamic models of reciprocal influences are difficult to discuss and model, but we will lay out some basic ideas to guide future work. Figure 11.1 provides an overview of the process described below.

The Actor’s Perspective: Determinants of Impression Management To provide an overview of factors that influence impression management, we rely on a two-component model that distinguishes between two fundamental processes that underlie impression management (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). One component involves processes that affect the degree to which people are motivated to control how others see them (impression motivation), and the other involves processes that determine the specific impressions that people try to convey in a given context (impression construction).

260  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Impression Motivation Sometimes, people’s impressions are irrelevant to their immediate or long-term goals. Assuming that one does not give the impression of being dangerous or insane, people can successfully execute many of the tasks of life – such as buying groceries or commuting to work – with little concern for their social images. However, in many instances, the likelihood of achieving one’s goals is affected, sometimes dramatically, by making the “right” impression (or at least not making the “wrong” impression), whatever that might be in a given context. The more relevant one’s impressions are to one’s goals, the more motivated a person will be to convey a desired impression – that is, an impression that increases the likelihood of achieving the desired goal. So, first and foremost, impression motivation is influenced by the degree to which one’s impressions are relevant to one’s goals. For instance, because impressions are centrally important to being hired for a job and, later, being promoted within that job, job applicants and employees are understandably motivated to convey impressions that increase their likelihood of getting the job or promotion and to avoid making impressions that undermine those goals (Barrick et al., 2009). Likewise, when employees feel insecure in their jobs, they are more likely to manage their image at work proactively (Huang, Zhao, Niu, Ashford, & Lee, 2013). Of course, the more valuable or important the goal is, the higher impression motivation will be. Not surprisingly, organizational researchers have focused on understanding the use and effects of impression management on hiring decisions and performance appraisal ratings, which are important outcomes for employees at all organizational levels (Bolino et al., 2016). But organizational studies have also investigated impression management at the upper echelons of organizations, where the stakes are often particularly high. For example, Graffin, Carpenter, and Boivie (2011) found that boards of directors sometimes use “strategic noise” to deliberately obscure details of their selection of a new CEO in order to manage stakeholders’ impressions, particularly when the new CEO does not have prior experience as a chief executive or comes from a firm that is less wellregarded. Likewise, Chen, Luo, Tang, and Tong (2014) found that interim CEOs use impression management with regard to firm earnings in order to be promoted to the position permanently. Furthermore, CEOs, board members, and other top managers often use impression management and ingratiation to enhance or maintain their credentials and status (e.g., Maitlis, 2005; Westphal, 1998; Westphal & Stern, 2006). Put simply, when critical outcomes are at stake, the motivation to manage impression is greater. Third, impression motivation is particularly high when people perceive a discrepancy between their current image and the image they desire to make. For instance, Bolino (1999) argued that employees sometimes engage in OCB to make up for a transgression or poor performance that has undermined their reputation at work. By doing so, employees who are concerned that they are

Impression Management in Organizations  261

viewed as weak contributors seek to be regarded as good organizational citizens. Conversely, employees who are seen as competent may pretend to know less than they really do in order to avoid being inundated with requests for assistance from their peers (Becker & Martin, 1995). As such, impression management is sometimes motivated by the desire to reshape one’s image, which, as described later, can be difficult.

Impression Construction Leary and Kowalski (1990) hypothesized that the specific images that people try to construct are influenced by five primary sets of factors: desired and undesired identity images, the target’s values, role constraints, the actor’s current social image, and the actor’s self-concept. Desired identity images are images that an actor believes will increase the probability of achieving desired goals, and undesired images are those that the actor thinks will decrease the likelihood of achieving desired goals. In organizational settings, desired identity images involve attributes that promote one’s outcomes on the job. Although the specific images that employees regard as desired differ greatly by organizational context (the desired images for a kindergarten teacher are quite different than those for a prison guard, for example), they tend to fall into three primary clusters of images that convey (1) job-relevant knowledge and competence, (2) interpersonal attributes such as collegiality, cooperativeness, and organizational loyalty, and (3) personal qualities such as self-discipline, conscientiousness, and honesty. However, actors must also consider the idiosyncratic values and desires of particular targets. For instance, Gardner and Avolio (1998) suggested that charismatic leaders must find ways to manage impressions that facilitate the alignment of leaders’ and followers’ motives. Similarly, in the context of job interviews, successful applicants must present themselves in ways that convince interviewers that the applicants have the right knowledge, skills, and abilities for the job and that they are a good fit for the organization (Higgins & Judge, 2004; Kristof-Brown, Barrick, & Franke, 2002). Therefore, in order to manage impressions successfully, having an understanding of the perceiver’s values and beliefs is important. Furthermore, the images that people can reasonably project are often constrained by who they are and the roles that they play in an organization. For instance, new employees are limited in how they can present themselves because organizational newcomers are frequently encouraged to adopt identities that are consistent with the organization’s values (Cable, Gino, & Staats, 2013); even experienced employees often feel compelled to act like they share the organization’s values even when they do not (Hewlin, 2003). Likewise, subordinates are often concerned that making critical, but constructive, suggestions might undermine their image as a team player and harm their career prospects (Detert &

262  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Edmondson, 2011). Certain work arrangements may also affect the use and effectiveness of impression management in organizations. For example, employees who work remotely may feel greater pressure to manage impressions with their supervisors owing to their diminished visibility at the office, affecting the types of tactics that employees use and how often they use them (Barsness, Diekmann, & Seidel, 2005). Finally, studies show that women in organizational contexts must be careful about projecting a masculine image because counternormative impressions often elicit a “backlash” effect (e.g., Bolino & Turnley, 2003b; Rudman, 1998). Even when situational factors prescribe and proscribe certain images, people are unlikely to try to convey impressions that they don’t think they can maintain. Thus, actors’ self-concepts come into play as they judge whether conveying a particular image is deceptive and whether they have the ability to maintain the desired image. Indeed, even employees who successfully engage in interview faking behavior (Levashina & Campion, 2007) to land a job are soon likely to find themselves in a difficult position if they conveyed that they possess knowledge, skills, or abilities that they do not really possess. For this reason, people generally avoid trying to be seen in ways that are highly divergent from how they see themselves.

The Perceiver’s Perspective: Drawing Inferences From Public Images Only a portion of a person’s behavior conveys useful information to other people. Indeed, perceivers often do not know whether a particular behavior says anything noteworthy whatsoever about the actor. A particular behavior may reflect a variety of influences – traits, motives, goals, habits, momentary states, and social pressures – only some of which may be of interest to a perceiver. Much of the research in the area of social cognition has dealt with factors that influence how perceivers decide, correctly or not, whether to draw “correspondent inference” about a person on the basis of his or her actions. (These are called correspondent inferences because the perceiver infers that the actor possesses a characteristic that corresponds to the observed behavior; Jones & Davis, 1965; Jones & McGillis, 1976.) Although people draw some such conclusions in a logical fashion (Kelley, 1967), research has also demonstrated several biases in how people jump from observed behaviors to inferences about the person. For example, observers are biased to infer that behaviors reflect an actor’s inner dispositions rather than the effects of situational influences (Gilbert & Malone, 1995), particularly when the behavior is undesirable. Most theory and research on person perception and attribution does not consider the important role that self-presentation plays in these processes. In many settings – including work organizations – observers are aware that actors are motivated to convey particular impressions of themselves that will promote

Impression Management in Organizations  263

their personal goals within the organization. Thus, observers often have reason to be skeptical that the behavior does not accurately reflect the actor’s actual goals, ability, or other characteristics. A good deal of organizational research has examined the degree to which various tactics shape other people’s impressions of the actor (Bolino et al., 2016), but we know relatively little about how perceivers decide whether actors’ behaviors are genuine reflections of their personal characteristics or tactical selfpresentations intended to convey the impression of having those characteristics. Nor do we know a great deal about how perceivers respond when they conclude that a particular behavior is a deceptive self-presentation rather than a reflection of an actual characteristic. Even so, we speculate below on how awareness of self-presentation might influence perceivers’ impressions of an actor.

Vigilance Just as actors are more strongly motivated to impression-manage in certain contexts or with certain targets than with others, perceivers may be more or less vigilant to the possibility that an actor’s surface impressions do not reflect reality. Vigilance does not imply that the perceiver necessarily distrusts the impressions – only that factors have made him or her attentive to the possibility that a behavior reflects tactical self-presentation rather than an actor’s actual characteristics. Two factors stand out – the perceived importance of the characteristic to the actor’s outcomes, and the perceived costs of inferential error. In every job (or job interview), certain characteristics and credentials are more important than others, and perceivers are more likely to be vigilant to the veracity of impressions that are relevant to important characteristics than to information regarding less important traits. As a result, actors should be able to manage their impressions on less important dimensions more successfully than on more important ones. Vigilance also increases to the degree that perceivers recognize that the actor has much at stake and, thus, is motivated to convey the desired impression. For example, job interviewers, admissions committees, parole boards, and even targets of sexual advances may doubt the truthfulness of proffered images. Increased vigilance when the stakes are high is the basis of the “ingratiator’s dilemma”: situations in which actors are highly motivated to manage their impressions are also those in which perceivers are most likely to be suspicious of their motives and the veracity of the images (Jones, 1990). For the same reason, perceivers who are of high status or in positions of power vis-à-vis the actor may regard actors’ impressions with suspicion. Fortunately for actors, perceivers are more inclined to take their self-presentations at face value than they probably should (Vonk, 2002), and a recent study found that interviewers have an especially hard time detecting the use of deceptive impression management (Roulin et al., 2015).

264  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Related to importance is the perceived cost of drawing incorrect conclusions about the actor’s characteristics. When the costs of an inferential error are high, perceivers will be more vigilant to the possibility of self-presentational duplicity. For example, when an interviewer has two highly qualified applicants for a job, the costs of turning down one applicant in favor of the other is higher than when there is only one good applicant to hire. In these situations, the interviewer may give greater consideration to the possibility that the applicants could be managing their impressions. Conversely, interviewers may be less vigilant when there is only one qualified applicant or one applicant is clearly better than the other because the costs of missing out on a qualified applicant are low. Although the role of dispositional trust among perceivers has not been examined, people who are more trusting (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995) may be more inclined to take people’s self-presentations at face value. In contrast, individuals with Machiavellian tendencies may be more skeptical of the images that people present (Dahling, Whitaker, & Levy, 2009). Thus, some people may tend to be more or less vigilant in scrutinizing the images that others present.

Prior Knowledge People’s perceptions of others are strongly influenced by their expectations and preconceptions (Snyder, 1981; Synder & Cantor, 1979). As a result, perceivers’ impressions of an actor in a given setting are affected by what they believe to be true, whether through personal experience or reputation. Thus, the effect of a particular self-presentational action may have different effects depending on the perceiver’s existing image of the actor. Similarly, impression management may be more effective in the early stages of a relationship (Cooper, 2005). Self-presentations that are congruent with perceivers’ existing views of the actor may not affect the perceivers’ impressions of the actor at all (if they are even noticed) because self-presentational inferences that are close to perceivers’ existing impressions may be assimilated. One exception may be cases in which the perceiver’s views of the actor are newly formed or tentative, in which case a congruent self-presentational inference may strengthen the existing impression. When perceivers draw an inference that is contrary to their existing impression of the actor, they face attributional ambiguity with respect to the cause of the discrepancy. Perhaps their existing impression of the actor was inaccurate, their impression of the actor was incomplete (in the sense of not including contextually based variations in behavior), the behavior was an aberration due to unusual extenuating circumstances or strong external pressures, or, most relevant to this discussion, the behavior was a self-presentational ploy intended to convey an impression that was not accurate. The latter possibility is an interesting and overlooked consideration in the literatures on social perception and impression management. Beyond the fact that perceivers conclude that they cannot draw correspondent inferences from

Impression Management in Organizations  265

the action, perceivers may view even desirable behaviors, such as actions that convey exemplary organizational citizenship, less favorably when they are perceived to arise from self-presentational goals than from genuine desire to help co-workers or the organization (Grant, Parker, & Collins, 2009; Huang et al., 2013). Likewise, efforts to be seen as likeable may backfire at times, particularly when people lack political or social skill (Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska, & Shaw, 2007; Higgins, Judge, & Ferris, 2003; Turnley & Bolino, 2001). Indeed, even perceiving that an actor is intentionally trying to convey an accurate impression (such as managing impression to convey one’s true abilities or genuine emotions) may generate undesired secondary impressions of insecurity, trying too hard, or “brown-nosing.” Thus, perceivers may respond negatively even when the presented image is veridical.

The Actor Reacts People who desire to make a particular impression on a perceiver will, of course, attempt to determine whether their efforts have been successful (Bozeman & Kacmar, 1997). Occasionally, they receive explicit information about how others view them, but they usually must infer how they are being perceived on the basis of vague and indirect information. Information about others’ views may be more limited in organizational settings than in ordinary interpersonal life. People’s interactions in organizations are often role-bound and task-oriented, and norms discourage expressions of feedback except when one person is in a formal position to evaluate another, and even then, supervisors are often reluctant to give negative feedback (Larson, 1989). Our friends, family members, and intimate partners have a bit more license to tell us what they think of us than our co-workers do. Only a few studies have examined the degree to which people can infer other people’s impressions of them, and these studies have typically examined passive impressions rather than judgments of the success of active efforts to impression-manage. Studies show that people have a general sense of the kinds of impressions that people in general have of them, although the relationships are not strong (Kenny & DePaulo, 1993). Fine-grained accuracy may not be necessary for successful interactions and interpersonal effectiveness. In many instances, it may be sufficient to know whether other people perceive one as being above or below some criterion on a characteristic; knowing precisely how low or high may matter less. So, an employee may perceive that co-workers perceive him as conscientious or cooperative, without necessarily knowing where, on a 7-point scale, their ratings might fall. Although people have a general sense of how they are viewed in general and seem to know how they are perceived on core personality traits, they are less good at judging how particular people see them, and they are particularly bad at assessing how positively or negatively others evaluate them (Carlson & Kenny, 2012).

266  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Furthermore, people show a clear bias to believe that others perceive them more positively than is the case, probably due to others’ tendency to hide or mask negative reactions. Given the dearth of explicit feedback regarding how one is coming across, people must rely mostly on their own judgments of self-presentational success. As in many cases of self-perception, people’s assessments of their public images are likely biased by knowledge of their own motives and intentions. Knowing that one wishes the boss to view them as a dedicated employee and knowing the things one has done to be seen as dedicated, an employee may overestimate the degree to which he or she was successful. Research has documented an “illusion of transparency” in which people overestimate the degree to which others can read their emotional states (Gilovich, Savitsky, & Medvec, 1998), and this likely applies to reading their personal characteristics as well. Work in both social psychology and organizational behavior has explored individual differences in self-presentational effectiveness. By far, the most widely studied construct in this vein has been self-monitoring, the degree to which people are attentive to their public image and work toward controlling their self-presentations to others (see Snyder & Fuglestad, 2009). Overall, self-monitoring predicts self-presentational behaviors and effectiveness in both laboratory experiments and organizational settings (Fandt & Ferris, 1990; Kilduff & Day, 1994; Turnley & Bolino, 2001; see Fuglestad & Snyder, 2009). Although people have difficulty inferring others’ impressions of them, doing so is easier when they have clearly suffered a loss of face. People typically know when their public failures, inept execution of job duties, and personal embarrassments have damaged their public images even when no one else acknowledges them. People are highly sensitive to their lapses and tend to assume that their self-presentation predicaments are more observable and widely known than they are (e.g., the spotlight effect; Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000). This bias to overestimate the severity of one’s self-presentational failures may be functional, in that it is arguably better to overestimate the seriousness of a self-presentational problem than to underestimate or overlook it.

Future Directions and Conclusion We have suggested ideas for research throughout the chapter but wish to conclude by offering a few additional topics that might provide particularly large dividends. First, we know almost nothing about the circumstances under which people opt to use self-presentation to advertise their actual attributes as opposed to convey false images of themselves. This topic is particularly important in organizational settings, in which successfully conveying inaccurate images for personal gain may result in negative organizational outcomes such as bad hiring decisions, employee incompetence, and poor management. Organizations and managers need to have accurate views of their employees,

Impression Management in Organizations  267

and impression management can work against that goal. To complicate matters, employees simultaneously manage multiple impressions to various audiences (supervisors, subordinates, colleagues, clients, etc.), making the task of knowing what employees are “really” like difficult. Understanding how people make and implement these self-presentational choices and how these choices change as a function of role and stage of career would advance both social and organizational psychology. As noted, we also know almost nothing about how people assess how others view them, but the implications of inaccurate judgments for personal, interpersonal, and organizational outcomes can be notable. Understanding the processes by which people assess both their current images and the effectiveness of their self-presentational efforts are exceptionally important topics. We suspect that, in many organizations, self-presentational accuracy predicts not only job performance but also social climate and employee morale and that the importance of understanding how one is viewed by others typically increases as one moves up an organizational hierarchy. As we have seen, research in social psychology and organizational behavior converge to illuminate the complex interplay of actors and observers as people manage their impressions in pursuit of their personal and interpersonal goals. Although impression management is an important feature of most interpersonal encounters, it may play a particularly pivotal role in organizational settings in which images of competence, trustworthiness, status, and collegiality are integral not only to individuals’ personal goals, as they are in all interpersonal encounters, but also to the performance of groups, teams, departments, and entire organizations.

Note 1 Although the terms impression management and self-presentation are often used interchangeably, technically they are slightly different. Whereas a person may manage other people’s impressions of a variety of entities – not only oneself but also other people (friends, family members, political candidates, etc.), organizations, businesses, cities, and so on – self-presentation refers specifically to managing others’ impressions of oneself. Thus, impression management refers to a broader category of behaviors of which selfpresentation is a subset. When dealing with controlling impressions of oneself, both terms are equally appropriate, and we use both in this chapter.

References Barrick, M. R., Shaffer, J. A., & DeGrassi, S. W. (2009). What you see may not be what you get: Relationships among self-presentation tactics and ratings of interview and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1394–1411. Barsness, Z. I., Diekmann, K. A., & Seidel, M. D. L. (2005). Motivation and opportunity: The role of remote work, demographic dissimilarity, and social network centrality in impression management. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 401–419.

268  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Baumeister, R. F. (1982). A self-presentational view of social phenomena. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 3–26. Baumeister, R. F., Hutton, D. G., & Tice, D. M. (1989). Cognitive processes during deliberate self-presentation: How self-presenters alter and misinterpret the behavior of their interaction partners. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 59–78. Becker, T. E., & Martin, S. L. (1995). Trying to look bad at work: Methods and motives for managing poor impressions in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 174–199. Berman, J. Z., Levine, E. E., Barasch, A., & Small, D. A. (2014). The braggart’s dilemma: On the social rewards and penalties of advertising prosocial behavior. Journal of Market Research, 51, 90–104. Bolino, M. C. (1999). Citizenship and impression management: Good soldiers or good actors? Academy of Management Review, 24, 82–98. Bolino, M. C., Kacmar, K. M., Turnley, W. H., & Gilstrap, J. B. (2008). A multi-level review of impression management motives and behaviors. Journal of Management, 34, 1080–1109. Bolino, M. C., Long, D., & Turnley, W. (2016). Impression management in organizations: Critical questions, answers, and areas for future research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 377–406. Bolino, M. C., & Turnley, W. H. (1999). Measuring impression management in organizations: A scale development based on the Jones and Pittman taxonomy. Organizational Research Methods, 24, 237–250. Bolino, M. C., & Turnley, W. H. (2003a). More than one way to make an impression: Exploring profiles of impression management. Journal of Management, 29, 141–160. Bolino, M. C., & Turnley, W. H. (2003b). Counternormative impression management, likeability, and performance ratings: The use of intimidation in an organizational setting. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24, 237–250. Bozeman, D. P., & Kacmar, K. M. (1997). A cybernetic model of impression management processes in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 69, 9–30. Cable, D. M., Gino, F., & Staats, B. R. (2013). Breaking them in or eliciting their best? Reframing socialization around newcomers’ authentic self-expression. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58, 1–36. Carlson, E., & Kenny, D. A. (2012). Meta-accuracy: Do we know how others see us? In S. Vazire (Ed.), Handbook of self-knowledge (pp. 242–257). New York: Guilford Press. Chen, G., Luo, S., Tang, Y., & Tong, J.Y. (2014). Passing probation: Earnings management by interim CEOs and its effect on their promotion prospects. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1389–1418. Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, A.,Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 360–375. Cooper, C. D. (2005). Just joking around? Employee humor expression as an ingratiatory behavior. Academy of Management Review, 30, 765–776. Dahling, J. J., Whitaker, B. G., & Levy, P. E. (2009). The development and validation of a new Machiavellianism scale. Journal of Management, 35, 219–257. Detert, J. R., & Edmondson, A. C. (2011). Implicit voice theories: Taken-for-granted rules of self-censorship at work. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 461–488.

Impression Management in Organizations  269

Ellemers, N., & Barreto, M. (2006). Social identity and self-presentation at work: how attempts to hide a stigmatised identity affect emotional well-being, social inclusion and performance. Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 62, 51–57. Elsbach, K. D. (2004). Interpreting workplace identities: The role of office décor. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 99–128. Fandt, P. M., & Ferris, G. R. (1990). The management of information and impressions: When employees behave opportunistically. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 45, 140–158. Ferris, G. R, Judge, T. A., Rowland, K. M., & Fitzgibbons, D. E. (1994). Subordinate influence and the performance evaluation process: Test of a model. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 58, 101–135. Fuglestad, P. T., & Snyder, M. (2009). Self-monitoring. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 574–591). New York: Guilford Press. Gardner, W. L., & Avolio, B. J. (1998). The charismatic relationship: A dramaturgical perspective. Academy of Management Review, 23, 32–58. Gardner, W. L., & Martinko, M. J. (1988). Impression management in organizations. Journal of Management, 14, 321–338. Giacalone, R. A., & Rosenfeld, P. (Eds.) (1990). Impression management in the organization. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Giacalone, R. A., & Rosenfeld, P. (Eds.) (1991). Applied impression management: How image-making affects managerial decisions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 21–38. Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211–222. Gilovich, T., Savitsky, K., & Medvec, V. H. (1998). The illusion of transparency: Biased assessments of others’ ability to read one’s emotional states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 332–346. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Gosling, S. D., Ko, S. J., Mannarelli, T., & Morris, M. E. (2002). A room with a cue: Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(3), 379–398. Graffin, S., Carpenter, M., & Boivie, S. (2011). What’s all that (strategic) noise? Anticipatory impression management in CEO successions. Strategic Management Journal, 32, 748–770. Grant, A. M. (2016, June 4). Unless you’re Oprah, “be yourself ” is terrible advice. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/opinion/sun day/unless-youre-oprah-be-yourself-is-terrible-advice.html Grant, A. M., Parker, S. K., & Collins, C. G. (2009). Getting credit for proactive behavior: Supervisor reactions depend on what you value and how you feel. Personnel Psychology, 62, 31–55. Harris, K. J., Kacmar, K. M., Zivnuska, S., & Shaw, J. D. (2007). The impact of political skill on impression management effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 278–285. Hewlin, P. F. (2003). And the award for best actor goes to. . .: Facades of conformity in organizational settings. Academy of Management Review, 28, 633–642.

270  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Higgins, C. A., & Judge, T. A. (2004). The effect of applicant influence tactics on recruiter perceptions of fit and hiring recommendations: A field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 622–632. Higgins, C. A., Judge, T. A., & Ferris, G. R. (2003). Influence tactics and work outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24, 89–106. Huang, G. H., Zhao, H. H., Niu, X. Y., Ashford, S. J., & Lee, C. (2013). Reducing job insecurity and increasing performance ratings: Does impression management matter? Journal of Applied Psychology, 98, 852–862. Jones, E. E. (1990). Interpersonal perception. New York: Freeman. Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: the attribution process in person perception. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 219–266). New York: Academic Press. Jones, E., & McGillis, D. (1976). Correspondent inferences and the attribution cube: A comparative reappraisal. In J. Harvey, W. Ickes, & R. Kidd (Eds.), New directions in attribution research (pp. 192–238). New York: Erlbaum. Jones, E. E., & Pittman, T. S. (1982). Toward a general theory of strategic selfpresentation. In J. Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 1, pp. 231–262). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Judge, T. A., & Bretz, R. D. (1994). Political influence behavior and career success. Journal of Management, 20, 43–65. Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192–238. Kenny, D. A., & DePaulo, B. M. (1993). Do people know how others view them? An empirical and theoretical account. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 145–161. Kilduff, M., & Day, D. V. (1994). Do chameleons get ahead? The effects of selfmonitoring on managerial careers. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 1047–1060. Kowalski, R. M., & Leary, M. R. (1990). Strategic self-presentation and the avoidance of aversive events: Antecedents and consequences of self-enhancement and selfdepreciation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 322–336. Kristof-Brown, A., Barrick, M.R., & Franke, M. (2002). Applicant impression management: Dispositional influences and consequences for recruiter perceptions of fit and similarity. Journal of Management, 28, 27–46. Larson, J. R. (1989). The dynamic interplay between employees’ feedback-seeking strategies and supervisors’ delivery of performance feedback. Academy of Management Review, 14, 408–422. Latham, G. P., Almost, J., Mann, S., & Moore, C. (2005). New developments in performance management. Organizational Dynamics, 34, 77–87. Leary, M. R. (1995). Self-presentation: Impression management and interpersonal behavior. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Leary, M. R., & Allen, A. B. (2011). Self-presentational persona: Simultaneous management of multiple impressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101, 1033–1049. Leary, M. R., Allen, A. B., & Terry, M. L. (2011). Managing social images in naturalistic versus laboratory settings: Implications for understanding and studying selfpresentation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 411–421. Leary, M. R., & Kowalski, R. M. (1990). Impression management: A literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 34–47. Leary, M. R., Robertson, R. B., Barnes, B. D., & Miller, R. S. (1986). Self-presentations of small group leaders as a function of role requirements and leadership orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 742–748.

Impression Management in Organizations  271

Levashina, J., & Campion, M. A. (2007). Measuring faking in the employment interview: Development and validation of an interview faking behavior scale. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1638–1656. Long, D. M., Baer, M. D., Colquitt, J. A., Outlaw, R., & Dhensa-Kahlon, R. K. (2015). What will the boss think? The impression management implications of supportive relationships with star and project peers. Personnel Psychology, 68, 463–498. Maitlis, S. (2005). Taking it from the top: How CEOs influence (and fail to influence) their boards. Organization Studies, 25, 1275–1311. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709–734. Morrison, E. W., & Bies, R. J. (1991). Impression management in the feedback-seeking process: A literature review and research agenda. Academy of Management Review, 16, 522–541. Murphy, N. A. (2007). Appearing smart: The impression management of intelligence, person perception accuracy, and behavior in social interaction. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 325–339. Parhankangas, A., & Ehrlich, M. (2014). How entrepreneurs seduce business angels: An impression management approach. Journal of Business Venturing, 29, 543–564. Peluchette, J., & Karl, K. (2009). Examining students’ intended image on Facebook: “What were they thinking?!” Journal of Education for Business, 85, 30–37. Rosenfeld, P., Giacalone, R. A., & Riordan, C. A. (1995). Impression management in organizations. London: Routledge. Roulin, N., Bangerter, A., & Levashina, J. (2015). Honest and deceptive impression management in the employment interview: Can it be detected and how does it impact evaluations? Personnel Psychology, 68, 395–444. Rudman, L. A. (1998). Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and benefits of counterstereotypical impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 629–645. Schlenker, B. R. (1980). Impression management: The self-concept, social identity, and interpersonal relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Schlenker, B. R. (2012). Self-presentation. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 542–570). New York: Guilford Press. Snyder, C. R., Lassegard, M., & Ford, C. E. (1986). Distancing after group success and failure: Basking in reflected glory and cutting off reflected failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(2), 382–388. Snyder, M. (1981). Seek, and ye shall find: Testing hypotheses about other people. In Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 1, pp. 277–303). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Snyder, M., & Cantor, N. (1979). Testing hypotheses about other people: The use of historical knowledge. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 330–342. Snyder, M. & Fuglestad, P. T. (2009). Self-monitoring. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Individual differences in social behavior (pp. 574–591). New York: Guilford Press. Tedeschi, J. T., & Melburg, V. 1984. Impression management and influence in the organization. In S. B. Bacharach & E. J. Lawler (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations (Vol. 3, pp. 31–58). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Turnley, W. H., & Bolino, M. (2001). Achieving desired images while avoiding undesired images: Exploring the role of self-monitoring in impression management. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 351–360.

272  Mark R. Leary and Mark C. Bolino

Van Der Heide, B., D’Angelo, J. D., & Schumaker, E. M. (2012). The effects of verbal versus photographic self-presentation on impression formation in Facebook. Journal of Communication, 62, 98–116. Vonk, R. (2002). Self-serving interpretations of flattery: Why ingratiation works. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 515–526. Vorauer, J. D., & Miller, D. T. (1997). Failure to recognize the effect of implicit social influence on the presentation of self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 281–295. Wayne, S. J., & Ferris, G. R. 1990. Influence tactics, affect, and exchange quality in supervisor-subordinate interactions: A laboratory experiment and field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 487–499. Wayne, S. J., & Liden, R. C. 1995. Effects of impression management on performance ratings: A longitudinal study. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 232–260. Westphal, J. D. (1998). Board games: How CEOs adapt to increases in structural board independence from management. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 511–537. Westphal, J. D., & Deephouse, D. L. (2011). Avoiding bad press: Interpersonal influence in relations between CEOs and journalists and the consequences for press reporting about firms and their leadership. Organization Science, 22, 1061–1086. Westphal, J. D., & Stern, I. (2006). The other pathway to the boardroom: How interpersonal influence behavior can substitute for elite credentials and demographic majority status in gaining access to board appointments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 51, 169–204.

12 ESCAPING THE SELF Negative Self-Evaluations and Employee Alcohol Misuse Cynthia D. Mohr, Sarah N. Haverly, Ariane Froidevaux,1 and Mo Wang

The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption have been estimated in the US to equal a staggering $223.5 billion in 2006, which includes $161.29 billion in lost productivity and $24.56 billion in healthcare costs (Bouchery, Harwood, Sacks, Simon, & Brewer, 2011). Employers often bear the productivity costs, which are largely due to turnover and absenteeism. Costs of absenteeism, alone, are estimated to be $4.24 billion (Bouchery et al., 2011). Further, an estimated 8 percent of the working population engages in regular workplace alcohol use, defined as consuming alcohol before or during the workday (Frone, 2013). Frone also reports that the average prevalence of alcohol use disorders in the workforce is estimated at 9.3 percent. While the causes of self-destructive behavior, such as alcohol abuse, are perplexing to employers, we argue that they can be understood, in part, as mechanisms by which people seek to escape from the self. Our sense of self or identity comprises who we believe we are, as well as who we believe we ought or ideally could be (e.g., Swann & Bosson, 2010). Our sense of self is critical to shaping how we engage with the environment and also offers motivational properties. In particular, Baumeister (1991) has articulated the close relationship between our sense of self and our emotions, including guilt and shame, which are tied to our evaluation of how we are doing, for better or worse. Among other reasons that will be described in this chapter, we seek to escape our self when we experience unpleasant selfawareness or negative self-evaluation. The chapter examines negative self-evaluations as they relate to self-escape behavior, particularly alcohol misuse, which is important to industrialorganizational psychologists who aim to improve the workplace and worker productivity, health and well-being. Coping-related use of alcohol is of critical importance in this regard, given its unique relationship to the development of

274  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

future alcohol problems. Further, the literature on self-conscious emotions has revealed the value of considering specific emotions, such as shame, as responses to failure (Tangney & Tracy, 2012) to promote self-reflection. We propose that negative self-evaluation and shame, a self-conscious emotion, initiate a copingrelated process and may explain the relationship between triggering events and substance use as self-escape behavior (Figure 12.1). Moreover, a heightened orientation to shame, defined as high shame-proneness, can lead one to derive negative self-evaluations from daily hassles, even if they do not necessarily exist objectively (e.g., the perception of an irritated colleague or unsatisfied customer), the end result being withdrawal and reduced pro-social behavior in the workplace. As a result, shame-proneness may represent a critical individual difference factor that is likely to identify who is particularly susceptible to substance abuse as a self-escape behavior – through shame as a self-conscious emotion (Figure 12.1). We begin by exploring the “burden of selfhood” (a phrase coined by Baumeister, 1991), that is, the reasons people seek to escape the self, including negative self-evaluations. We follow this by describing more fully how the self-conscious emotion of shame can represent an important emotion-based mechanism, through which self-relevant experiences can lead to pursuing selfescape behaviors such as alcohol misuse. At the same time, we acknowledge reverse causal feedback loops in which destructive behaviors such as escapeavoidant alcohol misuse promotes further negative self-evaluation and shame. Finally, we explore directions for future research and highlight practical implications for the workplace at both the individual and the organizational levels,

Shame-Proneness Trait

Negative SelfEvaluations

FIGURE 12.1 

Self-Conscious Emotion: Shame

Self-Escaping Behavior: Alcohol Misuse

 verall model explaining how alcohol misuse can be understood O as a self-escape behavior. Negative self-evaluations are associated with the self-conscious emotion of shame, which, in turn, leads to alcohol misuse in response to shame and in order to escape painful self-awareness. The trait of high shame-proneness, that is, individuals’ greater tendency to react with shame, is suggested as a boundary condition that may reinforce the whole process.

Escaping the Self  275

documenting how social psychological theory and research on self and selfconscious emotions, in particular, can offer important insight for organizational psychologists who are keen to improve employee health and well-being, as well as employee response to real or perceived failure.

Negative Self-Evaluations and the Motivation to Escape the Self In his landmark work, Baumeister (1991) identifies three core motivations underlying why people seek to escape the self, and emphasizes that escape is not necessarily bad. First, Baumeister (1991) argues for an appetitive drive to enjoy the positive benefits of escaping the self, that is, “to seek transcendence in the very act of shedding the self” (p. 21), or ecstasy-oriented escape. Spiritual and religious experiences can provide examples of this motivation for escape, as can meditation and mindfulness, as well as flow experiences at work, when one becomes completely absorbed in a task (i.e., an inherently mindful experience). Thus, individuals in the workplace may experience benefits from occasional escape. For instance, flow reduces defensive behaviors at work (Kulkarni, Anderson, Sanders, Newbold, & Martin, 2016). Second, according to Baumeister, the self can act as a stressor or create a burden of expectations. He cites the examples of professional athletes and politicians – those who have “larger than life” personas and must toil under the burden of significant expectations to perform well under challenging circumstances. In these cases, the more we have invested in a particular identity, the more we risk from failure (i.e., “the more we have to lose”), which creates enormous stress. With this type of motivation, the threat of something negative occurring can be sufficient to motivate the desire to escape the self. Third, and of central importance to this chapter, people are also motivated to escape a painful self. According to Baumeister (1991), an individual’s motivation to escape the self stems from potential negative self-evaluations, which occur in situations in which their positive self-image is challenged. He terms these motivated behaviors calamity-driven escape. Baumeister describes a range of circumstances that promote this experience, including when one falls short of expectation or when one’s actions are criticized by others. Opportunities for negative self-evaluations are indeed quite frequent in the workplace, given that they can result from the various tasks an individual has been asked to perform and whether he or she estimates that he or she could have performed better (Zimmerman, 2000). These experiences can be especially problematic for individuals as they highlight a shortfall between a desired and actual image of the self (e.g., a missed deadline may present an image of an unreliable worker). Put differently, individuals’ self-evaluations may not match their personal standards for success for a given task, thus resulting in a lower actual image than the desired image of the self. Such perceived discrepancy, if high, may even result

276  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

in a perceived sense of failure, which can be attributed to the task, or even to the self. More generally, this particular motivation for escape derives from the nature of our self as highly evaluative, in which case focusing too intensely on the negative evaluations promotes negative emotions, from which people seek escape, according to Baumeister. Among the behaviors that Baumeister (1991) described as being potentially motivated by escaping from the self are alcohol and drug use, binge eating, and suicide. For the most part, these behaviors can be associated with either the regular, ongoing burden of maintaining one’s self-image, or alternately as deriving from the desire to escape negative self-evaluation (i.e., calamitydriven escape). Alcohol and drug use can also be extended to explain positive, approach-oriented escape, whereby alcohol and some drugs are used to achieve diminished self-awareness. However, suicide as an escape behavior (which does not necessarily implicate all suicides, according to Baumeister) is likely to be solely calamity-driven escape, in which case the person experiences a calamity so powerful in terms of negative emotional impact that they seek “oblivion.” In the following section we focus in particular on alcohol use, followed by a consideration of how other drug use may be similar or distinct. We believe a focus on alcohol use is merited, as it affects a sizeable portion of the workforce and has enormous associated costs. In addition to the statistics presented at the beginning of the chapter, we note that approximately 26.1 percent of workers have engaged in heavy use over the past 12 months, defined as 5 or more drinks in a single day (Frone, 2013). This behavior is associated with the productivity costs described previously, as well as critical safety concerns. Indeed, Zwerling, Sprince, Ryan, and Jones (1993) report that 5 percent of non-fatal and 10 percent of fatal workplace accidents are due to alcohol impairment.2

Alcohol Use as Escape From Self The motivation to drown out pain through alcohol use is well understood and documented in everyday life, where one talks about “drowning one’s sorrows,” or “crying in one’s beer.” Multiple theoretical perspectives describe the maladaptive coping role of substance use more formally. The self-medication hypothesis (Khantzian, 1985) was developed based on years of clinical observations of individuals suffering from substance use disorders, in which a recurring theme emerged of the desire to dampen down painful subjective experience and psychiatric symptoms. A separate theoretical tradition from experimental psychology informed Conger’s (1956) tension-reduction hypothesis, which predicts that alcohol consumption relieves distress caused by stressful experiences, which in turn leads people to drink when feeling distressed. The tension-reduction pathway has since been incorporated as one pathway within a multidimensional model of drinking motivations that specifies that drinking to cope with negative emotional experiences, more broadly, represents a final common pathway to alcohol use

Escaping the Self  277

(Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar, 1995). Experience-enhancement drinking, on the other hand, comprises drinking motivated to extend or prolong positive emotions. This form of drinking could potentially coincide with ecstasy-oriented escape, though likely encompasses a broader range of experiences than those designed to seek diminished self-awareness. In the workplace, individuals can use alcohol either following a crisis or on a regular basis to manage the daily stress associated with positive identity maintenance. In the case of regular, positive identity maintenance, Baumeister (1991) argues that more regular, less-problematic (i.e., moderate) drinking may result. However, this remains to be empirically examined. Yet, such a pattern would be theoretically consistent with the work-recovery literature, in which alcohol could be part of an after-work detachment process (e.g., Shimazu et al., 2016; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015). The calamity-driven escape pathway has been more thoroughly considered in regard to alcohol use. In this line of research, alcohol misuse is framed as a maladaptive coping behavior by which people consciously or unconsciously seek to escape negative self-evaluations (i.e., withdrawal). In particular, individuals may wish to escape from the self-awareness of a discrepancy between the actual image of the self and the desired image, and the resulting experienced shame (Arndt & Goldenberg, 2004). In this regard, Hull’s (1981) self-awareness model is particularly relevant to capture alcohol misuse as a self-escape behavior, as it focuses on specific instances in which negative experiences lead to alcohol consumption. Individuals will drink to escape when they experience heightened self-awareness following their perceived failure. In particular, negative experiences lead to negative self-evaluation and increases in shame (Hull, 1981; Steenbarger & Aderman, 1979), which leads one to drink to dampen the negative self-reflection. Indeed, alcohol plays a key role in reducing sensitivity to this painful information because of its cognitive effects of disrupting the encoding process of self-relevant information (Hull, 1981; Hull, Levenson, Young, & Sher, 1983). An important facet of calamity-driven escape is the self-reinforcing nature of such avoidance behavior. When individuals engage in negative behaviors in order to escape painful self-awareness, the very act of doing so may additionally motivate them to escape their self. Concretely, individuals may drink to reduce stress and inhibitions, and later to reduce stress caused by behaviors engaged in while drinking. In other words, drinking to escape negative selfevaluative experiences is likely to result in a continuation or exacerbation of negative emotions, as a response to the drinking episode. This is especially true when people engage in solitary consumption as opposed to social consumption (Armeli et  al., 2003), which people are typically inclined to do when they are motivated to escape or withdraw. Most adults who consume alcohol are not naïve to the experience of regret, remorse, or shame that may follow an evening of excessive consumption – emotions which can be a result of the drinking itself, as well as the behavior one engages in while drinking

278  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

(Muraven, Collins, Morsheimer, Shiffman, & Paty, 2005). The intensity of those post-drinking feelings may indeed be strong enough to motivate an individual to drink to cope with those very feelings. Therefore, the drinking-to-cope pathway that characterizes calamity-driven escape is especially problematic in that, as stress mounts, people increasingly turn to alcohol in lieu of other, more adaptive coping strategies. As their ability to adaptively cope erodes, alcohol becomes the dominant coping mechanism and related problems ensue. It is noteworthy that drinking-to-cope motivations predict alcohol misuse, controlling for amount of consumption. For this reason, we do not necessarily agree with Baumeister (1991) that regular drinking to ease the burden of high identity expectations would necessarily be moderate or not maladaptive, especially if people increasingly rely on alcohol instead of more adaptive means of coping with such stress, such as a hobby, exercise or meditation. Although we have focused on alcohol consumption as a mode of escaping from the self, we note the potential theoretical relevance and similarity to other substance use. In fact, the motivational models of alcohol consumption have now been extended to understand marijuana use (Cooper, Kuntsche, Levitt, Barber, & Wolf, 2016). As such, a coping-related motivation also exists for marijuana. Yet, a very important caveat to understanding drug use as an escape from self is that alcohol has the (previously described) narrowing effects in terms of reducing self-awareness. As Baumeister (1991) aptly notes, some drugs, such as cocaine, have the opposite effect of intensifying self-awareness. Although research on marijuana is not exhaustive, preliminary studies suggest it could have a blunting effect on negative emotions via Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; e.g., Bossong et al., 2013). As such, this theoretical framework is not well-suited to understanding all forms of substance use, only those that have the potential to reduce self-awareness, which is critical to escaping the self. To consider more fully alcohol use as a means of escaping the self, we return to Baumeister’s (1991) argument that negative emotions are the driving force behind engaging in escaping the self – that is, we are seeking to escape the negative emotions that are the products of our self-evaluation process. We argue that an understanding of substance use as an escape of self is incomplete without a consideration of the powerful emotional experience of shame.

Shame: A Self-Conscious Emotion-Based Mechanism Shame is a universal self-conscious emotion (Fischer & Tangney, 1995), which involves a global negative feeling about the self in response to a [perceived] misdeed or shortcoming (Lewis, 1971). The experience of shame is demonstrated in feelings of exposure to an external or internal judgment (Johnson, 2012), often described as an “observing other,” “a sense of shrinking,” “being small,” or “a feeling that the situation in which one is embedded is completely out of control” (Tangney, Miller, Flicker, & Barlow, 1996, pp. 1256–1258).

Escaping the Self  279

Shame, as an internal emotional experience, is necessarily preceded by an external experience that gives rise to the emotion. However, contrary to popular belief, there is no empirical support of “classic” or universal shame-inducing situations (Tangney, 1992). Shame arises when an individual makes internal, stable or permanent, and global attributions about the self. These attributions then lead to negative feelings about the global self (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Thus, shame may arise from global negative self-evaluations such as “I am an awful person.” Alternately, people can experience guilt resulting from negative evaluations of behavior, with such attributions as “my behavior is awful” or “I can’t believe I did that” (Wolf et al., 2010). Negative self-evaluations may not match personal standards for success in a given task, thus resulting in self-awareness that the actual image of the self is lower than its desired image (e.g., a punctual person running late). At the affective level, such discrepancy may result in a feeling of shame. Hence, shame generally results from violating some standard or norm, and from failing to meet expectations (Poulson, 2000), thereby paralleling Baumeister’s (1991) description of calamity-driven escape. According to Niedenthal, Tangney, and Gavanski (1994), shame-based thinking often results in the individual believing him or herself to blame for situations completely outside of his or her control, a causal attribution that may become a “mental mutilation” (p. 585). Shame induces counterfactual thinking aimed at “undoing parts of one’s global self,” undermining worthiness and value (Wolf et al., 2010, p. 339). This global assessment makes the problem hard to solve, given that there is no easy way for an individual to detach from one’s self. Indeed, at the phenomenological level, the experience of shame has been described as a wish to hide oneself, to disappear, or even to die (Poulson, 2000). Shame intensifies the level of anger directed toward one’s perceived defective self, which reinforces the sense that the self is, in fact, defective.

Shame and Self-Escaping Behavior In support of the argument that shame is in important contributing factor in substance use to escape the self, shame has been directly linked to alcohol misuse. In a daily process study of college student drinkers, Mohr, Armeli, Tennen, and Todd (2010) reported that, of the moods tested, the largest relationship was between feeling ashamed and subsequent alcohol consumption, such that, for each standard deviation increase in feeling ashamed on a given day, the typical students in the sample drank 45 percent more. These results are consistent with the general assumption that shame leads to avoidance behaviors (Wolf et  al., 2010), especially as alcohol misuse can be associated with an attempt to leave the situation or hide from it. In addition, a separate analysis of the same data revealed that positive moods provide a powerful buffering effect, such that, when increases in positive moods co-occur on the same day with increases in the negative moods, positive moods can reduce the impact of negative

280  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

moods on subsequent alcohol consumption (Mohr, Brannan, Mohr, Armeli, & Tennen, 2008). In particular, positive moods buffered the effects of a variety of negative moods on alcohol consumption, because they reduced the influence of feeling ashamed. The results of Mohr and her colleagues (2008) are consistent with Hull’s (1981) self-awareness model, whereby positive moods diminished drinking by reducing painful self-awareness associated with shame. Yet, substance use is but one behavior by which people may be motivated to escape the self. Nathanson (1992) has described four patterns of negative behavior associated with experiences of shame, which may impact one’s interactions with others and would certainly have an influence in organizational settings. Those patterns are: withdrawal (i.e., physically leaving or psychologically withdrawing from the shameful experience), avoidance (i.e., attempting to distract oneself from the difficult experience), attacking others (e.g., blame, physical violence against colleagues), and attacking self (i.e., self-destructive behaviors such as self-injury, and ultimately suicide). Harkening back to the earlier discussion regarding the variety of behaviors associated with escaping the self, these patterns of shame-related negative behavior overlap with and help elucidate the behaviors related to escaping the self in the face of calamity. Such behaviors are those that are sparked by such powerful triggering events that they create an “urgent need to escape,” whereby individuals seek strong immediate relief without thinking about potential long-term consequences of the steps taken (Baumeister, 1991, p. 32).

Events Triggering Escaping the Self Drawing first on the shame literature, only a few studies have focused on shame in the work context (e.g., González-Gómez & Richter, 2015; Bagozzi, Verbeke, & Gavino, 2003). In the most relevant among them, Poulson (2000) argued that shame can be triggered by specific events, tasks, or interactions in individuals’ jobs. Specifically, Poulson proposes that shame finds its roots in managerial practices that emphasize managerial absolute power (vs. employees’ powerlessness), and in individuals’ failing to fulfill performance expectations and appraisals. In this latter case, an individual may fail to advance when they are expected to; that is, he or she would associate an “unsatisfactory performance” with “oneself being unsatisfactory.” Further, Poulson argued that shame at work can also be triggered by discrimination at work and termination or unemployment. Although these are potentially interesting candidates for events that might lead to drinking to cope or escape from self, it is important to bear in mind that any event has the potential for inducing high levels of shame. As noted above, shame researchers have not been able to identify typical shame-promoting experiences. In a similar way, a high degree of flexibility exists in Baumeister’s (1991) model for escaping the self, in which anything that triggers negative self-awareness can lead to motivations to escape. However, in identifying calamities that lead to

Escaping the Self  281

escape, Baumeister notes that calamities or events that are especially relevant are those that threaten one’s self-image. As described above, people experience shame to the degree that they make attributes for mistakes or shortcomings to their enduring sense of self, as opposed to viewing them as temporary behaviors in which they have engaged. Of note, both theoretical traditions highlight the relevance of perceived failure – either defined as misfortunes and setbacks, or mistakes and shortcomings (e.g., Baumeister, 1991; Lewis, 1971). What is critical to promoting the process of escaping from self is the negative self-evaluation and associated negative emotions, particularly shame that results from the event that led one to seek escape.

Trait Shame-Proneness as a Boundary Condition Although experiencing negative self-evaluations is common, there are individual differences that identify some people as being more susceptible to this experience than others. Whereas shame is a universal emotion, there are differences in the strength and frequency with which a person experiences this emotion (Tangney, 1995). This trait has been called shame-proneness and refers to the disposition to react with shame (Wiklander et al., 2012). Many events predictably precede emotions such as shame (e.g., cheating, stealing, lying, failing to help another), but the difference in experience lies in the shame or guilt-proneness of the individual (Tangney, 1996). To summarize, as shameproneness (i.e., a trait) fluctuates between individuals, the reported experience of shame (i.e., a state) further fluctuates within individuals in a given day – this differentiation has important ramifications for measurement.

Shame-Proneness Reinforces the Cycle Shame-proneness has been recognized as a rather maladaptive personality trait, and represents a “vulnerability to calamitous experiences” (Baumeister, 1991). In Figure 12.1, we propose that the trait of shame-proneness represents a boundary condition that influences who will experience shame as a result of a perceived mistake or shortcoming and, as a result, engages in self-escape behavior. Indeed, negative self-evaluations and avoidance behaviors, caused by a public transgression (i.e., the public exposure of personal failing), have both been reported as good indicators of the shame-proneness trait (Wolf et al., 2010). Shame-proneness has been demonstrated to be correlated with, but distinct from, related constructs such as neuroticism and self-esteem (Cohen et al., 2011) – constructs that are also linked to escape-avoidant behaviors and potentially relevant to our model. We focus here on shame-proneness because of its centrality to our argument for the relative importance of shame as a motivating factor to escaping the self. Among the core features of shame-proneness, individuals with high shameproneness make causal attributions that are global, internal, and stable, which

282  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

represents a greater threat for the self (Roos, Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2014). As a result, high shame-proneness increases the likelihood of negative selfevaluations in response to specific events and their overall deleterious impact on the self. Thompson, Altmann, and Davidson (2004) reported that high shameprone individuals are more vulnerable to the negative effects of failure. Notably, individuals with high shame-proneness generate lower quality solutions to common interpersonal problems, perceive lower self-efficacy to implement these solutions, and have lower expected effectiveness of these solutions (Covert, Tangney, Maddux, & Heleno, 2003). Rothmund and Baumert (2014) observed that negative self-evaluations increased in the group experiencing a moral transgression (vs. control), and this effect was stronger among individuals high in dispositional shame-proneness. High shame-proneness is likely to increase alcohol misuse as a self-escape behavior. Specifically, shame-proneness has been positively related to problematic alcohol use as a means to cope with anxiety- and depression-related symptoms (Treeby & Bruno, 2012). Another study found that individuals high in shame-proneness experienced much greater consequences following sexual trauma than did those survivors who were lower in shame-proneness (Talbot, Talbot, & Tu, 2004). Indirect evidence in a workplace sample can also be gleaned from Liu, Wang, Zhan, and Shi (2009) who demonstrated that the relationship between work stress and daily alcohol use was stronger among workers scoring high on neuroticism. This work supports the notion that some individuals will be predisposed to experience intense feelings of shame following events in which they perceive they were in error, leading to stable and global attributions to self and self-escape behavior. This detrimental pathway unfortunately blocks them from assessing the situation and their behaviors more fully and engaging in more constructive actions, such as making amends for whatever transgression they may have committed.

The Cycle Reinforces Shame-Proneness Finally, a vicious cycle might be created where experiences of shame exacerbate shame-proneness. This sequence creates a “maladaptive perfectionism” (Blatt et al., 1995) characterized by an “all or nothing” approach to problem solving. Such a sequence may reinforce self-doubts and become a self-fulfilling prophecy (Covert et  al., 2003). This coping strategy has been demonstrated to lead to learned helplessness and severely decreased cognitive resources (Johnson, 2012), further illustrating the importance of examining these processes in the workplace context. Some specific outcomes of this cycle include criminal recidivism (Tangney, Stuewig, & Martinez, 2014) and addiction relapse among substance users, including recently sober alcoholics (Randles & Tracy, 2013).

Escaping the Self  283

Future Directions for Research From a methodological standpoint, an important innovation in the study of coping-related substance use is the employment of within-person, processoriented research designs. Specifically, much of the research investigating drinking as an escape from negative experience has been conducted between-person, often with cross-sectional designs, which capture the correlation between negative experiences and consumption. However, as a growing number of scholars are recognizing, these between-person relationships do not speak to the key tenets of the model, which is that people will increase their consumption at times when negative experiences are frequent (Hussong, Hicks, Levy, & Curran, 2001; Mohr et al., 2001; Swendsen et al., 2000) – a relationship documented in an employed worker sample (Liu et al., 2009). Indeed, as described earlier, a within-person approach has revealed important relationships between shame and alcohol consumption (Mohr et al., 2010). In a similar way, it is critical to assess the process by which people escape from painful self-evaluation or shame in situ, which allows researchers to better establish an understanding of the threatening self-relevant events that trigger the escape response. We argue that the present model provides particularly promising features regarding alcohol misuse in the workplace context. There are a variety of riskrelated behaviors that could be linked to escaping the self due to enhanced shame experience in the workplace. Future research should test the factors which, according to Poulson (2000), trigger shame in the workplace: managerial practices, failing to fulfill performance expectations and appraisals, discrimination at work, and termination or unemployment. These could all be factors that may typically promote threat to self in many employees, and consequently the desire to escape. We have previously outlined the cyclical nature of shame and negative behavior regarding alcohol misuse, in the sense that drinking to escape negative shameful experiences is likely to result in a continuation or exacerbation of shame, as a response to the drinking episode. This approach can also be effectively applied to other escape behaviors including binge eating, illicit substance use and self-harming behaviors. Thus, there is a need for empirical research regarding the feedback loop surrounding escaping the self.

For Practice Based on theory and research on negative self-evaluation and shame, there is a variety of potential individual-level and organizational-level possibilities in terms of how individuals and potentially organizations can play a role in addressing shame. A basic approach, based on the self-conscious emotions literature,

284  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

is to encourage individuals to actively reframe situations away from focusing on them (i.e., I am a bad employee) and instead promote a focus on actions in the face of errors or transgressions (i.e., I committed a bad behavior; Tangney & Dearing, 2002). This runs a bit counter to the Western cultural tendency to attribute actions to personality traits and discount situational contexts, but greater guilt as opposed to shame orientation has been shown in work with inmates to reduce recidivism (Tangney et  al., 2014). Similarly, a “behavior” over “self” attribution intervention increases general health and well-being, decreases feelings of shame and depressive symptoms, and increases likelihood of reaching out to others for support (among women undergoing substance abuse treatment; Hernandez & Mendoza, 2011). Developing strategies to address the transgression in question or avoid similar situations in the future can curtail the threat to self. Another promising approach gaining momentum in recent work is that of mindfulness. Mindfulness has been described as consisting of two components: self-regulation of attention to the present, combined with an orientation of curiosity, openness, and acceptance (Bishop et  al., 2004). Also inherent to mindfulness is the component of compassion, non-reactivity to experience, and insightful understanding (Bergomi, Tschacher, & Kupper, 2013). Previous literature demonstrates that mindfulness and self-compassion are indeed positively related. In fact, the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003b) includes mindfulness as one of the factors of self-compassion, which has been confirmed in subsequent work (Baer, Lykins, & Peters, 2012; Van Dam, Sheppard, Forsyth, & Earleywine, 2011). According to Neff (2003a) self-compassion involves being touched by and open to negative experiences rather than avoiding or disconnecting from them (i.e., numbing or escape). Theory suggests that self-compassion is likely to be negatively associated with shame-proneness, which recent studies confirm. Mosewich, Kowalski, Sabiston, Sedgwick, and Tracy (2011) reported that self-compassion was negatively related to shameproneness and was positively related to shame-free guilt-proneness. Similarly, Barnard and Curry (2012) measured shame- and guilt-proneness and self-compassion revealing a strong zero-order correlation between shame-proneness and self-compassion, but no correlation with guilt-proneness. Additionally, Gilbert and Procter (2006) tested an approach for individuals experiencing chronic high shame and self-criticism called compassionate mind training (CMT). They found significant reductions in shame, self-criticism, depression, and anxiety. In sum, considering mindfulness as one’s capacity to bring attention to an experience in an accepting and nonjudgmental manner, it may serve as excellent intervention opportunity against the escape of the self. Mindfulness promotes a focus on immediate surroundings, and consequently attentional resources are not available to be involved in abstract self-evaluative and selfconscious thoughts, which are characteristic of the experience of shame (Leary, Adams, & Tate, 2006).

Escaping the Self  285

Other individual-level approaches that have the potential to be beneficial with regard to reducing shame and shame-related escape behaviors would include boosting positive moods and self-affirmation. First, as discussed earlier, research has shown that positive emotions have the beneficial effect of reducing the influence of shame on subsequent alcohol consumption (Mohr et al., 2008). As such, any actions that could be considered positive and have the potential for activating positive emotions would theoretically reduce the impact of shame. This could include a pleasant outing with a friend, watching a funny video, or taking a walk. The positive emotions resulting from these actions serve to disrupt the effects of negative emotions by “down-regulating” both the psychological and physiological influences of negative emotions, including shame (Fredrickson, 2000). Self-affirmation exercises offer another valuable tool to help reduce negative outcomes related to self-identity threat (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). Because selfidentity threats call into question one’s adequacy, by reinforcing this sense of adequacy self-affirmations can reduce defensiveness (Steele, 1988). Indeed, the actions described above for positive emotional enhancement would also satisfy as self-affirming if they enhance self-adequacy. The most common intervention approach is quite straightforward: inviting people to write about their core values, particularly values that are not related to the source of threat, as they represent the internalized standards by which we evaluate ourselves (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). This type of self-affirmation exercise, when people select a value that is important and write about it, decreases, for example, the gender gap in competitive settings among MBA students (Kinias & Sim, 2016). Such an intervention is effective, in part, because of decreases in negative self-evaluation. McQueen and Klein (2006) offer a review of self-affirmation strategies that have been employed. Although the above shame-reduction techniques are individual-level approaches, some of them may lend themselves well to use in organizations. Most notably they could be included as part of supervisor training and mentoring programs to increase the use of techniques that steer employees toward guilt- and away from shame-orientations when problems occur. Other options, such as mindfulness, could be offered as part of a global employee health and well-being program or through EAPs. Indeed, for people who are significantly affected by shame-proneness, effective clinical therapy is available. As part of a larger substance abuse treatment program, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has demonstrated great promise toward reduction of shame as well as improved treatment outcomes, as compared to treatment as usual patients (Luoma, Kohlenberg, Hayes, & Fletcher, 2012). In regard to addressing substance abuse concerns directly, there are a number of programs in existence and in use in organizations that can effectively prevent or intervene with substance abuse problems. We encourage serious consideration of the validated approaches available. Ames and Bennett (2011) discuss

286  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

the role that workplace can play in alcohol misuse prevention and provide a thoughtful review of available programs for use by employers. They introduce options such as team awareness workshops, which incorporate: alcohol prevention information in a team-building context (Bennett & Lehman 2001); brief intervention which has been effectively employed globally and designed for ease of use in myriad settings including employment contexts (Anderson & Larimer, 2002); and personalized feedback delivered via web-based platforms, which have become increasingly popular in a variety of contexts such as college campuses and have been successfully employed in organizations (Matano et al., 2007). Finally, in addition to these resources for considering workplace interventions, we highlight the work of Cadiz, Truxillo, and O’Neill (2012), who developed empirically based supervisor training for nurse supervisors to assist recovering nurses in their return to work, with the goal of fostering a “positive, nonjudgmental attitude” toward the recovering nurse and to reduce stigma. By achieving a more supportive, less judgmental workplace context for substance abuse, such programs have the added benefit of reducing the potential for shame and negative self-evaluation, which theoretically should disrupt the cycle of shame and other withdrawal or negative behaviors.

Conclusion To summarize, daily hassles in the workplace context and self-awareness about one’s performance at work lead to the perception of negative self-evaluations in terms of a shortfall between a desired and an actual image of the self. The perception of being evaluated by others and self-evaluations resulting in a sense of personal failure can result in the self-conscious emotion of shame. Shame may further reinforce these negative self-evaluations by blaming oneself for situations beyond one’s control. Consequently, individuals may be willing to engage in behaviors such as alcohol misuse as a way to escape from painful self-awareness. However, drinking may further exacerbate shame, and, in turn, the motivation to withdraw. Finally, workers with high shame-proneness seem more likely to engage in negative self-evaluations and their overall deleterious impact on the self, and in alcohol misuse as a self-escape behavior. The high frequency of potential situations and the regularity with which negative self-evaluations often lead individuals to experience shame provide cause for concern. When combined with the very detrimental effects of alcohol as a self-escape behavior – not only on workers’ health and productivity but also for employers – it is becoming crucial that future research addresses this challenge more in depth. We hope that this chapter has provided readers with an overview of the potential psychological mechanisms involved in these processes, in order to stimulate future empirical studies testing (parts of) the proposed model.

Escaping the Self  287

Notes 1 The contribution of Dr Ariane Froidevaux was done within the framework of a postdoc mobility fellowship financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation. 2 Despite the obviousness of the relationship, studies have frequently had difficulty establishing this link.Thus, a number of valid concerns exist about the larger body of studies. Frone (2013) concludes that the evidence supports that acute intoxication, if not use, is related to injury. Interested readers are directed to the thoughtful analyses of both Frone (2013) and the RAND Corporation Report (Ramchand, Pomeroy, & Arkes, 2009) regarding the complexities of establishing relationships between workforce substance use and consequences for the workplace.

References Ames, G. M., & Bennett, J. B. (2011). Prevention interventions of alcohol problems in the workplace: A review and guiding framework. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 34(2), 175–187. Anderson, B. K., & Larimer, M. E. (2002). Problem drinking and the workplace: An individualized approach to prevention. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16(3), 243–251. doi: 10.1037/0893-164X.16.3.243. Armeli, S., Tennen, H., Todd, M., Carney, M. A., Mohr, C., Affleck, G., & Hromi, A. (2003). A daily process examination of the stress-response dampening effects of alcohol consumption. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 17(4), 266–276. doi:10.1037/0893164x.17.4.266. Arndt, J., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2004). From self-awareness to shame-proneness: Evidence of causal sequence among women. Self and Identity, 3(1), 27–37. doi:10.1080/ 13576500342000022. Baer, R. A., Lykins, E. L., & Peters, J. R. (2012). Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 7(3), 230–238. doi:10.1080/17439760. 2012.674548. Bagozzi, R. P., Verbeke, W., & Gavino, J. C., Jr. (2003). Culture moderates the selfregulation of shame and its effects on performance: The case of salespersons in the Netherlands and the Philippines. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 219–233. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.219. Barnard, L. K., & Curry, J. F. (2011). Self-compassion: Conceptualizations, correlates, & interventions. Review of General Psychology, 15(4), 289–303. doi:10.1037/a0025754. Barnard, L. K., & Curry, J. F. (2012). The relationship of clergy burnout to selfcompassion and other personality dimensions. Pastoral Psychology, 61(2), 149–163. Baumeister, R.F. (1991). Escaping the self: Alcoholism, spirituality, masochism, and other flights from the burden of selfhood. New York, NY: Basic Books. Bennett, J. B., & Lehman, W. E. (2001). Workplace substance abuse prevention and help seeking: Comparing team-oriented and informational training. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6(3), 243–254. doi:10.1037/1076-8998.6.3.243. Bergomi, C., Tschacher, W., & Kupper, Z. (2013). Measuring mindfulness: First steps towards the development of a comprehensive mindfulness scale. Mindfulness, 4(1), 18–32. doi:10.1007/s12671-012-0102-9. Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z.V., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., & Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness:

288  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3): 230–241. doi:10.1093/clipsy.bph077. Blatt, S. J., Quinlan, D. M., Pilkonis, P. A., & Shea, M. T. (1995). Impact of perfectionism and need for approval on the brief treatment of depression: The National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program revisited. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(1), 125–132. doi:10.1037/0022006x.63.1.125. Bossong, M. G., van Hell, H. H., Jager, G., Kahn, R. S., Ramsey, N. F., & Jansma, J. M. (2013). The endocannabinoid system and emotional processing: A pharmacological fMRI study with ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 23(12), 1687–1697. doi:10.1016/j.euroneuro.2013.06.009. Bouchery, E. E., Harwood, H. J., Sacks, J. J., Simon, C. J., & Brewer, R. D. (2011). Economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in the US, 2006. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 41(5), 516–524. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2011.06.045. Cadiz, D., Truxillo, D., & O’Neill, C. (2012). Evaluation of a training program for nurse supervisors who monitor nurses in an alternative-to-discipline program. Advances in Nursing Science, 35(2), 135–144. doi:10.1097/ans.0b013e31824fe6e0. Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333–371. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137. Cohen, T. R., Wolf, S. T., Panter, A. T., & Insko, C. A. (2011). Introducing the GASP scale: A new measure of guilt and shame proneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(5), 947–966. doi:10.1037/a0022641. Conger, J. J. (1956). Reinforcement theory and the dynamics of alcoholism. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 17(2), 296–305. Cooper, M., Frone, M. R., Russell, M., & Mudar, P. (1995). Drinking to regulate positive and negative emotions: A motivational model of alcohol use. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 990–1005. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.990. Cooper, M. L., Kuntsche, E., Levitt, A., Barber, L. L., & Wolf, S. (2016). Motivational models of substance use: A review of theory and research on motives for using alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco. The Oxford handbook of substance use and substance use disorders (Vol. 1, pp. 375–421). doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199381678.013.017. Covert, M. V., Tangney, J. P., Maddux, J. E., & Heleno, N. M. (2003). Shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and interpersonal problem solving: A social cognitive analysis. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 22(1), 1–12. doi:10.1521/jscp.22.1.1.22765. Fischer, K. W., & Tangney, J. P. (1995). Self-conscious emotions and the affect revolution: Framework and overview. In J. P. Tangney & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Self-conscious emotions (pp. 3–24). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Fredrickson, B. L. (2000). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and wellbeing. Prevention & Treatment, 3(1). doi:10.1037/1522-3736.3.1.31a. Frone, M. R. (2013). Alcohol and illicit drug use in the workforce and workplace. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Gilbert, P., & Procter, S. (2006). Compassionate mind training for people with high shame and self-criticism: Overview and pilot study of a group therapy approach. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 13(6), 353–379. doi:10.1002/cpp.507. González-Gómez, H. V., & Richter, A. W. (2015). Turning shame into creativity: The importance of exposure to creative team environments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 126, 142–161. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.09.004.

Escaping the Self  289

Hernandez, V. R., & Mendoza, C. T. (2011). Shame resilience: A strategy for empowering women in treatment for substance abuse. Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, 11(4), 375–393. doi:10.1080/1533256x.2011.622193. Hull, J. G. (1981). A self-awareness model of the causes and effects of alcohol consumption. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,90(6), 586–600. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.90.6.586. Hull, J. G., Levenson, R. W., Young, R. D., & Sher, K. J. (1983). Self-awareness-reducing effects of alcohol consumption. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,44(3), 461–473. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.3.461. Hussong, A. M., Hicks, R. E., Levy, S. A., & Curran, P. J. (2001). Specifying the relations between affect and heavy alcohol use among young adults. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110(3), 449–461. doi:10.1037//0021-843x.110.3.449. Johnson, D. E. (2012). Considering shame and its implications for student learning. College Student Journal, 46(1), 3–17. Khantzian, E. J. (1985). The self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders: Focus on heroin and cocaine dependence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142(11), 1259–1264. doi:10.1176/ajp.142.11.1259. Kinias, Z., & Sim, J. (2016). Facilitating women’s success in business: Interrupting the process of stereotype threat through affirmation of personal values. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(11), 1585–1597. doi:10.1037/apl0000139. Kulkarni, A., Anderson, W., Sanders, M. A., Newbold, J., & Martin, L. L. (2016). Manipulated flow reduces downstream defensiveness. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(1), 26–36. doi:10.1080/17439760.2015.1015157 Leary, M. R., Adams, C. E., & Tate, E. B. (2006). Hypo-egoic self-regulation: Exercising self-control by diminishing the influence of the self. Journal of Personality, 74(6), 1803–1832. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00429.x. Lewis, H. B. (1971). Shame and guilt in neurosis.Psychoanalytic Review, 58(3), 419–438. Liu, S., Wang, M., Zhan, Y., & Shi, J. (2009). Daily work stress and alcohol use: Testing the cross-level moderation effects of neuroticism and job involvement. Personnel Psychology, 62(3), 575–597. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2009.01149.x. Luoma, J. B., Kohlenberg, B. S., Hayes, S. C., & Fletcher, L. (2012). Slow and steady wins the race: A randomized clinical trial of acceptance and commitment therapy targeting shame in substance use disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 80(1), 43–53. doi:10.1037/a0026070. Matano, R. A., Koopman, C., Wanat, S. F., Winzelberg, A. J., Whitsell, S. D., Westrup, D., Futa, K., Clayton, J. B., Mussman, L., & Taylor, C. B. (2007). A pilot study of an interactive web site in the workplace for reducing alcohol consumption. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 32(1), 71–80. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2006.05.020. McQueen, A., & Klein, W. M. (2006). Experimental manipulations of self-affirmation: A systematic review. Self and Identity, 5(4), 289–354. doi:10.1080/15298860600805325. Mohr, C. D., Armeli, S., Tennen, H., Carney, M. A., Affleck, G., & Hromi, A. (2001). Daily interpersonal experiences, context, and alcohol consumption: Crying in your beer and toasting good times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(3), 489–500. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.3.489. Mohr, C., Armeli, S., Tennen, H., & Todd, M. (2010). The complexities of modeling mood-drinking relationships: Lessons learned from daily process research. Substance Abuse and Emotion (pp.189–216). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/12067-008.

290  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

Mohr, C. D., Brannan, D., Mohr, J., Armeli, S., & Tennen, H. (2008). Evidence for positive mood buffering among college student drinkers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(9), 1249–1259. doi:10.1177/0146167208319385. Mosewich, A. D., Kowalski, K. C., Sabiston, C. M., Sedgwick, W. A., & Tracy, J. L. (2011). Self-compassion: A potential resource for young women athletes. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(1), 103–123. doi:10.1123/jsep.33.1.103. Muraven, M., Collins, R. L., Morsheimer, E. T., Shiffman, S., & Paty, J. A. (2005). The morning after: Limit violations and the self-regulation of alcohol consumption. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 19(3), 253–262. doi:10.1037/0893-164x.19.3.253 Nathanson, D. L. (1992). Shame and pride: Affect, sex, and the birth of the self. New York, NY: Norton. Neff, K. (2003a). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101. doi: 10.1080/15298860309032. Neff, K. D. (2003b). The development and validation of a scale to measure selfcompassion. Self and Identity, 2(3), 223–250. doi: 10.1080/15298860309027. Niedenthal, P. M., Tangney, J. P., & Gavanski, I. (1994). “If only I weren’t” versus “If only I hadn’t”: Distinguishing shame and guilt in counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,67(4), 585–595. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.585. Poulson, C. F., II. (2000). Shame and work. In N. M. Ashkanasy, C. E. Hartel, & W. J. Zerbe (Eds.), Emotions in the workplace: Research, theory, and practice (pp. 250–271). Westport, CT: Quorum Books/Greenwood Publishing Group. Ramchand, R., Pomeroy, A., & Arkes, J. (2009). The effects of substance use on workplace injuries. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. http://www.rand.org/pubs/occa sional_papers/OP247.html. Randles, D., & Tracy, J. L. (2013). Nonverbal displays of shame predict relapse and declining health in recovering alcoholics. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(2), 149–155. doi:10.1177/2167702612470645. Roos, S., Hodges, E. V., & Salmivalli, C. (2014). Do guilt- and shame-proneness differentially predict prosocial, aggressive, and withdrawn behaviors during early adolescence? Developmental Psychology, 50(3), 941–946. doi:10.1037/a0033904. Rothmund, T., & Baumert, A. (2014). Shame on me: Implicit assessment of negative moral self-evaluation in shame-proneness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(2), 195–202. doi:10.1177/1948550613488950. Shimazu, A., Matsudaira, K., De Jonge, J., Tosaka, N., Watanabe, K., & Takahashi, M. (2016). Psychological detachment from work during nonwork time: Linear or curvilinear relations with mental health and work engagement? Industrial Health, 54(3), 282–292. doi:10.2486/indhealth.2015–0097. Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2015). Recovery from job stress: The stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(Suppl 1), S72–S103. doi:10.1002/job.1924. Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 261–302. doi:10.1016/S00652601 (08)60229-4. Steenbarger, B. N., & Aderman, D. (1979). Objective self-awareness as a nonaversive state: Effect of anticipating discrepancy reduction. Journal of Personality, 47(2), 330–339. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1979.tb00206.x.

Escaping the Self  291

Swann, W. B., Jr., & Bosson, J. K. (2008). Identity negotiation: A theory of self and social interaction. In O. John, R. Robins, & L. Pervin (Eds.) Handbook of personality psychology: Theory and research, 3rd ed. (pp. 448–471). New York, NY: Guilford Press. doi:10.1002/9780470561119.socpsy001016. Swann, W. B., Jr., & Bosson, J. (2010). Self and identity. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., pp. 589–628). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Swendsen, J. D., Tennen, H., Carney, M. A., Affleck, G., Willard, A., & Hromi, A. (2000). Mood and alcohol consumption: An experience sampling test of the self-medication hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109(2), 198–204. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.109.2.198. Talbot, J. A., Talbot, N. L., & Tu, X. (2004). Shame-proneness as a diathesis for dissociation in women with histories of childhood sexual abuse. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 17(5), 445–448. doi:10.1023/b:jots.0000048959.29766.ae. Tangney, J. P. (1992). Situational determinants of shame and guilt in young adulthood. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(2), 199–206. doi:10.1177/ 0146167292182011. Tangney, J. P. (1995). Recent advances in the empirical study of shame and guilt. American Behavioral Scientist, 38(8), 1132–1145. doi:10.1177/0002764295038008008. Tangney, J. P. (1996). Conceptual and methodological issues in the assessment of shame and guilt. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 34(9), 741–754. doi:10.1016/00057967(96)00034-4. Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. New York: Guilford Press. Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1256–1269. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1256. Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Martinez, A. G. (2014). Two faces of shame: The roles of shame and guilt in predicting recidivism. Psychological Science, 25(3), 799–805. doi:10.1177/0956797613508790. Tangney, J. P., & Tracy, J. (2012). Self-conscious emotions. In M. R. Leary & J. Price Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 446–478). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Thompson, T., Altmann, R., & Davidson, J. (2004). Shame-proneness and achievement behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 36(3), 613–627. doi: 10.1016/S01918869(03)00121-1. Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: A theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103–125. doi:10.1207/ s15327965pli1502_01. Treeby, M., & Bruno, R. (2012). Shame and guilt-proneness: Divergent implications for problematic alcohol use and drinking to cope with anxiety and depression symptomatology. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(5), 613–617. doi:10.1016/j. paid.2012.05.011. Van Dam, N. T., Sheppard, S. C., Forsyth, J. P., & Earleywine, M. (2011). Selfcompassion is a better predictor than mindfulness of symptom severity and quality of life in mixed anxiety and depression. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25(1), 123–130. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2010.08.011.

292  Cynthia D. Mohr et al.

Wiklander, M., Samuelsson, M., Jokinen, J., Nilsonne, A., Wilczek, A., Rylander, G., & Asberg, M. (2012). Shame-proneness in attempted suicide patients. BMC Psychiatry, 12(50). doi:10.1186/1471-244X-12-50. Wolf, S. T., Cohen, T. R., Panter, A., & Insko, C. A. (2010). Shame proneness and guilt proneness: Toward the further understanding of reactions to public and private transgressions. Self and Identity, 9(4), 337–362. doi:10.1080/15298860903106843. Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13–39). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Zwerling, C., Sprince, N. L., Ryan, J., & Jones, M. P. (1993). Occupational injuries: comparing the rates of male and female postal workers. American Journal of Epidemiology, 138(1), 46–55.

PART III

Applications to Organizational Concepts

13 HOW FUTURE WORK SELVES GUIDE FEEDBACK SEEKING AND FEEDBACK RESPONDING AT WORK Frederik Anseel, Karoline Strauss, and Filip Lievens

Providing feedback is one of the most widely accepted psychological interventions for learning and development. The belief that giving feedback to employees is beneficial for individual and organizational performance is also strongly held in organizations. Therefore, providing feedback to employees lies at the heart of a wide range of often costly and time-intensive performance management tools in organizations. However, contrary to these beliefs, meta-analytic evidence shows that feedback interventions do not produce unequivocal positive effects on performance (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). One line of theoretical work building on this seminal meta-analysis has argued that feedback interventions that direct attention to the self, making feedback recipients think about who they are, should be avoided because they are detrimental for performance improvement (Vancouver & Tischner, 2004). In contrast, another line of theoretical work has sought to understand how the self is implied in feedback processes by drawing on self-motives research in social psychology (Sedikides & Strube, 1997). A central assumption of this line of work is that feedback is essentially a self-related phenomenon and that the effectiveness of the feedback process depends on the dynamics of the self (Anseel, Beatty, Shen, Lievens, & Sackett, 2015; Anseel, Lievens, & Levy, 2007). According to this perspective, how people deal with feedback depends on a complicated interplay of competing self-motives, with performance improvement resulting only when self-improvement motives outperform self-enhancement motives. This chapter builds and extends the self-related perspective on feedback processes by putting future work selves (Strauss, Griffin, & Parker, 2012) forward as a mechanism to explain why and when self-improvement strivings may prevail over self-enhancement strivings in feedback episodes in organizations. Drawing on construal level theory of psychological distance (Liberman &

296  Frederik Anseel et al.

Trope, 2014), which proposes that psychologically distant situations are construed on a higher level (i.e., using more abstract and central features) than more proximal situations, we propose that future work selves determine the construal level at which feedback is processed. The central premise of this chapter is that a salient future work self is likely to increase the psychological distance when processing negative feedback, thereby shifting the focus to a high-level construal and downplaying self-enhancement strivings relative to self-improvement strivings. Our chapter is structured as follows. We start by presenting the role of self-motives in understanding feedback interventions. We review previous research in organizational settings and delineate how self-motive activation may guide two key criteria in feedback processes, namely feedback reactions and feedback-seeking behavior. Next, we introduce future work selves and outline how construal level theory of psychological distance can help understand when and how self-improvement motives may prevail over selfenhancement motives. In a next step, we propose how future work selves determine the level of construal people use when seeking and responding to feedback. We provide a model of the feedback process integrating the concepts of psychological distance and future work selves. We end the chapter with practical implications of this new perspective for feedback interventions in organizations.

The Self in Feedback Interventions Feedback is a key aspect of how employees regulate their efforts and performance in organizations. The most influential models of motivation (i.e., goal striving and self-regulation) in the work environment also attribute a central role to feedback (Locke & Latham, 2004; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Vancouver, 2005). The basic idea is that people need some type of information about their current performance to be able to regulate their behavior at work. Feedback information signals how their actual performance levels may be inconsistent with their goals or perceived performance levels. Such discrepancies may provide the necessary motivational impetus and diagnostic guidance for employees to adjust their effort, work strategies, or their goals. Although such a process of comparing current states and aspired goals on the basis of feedback information and regulating behavior in response to observed discrepancies may intuitively seem straightforward, research has shown that employees do not always respond to feedback constructively. We distinguish between two major streams of research, depending on feedback phase. As described below, the first stream focuses on how people react to feedback, whereas the second stream concentrates on feedback-seeking behavior.

Future Work Selves and Feedback  297

Feedback Reactions How people react to the feedback they receive is a key criterion for understanding why feedback interventions are effective, and thus under which conditions they might result in performance improvement. Although feedback reactions vary considerably (Keeping & Levy, 2000), they can generally be classified as affective (e.g., satisfaction with feedback, emotions), cognitive (e.g., perceived accuracy, utility, depth of processing), and behavioral (e.g., discussing feedback, changing behavior) (Keeping & Levy, 2000). Process models depicting the different phases of the feedback process attribute a central place to feedback reactions (Anseel et al., 2015; Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor, 1979). In line with these models, prior empirical research has demonstrated that feedback has an effect on development and performance only if people react positively to it (Anseel & Lievens, 2007; Feys, Anseel, & Wille, 2011; Kinicki, Prussia, Wu, & McKeeRyan, 2004). As a result of these process models and findings, research sought to identify the characteristics in a feedback intervention that may engender positive reactions in feedback recipients. Hence, a variety of characteristics such as feedback source (Albright & Levy, 1995), feedback specificity (Goodman, Wood, & Hendrickx, 2004), feedback format (Feys et al., 2011), feedback timing (Lurie & Swaminathan, 2009), and feedback frequency (Lam et al., 2011) have been studied. The majority of studies, though, focused on the sign of the feedback (whether it is positive or negative) and its effect at different levels of analysis (such as feedback directed towards teams vs. individuals; DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner, & Wiechmann, 2004; Podsakoff & Farh, 1989; Vancouver & Tischner, 2004). The fundamental question in these studies has been whether it is better either to inform employees when they are performing badly and thus provide negative feedback, or to simply give positive feedback to stimulate positive reactions, leading to higher likelihood of subsequent behavioral changes. The evidence for the latter position has been overwhelming. Virtually all studies across different feedback settings examining how people react to positive or negative feedback have found that feedback sign is the strongest determinant of feedback reactions: people are more satisfied after positive feedback, they see positive feedback as more accurate, and report being more likely to act on it (Atwater & Brett, 2005; Brett & Atwater, 2001; Ilies, De Pater, & Judge, 2006). This leads to a paradox for feedback interventions. Although the previously described discrepancy-signaling function of feedback implies that people need negative feedback to regularly update their self-regulation efforts, research findings show that people generally react unfavorably to negative feedback and dismiss it as inaccurate. Thus, employees who do not perform up to standard will most likely receive negative feedback but will react unfavorably to it. Therefore, they will be less likely to act upon the feedback received although they need it the

298  Frederik Anseel et al.

most. In sum, insights from feedback research pose a conundrum for managers seeking to remedy underperformance in employees through feedback, urging for a better understanding of how to approach employees when giving feedback.

Feedback-Seeking Behavior A strand of feedback research that evolved in relative isolation from the study of feedback reactions focuses on when and how people decide to seek feedback themselves. Employees are not merely passive, waiting for supervisors to give them feedback but are proactively navigating their work environment, seeking out feedback information wherever they can get it and whenever they need it. This line of research depicts feedback seeking as a valuable resource for individuals, because it may facilitate their adaptation to new environments, help them monitor goal progress, and potentially help improve performance (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003). Studies addressed different aspects of feedback seeking: (a) the method used to seek feedback, (b) the frequency of feedback-seeking behavior, (c) the timing of feedback seeking, (d) the characteristics of the target of feedback seeking, and (e) the performance dimension on which feedback is sought. Although each of these aspects received some attention, most of the literature aimed to understand the antecedents and consequences of the frequency with which employees use two methods of feedback seeking (Ashford, De Stobbeleir, & Nujella, 2016): inquiry and monitoring. Individuals seek feedback through inquiry when they directly ask others (e.g., their supervisor or co-workers) for feedback. Conversely, feedback monitoring implies scanning the work environment and other people’s behavior in order to glean information that can be used for privately evaluating one’s own performance without directly asking anyone. It is assumed that deciding on the method to seek feedback results from an internal cost-value analysis, that is, which method brings the most value with the least cost (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). For instance, although inquiry is a useful method to learn how others evaluate one’s performance, individuals often report concerns relating to the risks associated with direct feedback seeking (Levy, Albright, Cawley, & Williams, 1995). Employees may not want to burden their supervisor or appear insecure to others by seeking feedback. When seeking feedback in public, negative feedback can come at the risk of losing face (Ashford & Northcraft, 1992). This makes feedback monitoring the safer option, although the feedback obtained accordingly may be less informative. Conversely, employees may also use feedback-seeking behavior as a deliberate impression-management strategy to convey a favorable image to their supervisor or colleagues. In fact, employees might strategically decide to seek feedback on successes or on certain aspects of their performance where they are aware that positive feedback will follow (e.g., after a successful presentation). Thus, by openly seeking positive feedback and avoiding negative feedback, employees

Future Work Selves and Feedback  299

may find that strategically managing their feedback-seeking behavior can help them protect their self-esteem while at the same time presenting a favorable image to others (Moss, Valenzi, & Taggart, 2003). Strategically astute employees may also adapt their feedback-seeking strategies in even cleverer ways to match the type of audience from which they are seeking feedback in order to yield optimal results. Ashford and Tsui (1991), for example, found that managers who primarily sought negative feedback from their subordinates were seen as more effective by their subordinates than managers who merely sought positive feedback. On the basis of this brief discussion, it becomes clear that it is naive to think that people seek feedback solely driven by the desire to obtain accurate diagnostic information for improving their performance. Feedback-seeking behavior results from a complex cost–benefit analysis wherein different motives compete for attention (Anseel & Lievens, 2007; Anseel et al., 2007). This means on the one hand that the feedback obtained from feedback-seeking efforts may not always be the best reflection of one’s performance level. On the other hand, it remains unclear to what extent feedback-seekers will deliberately process the resulting feedback and use it for regulating their performance. It is therefore not surprising that empirical research into the relationship between feedback-seeking behavior and performance yielded mixed results. In a recent meta-analysis of the feedback-seeking literature, Anseel and colleagues (2015) did not find a meaningful meta-analytic correlation between feedback-seeking behavior and task performance, calling for more process research disentangling the different feedback-seeking strategies, their effects on the feedback-giver, and the resulting feedback dynamic. Again, this puts organizations and managers in a difficult situation, echoing the feedback paradox that was observed earlier when discussing feedback reactions. Although textbooks urge organizations to design work environments that encourage employees to seek feedback, a substantial part of these feedback-seeking attempts might be in vain, because they are not oriented towards performance improvement but rather serve ego-protection and impressionmanagement purposes.

Self-Motives in the Feedback Process To solve the feedback paradox in organizations, we need to gain a better understanding of how individuals’ cognition and behavior in feedback situations are driven by a complex interplay of competing self-motives (Anseel & Lievens, 2007; Anseel et al., 2015; Sedikides, Luke, & Hepper, 2016). Along these lines, an extensive stream of research in social psychology has systematically examined how selecting, processing, remembering, and reacting to information about the self is driven by a subtle mix of underlying motivations. A basic tenet of this domain is that self-evaluation is motivated and serves an ultimate purpose, such as self-enhancement or self-improvement (Banaji & Prentice, 1994; Sedikides &

300  Frederik Anseel et al.

Gregg, 2003; Sedikides & Strube, 1997). Although we acknowledge that several classifications of these self-motives have been articulated, for the current purpose of understanding feedback dynamics in organizational settings, we propose to distinguish these two broad classes of strivings (see also Ferris & Sedikides, this volume). A first set of strivings, which we call self-enhancement strivings, are concerned with stability through protection and confirmation of the selfconcept (cf. Kwang & Swann, 2010, for more subtle distinctions and debate). A second set of strivings, self-improvement strivings, relate to self-concept change through accurate assessment and self-change. Self-enhancement strivings are the dominant motive when people deal with information in evaluative situations. The desire to think well of oneself is one of the most important and strongest human motivations, with its expressions consistently observed across cultures (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Cai, 2015) and its origins deeply wired in the brain (Cai, Wu, Shi, Gu, & Sedikides, 2016). The self-concept, once formed, is fairly stable and generally positive. Subsequent information inconsistent with the self-concept creates a great deal of discomfort. To avoid this type of discomfort, people go out of their way to seek positive information that confirms their positive self-views, compare themselves with others who are worse off to feel better about themselves, react positively to information that puts them in a favorable light, and generally remember self-related positive information better than self-discrepant information (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008). The self-enhancement motive is especially strong in psychologically ‘unsafe’ environments where the positivity of the self-concept is under threat. People who experience a threat to the self-concept (e.g., the mere prospect of receiving negative information) are more likely to exhibit behaviors that would lead to a positive view of oneself to reaffirm the self and establish a feeling of overall positivity (Sedikides, 2012; Steele, 1988). A second broad group of motives is connected to the ultimate goal of self-improvement. Growth is a fundamental characteristic of human nature, as reflected in many philosophical, cultural, and psychological traditions (for reviews, see Gaertner, Sedikides, & Cai, 2012; Sedikides & Hepper, 2009), with people generally having a strong drive to seek to improve their traits, abilities, and skills. Evidence for this strong drive towards self-improvement in evaluative situations can be found across different research streams. For instance, cancer patients make upward comparisons when choosing interaction partners among other cancer victims. This upward choice of comparison is seen as an attempt to learn how to cope successfully with their disease (Molleman et al., 1986). When asked about their feedback preferences, people openly report a desire for self-improvement feedback (Tuckey, Brewer, & Williamson, 2002). Similarly, young convicted criminals emphasize that they want to receive improvement-oriented feedback from their counselors (Neiss, Sedikides, Shahinfar, & Kupersmidt, 2006). This tendency for self-improvement is most pronounced in non-self-threatening situations and when improvement is

Future Work Selves and Feedback  301

relevant and likely. For instance, in a series of experiments by Trope, Gervey, and Bolger (2003), participants who were either high or low on perceived social ability were granted the opportunity to receive either strength-focused or weakness-focused feedback. In one experiment, participants believed their skills were either modifiable or unmodifiable. In another experiment, participants believed that their ability was either controllable or uncontrollable. Participants low (vs. high) in ability expressed stronger preferences for weakness-focused (rather than strength-focused) feedback when they perceived control over their ability – that is, when they regarded the ability as modifiable or controllable. As demonstrated by this study (see also Gaertner et al., 2012), an important precondition for evaluative information to serve self-improvement purposes is that it provides individuals with accurate information on crucial weaknesses, and thus that it implies negative feedback. When driven by self-improvement motives, people will show an interest in realistic self-assessment by acquiring accurate feedback that may help them in remedying weaknesses for self-betterment. In sum, each of these two broad categories of motivational strivings is important in guiding behavior and information processing in evaluative situations (Banaji & Prentice, 1994; Sedikides & Strube, 1995). A subtle interplay of individual differences (e.g., personal beliefs about modifiability) and situational characteristics (e.g., non-self-threatening situations) modulates the activation and expression of the self-motives and determines which one of the two motives prevails. This brief overview clarifies that insight into the potentially conflicting dynamics of self-enhancement versus self-improvement is crucial to understand the feedback paradox. For people to seek feedback for genuine self-improvement and respond favorably to negative feedback in organizations, underlying selfimprovement strivings need to prevail over the typically more dominant self-enhancement strivings. While several individual factors and situational factors may be instrumental in creating such conditions (see Anseel et al., 2007, for an overview), this chapter advances one specific aspect of an individual’elselfconcept that may be particularly important in shaping strong self-improvement strivings in work contexts, namely future work selves.

Future Work Selves Future work selves are “representations of the self in the future that encapsulate individually significant hopes and aspirations in relation to work” (Strauss, Griffin, & Parker, 2012, p. 581). Future work selves form part of an individual’s self-concept, the collection of self-conceptualizations that – when activated – shape intra- and interpersonal processes (Markus & Wurf, 1987). Future work selves constitute a type of possible selves, which are self-conceptualizations that reflect not current selves, but hoped for, feared, or expected selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986). They represent “self-defining goal[s]” (Hoyle & Sherrill, 2006, p. 1677), as personalized representations of aspirations and motives (Markus &

302  Frederik Anseel et al.

Nurius, 1986). Strauss et al. (2012) proposed that future work selves have three defining characteristics that distinguish them from other types of possible selves. They are: (a) explicitly future-oriented, rather than reflecting selves that the individual could be in the present, (b) positive, desired selves, and (c) specific to work. Given that future work selves are selves that are approached rather than avoided, they are likely to be particularly effective in regulating behavior (Elliot, Sheldon, & Church, 1997). Their domain-specificity implies that they are most relevant to processes and behaviors related to individuals’ working lives (Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006). Like other possible selves, future work selves have two functions: they “provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self” (Markus & Nurius, 1986, p. 954), and they direct future-oriented behavior. Research to date has primarily paid attention to the latter, and has explored the role of future work selves in motivating future-oriented behavior. Specifically, studies have focused on future work-self salience (Guan et al., 2014; Strauss et al., 2012; Taber & Blankemeyer, 2015). Future work-self salience refers to the extent to which future work selves are clear and easily accessible (King & Raspin, 2004; Strauss et al., 2012). Future work selves that are salient are more likely to be activated and form part of the working self-concept, the “shifting array of accessible self-knowledge” (Markus & Wurf, 1987, p. 306), and therefore have a stronger influence on behavior. Correspondingly, individuals with a more salient future work self engage in higher levels of proactive career behavior, after controlling for competing concepts such as career identity and future orientation (Strauss et al., 2012). High levels of future work-self salience are associated with greater career adaptability (Guan et al., 2014; Taber & Blankemeyer, 2015) as well as with greater job search self-efficacy and job search success (Guan et al., 2014). In a field experiment, participants high in future orientation who underwent a training and development intervention designed to increase the salience of their future work self became more proactive in shaping the future of their organization (Strauss & Parker, in press). In a time-lagged study, future work-self salience was associated with a significant increase in meaning in life over the course of three months (Zhang, Hirschi, Herrmann, Wei, & Zhang, 2016). Together, these studies highlight the role of salient future work selves as incentives for future-oriented behavior, and provide support for their contribution to meaningful careers. The effect of future work-self salience is further enhanced by another quality of future work selves: elaboration (Strauss et al., 2012). Elaboration refers to the degree of detail and complexity in the cognitive representation of a future work self, and is similar to the concept of cognitive complexity (Strauss et al., 2012). Elaboration of selves is typically inferred from the level of detail in their narrative descriptions, controlling for the word count of the narrative (King & Raspin, 2004; King & Smith, 2004; Strauss et al., 2012). On the basis of self-complexity theory, Strauss et al. (2012) argued that more elaborate future work selves which

Future Work Selves and Feedback  303

contain “a larger and more diverse range of features” (p. 583) would have a stronger effect on future-oriented behavior. Self-complexity theory (Linville, 1985, 1987) proposes that when a person’s self-knowledge contains only a small number of independent self-aspects, his or her self-appraisal is more vulnerable to negative feedback regarding these self-aspects (Linville, 1985, 1987). Correspondingly, individuals with a high number of independent self-aspects are better able to attend to negative feedback (Stein, 1994). Although there is considerable debate about the role of self-complexity for individuals’ well-being (McConnell et al., 2005) and about how self-complexity should be assessed (Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg, 2002), there is substantial support for the notion that affect can spread throughout the self-concept to connected self-aspects (Renaud & McConnell, 2002; for review, see: Koch & Shepperd, 2004; McConnell & Strain, 2007). This principle also applies to possible selves (Niedenthal, Setterlund, & Wherry, 1992). As those with more elaborate future work selves are more able to attend to information that may contradict or threaten their future work self, they are also more able to adapt their plans and plan for contingencies and persist in their future-oriented behavior. In line with these arguments, Strauss et al. (2012) found that future work-self salience was more strongly related to proactive career behavior for research participants who provided more elaborate future work-self narratives. A growing body of research thus highlights the role of future work selves for future-oriented behavior. In contrast, the second function of future work selves, their role in interpreting and evaluating current self-views (Markus & Nurius, 1986), has so far received little attention. We argue that this function of future work selves is critical for understanding how feedback episodes unfold. Drawing on temporal construal theory (Liberman & Trope, 1998; Liberman & Trope, 2014), we propose that future work selves play an important role in shaping how feedback is interpreted by determining its psychological distance.

Construal Level Theory of Psychological Distance A unique aspect of human cognition is the ability to mentally travel to places and times where one is not physically present (Waytz, Hershfield, & Tamir, 2015). The mental representations people make of pictured objects, events, persons, and actions in other places and times, however, depend on the psychological distance between these targets and themselves. Psychological distance refers to the different ways in which an event, object or any other target can be removed from one’s own experience in the here and now (Trope & Liberman, 2010). The distance can be temporal (i.e., time), spatial (i.e., physical space), hypothetical (i.e., imagining that an event is likely or unlikely), or social (e.g., more similar persons feel socially closer), so that any target that exists beyond oneself is experienced as existing at some psychological distance from the self

304  Frederik Anseel et al.

(Liberman & Trope, 2008). Psychological distance increases as a target becomes further removed from one’s own direct experience. Construal level theory of psychological distance (Liberman & Trope, 2008) explains how any object, event, or action can be mentally represented at varying levels of construal ranging from high to low. A high-level construal is abstract, global, decontextualized, superordinate, and captures the central and defining features of the target. A low-level construal, on the other hand, is concrete, local, contextualized, and includes subordinate and secondary features of the target. Thus, as psychological distance decreases, people form a more concrete, detailed picture of a stimulus, incorporating more secondary features in their mental image. Repeated cognitive associations between psychological distance and high-level construal lead to stronger connections between low-level construal processes and proximal events (in time and space). In contrast, moving from a low- to a high-level construal involves retaining the central features of the target and omitting features that are deemed incidental and peripheral as a result of this process of abstraction (Trope & Liberman, 2010). For example, manipulating whether people think about an event at a high level of construal (such as by asking them to think about the event in “why” terms, which involves thinking more abstractly about the underlying reasons for completing a task), or at a low level of construal (by asking them to think about the event in “how” terms, which involves thinking about the necessary details of performing the task), can influence how far in the future people judge the event to be (Liberman et al., 2007). Importantly, this relationship appears to be bidirectional. Not only do higher-level construals allow people to consider more distant targets, but distant targets also tend to evoke higher-level construals. For example, a low-level construal of being a leader may reflect the specific behaviors needed to attain the goal of being a good leader (the “means”) such as following up on an important project, or supporting a subordinate struggling to get his/her job done; a highlevel construal may instead focus on leadership as a general trait one possesses or on the reasons why being a good leader is a desirable characteristic (Nussbaum, Trope, & Liberman, 2003). By extracting the gist, the incidental and peripheral information is lost but the central information and its meaningfulness is retained. Thus, changing the psychological distance of an event can also influence how it is construed. A key assumption of construal level theory is that levels serve to diminish or expand one’s mental horizons across time and space (Liberman & Trope, 2014; Trope & Liberman, 2010). Low-level construals diminish people’s mental horizons and help them immerse in the immediate environment. High-level construals, in contrast, expand their mental horizons and help to also picture stimuli that are removed from the current experience, because they focus on aspects that are central and stable across various contexts. High-level construals are those that remain stable across time and distance. They capture the common

Future Work Selves and Feedback  305

aspects among various manifestations of a given target and ignore specific aspects of the target that may fluctuate depending on circumstances. Whereas low-level thought is highly contextualized and thus favors consideration of proximal targets, high-level thought is less biased by proximity and extends to both near and far targets. Construing distant objects at a higher level creates a representation of the target that traverses psychological distance in a stable way. Hence, even when all of the low-level information about a distant target is available to us, we still tend to construe it at a higher level than if the target was more proximal (Trope & Liberman, 2003), because such a construal will render the representation more applicable in potentially very different contexts. Generally speaking, psychologically close stimuli tend to be construed at lower levels, while distant stimuli tend to be construed at higher levels (Liberman & Trope, 1998; Liviatan, Trope, & Liberman, 2008; Wakslak, Trope, Liberman, & Alony, 2006). So, while being a good leader tomorrow may be construed at a lower level and focus more on the to do list for tomorrow (e.g., checking progress for a project in overtime and planning a meeting with an underperforming employee), the idea of being a good leader in a year should be construed at a higher level and more in terms of why being a good leader is valued in organizations and is generally desirable.

Linking Future Work Selves, Construal Level, and Self-Motives We propose that people’s level of construal during the feedback process plays a role in determining the strength of the two main self-motives – self-enhancement and self-improvement – when seeking and processing feedback. In line with the previously discussed findings, that in psychologically safe situations where the self-concept is not threatened, we assume people generally hold the abstract goal to learn and grow (Freitas, Salovey, & Liberman, 2001). This means that, when considering and approaching evaluative situations, individuals naturally prefer diagnostic feedback for self-improvement. However, when actually confronted with the concrete feedback situation and the potentially thorny details of it, the sensitivities of the self-concept come into play and the overarching goal of selfimprovement needs to make room for the superordinate goal of feeling good about oneself (i.e., self-enhancement). In terms of construal level theory, high-level construals with an emphasis on abstract goals would thus elicit greater self-improvement motivation than would low-level construals with their emphasis on the present or proximal outcomes. As discussed, high-level construals focus more on the desirability of an end state (i.e., being a good leader), whereas low-level construals focus on the specifics and the means to achieve that end state (i.e., chairing a meeting, following-up on a report). Thus, by increasing temporal distance, the weight of end states may become more pronounced relative to the means to attain that end state.

306  Frederik Anseel et al.

Indeed, as shown by Freitas and colleagues (2001), individuals chronically using low-level construals had greater interest in downward social comparison to feel better about themselves and less interest in negative feedback. Similarly, Vess, Arndt, and Schlegel (2011) found that individuals with an abstract mindset did not differ in state self-esteem after receiving positive, negative, or no feedback. However, an experimental group induced with a concrete mindset experienced lower levels of state self-esteem following negative feedback, demonstrating that, when processing feedback, high-level construals (relative to low-level construals) make individuals less vulnerable to negative feedback. Thus, we expect people’s level of construal during the feedback process to determine the relative strength of self-motives when processing feedback. While construal levels may naturally fluctuate as individual characteristics or situational triggers influence them, we propose that a key concept that chronically guides individuals’ level of construal across feedback episodes is the salience of their future work self. Put in other words, by means of increasing temporal distance, salient future work selves should increase the willingness of employees to seek and receive unpleasant but useful negative feedback. When future work selves are salient, feedback will be interpreted not in relation to the current self, but in relation to a future self. Salient future work selves increase the psychological distance of feedback, resulting in the adoption of higher-level construals (Liberman & Trope, 1998). Individuals with salient future work selves will be more concerned with taking steps towards attaining a desirable end state and, in line with high-construal, predominantly focus on why that is important. This may help overcome the potentially vulnerable specifics of the feedback episodes, which might lead individuals to focus on the concrete details (e.g., an obnoxious colleague, a hurtful email) as implied in low-level construal. In support of this idea, studies showed that individuals who are asked to envision a distant future self, experience significantly lower levels of distress when reflecting on a recent negative event, primarily because they focus on the transitory nature of their current situation (Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015). For example, in one study, undergraduate students reflected on their performance on a recent midterm exam and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the future-self condition they were asked to envision what they “might be doing” and how they “might be spending their time” 10 years in the future, while in one control condition they were asked to focus on the near future and in another control condition they could use a personally preferred coping strategy. Participants in the future-self condition who received low midterm scores reported lower levels of negative affect than low scorers in the control conditions. This effect was mediated by a focus on the changing and impermanent nature of the exam result (Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015, Study 3). Likewise, when choosing activities to work on, people generally favor feeling good about themselves in the immediate future over pursuing meaningfulness, which they only favor in the distant future. However, by focusing

Future Work Selves and Feedback  307

participants’ attention on the future – by increasing the temporal distance to days, weeks, and years – the relative weight shifts from pleasure to meaningfulness (Kim, Kang, & Choi, 2014). In a similar vein, a salient future work self is likely to increase the psychological distance when processing negative feedback, making it appear more transitory and impermanent by shifting the focus to a high-level construal with its emphasis on the desirability of the abstract end goal implied in the future work self. Thus, when approaching a feedback situation with a salient future work self, we expect that self-enhancement concerns (e.g., distress associated with negative feedback) will be downplayed relative to self-improvement strivings (e.g., a preference for diagnostic feedback). Indeed, when future work selves are made salient, people become focused on building future resources rather than on protecting their current resources (Strauss & Parker, in press). They are thus likely to evaluate feedback not in relation to their current self, but in terms of its implications for their future. At first sight, these arguments seem to go against some findings in the selfenhancement literature. Several studies have shown that people are particularly self-enhancing in how they think about themselves in the future. For instance, research on unrealistic optimism suggests that people overestimate the chance of positive events happening to them and underestimate the chance of negative events happening (Weinstein, 1980). Combining construal-level and self-enhancement theory, Heller, Stephan, Kifer, and Sedikides (2011) asked participants to imagine themselves in the near versus distant future. Across three experiments, they found that individuals’ predictions of their affect (Experiment 1), traits (Experiment 2), and naturalistic concepts (Experiment 3) in the distant future were more positive than predictions of one’s self in the near future. Similarly, Stephan, Sedikides, Heller, and Shidlovski (2015) showed that positive self-attributes were more prominent in distant predictions than in near predictions. So, it seems that, when thinking about oneself in the future, time distance leads to more positive future selves, and these are thus more guided by self-enhancement strivings, which seems to run counter to the position articulated in this chapter. However, both perspectives are not inconsistent with each other and can be reconciled. First, the perspective in this chapter emphasizes that future work selves, once they are formed, will guide interpretation and evaluation of current self-views. It is indeed likely that these future work selves are overly (and even unrealistically) positive as suggested by self-enhancement research. However, when the future work self is salient, we believe that the high-construal levels associated with it will instigate a self-improvement motive for processing feedback in the present situation. Thus, one of the implications of our line of thinking is that predictions made from the present about the future self will be guided by a self-enhancement motive, whereas a salient work self in the future may instigate a self-improvement motive for the present. Although such a

308  Frederik Anseel et al.

pattern might seem speculative at this point, it is consistent with the findings of Freitas et al. (2001) and Belding et al. (2015), showing that high-level construals, in comparison to low-level construals, lead to more openness and acceptance of negative diagnostic information in feedback situations. Also in support of this perspective are two recent experiments demonstrating that individuals highly considerate of future consequences experienced higher levels of energy in the present when imagining their distant (rather than near) future self (Stephan, Shidlovski, & Sedikides, in press). Second, both perspectives might also be reconciled by considering moderators that will determine when people choose to tactically self-enhance or self-improve in feedback situations. The next section does exactly this by proposing a model for guiding future research in this area.

A Future Work Self Model of the Feedback Process In Figure 13.1, we provide a heuristic model of the feedback process integrating aspects of psychological distance and future work selves to inspire and guide research in this area. In this model, we depict the feedback process from the perspective of the feedback-seeker or feedback-recipient, leaving out the role of the feedback-giver for reasons of brevity. In line with recent models (Anseel et al., 2015; Ashford et al., 2016), we link both feedback-seeking and feedback reactions phases, as it can be assumed that self-motives that are activated during one phase of the feedback process will also be influential in the other phase (Anseel et al., 2007; Sedikides & Strube, 1997). The most defining element of this model is the role of future work selves. As previously discussed, the salience of the future work self should determine the

Future Work Self

Construal level Self-Motives

Type of feedbackseeking behavior

Feedback Reactions

Controllable Process feedback Negative Inquiry Salient

High Level

SelfImprovement

Positive monitoring Timely feedback Self-referenced feedback

Relevant

High quality source

Attainable

Outcome feedback

Not Salient

Low Level

SelfEnhancement

Positive Inquiry Negative Monitoring Strategic timing Comparative feedback Quality source unimportant

FIGURE 13.1 

Evaluating veracity Deep processing Discuss feedback Share feedback Motivated to use feedback

Outcomes Behavior change FWS adaptation Performance Improvement Relationship Building Giving feedback

Embrace positive feedback Dismiss negative feedback Make external attributions Keep feedback private Low motivation to us feedback

A Future Work Self Model of the Feedback Process

Well-being Self-esteem Tensions with feedback source Interpersonal CWB Self-concept stability

Future Work Selves and Feedback  309

construal level, and, accordingly, the prevailing self-motive during a feedback episode. However, reviews of research on future selves suggest that salient future selves will only guide cognition and behavior in the present under specific conditions (Oyserman & James, 2009, 2011). On the basis of these insights, we further extend current theorizing on the role of future work selves in the feedback processes and propose that relevance, attainability, and perceived controllability are moderators that determine the effects of future work selves on construal level. The rationale underlying these three characteristics is that each of them will amplify the relative desirability of end goals (high-level construals) and diminish the relative threat associated with the means (low-level construals) to get there. First, high salience will trigger a high-level construal and self-improvement striving only if people experience that feedback is relevant to their future work self. People may easily be tempted to embrace flattering feedback about relatively unimportant tasks. However, this should not be the case for feedback that is strongly connected to one’s future work self, because such feedback is highly instrumental for realizing one’s future work self (Sedikides, 1993). In support of this idea, Destin and Oyserman (2010) showed that, if participants saw their current behavior as connected to their future self, the effects on behavior (e.g., effort in education) were stronger. Second, individuals need to be convinced that their future work selves are attainable (see also Vancouver, Alicke, & Halper, this volume). When an individual sees no opportunities to attain a desired end state, the effort and pain of receiving negative feedback loom larger. Indeed, people feel less threatened by negative feedback about remediable weaknesses than by negative feedback about fixed weaknesses (Belding et al., 2015; Green, Pinter, & Sedikides, 2005; Trope et al., 2003). Oyserman and James (2009) further proposed that the relationship between the attainability of a future self and its impact on behavior would be reversely U-shaped. Salient future work selves that are certain to be attained irrespective of one’s performance or those that are unlikely to be attained no matter how much effort one exerts are unlikely to influence performance. Thus, although attainability of future work self should strengthen self-improvement strivings, if attainability is too evident, individuals could be tempted to self-enhance to avoid the concrete threats of the feedback situation. Third, being in a position wherein one has control over progress toward a future work self should lead to more decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals. Controllability refers to the belief that one’s own actions can change the course of future events, and is associated with higher willingness to take action in order to improve one’s situation (Oyserman & James, 2009). When presented with negative feedback, people who do not believe they have control over progress towards a future work self will be tempted to attend to positive feedback that does not hurt their self-esteem. Indeed, perceived control increases interest in feedback that diagnoses weaknesses and decreases interest in feedback that diagnoses strengths (Fujita, Yaacov, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006; Trope & Neter, 1994).

310  Frederik Anseel et al.

Our model further implies that the construal levels and associated self-motives may impact a wider range of feedback actions than has been studied to date. First, we propose that, through high-level construal, a salient future work self should impact different feedback-seeking choices. More specifically, we expect that salient future work selves will lead employees to seek more process feedback than outcome feedback, as the former is more diagnostic for evaluating one’s current standing and improving performance. Similarly, as directly inquiring for feedback allows for less biased information compared to feedback monitoring, people with salient future work selves should be more likely to use inquiry as a strategy to seek negative feedback, while monitoring will be reserved for following up on positive feedback to control whether one is still on the right track. As high quality sources guarantee more useful feedback, individuals with salient future work selves should also be more likely to make connections with high quality sources. Furthermore, because salient future work selves provide direction and help focusing people on progress towards these value end goals, people will prefer self-referenced feedback that provides information on progress relative to previous performance. Similarly, salient future work selves will detract people from game-playing and impression-management concerns. This means that people will prefer timely feedback, delivered at the time that is most instrumental for improving performance. In contrast, due to low-level construal without salient future work selves, individuals may be more strategic in their seeking of feedback, showing sensitivity to the concrete details of the feedback situation, such as the public present or the feedback that is to be expected. Second, assuming that seeking feedback leads to a positive response of the feedback-giver (Anseel et al., 2015), individuals will respond differently to feedback depending on the salience of a future work self. We propose that this will determine the depth of feedback processing. When approaching feedback, an almost reflex-like embrace of favorable information and dismissal of unfavorable information triggers reactions (e.g., satisfaction, emotions, defensive attitude). However, if sufficient motivation and cognitive resources are available, people will proceed to a next cognitive phase, wherein they evaluate the veracity of the information by comparing it with possible selves (e.g., who they ideally might be). If motivation and cognitive resources are still sufficient, this is followed by a third phase of deep cognitive elaboration, assessing the cost and benefits of further pursuing this type of feedback (Swann & Schroeder, 1995). A salient future work self should provide the impetus for this deeper processing of feedback, leading to more reflection, higher feedback acceptance and sharing of the feedback received with others to gauge its accuracy. Given that a salient future work self leads to high-level construal level, the desirability of the end state will be emphasized, leading to higher motivation to actually use the feedback for self-improvement. Third, we expect that acquiring high quality diagnostic feedback, processing it to a deeper extent, and displaying higher motivation to use it will lead

Future Work Selves and Feedback  311

to fundamentally different work outcomes in comparison to feedback episodes without salient future work selves. A stronger engagement with feedback for self-improvement should more likely lead to behavior change and improved work performance (Anseel, Lievens, & Schollaert, 2009). By seeking feedback from diverse sources and sharing feedback with others, people with salient future work selves will develop better social connections with colleagues, both in- and outside their work environment. In contrast, in absence of a salient future work self, people may react negatively to feedback, attributing negative information to the feedback source. This may result in shooting the messenger, leading to tensions in the workplace or even hostile reactions towards colleagues who give negative feedback. However, feedback interactions driven by self-enhancement might also have a positive side in comparison to feedback episodes driven by self-improvement. Repeated exposure to positive feedback and dismissal of negative feedback may lead to higher self-esteem and overall well-being in the short run. In contrast, people with salient future work selves whose self-improvement efforts do not yield noticeable results may respond to chronic negative feedback by changing their future work selves, giving up on aspirations and dreams (Carroll, Shepperd, & Arkin, 2009; Strauss & Kelly, 2017). Finally, researchers may benefit from taking the iterative nature of feedback into account. The outcomes of one feedback episode may very well be the antecedents of the next feedback episode. For instance, better task performance may lead to more positive feedback in a next feedback interaction. Similarly, changes in content and salience of future work selves may be the result of one feedback intervention and may guide construal level and self-motives in a next feedback episode. Longitudinal studies that examine the dynamics among future work selves, construal level, and self-motives during the feedback process are an interesting avenue for future research.

Practical Implications for Feedback Processes at Work Given the ineffectiveness of many performance management systems (Pulakos & O’Leary, 2011) and the aforementioned feedback paradox (London, 2015), our future work-self perspective approach would have implications for feedback practices and interventions in organizations. We draw two such implications below. A first implication of the future work-self perspective is that in feedback interventions more emphasis should be put on the future (rather than the current) self of the feedback recipient. This is because employees are encouraged to think about their future and how feedback could help them in realizing their hoped-for selves. This also means that the future work-self perspective challenges a common held notion and golden standard in feedback manuals, namely: focus on “behavior” instead of on the “person” (Cannon & Witherspoon, 2005; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).

312  Frederik Anseel et al.

We acknowledge that a future work-self perspective draws more attention to the person instead of the behavior. However, we also stress that the change is less drastic than it might seem at first sight, because future work selves reflect hopes and aspirations in relation to work. Clearly, asking someone to think about such hopes and aspiration cannot be equated with criticizing and attacking the “person” (which might be typical of traditional performance appraisal interviews). Viewed in this light, our propositions provide a different spin on what to understand under “behavior.” That is, a future work-self perspective conceptualizes a person’s behavior in a future-oriented aspirational work perspective. As a second implication for practice, concrete instruments and approaches should be made available and/or developed that enable employees to think about, explore, and identify their future work selves. These instruments should make employees’ future work selves more salient because under these conditions the effects of future work selves are more powerful. Regarding such instruments, the feedforward interview (Budworth, Latham, & Manroop, 2015; Kluger & Nir, 2010) is a good place to begin. Here, employees are asked to think about their positive work experiences (“success stories”) instead of their negative ones (“what went wrong”). The latter are typical of the “bread and butter” of traditional performance appraisal interviews. In addition, the feedforward interview elicits conditions (“personal success code”) that should make it more likely for employees to find themselves in these positive and engaging contexts in the future. In many cases, the feedforward interview results in the identification of situational conditions that are different from the actual work situation and that might be more productive for both the employee and the organization. Kluger and Nir (2010) posited that the feedforward interview “supports the creation of innovation within the self as it reawakens often dormant, yet vital voices that represent one at one’s best. By reawakening these voices and inviting them to take center stage, other and even opposing voices must update their responses and hence a new inner dialogue is triggered and innovation is created within the self” (p. 242). This statement illustrates that the feedforward interview fits well with the logic underlying future work selves. So, if organizations adopt a feedforward interview, we posit that employees be encouraged to identify their future work selves, thereby increasing their salience.

Concluding Note Although seeking, giving, and receiving feedback is central to organizational life, organizations and their leaders keep struggling with how to effectively give feedback to employees. Providing feedback is sometimes thought of as a mission impossible for organizations because the employees that need developmental feedback the most are the ones that shy away from feedback, provoking a continuous tweaking of feedback applications in organizations. For instance, a recent management hype in contemporary business environments is

Future Work Selves and Feedback  313

“reinventing performance management” (Buckingham & Goodall, 2015). A plea is made for organizations to abandon performance appraisals and replace them with informal feedback processes with the aim of making feedback more easily accessible and usable for employees. To develop effective feedback interventions, we posit that organizations need to understand that the feedback paradox in the workplace (London, 2015) is reflective of a more fundamental psychological tension between self-enhancement and selfimprovement strivings in individuals. Along these lines, this chapter proposes a new perspective to help self-improvement prevail over self-enhancement in seeking and receiving feedback. In particular, our integration of future work selves research with psychological distance and self-motives theories should further inspire feedback theory, research, and practice.

References Albright, M. D., & Levy, P. E. (1995). The effects of source credibility and performance rating discrepancy on reactions to multiple raters. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 577–600. Alicke, M. D., & Sedikides, C. (2009). Self-enhancement and self-protection: What they are and what they do. European Review of Social Psychology, 20, 1–48. Anseel, F., Beatty, A., Shen, W., Lievens, F., & Sackett, P. R. (2015). How are we doing after 30 years? A meta-analytic review of antecedents and outcomes of feedbackseeking behavior. Journal of Management, 41, 318–348. Anseel, F., & Lievens, F. (2007). The relationship between uncertainty and desire for feedback: A test of competing hypotheses. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37, 1007–1040. Anseel, F., Lievens, F., & Levy, P. E. (2007). A self-motives perspective on feedbackseeking behavior: Linking organizational behavior and social psychology research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 9, 211–236. Anseel, F., Lievens, F., & Schollaert, E. (2009). Reflection as a strategy to enhance task performance after feedback. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 110, 23–35. Ashford, S. J., Blatt, R., & VandeWalle, D. (2003). Reflections on the looking glass: A review of research on feedback-seeking behavior in organizations. Journal of Management, 29, 773–799. Ashford, S. J., & Cummings, L. L. (1983). Feedback as an individual resource: Personal strategies of creating information. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 32, 370–398. Ashford S. J., De Stobbeleir, K., & Nujella, M. (2016). To seek or not to seek: Is that the only question? Recent developments in feedback-seeking literature. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 213–239. Ashford, S. J., & Northcraft, G. B. (1992). Conveying more (or less) than we realize: The role of impression-management in feedback-seeking. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 53, 310–334. Ashford, S. J., & Tsui, A. S. (1991). Self-regulation for managerial effectiveness: The role of active feedback seeking. Academy of Management Journal, 34, 251–280.

314  Frederik Anseel et al.

Atwater, L. E., & Brett, J. F. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of reactions to developmental 360° feedback. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 532–548. Banaji, M. R., & Prentice, D. A. (1994). The self in social contexts. Annual Review of Psychology, 45, 297–332. Belding, J. N., Naufel, K. Z., & Fujita, K. (2015). Using high-level construal and perceptions of changeability to promote self-change over self-protection motives in response to negative feedback. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 822–838. Brett, J. F., & Atwater, L. E. (2001). 360-feedback: Accuracy, reactions, and perceptions of usefulness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 930–942. Bruehlman-Senecal, E., & Ayduk, O. (2015). This too shall pass: Temporal distance and the regulation of emotional distress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 356–375. Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2015). Reinventing performance management. Harvard Business Review, 93, 40–46. Budworth, M. H., Latham, G. P., & Manroop, L. (2014). Looking forward to performance improvement: A field test of the feedforward interview for performance management. Human Resource Management, 54, 45–54. Cai, H., Wu, L., Shi., Y., Gu, R., & Sedikides, C. (2016). Self-enhancement among Westerners and Easterners: A cultural neuroscience approach. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11, 1569–78. Cannon, M. D., & Witherspoon, R. (2005). Actionable feedback: Unlocking the power of learning and performance improvement. Academy of Management Executive, 19, 120–134. Carroll, P. J., Shepperd, J. A., & Arkin, R. M. (2009). Downward self-revision: Erasing possible selves. Social Cognition, 27, 550–578. DeShon, R. P., Kozlowski, S. W. J., Schmidt, A. M., Milner, K. R., & Wiechmann, D. (2004). A multiple-goal, multilevel model of feedback effects on the regulation of individual and team performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 1035–1056. Destin, M., & Oyserman, D. (2010). Incentivizing education: Seeing schoolwork as an investment, not a chore. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 846–849. Elliot, A. J., Sheldon, K. M., & Church, M. A. (1997). Avoidance personal goals and subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 915–927. Ferris, D. L., & Sedikides, C. (2018). Self-enhancement in organizations. In D. L. Ferris, R. E., Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.), The Self at Work: Fundamental Theory and Research (pp. 91–118). New York: Routledge. Feys, M., Anseel, F., & Wille, B. (2011). Improving feedback reports: The role of procedural information and information specificity. Academy of Management: Learning & Education, 10, 661–681. Freitas, A. L., Salovey, P., & Liberman, N. (2001) Abstract and concrete self-evaluative goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 410–424. Fujita, K., Trope, Y., Liberman, N., & Levin-Sagi, M. (2006). Construal levels and selfcontrol. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(3), 351. Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., & Cai, H. (2012). Wanting to be great and better but not average: On the pancultural desire for self-enhancing and self-improving feedback. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 521–526. Goodman, J. S., Wood, R. E., & Hendrickx, M. (2004). Feedback specificity, exploration, and learning. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 248–262.

Future Work Selves and Feedback  315

Green, J. D., Pinter, B., & Sedikides, C. (2005). Mnemic neglect and self-threat: Trait modifiability moderates self-protection. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 225–235. Guan, Y., Guo, Y., Bond, M. H., Cai, Z., Zhou, X., Xu, J., Zhu, F., Wang, Z., Fu, R., Liu, S., Wang, Y., Hu, T., & Ye, L. (2014). New job market entrants’ future work self, career adaptability and job search outcomes: Examining mediating and moderating models. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85, 136–145. Heller, D., Stephan, E., Kifer, Y., & Sedikides, C. (2011). What will I be? The role of temporal perspective in predictions of affect, traits, and self-narratives. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 610–615. Hoyle, R. H., & Sherrill, M. R. (2006). Future orientation in the self-system: Possible selves, self-regulation, and behavior. Journal of Personality, 74, 1673–1696. Ilgen, D. R., Fisher, C. D., & Taylor, M. S. (1979). Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64, 349–371. Illies, R., De Pater, I. E., & Judge, T. A. (2006). Emotional reactions to performance feedback: The effect on goal-regulation. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22, 590–609. Keeping, L. M., & Levy, P. E. (2000). Performance appraisal reactions: Measurement, modeling, and method bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 708–723. Kim, J., Kang, P., & Choi, I. (2014). Pleasure now, meaning later: Temporal dynamics between pleasure and meaning. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 262–270. Kinicki, A. J., Prussia, G. E., Wu, B., & McKee-Ryan, F. M. (2004). A covariance structure analysis of employees’ response to performance feedback. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 1057–1069. King, L. A., & Raspin, C. (2004). Lost and found possible selves, subjective well-being, and ego development in divorced women. Journal of Personality, 72, 603–632. King, L. A., & Smith, N. G. (2004). Gay and straight possible selves: Goals, identity, subjective well-being, and personality development. Journal of Personality, 72(5), 967–994. Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. S. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 254–284. Kluger, A. N., & Nir, D. (2010). The feedforward interview. Human Resource Management Review, 20, 235–246. Koch, E. J., & Shepperd, J. A. (2004). Is self-complexity linked to better coping? A review of the literature. Journal of Personality, 72, 727–760. Kwang, T., & Swann, W. B. (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? A review of critical tests of self-enhancement versus self-verification. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 263–280. Lam, C. F., DeRue, D. S., Karam, E. P., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2011). The impact of feedback frequency on learning and task performance: Challenging the “more is better” assumption. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116, 217–228. Levy, P. E., Albright, M. D., Cawley, B. D., & Williams, J. R. (1995). Situational and individual determinants of feedback seeking: A closer look at the process. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 23–37. Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (1998). The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 5–18. Liberman, N. & Trope, Y. (2008). The psychology of transcending the here and now. Science, 322, 1201–1205.

316  Frederik Anseel et al.

Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (2014). Traversing psychological distance. Trends in Cognitive Science, 18, 364–369. Liberman, N., Trope, Y., Macrae, S., & Sherman, S. J. (2007). The effect of level of construal on the temporal distance of activity enactment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 143–149. Linville, P. (1985). Self-complexity and affective extremity: Don’t put all your eggs into one cognitive basket. Social Cognition, 3, 94–120. Linville, P. (1987). Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 663–676. Liviatan, I., Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2008). Interpersonal similarity as a social distance dimension: Implications for perception of others’ actions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1256–1269. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2004). What should we do about motivation theory? Six recommendations for the twenty-first century. Academy of Management Review, 29, 388–403. London, M. (2015). The power of feedback: Giving, seeking, and using feedback for performance improvement. New York: Routledge. Lurie, N. H., & Swaminathan, J. M. (2009). Is timely information always better? The effect of feedback frequency on decision-making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 315–329. Markus, H. R., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969. Markus, H. R., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337. McConnell, A. R., Renaud, J. M., Dean, K. K., Green, S. P., Lamoreaux, M. J., Hall, C. E., & Rydell, R. J. (2005). Whose self is it anyway? Self-aspect control moderates the relation between self-complexity and well-being. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 1–18. McConnell, A. R., & Strain, L. M. (2007). Content and structure of the self-concept. In C. Sedikides & S. Spencer (Eds.), The self in social psychology (pp. 51–73). New York: Psychology Press. Molleman, E., Pruyn, J., & van Knippenberg, A. (1986). Social comparison processes among cancer patients. British Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 1–13. Moss, S. E., Valenzi, E. R., & Taggart, W. (2003). Are you hiding from your boss? The development of a taxonomy and instrument to assess the feedback management behaviors of good and bad performers. Journal of Management, 29, 487–510. Neiss, M. B., Sedikides C., Shahinfar, A. & Kupersmidt, J. B. (2006) Self-evaluation in a naturalistic context: The case of juvenile offenders. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 499–518. Niedenthal, P. M., Setterlund, M. B., & Wherry, M. B. (1992). Possible self-complexity and affective reactions to goal-relevant behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 5–16. Nussbaum, S., Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Creeping dispositionism: The temporal dynamics of behavior prediction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 485–497. Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., & Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 188–204.

Future Work Selves and Feedback  317

Oyserman, D., & James, L. (2009). Possible selves: From content to process. In K. D. Markman, W. M. P. Klein, & J. A. Suhr (Eds.), Handbook of imagination and mental simulation (pp. 373–394). New York: Psychology Press. Oyserman, D., & James, L. (2011). Possible identities. In S. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. Vignoles (Eds.) Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 117–145). New York: Springer-Verlag. Podsakoff, P. M., & Farh, J. L. (1989). Effects of feedback sign and credibility on goalsetting and task performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 44, 45–67. Pulakos, E. D., & O’Leary, R. S. (2011). Why is performance management broken? Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 4, 146–164. Rafaeli-Mor, E., & Steinberg, J. (2002). Self-complexity and well-being: A review and research synthesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 31–58. Renaud, J. M., & McConnell, A. R. (2002). Organization of the self-concept and the suppression of self-relevant thoughts. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 79–86. Sedikides, C. (1993) Assessment, enhancement and verification determinants of the selfevaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317–338. Sedikides, C. (2012). Self-protection. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed.) (pp. 327–353). New York: Guilford Press. Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Cai, H. (2015). On the panculturality of self-enhancement and self-protection motivation: The case for the universality of self-esteem. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Advances in Motivation Science (pp. 185–241). Elsevier. doi:10.1016/ bs.adms.2015.04.002 Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2003). Portraits of the self. In Hogg, M. A. and Cooper, J. (Eds.), Sage handbook of social psychology (pp. 110–138). London: Sage. Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-enhancement. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 102–116. Sedikides, C., & Hepper, E. (2009). Self-improvement. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 3, 899–917. Sedikides, C., Luke, M. A., & Hepper, E. (2016) Enhancing feedback and improving feedback: Subjective perceptions, psychological consequences, behavioral outcomes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 12, 687–700. Sedikides, C., & Strube, M. J. (1995) The multiply motivated self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1330–1335. Sedikides, C., & Strube, M. J. (1997). Self-evaluation: To thine own self be good, to thine own self be sure, to thine own self be true, and to thine own self be better. In Berkowitz, L. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 209–269). New York: Academic Press. Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 261–302. Stein, F. K. (1994). Complexity of the self-schema and responses to disconfirming feedback. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 18, 161–178. Stephan, E., Sedikides, C., Heller, D., & Shidlovski, D. (2015). My fair future self: The role of temporal distance and self-enhancement in prediction. Social Cognition, 33, 149–168. Stephan, E., Shidlovski, D., & Sedikides, C. (in press). Self-prospection and energization: The joint influence of time distance and consideration of future consequences. Self and Identity.

318  Frederik Anseel et al.

Strauss, K., Griffin, M. A., & Parker, S. K. (2012). Future work selves: How salient hoped-for identities motivate proactive career behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 580–598. Strauss, K., & Kelly, C. (2017). An identity-based perspective on proactivity: Future work selves and beyond. In S. K. Parker & U. K. Bindl (Eds.), Proactivity at work. Abingdon: Routledge. Strauss, K., & Parker, S. K. (in press). Intervening to enhance proactivity in organizations: Improving the present or changing the future. Journal of Management. Swann, W. B., & Schroeder, D. G. (1995). The search for beauty and truth: A framework for understanding reactions to evaluations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1307–1318. Taber, B. J., & Blankemeyer, M. (2015). Future work self and career adaptability in the prediction of proactive career behaviors. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 86, 20–27. Trope, Y., Gervey, B., & Bolger, N. (2003) The role of perceived control in overcoming defensive self-evaluation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 407–419. Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110, 403–421. Trope, Y. & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117, 440–463. Trope, Y., & Neter, E. (1994). Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(4), 646. Tuckey, M., Brewer, N., & Williamson, P. (2002) The influence of motives and goal orientation on feedback-seeking. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75, 195–216. Vancouver, J.B. (2005). The depth and history and explanation as benefit and bane for psychological control theories. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 38–52. Vancouver, J. B., Alicke, M., & Halper, L. R. (2018). Self-efficacy. In D. L. Ferris, R. E., Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.), The Self at Work: Fundamental Theory and Research (pp. 15–39). New York: Routledge. Vancouver, J. B., & Tischner, E. C. (2004). The effect of feedback sign on task performance depends on self-concept discrepancies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 1092–198. Vess, M., Arndt, J., & Schlegel, R. J. (2011). Abstract construal levels attenuate the reactivity of state self-esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 861–864. Wakslak, C. J., Trope, Y., Liberman, N., & Alony, R. (2006). Seeing the forest when entry is unlikely: Probability and the mental representation of events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 641–653. Waytz, A., Hershfield, H. E., & Tamir, D. I. (2015). Mental simulation and meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(2), 336–355. Weinstein, N. D. (1980). Unrealistic optimism about future life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 806–820. Zhang, C., Hirschi, A., Herrmann, A., Wei, J., & Zhang, J. (2016). The future work self and calling: The mediational role of life meaning. Journal of Happiness Studies, 18(4), 977–991.

14 THE SELF AND ENGAGEMENT AT WORK Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

Today’s organizations want an engaged workforce: employees who are energetic, fully present, vigorous, and highly dedicated to their work are an asset for most organizations. The idea of bringing one’s self into work is at the core of Kahn’s (1990) engagement concept. Using an ethnographic approach, Kahn provided vivid descriptions of how people connect their selves to their work –and disconnect their selves from it. Other researchers also emphasized the importance of being highly immersed in one’s work and being energetic while working, characterizing engagement as an aspect of well-being (Maslach & Leiter, 1999; Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). Consequently, during the past decades, research on work engagement developed rapidly and is a flourishing research area. In this chapter, we discuss the role of the self in relation to engagement. We start by introducing the various streams of research that laid the foundation for engagement studies. In the second part of our chapter, we discuss predictors of engagement. Part three addresses the role of the self for engagement at work. In this part, we differentiate between Kahn’s approach that conceives self-employment and self-expression as essential aspects of engagement, and the well-being approach (Schaufeli et al., 2002) that specifies self-related concepts as predictors of engagement. In the final two sections we discuss engagement from a self-perspective and highlight important questions for future research.

Conceptualizations of Engagement Kahn (1990) approached the engagement concept from an ethnographic perspective. He was interested in the process of how people “express and employ their personal selves” (1990, p. 692) at work, emphasizing that people differ in

320  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

the degree to which they engage at work and describing that this engagement can fluctuate over the course of a workday. Kahn defined personal engagement as “the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles” (p. 694), implying “the simultaneous employment and expression” (p. 700) of the self in task behaviors, drawing on physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects of the self. Self-employment refers to investing personal energies into cognitive, physical, and emotional work, and self-expression relates to the display of authentic thoughts and feelings and to the expression of one’s true identity in terms of one’s beliefs and values. Hence, personally engaging behaviors involve both investing personal energies into task behaviors as well as expressing the actor’s preferred self in these behaviors. Kahn contrasted engagement from disengagement, defined as “the uncoupling of selves from work roles” (p. 694), implying to “withdraw and defend” (p. 694) oneself from work. Based on observations in a summer camp and an architecture company, Kahn described how persons bring their selves into work and express themselves as well as how they withdraw and hide their selves in work settings. Moreover, he identified three conditions that need to be met so that people can employ and express themselves at work: meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability. We will describe these conditions later when addressing predictors of engagement. Based on his observations, Kahn (1992) argued that the personally engaging behaviors are accompanied by a specific experiential state, which he called psychological presence. Psychological presence comprises four dimensions. First, psychological presence implies attentiveness, hence being aware of oneself and one’s environment. Second, psychological presence means to be connected to someone or something outside oneself (e.g., to another person, to the task, or to a larger mission). This connection could be experienced as empathy. Third, psychological presence is characterized by what Kahn (1992) called integration. Integration means to bring one’s full self into work, including thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences. Finally, psychological presence implies focus and absorption (cf. Kahn & Fellows, 2013). Importantly, focus and absorption means not only to be present as a person, but as the person “in role” (1992, p. 327). One stream of research on engagement built strongly on Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement. This research either focused on Kahn’s notion of psychological presence (Rothbard, 2001) or his holistic view of investing physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects of the self into work (May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004; Rich, LePine, & Crawford, 2010). Rothbard (2001) addressed the aspect of psychological presence, and regarded attention and absorption as the core components of engagement. In her view, attention refers to the “cognitive availability and amount of time one spends thinking about a role” (p. 656). Absorption implies “being engrossed in a role and refers to the intensity of one’s focus on a role” (p. 656). May et al. (2004) as well as Rich et al. (2010) focused on the simultaneous investment of “affective, cognitive, and physical energies” (Rich et  al., 2010, p. 617) into role

The Self and Engagement at Work  321

performance. The affective component of engagement refers to excitement, enthusiasm, and pride; the cognitive component captures absorption, mental focus, and concentration; and the physical component implies a high work intensity as well as exertion of effort and energy. Thus, this research was strongly guided by the purpose to capture the self-employment aspect of Kahn’s engagement concept; the self-expression aspect in the sense of displaying “real identity, thoughts and feelings” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700) was not addressed. In terms of the timeframe for which the investments of energies are studied, Rich et al. (2010) as well as May et al. (2004) focused on studying rather enduring levels of energy expenditure (i.e., similar to trait or chronic manifestations). Kahn’s intriguing observation that individuals move back and forth between moments of personal engagement and moments of disengagement within a given workday was not incorporated in this approach. A second stream of research on engagement emerged from the field of burnout and well-being (Maslach & Leiter, 1999; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Maslach and Leiter (1999, p. 278) described engagement as the opposite of burnout and suggested that engagement is the “positive end” of the three burnout dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Accordingly, they defined engagement as an “energetic state of involvement with personally fulfilling activities that enhance one’s sense of professional efficacy” (Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 498). In terms of operationalization, they considered a person as highly engaged when this person had low scores on a measure of burnout. The engagement conceptualization of Schaufeli, Bakker, and their colleagues has its roots in burnout research as well. These researchers described engagement as a “positive antipode of burnout” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 294; Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). However, unlike Maslach and Leiter (1999, 2008), they did not see burnout and engagement as two ends of one continuum, but conceived engagement as an independent construct, distinct from burnout. Specifically, they defined engagement “as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 295). Vigor means to be energetic and resilient at work, to be motivated to invest effort, and to be persistent. Dedication refers to a “sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge” (p. 295). Absorption is characterized by full concentration on one’s work and the experience that time passes quickly. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004, p. 295) emphasized the “persistent and pervasive” nature of engagement. There is a long and controversial discussion if burnout and work engagement – conceptualized mainly as an energetic state (Maslach & Leiter, 2008; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) – are distinct constructs or whether they represent opposite ends of one common continuum. Maslach and Leiter (2008) indeed place burnout and engagement on a one-dimensional scale, whereas Schaufeli, Bakker, and their colleagues emphasize their distinctness. In our view, it makes sense to conceptually differentiate between burnout and engagement, even though the

322  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

two constructs are negatively correlated: a person who scores low on burnout is not necessarily engaged and a person who scores low on engagement does not necessarily have burnout. Empirically, confirmatory factor analyses tend to support the distinctiveness of the constructs when items are used as indicators for the constructs (Byrne, Peters, & Weston, 2016). However, Cole, Walter, Bedeian, and O’Boyle (2012) concluded from their meta-analysis – that was based on scales as indicators – that burnout and work engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) are empirically redundant. A closer look at the correlational patterns shows that particularly the inefficiency dimension of burnout is highly correlated with work engagement, ranging between ρ = -.72 and ρ = -.85. Exhaustion and cynicism show substantially lower correlations with the work-engagement subdimensions (ranging between ρ = -.21 and ρ = -.43 for exhaustion and ranging between ρ = -.39 and ρ = -.69 for cynicism). The size of these correlations suggests that low engagement is not redundant with exhaustion or cynicism. Taken together, when Kahn (1990) described engagement he emphasized the role of the self that people bring to work and that they “employ and express” in their roles. He saw people as rather active agents who “drive” (p. 700) versus “remove” (p. 701) their energy into work roles. This active component in Kahn’s (1990) conceptualization was also highlighted by Rothbard and Patil (2011, p. 60) who stressed that “engagement . . . involves a proactive garnering and application of resources to fully concentrate and dedicate oneself to a certain task.” In contrast to the active role that Kahn assigned to the individual, Schaufeli, Bakker and their colleagues (who conceptualized work engagement as an aspect of well-being) characterized work engagement as the experience of being energetic, absorbed, and dedicated during work activities (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008; Schaufeli et al., 2002). In their research they were highly interested in job conditions and personal factors that contribute to engagement, however, without asking how people bring their selves to work in an agentic way. A recent piece of research provided an empirical comparison of the two engagement conceptualizations that had been developed by Kahn (1990) and Schaufeli et al. (2002). Byrne et al. (2016) analyzed the associations between Rich et al.’s (2010) job engagement scale (JES) – which corresponds to the self-employment aspect of Kahn’s engagement concept – and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2002) – capturing Schaufeli and colleagues’ conceptualization of work engagement as an aspect of wellbeing characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Confirmatory factor analyses performed with data from multiple samples demonstrated that the JES and the UWES refer to distinct constructs. Nevertheless, in three out of four studies, correlations between the JES and UWES ranged between .63 and .70, suggesting that the two underlying engagement concepts are substantially correlated.

The Self and Engagement at Work  323

Predictors of Work Engagement Kahn (1990) specified three main classes of conditions that should contribute to engagement: meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability. Meaningfulness refers to the experience of being “worthwhile, useful, and valuable” (Kahn, 1990, p. 704) and that investing one’s self into the role pays off in physical, cognitive, or emotional terms. Meaningfulness depends on tasks, roles, and work interactions. Kahn described meaningful tasks as being challenging, varied, requiring creativity, and providing autonomy as well as clear goals. Meaningful roles offer identities that fit with a person’s self-view and that provide status as well as power. Meaningful interactions are characterized by dignity, self-appreciation, and a sense of value, and are both personal and professional at the same time. Psychological safety describes circumstances in which people feel confident to express and invest themselves without being afraid that this will have negative consequences to their self-view, status, or career (Kahn, 1990). In his ethnographic work, Kahn identified four factors that contribute to this experience of psychological safety: trusting and supporting interpersonal relationships, group and intergroup dynamics, supportive and resilient management style, and organizational norms that permit the investment of self. With regard to the final class of conditions that facilitate engagement, Kahn (1990, p. 714) defined psychological availability as “the sense of having the physical, emotional, and psychological resources to personally engage at a particular moment.” Psychological availability requires physical as well as emotional energy, and it is impaired by individual insecurity and preoccupation with one’s life outside work. Physical and emotional energy refer to the physical and emotional capacity to stay present and to fulfill one’s role. According to Kahn (1990), lack of self-confidence, “heightened self-consciousness” (p. 716), and ambivalence about person-organization fit are three dimensions of individual insecurity that prevent psychological availability. Lack of self-confidence refers to anxiety about one’s role, which, in terms of social-cognitive theory, could be described as low self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Heightened self-consciousness implies a preoccupation with others’ perceptions of and reactions to one’s behavior so that impression-management issues make full engagement impossible. Ambivalence about fit takes up emotional and cognitive resources and reduces the motivation to employ and express oneself at work. Preoccupation with life outside work can reduce psychological availability and therefore distract from full engagement at work. Kahn (1990) observed that outside lives, however, can also fuel people with more energy so that they become more psychologically available at work. Only a few pieces of research have put Kahn’s propositions to test with quantitative methods. Using a cross-sectional survey-based research design, May et al. (2004) collected data from a large US insurance company in order

324  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

to examine the role of meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability as predictors of work engagement. Their measure of work engagement focused strongly on Kahn’s notion of self-employment (i.e., investing personal energy into cognitive, emotional, and physical labor), whereas the selfexpression component of Kahn’s concept was not included in their specific engagement measure. In support of Kahn’s (1990, 1992) model, meaningfulness, safety, and availability were significantly linked to work engagement, with meaningfulness showing the strongest relationship. In addition, May et al. also investigated factors that might predict the experience of meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability. Again, aligned with Kahn’s theorizing, characteristics of work (e.g., job enrichment and work-role fit) were associated with meaningfulness, aspects of the social system (e.g., relations with coworkers and supervisors, norms) as well as (low) self-consciousness were linked to the experience of psychological safety, and resources (i.e., emotional and physical energy) and a low level of engagement in outside activities resulted in psychological availability. Somewhat counter-intuitive at first sight, May et al. (2004) identified a direct negative association between resources and engagement. However, a closer look at the measures applied in this study suggests that this finding is not in contradiction with Kahn’s model. May et al. assessed resources with regard to emotional and physical energies available at the end of the workday. Spending physical, cognitive, and emotional energy on work should result in the experience of low resources at the end of the day. This is aligned with Kahn’s (1992, p. 333) statement that psychological presence (i.e., the experiential state accompanying personal engagement) “is relatively exhausting in terms of the vigilance and personal effort it requires.” This finding highlights that dynamic and longitudinal research designs are needed that take the complexity of reciprocal linkages between engaged task behaviors and resources into account. Furthermore, in order to further a stronger integration of the well-being approach and that posited by Kahn to work engagement, researchers could include measures of work engagement that stem from both streams of research, as was done by Byrne et al. (2016). Their findings from multiple samples are predominantly in alignment with Kahn’s description that meaningfulness, psychological availability, and psychological safety should be associated with engagement. The pattern of result was, however, to some extent dependent on the specific measure of engagement employed. More specifically, Byrne et al. found that meaningfulness was more strongly related to engagement when engagement was measured with the JES than when it was measured with the UWES; psychological availability was related to engagement when measured with the UWES but not with the JES, and psychological safety was related to engagement, irrespective of the specific engagement measure. Thus, future research should strive for a better understanding of why results are not consistent across measures. Furthermore, given the cross-sectional nature of the majority

The Self and Engagement at Work  325

of extant research, future research will also have to apply more rigorous research designs that will address issues around causality. Engagement conceptualizations that have their roots in well-being research have focused on other types of predictors. Maslach and Leiter (1999) argued that lack of congruence between the person and the job leads to burnout. Because they view engagement as the opposite of burnout, perceived congruence between person and the job should predict engagement. Specifically, they described six areas where congruence between the person and the job is important so that burnout is low and engagement is high: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Cross-sectional analysis indeed showed that lack of congruence was associated with high exhaustion and high cynicism scores, corresponding to low energy and low involvement. Over time, however, only increase in control was associated with a change from exhaustion to engagement (Maslach & Leiter, 2008). Similar to Maslach and Leiter (1999) as well as Kahn (1990), Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) also considered work characteristics as key antecedents of work engagement. However, in line with the job-demands resources model (JD-R model; Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001), Schaufeli and Bakker primarily focused on job resources such as social support and feedback. Later, scholars extended the breadth of resources considered and also took other job resources into account, such as job control (i.e., autonomy) (Mauno, Kinnunen, & Ruokolainen, 2007), and also acknowledged the role of personal resources (e.g., optimism, selfefficacy, and organization-based self-esteem; Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007) as relevant antecedents of engagement at work. Moreover, according to the JD-R model, resources should show a particularly strong association with engagement when job demands are high (Bakker et al., 2014). According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), job resources trigger both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that in turn should help people be engaged at work. With respect to intrinsic motivation, Schaufeli and Bakker argued that job resources (e.g., social support, job control) satisfy basic psychological needs (e.g., need for relatedness, need for autonomy) such as specified within self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; see also the Diefendorff et al. chapter in this volume). Need satisfaction, in turn, should result in high intrinsic motivation. In addition, job resources will also be extrinsically motivating because they help employees to achieve their work goals. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation should contribute to positive work outcomes and “engagement . . . is likely to occur” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 298). Two meta-analyses have summarized the empirical evidence on the predictors of engagement (Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011; Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010). Overall, these meta-analyses showed that job resources (e.g., autonomy, feedback, social support, and opportunities for development) and other job characteristics that have a strong motivating potential (e.g., task variety, task significance)

326  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

were positively related to engagement, with effect sizes ranging between ρ = .21 and ρ = .53. Similarly, correlations between positive aspects of leadership (i.e., transformational leadership, leader-member exchange) and engagement were also significant (ranging between ρ = .27 and ρ = .31). Challenging job demands (e.g., workload) also showed positive associations with engagement, however, with relatively small effect sizes ranging between ρ = .13 and ρ = .21. Other job demands such as role stressors, administrative hassles, or physical demands were negatively related to engagement, with effect sizes ranging between ρ = -.17 and ρ = -.25. In terms of dispositional characteristics, conscientiousness, positive affect, and proactive personality were positively related to engagement, with correlations ranging between ρ = .42 and ρ = .44.

The Role of the Self for Engagement at Work The Self as Part of the Engagement Concept The self plays a central role in Kahn’s (1990) engagement concept. With his specific focus on “the moments in which people bring themselves into or remove themselves from particular task behaviors” (p. 692), for Kahn, engagement is the “simultaneous employment and expression” of the self in task behaviors. Thus, unlike in other research (e.g., Xanthopoulou et  al., 2007), self-related concepts (e.g., self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem) are not just facilitators or consequences of engagement; bringing the self into work and expressing it constitutes the core of engagement. Importantly, in Kahn’s conceptualization, engagement is the “holistic investment of the entire self” (Christian et al., 2011, p. 97), comprising physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects. Kahn mentioned the “preferred self” as the quality of the self that is relevant for engagement, without explaining in detail the idea behind the “preferred self.” Rich et  al. (2010, p. 617) referred to this quality as the “full self,” and later Kahn and Fellows (2013, p. 108) used the term “real” self. According to Kahn (1990), the degree to which employees engage at work depends on the choices they make – although they do not need to be always aware of these choices. In contrast to Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement, the self does not play a major role in other engagement concepts. In the conceptualization by Maslach and Leiter (1999) that sees engagement as the opposite of burnout, the self is not at the core of the engagement concept. However, Maslach and Leiter’s (1999) discussion of value incongruence as a factor contributing to burnout and low exhaustion shows some link to Kahn’s description of self-expression. Value congruence should allow for expressing one’s values at work, thereby contributing to personal engagement. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004, 2010) also do not put much emphasis on the self as part of the engagement concept. Only the absorption dimension refers to a person’s experience of immersing the self into work, most strongly evident

The Self and Engagement at Work  327

in the item “It is difficult to detach myself from my job.” However, empirical work building on Schaufeli and Bakker’s engagement concept paid substantial attention to self-related concepts (Xanthopoulou et  al., 2007). As we report later in this chapter, this research treats self-related concepts as predictors rather than integral parts of engagement.

Self-Related Concepts as Predictors of Engagement Research has examined self-related concepts as predictors (and possible outcomes) of engagement. Among the most frequently self-related concepts studied as potential antecedents of engagement are self-evaluations such as self-efficacy and self-esteem (see the Vancouver, Alicke, & Halper chapter on self-efficacy and the Brown & Zeigler-Hill chapter on self-esteem in this volume). Also, concepts referring to self-control and to identity have been examined in connection with work engagement. The research stream following Schaufeli et al.’s (2002) conceptualization of work engagement subsumed self-related concepts such as self-efficacy and selfesteem under the umbrella term of personal resources. Building on earlier work by Hobfoll, Johnson, Ennis, and Jackson (2003), Xanthopoulou et  al. (2007, pp. 123–124) defined personal resources as “aspects of the self that are generally linked to resiliency and refer to individuals’ sense of their ability to control and impact upon their environment successfully.” Thus, the core idea here is that individual traits and states that are important for mastering challenging situations are relevant for work engagement. Possibly, it is important to believe that one is able to be effective and influential at work in order to devote energy at work and to become immersed in it. However, when people experience self-doubt, they would not be able to fully employ and express themselves at work. Rich et al. (2010) proposed core-self evaluations (CSEs) as a predictor of job engagement. CSEs are fundamental orientations and beliefs people have about themselves (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998). CSEs are conceptualized as a higher-order concept comprising self-efficacy, self-esteem, internal locus of control, and emotional stability. Rich et al. built their argument about the importance of CSEs for engagement on Kahn’s model that described psychological availability as an important factor necessary for job engagement (Kahn, 1990). Kahn argued that individuals must feel secure about themselves in order to express themselves in a social setting. Thus, confidence should contribute to psychological availability. People with high CSEs possess confidence about themselves, which should help them to be psychologically available at work. Rich et al.’s empirical data support the idea that CSEs are positively related to job engagement. Similar to CSEs, Xanthoupoulou and her colleagues (2007) also considered self-related variables as key antecedents of engagement. Focusing on selfefficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism, their work showed

328  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

that a latent factor comprising these constructs was positively related to work engagement (which was operationalized as vigor, dedication, and absorption). Taking potential reciprocal relationships between engagement and self-variables into account, this group of authors extended their research with a longitudinal study design. They found on the one hand that a composite score comprising self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism predicted a change in work engagement over a two-year period (Xanthoupoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009a). On the other hand, work engagement also predicted changes in self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism. This pattern of findings highlights not only that self-related variables may help to develop work engagement over time, but also that work engagement seems to foster self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism. The notion of reciprocity has been developed further in research that addressed more specific self-concepts in their relationship with work engagement. For instance, Salanova and her colleagues proposed a gain cycle which implies that efficacy beliefs increase engagement over time which, in turn, should contribute to higher levels of efficacy beliefs (Salanova, Llorens, & Schaufeli, 2011; Salanova, Schaufeli, Xanthopoulou, & Bakker, 2010). Empirical findings lend support to the idea of reciprocal relationships (Simbula, Guglielmi, & Schaufeli, 2011). Thus, the confidence that one is able to perform well at work is an important prerequisite for being energetic, dedicated, and absorbed at work. High engagement at work might be associated with a mastery experience (Bandura, 1997) that in turn increases subsequent selfefficacy. Interestingly, self-efficacy does not only operate over longer periods of time (e.g., months and years), but seems to benefit engagement also at the day level. Findings of daily-survey studies imply a positive association between the experience of self-efficacy on a specific workday and work engagement on the same day (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009b). Moreover, lagged associations between momentary self-efficacy and subsequently assessed engagement have been shown (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Heuven, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2008). Also, self-esteem has been examined in relation to engagement. Studies assessing organization-based self-esteem (OBSE; i.e., “the degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member”; Pierce & Gardner, 2004, p. 593) reported positive cross-sectional associations between OBSE and work engagement (Pierce, Gardner, & Crowley, 2016; Wu, Liu, Kwan, & Lee, 2016). A cross-lagged analysis of a two-year panel design revealed a positive association between OBSE and the three engagement dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption assessed two years later (Mauno et  al., 2007). This finding suggests that seeing oneself as a valuable organizational member helps one to be energetic at work and to be immersed in it. Maybe engaging oneself at work triggers a reinforcing process with employing and expressing oneself at work, contributing to

The Self and Engagement at Work  329

a more positive image of oneself. However, the effect of OBSE on engagement (assessed two years later) became non-significant when extending the lagged analysis into a longitudinal analysis (i.e., controlling for baseline engagement), which suggests that questions around causality still deserve more attention. Other self-related constructs that have received some interest in engagement research include self-control (see the Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, & Lin chapter in this volume). Specifically, self-control capacity seems to play a role for work engagement. Self-control capacity is the ability to inhibit or alter a habitual or automatic response that interferes with effective goal pursuit or goal attainment (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). Exertion of self-control allows, for instance, the suppression of unwanted thoughts. Importantly, this capacity is seen as a limited resource that is depleted by exerting self-control, and depleted self-control capacity is assumed to reduce subsequent performance on tasks that require self-control, even after switching to a different task (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). With respect to engagement, self-control capacity might be helpful because it helps in suppressing distractions that may undermine absorption and employment of the self at work. In partial support of this idea, employees’ who report a higher level of trait-like self-control capacity also report higher levels of (trait-like) work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, absorption; Barber, Grawitch, & Munz, 2013). Diestel, Rivkin, and Schmidt (2015), however, did not find such a direct relationship between self-control capacity and work engagement. Interestingly, these authors showed that a factor that could buffer the effects of a demanding situation could only unfold its protective function for individuals with high levels of trait-like self-control capacity. More specifically, their daily diary study revealed that emotionally demanding work was associated with lower work engagement, and this association was buffered by high sleep quality the previous day. However, the buffering effect of sleep quality emerged only for individuals who had high self-control capacity. For employees with a low self-control capacity, work engagement was low on days when they needed to display emotions that they did not actually feel, regardless of the previous nights’ sleep quality. This finding suggests that self-control capacity alone does not suffice to stay engaged under adverse circumstances; one needs also the physiological prerequisites – as acquired during a good night’s sleep. Other research on self-control capacity focused on its dynamic rather than trait-like component. Self-control capacity is assumed to fluctuate as a function of previous self-control exertion as well as reversing replenishing processes. A diary study on the effects of work-related smartphone use at night suggests that smartphone use impairs sleep. As a consequence, employees experienced a diminished state of self-control (i.e., depletion) in the morning, which was in turn associated with a lower level of work engagement throughout the day (Lanaj, Johnson, & Barnes, 2014). Two other studies did not directly link self-control capacity to work engagement, but looked at self-control demands at work that might

330  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

undermine an employee’s self-control capacity. Using day-level designs, Rivkin and his colleagues found that when employees experienced high self-control demands at noon (e.g., the requirement to control one’s impulses) they reported lower work engagement in the afternoon, particularly when employees had low affective commitment (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2015) and when not experiencing flow at work (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, in press). Finally, identity processes obtained some initial attention within engagement research. Generally, identity refers to a “self-referential description that provides contextually appropriate answers to the question ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who are we?’” (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008, p. 327; see also the van Knippenberg and Hogg chapter in this volume). Within organizations, people can derive their identities from group memberships (social identity, Haslam & Ellemers, 2005), from their “unique sense of self” (personal identity; Postmes & Jetten, 2006) or from particular roles they fulfill within the organization (Stryker & Burke, 2000). Research that has linked social-identity processes to work engagement are based on the following premise: Social identification with the organization implies that the employee experiences a strong connection with the organization. This connection in turn fosters orientations and behaviors that are consistent with organizational goals (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). One way of behaving in accordance with the organization’s goal is to demonstrate high work engagement, that is, employing the self at work, and being dedicated and absorbed. Thus, when identification with the organization is high, employees should experience excitement and vigor while working. Findings based on cross-sectional research provide initial support to this idea (He, Zhu, & Zheng, 2014; Karanika-Murray, Duncan, Pontes, & Griffiths, 2015). Moreover, in workgroups in which leaders support social identity, work engagement is higher than in workgroups in which leaders do not show this behavior (Steffens, Haslam, Kerschreiter, Schuh, & van Dick, 2014). However, the power of social identity may not be equally strong for people with a low versus high organizational tenure. In an experimental study that simulated organizational-socialization processes, Cable, Gino, and Staats (2013) reported that not organizational identification, but personal identity enhanced engagement. Having a strong sense of one’s self seems to boost work engagement.

Discussion and Future Directions Taken together, our review suggests that research on engagement is flourishing, but that conceptual clarification would help to make future research even more fruitful. Two approaches to engagement have received the most research attention: Kahn’s (1990) concept of engagement as employing and expressing the self at work and Schaufeli and his colleagues’ approach of engagement as a concept of well-being (Schaufeli et al., 2002). These approaches are

The Self and Engagement at Work  331

similar in that they include the experience of energy and absorption, but there are differences too. Kahn’s conceptualization focuses more on the person as an active agent who brings his or her self to work, whereas Schaufeli et al. are particularly interested in the energetic experience of being engaged. This difference is also reflected in the specific items that aim at measuring the various engagement concepts. The JES (Rich et al., 2010), which is based on Kahn’s conceptualization, includes many items that emphasize the acting person as the causal agent of engagement by focusing on the investment of the self (e.g., “I exert . . . ,” “I devote . . . ,” “I try . . . ,” “I strive . . . ,” “I focus . . . ,” “I concentrate . . . .” In contrast, the UWES, which is based on Schaufeli et al.’s conceptualization, includes items that imply a more passive stance in that they capture what happens to the individual when engaged (e.g., “Time flies when I’m working,” “My job inspires me,” and “I get carried away. . .”). Although there is overlap between the two conceptualizations and even though they are related empirically, they can still be clearly differentiated (Byrne et al., 2016). In our view, neither of the two engagement conceptualizations is better than the other because they capture partially distinct aspects of engagement. When emphasizing the self-relevance of engagement, Kahn’s (1990) conceptualization might be preferred; however, when targeting a more general energetic aspect of work-related well-being (Sonnentag, 2015), the conceptualization of Schaufeli and his coworkers might be a good choice (cf. Byrne et al., 2016). Accordingly, future research should acknowledge the fact that there are multiple engagement conceptualizations that overlap only partially. When conducting research about engagement, scholars’ choice about the engagement concept employed should be made explicit and based on careful theory-based considerations. All of the concepts that Kahn (1990) discussed as predictors of work engagement (meaningfulness, psychological availability, psychological safety) received some support in primary studies, although the degree of support was not uniform for all three constructs (Byrne et  al., 2016; May et  al., 2004). Meaningfulness emerged as a robust predictor across several studies, whereas findings for availability were less consistent. Meta-analytical evidence suggests a broader range of potential predictors, including job resources such as autonomy, other job characteristics (e.g., task variety), leadership variables, job demands, and individual-difference variables (Christian et al., 2011; Crawford et al., 2010). These findings are largely in line with the JD-R model that described that resources predict work engagement as an indicator of well-being (Bakker et al., 2014). The two approaches to engagement also differ in the role they assign to the “self” for engagement. Kahn (1990) conceived the self as crucial for the engagement concept. In his view, employing and expressing the self in task behaviors is engagement. In contrast, the conceptualization of Schaufeli and his colleagues (Schaufeli et  al., 2002; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) does not position the self as an integral part of engagement. This group of researchers and other scholars referring to their engagement concept examined self-concepts as predictors of engagement. Empirical

332  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

studies have provided evidence that self-related concepts such as self-efficacy and OBSE indeed predict work engagement (Mauno et al., 2007; Simbula et al., 2011); furthermore, self-control capacity matters (Lanaj et al., 2014), but sometimes only under specific circumstances (Diestel et al., 2015). Overall, there has been noticeable progress in the field of engagement research during the past two decades. Particularly with respect to the role of the self, however, engagement research is still in its infancy. In the remainder of this chapter we will highlight three questions that future research ought to address: (1) What about self-expression? (2) Is engagement exhausting? and (3) Does engagement change the self?

What About Self-Expression? Kahn (1990, p. 700) defined engagement as the “simultaneous employment and expression” of the self at work. In his view, self-expression means to “display real identity, thoughts, and feelings” (p. 700) and implies showing one’s self to the outside world. Accordingly, in his ethnographic study, Kahn described how people expressed themselves at work by, for instance, talking and behaving in a specific way. However, most empirical research conducted in the decades after Kahn’s seminal study has focused on the employment aspect of engagement, and has largely neglected its expression aspect. This rather narrow focus becomes also evident in the engagement measures based on Kahn’s conceptualization. None of the items in the measures developed by May et al. (2004) and by Rich et al. (2010) cover the expression aspect. An item that is closest to self-expression is one emotional-engagement item in the May et al. measure (“I really put my heart into my job”), yet this item lacks an outward aspect of self-expression. The UWES items are also silent with respect to self-expression. Thus, engagement was mainly studied as bringing one’s self to the job in terms of investing and employing it when performing one’s task. The possibility that people explicitly express their selves at work was not seen as part of the engagement concept. A unique study that incorporated self-expression in the engagement literature conceptualized authentic self-expression as a predictor of engagement – but not as an aspect of the engagement construct (Cable et  al., 2013). The negligence of self-expression in the engagement literature may, to some extent, be the result of job demands in contemporary work that actually require that employees suppress the expression of the self. In many of today’s jobs employees have to follow display rules and have to show behavior and emotions that adhere to strict organizational norms, leaving little room for expression of one’s self (Hochschild, 1983). Moreover, cultural differences may play a role here (Kokkoris & Kühnen, 2014). Self-expression has not been completely ignored in the organizational behavior literature. Kahn (1990) argued that self-expression underlies many specific

The Self and Engagement at Work  333

but well-known aspects of job performance. For example, he suggested creativity, voice, or authentic behavior to be instantiations of self-expression (Amabile, 1996; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998; Yagil & Medler-Liraz, 2013). However, these behaviors are typically seen as conceptually distinct from engagement and are not discussed as aspects of engagement. Without doubt it is important not to confound the engagement concept with other concepts (e.g., creativity, authentic behavior). Nevertheless, the self-expression aspect of engagement deserves more attention. Interestingly, research on job crafting could speak to the self-expression aspect of engagement. Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001, p. 179) defined job crafting as “the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work.” These authors argued that people craft their jobs in order to change their work identity, for instance, in order to express a more positive sense of their self and to have this more positive sense of self confirmed by others. To date, empirical research has looked at job crafting mainly as a predictor of work engagement. For example, a daily diary study that focused on the investment and employment aspect of engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) demonstrated a positive association between daily crafting and engagement (Petrou, Demerouti, Peeters, Schaufeli, & Hetland, 2012). Indeed, it makes sense to assume that people can be more engaged at work when they have crafted their jobs such that they fit their preferred ways of working. When re-visiting Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement as employment and expression, it becomes clear that the conceptual link between job crafting and work engagement could go beyond the employment component of engagement. That is, crafting one’s job could be seen as a way of expressing oneself at work and might even be one aspect of being engaged at work. With respect to authenticity, some studies have looked at authenticity as a predictor of work engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) and found moderate associations between the two constructs (Leroy, Anseel, Dimotrova, & Sels, 2013; Reis, Trullen, & Story, 2016; van den Bosch & Taris, 2014). Although these findings demonstrate that work engagement is linked to experiences of authenticity, the self-expression aspect underlying the notion of authenticity – again – is not incorporated in the work engagement construct itself.

Is Engagement Exhausting? Kahn (1990) argued that physical and emotional energy is needed in order to be psychologically available, which in turn should fuel engagement. In addition, he described that psychological presence (i.e., the experiential state accompanying personal engagement) can be exhausting, because it requires vigilance and effort (Kahn, 1992, p. 333), even speculating that in specific working circumstances engagement might lead to burnout.

334  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

Thus, this description portrays engagement as a process that (1) requires energy and that (2) depletes energy. The energy-demanding aspect of engagement is in line with research that has found moderate to strong negative correlations between exhaustion and engagement (Cole et al., 2012; Crawford et al., 2010): employees who feel exhausted are less engaged than employees who are not exhausted. Day-level studies, in addition, reported that when employees feel recovered in the morning and come to work in an energetic state, they experience higher levels of engagement throughout the day (Sonnentag, 2003; Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), whereas when they arrive depleted at their workplace they are less engaged during the day (Lanaj et al., 2014). However, what about the energy-draining aspect of engagement? Crosssectional evidence summarized in meta-analyses provides little information about this possibility and tends to speak against the idea that engagement results in exhaustion. Research by Halbesleben, Harvey, and Bolino (2009), however, suggests that there might be indeed a downside of a high level of engagement. These authors found that highly engaged employees reported an increase in time-based work-family interference over the study period. This study, however, looked at conflicting time demands that could result from increased levels of organizational citizenship behavior, but did not directly address potential exhaustion processes. Other studies sketch a different picture of the association between high engagement and depletion processes. For instance, Bakker, Petrou, and Tsaousis (2012) found that teachers who were engaged at work reported also investing more into their intimate relationship, speaking against the idea that engaged employees are too exhausted to spend effort in other life domains. However, if the depleting effect of engagement can be compensated by recovery processes, then the negative relation of engagement with subsequent depletion will not be detected in cross-sectional studies (such as Bakker et al., 2012). Day-level studies can more appropriately reveal relatively immediate depleting effects of engagement. Nevertheless, daily diary studies suggest that being engaged at work is associated with increased levels of positive activation after work (Culbertson, Mills, & Fullagar, 2012; Rodríguez-Muñoz, Sanz-Vergel, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2012), suggesting that on average work engagement is not depleting at the day level. Similarly, Christian, Eisenkraft, and Kapadia (2015) reported negative associations between work engagement and withdrawal behavior at the day level. Is Kahn’s contention on the exhausting effect of engagement wrong? In our view, this would be a premature conclusion. The studies cited above were based on samples from various jobs (cf., Culbertson et  al., 2012), such that characteristics of the job that may affect the consequences of engagement have so far not been explored. It might be that work engagement is not uniformly related to depleting experiences for everyone or on all days. Characteristics of the workplace or of the person may moderate the energy-depleting effect that was proposed by Kahn. For example, in interactions with customers or clients

The Self and Engagement at Work  335

high engagement may be draining; at the same time, good interaction outcomes may have an energizing aspect, such that the energy-depleting component is balanced by gains. Thus, the quality of interaction with customers might influence immediate outcomes of engagement. Likewise, additional burdens such as workplace stressors may play a role. For instance, a daily-survey study showed that the association between work engagement and subsequent level of feeling recovered broke down on workdays when employees encountered a high level of situational constraints (Sonnentag, Mojza, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2012). Thus, when having to deal with a high level of hindrance stressors, employees’ energy level does not benefit from having been engaged any longer. Mäkikangas et  al. (2014) followed a person-centered approach and assessed vigor (as one component of work engagement) and exhaustion during workdays. They found that although the majority of the sample was consistently either mainly vigorous or mainly exhausted, about 12 percent of their sample experienced both vigor and exhaustion during the same workdays. This finding suggests that for a minority of workers being vigorous at work may have resulted in a higher exhaustion level later on.

Does Engagement Change the Self? Empirical research on engagement has shown that self-related concepts predict an increase in work engagement over time (Simbula et al., 2011; Xanthoupoulou et  al., 2009a). Importantly, studies that modeled reciprocal relationships between self-related concepts and engagement suggest that engagement is also related to a change in self-efficacy and other self-concepts (Simbula et al., 2011; Xanthoupoulou et  al., 2009a). Psychological processes that might underlie this association have not received much research attention thus far. Earlier we had suggested that engagement might be associated with a mastery experience (Bandura, 1997) that fosters future self-efficacy. More specifically, engagement helps in task performance (Salanova, Agut, & Peiró, 2005) that contributes to employees’ confidence that they are able to accomplish their tasks, thereby fueling employees’ self-efficacy. In addition, the engagement experience in itself may trigger self-enhancement processes (Sedikides, 1993; see also the Ferris and Sedikides chapter in this volume). Employing one’s “preferred self” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700) or “full self” (Rich et al., 2010, p. 617) at work means to use the positive aspects of one’s self that otherwise would be neglected when disengaging from work. Being present at work with positive aspects of one’s self and expressing these positive aspects confirms a positive self-view that in turn will be reflected in an increased selfesteem. Given these possibilities, future research might want to move some of the research efforts from looking at self-based predictors of work engagement to self-based outcomes of engagement. In our view, a closer look at how engagement might impact self-efficacy and self-esteem would be particularly interesting.

336  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

To conclude, in this chapter we have argued that it is worthwhile to differentiate between various engagement concepts and that this differentiation is particularly important when addressing self-related processes in connection to work engagement. Work engagement seems to be influenced by a person’s self-evaluations, self-control and identity and – most probably – also exerts an influence on these self-relevant concepts. We hope that future studies will build on this idea and will contribute to this intersection between two fruitful research areas addressing the self at work and work engagement.

References Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ashforth, B. E., Harrison, S. H., & Corley, K. G. (2008). Identification in organizations: An examination of four fundamental questions. Journal of Management, 34, 325–374. doi: 10.1177/0149206308316059. Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39. doi: 10.5465/AMR.1989.4278999. Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Sanz-Vergel, A. I. (2014). Burnout and work engagement: The JD-R approach. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 389–411. doi: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091235 Bakker, A. B., Petrou, P., & Tsaousis, I. (2012). Inequity in work and intimate relationships: a spillover-crossover model. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 25, 491–506. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2011.619259. Bakker, A. B., Schaufeli, W. B., Leiter, M. P., & Taris, T. W. (2008). Work engagement: An emerging concept in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 22, 187–200. doi: 10.1080/02678370802393649. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Freeman. Barber, L. K., Grawitch, M. J., & Munz, D. C. (2013). Are better sleepers more engaged workers? A self-regulatory approach to sleep hygiene and work engagement. Stress and Health, 29, 307–316. doi: 10.1002/smi.2468. Baumeister, R. F., & Heatherton, T. F. (1996). Self-regulation failure: An overview. Psychological Inquiry, 7, 1–15. doi: 10.1207/s15327965pli0701_1. Byrne, Z. S., Peters, J. M., & Weston, J. W. (2016). The struggle with employee engagement: Measures and construct clarification using five samples. Journal of Applied Psychology. doi: 10.1037/apl0000124. Cable, D. M., Gino, F., & Staats, B. R. (2013). Breaking them in or eliciting their best? Reframing socialization around newcomers’ authentic self-expression. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58, 1–36. doi: 10.1177/0001839213477098. Christian, M. S., Eisenkraft, N., & Kapadia, C. (2015). Dynamic associations among somatic complaints, human energy, and discretionary behaviors: Experiences with pain fluctuations at work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 60, 66–102. doi: 10.1177/0001839214553655. Christian, M. S., Garza, A. S., & Slaughter, J. E. (2011). Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel Psychology, 64, 89–136. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01203.x. Cole, M. S., Walter, F., Bedeian, A. G., & O’Boyle, E. H. (2012). Job burnout and employee engagement: A meta-analytic examination of construct proliferation. Journal of Management, 38, 1550–1581. doi: 10.1177/0149206311415252.

The Self and Engagement at Work  337

Crawford, E. R., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2010). Linking job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout: A theoretical extension and meta-analytic test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 834–848. doi: 10.1037/a0019364. Culbertson, S. S., Mills, M. J., & Fullagar, C. J. (2012). Work engagement and workfamily facilitation: Making homes happier through positive affective spillover. Human Relations, 65, 1155–1177. doi: 10.1177/0018726712440295. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum. Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). Job demandsresources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 499–512. doi: 10.1037//0. Diestel, S., Rivkin, W., & Schmidt, K.-H. (2015). Sleep quality and self-control capacity as protective resources in the daily emotional labor process: Results from two diary studies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 809–827. doi: 10.1037/a0038373. Halbesleben, J. R. B., Harvey, J., & Bolino, M. C. (2009). Too engaged? A conservation of resources view of the relationship between work engagement and work interference with family. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1452–1465. doi: 10.1037/ a0017595. Haslam, S. A., & Ellemers, N. (2005). Social identity in industrial and organizational psychology: Concepts, controversies and contributions. International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 20, 39–118. He, H., Zhu, W., & Zheng, X. (2014). Procedural justice and employee engagement: Roles of organizational identification and moral identity centrality. Journal of Business Ethics, 122, 681–695. doi: 10.1007/s10551-013-1774-3. Hobfoll, S. E., Johnson, R. J., Ennis, N., & Jackson, A. P. (2003). Resource loss, resource gain, and emotional outcomes among inner city women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 632–643. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.3.632. Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., Durham, C. C., & Kluger, A. N. (1998). Dispositional effects on job and life satisfaction: The role of core evaluations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 17–34. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.83.1.17. Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33, 692–724. doi: 10.2307/256287. Kahn, W. A. (1992). To be fully there: Psychological presence at work. Human Relations, 45, 321–349. doi: 10.1177/001872679204500402. Kahn, W. A., & Fellows, S. (2013). Employee engagement and meaningful work. In B. J. Dik, Z. S. Byrne, & F. Steger (Eds.), Purpose and meaning in the workplace (pp. 105–126). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Karanika-Murray, M., Duncan, N., Pontes, H. M., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Organizational identification, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 30, 1019–1033. doi: 10.1108/jmp-11-2013-0359. Kokkoris, M. D., & Kühnen, U. (2014). “Express the real you”: Cultural differences in the perception of self-expression as authenticity. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 1221–1228. doi: 10.1177/0022022114542467. Lanaj, K., Johnson, R. E., & Barnes, C. M. (2014). Beginning the workday yet already depleted? Consequences of late-night smartphone use and sleep. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 124, 11–23. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.01.001. Leroy, H., Anseel, F., Dimitrova, N. G., & Sels, L. (2013). Mindfulness, authentic functioning, and work engagement: A growth modeling approach. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 82, 238–247. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.01.012.

338  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

Mäkikangas, A., Kinnunen, S., Rantanen, J., Mauno, S., Tolvanen, A., & Bakker, A. B. (2014). Association between vigor and exhaustion during the workweek: A personcentered approach to daily assessments. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 27, 555–575. doi: 10.1080/10615806.2013.860968. Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (1999). Burnout and engagement in the workplace: A contextual analysis. Advances in Motivation and Achievement, 11, 275–302. Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2008). Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 498–512. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.93.3.498. Mauno, S., Kinnunen, U., & Ruokolainen, M. (2007). Job demands and resources as antecedents of work engagement: A longitudinal study. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 70, 149–171. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2006.09.002. May, D. R., Gilson, R. L., & Harter, L. (2004). The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77, 11–37. doi: 10.1348/096317904322915892. Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126, 247–259. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.247. Petrou, P., Demerouti, E., Peeters, M., Schaufeli, W. B., & Hetland, J. (2012). Crafting a job on a daily basis: Contextual correlates and the link to work engagement. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 1120–1141. doi: 10.1002/job.1783. Pierce, J. L., & Gardner, D. G. (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context: A review of the organization-based self-esteem literature. Journal of Management, 30, 591–622. doi: 10.1016/j.jm.2003.10.001. Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., & Crowley, C. (2016). Organization-based self-esteem and well-being: Empirical examination of a spillover effect. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 25, 181–199. doi: 10.1080/1359432X.2015.1028377. Postmes, T., & Jetten, J. (2006). Reconciling individuality and the group. In T. Postmes & J. Jetten (Eds.), Individuality and the group: Advances in social identity (pp. 258–269). London: Sage. Reis, G., Trullen, J., & Story, J. (2016). Perceived organizational culture and engagement: The mediating role of authenticity. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31, 1091–1105. doi: 10.1108/jmp-05-2015-0178. Rich, B. L., LePine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 617–635. doi: 10.5465/AMJ.2010.51468988. Rivkin, W., Diestel, S., & Schmidt, K.-H. (2015). Affective commitment as a moderator of the adverse relationships between day-specific self-control demands and psychological well-being. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 185–194. doi: 10.1016/j. jvb.2015.03.005. Rivkin, W., Diestel, S., & Schmidt, K.-H. (in press). Which daily experiences can foster well-being at work? A diary study on the interplay between flow experiences, affective commitment, and self-control demands. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. doi: 10.1037/ocp0000039. Rodríguez-Munoz, A., Sanz-Vergel, A. I., Demerouti, E., & Bakker, A. B. (2014). Engaged at work and happy at home. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 271–283. doi: 10.1007/s10902-013-9421-3.

The Self and Engagement at Work  339

Rothbard, N. P. (2001). Enriching or depleting? The dynamics of engagement in work and family roles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 655–684. doi: 10.2307/3094827. Rothbard, N. P., & Patil, S. V. (2011). Being there. Work engagement and positive organizational scholarship. In K. Cameron & G. M. Spreitzer (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp. 56–69). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Salanova, M., Agut, S., & Peiró, J. M. (2005). Linking organizational resources and work engagement to employee performance and customer loyalty: The mediation of service climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1217–1227. doi: 10.1037/00219010.90.6.1217. Salanova, M., Llorens, S., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2011). Yes, I can, I feel good & I just do it! On gain cycles and spirals of efficacy beliefs, affect, and engagement. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 60, 255–285. doi: 10.1111/j.1464-0597.2010.00435.x. Salanova, M., Schaufeli, W. B., Xanthopoulou, D., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The gain spiral of resources and work engagement: Sustaining a positive worklife. In A. B. Bakker & M. P. Leiter (Eds.), Work engagement: Recent developments in theory and research (pp. 118–131). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25, 293–315. doi: 10.1002/job.248. Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). Defining and measuring work engagement: Bringing clarity to the concept. In A. B. Bakker & M. P. Leiter (Eds.), Work engagement: Recent developments in theory and research (pp. 10–24). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3, 71–92. doi: 10.1023/A:1015630930326. Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verfication determinants of the selfevaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317–338. Simbula, S., Guglielmi, D., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2011). A three-wave study of job resources, self-efficacy, and work engagement among Italian schoolteachers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 20, 285–304. doi: 10.1080/13594320903513916. Sonnentag, S. (2003). Recovery, work engagement, and proactive behavior: A new look at the interface between non-work and work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 518–528. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.518. Sonnentag, S. (2015). Dynamics of well-being. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2, 261–293. doi: 10.1146/annurevorgpsych-032414-111347. Sonnentag, S., Mojza, E. J., Demerouti, E., & Bakker, A. B. (2012). Reciprocal relations between recovery and work engagement: The moderating role of job stressors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 842–853. doi: 10.1037/a0028292. Steffens, N. K., Haslam, S. A., Kerschreiter, R., Schuh, S. C., & van Dick, R. (2014). Leaders enhance group members’ work engagement and reduce their burnout by crafting social identity. Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 28, 173–194. Stryker, S., & Burke, P. J. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63, 284–297. doi: 10.2307/2695840. ten Brummelhuis, L. L., & Bakker, A. B. (2012). Staying engaged during the week: The effect of off-job activities on next day work engagement. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17, 445–455. doi: 10.1037/a0029213.

340  Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

van den Bosch, R., & Taris, T. W. (2014). Authenticity at work: Development and validation of an individual authenticity measure at work. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 1–18. doi: 10.1007/s10902-013-9413-3. Van Dyne, L., & LePine, J. A. (1998). Helping and voice extra-role behaviors: Evidence of construct and predictive validity. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 108–119. doi: 10.2307/256902. Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26, 179–201. doi: 10.5465/AMR.2001.4378011. Wu, C.-H., Liu, J., Kwan, H. K., & Lee, C. (2016). Why and when workplace ostracism inhibits organizational citizenship behaviors: An organizational identification perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 362–378. doi: 10.1037/apl0000063. Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2007). The role of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources Model. International Journal of Stress Management, 14, 121–141. doi: 10.1037/1072-5245.14.2.121. Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2009a). Reciprocal relationships between job resources, personal resources, and work engagement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74, 235-244. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.003. Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2009b). Work engagement and financial returns: A diary study on the role of job and personal resources. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 183–200. doi: 10.1348/096317908X285633. Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Heuven, E., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2008). Working in the sky: A diary study on work engagement among flight attendants. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 13, 345–356. doi: 10.1037/10768998.13.4.345. Yagil, D., & Medler-Liraz, H. (2013). Moments of truth: Examining transient authenticity and identity in service encounters. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 473–497. doi: 0.5465/ainj.2011.0252.

15 DUAL PROCESS MODELS OF SELF-SCHEMAS AND IDENTITY Implication for Leadership and Followership Processes Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

Leadership has long been recognized as being a socially constructed process (DeRue & Ashford, 2010; Howell & Shamir, 2005; Meindl, 1995; Riggio, Chaleff, & Lipman-Blumen, 2008; Uhl-Bien, 2006) with leaders and followers being co-producers of leadership phenomena. Thus, the social context is a fundamental component of leadership processes. The same emphasis on social context undergirds identity research, with social processes not only validating active identities (Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016), but also being part of their origin (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume). Reflecting this fundamental similarity, identity has been shown to be closely related to leadership in terms of the underlying motivational (Lord, Brown, & Freiberg, 1999; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993), cognitive (Hogg, 2001; MacDonald, Sulsky, & Brown, 2008), social influence (van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004), skill (Lord & Hall, 2005), and behavioral (Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012) bases of leadership processes. Further, these leadership/identity processes may integrate follower and leader identities, or alternate between these two constructs (Sy, Reiter-Palmon, Horton, Royston, Leung, & Scheller, 2017). This chapter extends this perspective by integrating recent theory on consciousness and brain processes (Dehaene, 2014; Lord, Gatti, & Chui, 2016) with the psychological and sociological traditions that undergird identity research. We use this perspective to resolve contrasting views regarding how identity-relevant information is processed as well as to provide a framework that can integrate many of the chapters in this book. In the following sections, we first provide a background that underpins our framework for understanding cognitive processing and identity activation. We then focus on the individual versus social distinction in combination with our dual processing perspective, using leadership as an illustrative example. As we

342  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

do this, we will incorporate some of the self-related theories and self-processes discussed in other chapters of this book into this overarching framework. In the final section of this chapter, we discuss leadership and identity from a broader perspective that integrates these various perspectives and incorporates time as a critical element.

Dual Process Models and Identity Both the generation of behavior and the construction of social processes have long been viewed in terms of dual process models (Chaiken, 1980; Fiske & Taylor, 2013; Smith & DeCoster, 2000), and this approach has recently been developed in terms of identity (Lord et al., 2016). Dual processing models maintain that there are alternative ways to process information that emphasize a fast, automatic, resource independent, but inflexible system; or a slower, conscious, attention dependent, but flexible system. In addition to motivational and cognitive support, there is considerable support for such models in neuroscience (Dehaene, 2014; Lieberman, 2007; Sigman & Dehanae, 2008). Drawing on two decades of research on both local and brain-scale processing (Baars, 1997; Dehaene & Naccache, 2001), Dehaene (2014) proposed that processing in local brain structures can be very fast (because neural impulses do not have to travel very far), but they tend to be isolated from processing that occurs in other brain structures. Schema-guided processes such as social categorization or generating behavior based on well-learned schemas or scripts are typical of such processing. For example, managers may use implicit leadership theories (ILTs) (Epitropaki, Sy, Martin, Tram-Quon, & Topakas, 2013) as a model for generating leadership behaviors. In contrast, more global brain structures provide flexible, conscious integration of information from many areas of the brain, but these structures operate more slowly, in part, because they depend on neural impulses that need to travel throughout the brain, which involves much greater distances. Thus, Dehaene’s work places dual processing theory in a neuropsychology context. We show how similar thinking can be applied to identity theories in the following section.

Self-Schemas and Identities Lord et al. (2016) used Dehaene’s (2014) information processing theory to clarify the meaning of mental structures associated with the self. They proposed that self-schemas were domain specific, local, modular structures consisting of beliefs regarding one’s behavior or qualities in a particular domain such as leadership. Leader or follower self-schemas provide good examples of such structures, although they are generally not activated in the same contexts (shared leadership contexts perhaps being an exception; Sy et al., 2017). Self-schemas can guide

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  343

information processing when activated by contextual primes, but they operate as a coherent module (e.g., a categorical structure). Flexibility occurs primarily in the activation of schemas (leader or follower schemas may be activated by context), rather than in their use. In contrast, Lord et al. (2016) used the term self-identity to reflect a global, brain-scale self-construal, that is, a self-relevant meaning that was grounded in situational and social context. Self-identity in their terms is a flexible, contextspecific, brain-scale integration of active self-schemas with many other types of information. It is a situated identity (Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016) that is dependent on “identity work,” a conscious, on-the-spot integration of information. With self-identities, flexibility accrues from the way information is integrated as a self-construal is created. For example, in some contexts shared leadership may be appropriate and leader/follower schemas may both be consciously accessible, and they may be integrated into a combined, situated identity. Epitropaki, Kark, Mainemelis, and Lord (2017) have applied similar definitions of self-schemas and identities with respect to leadership identities. As shown in Table 15.1, self-schemas are part of a parallel architecture for automatic processing (left column), whereas situated self-identities reflect the conscious, serial systems for brain-scale processing (right column). Parallel processing can occur in multiple, local modular structures because there is little interference among different modules, but brain-scale processes are serial in part to avoid interference. Brain-scale processing also translates directly into emergent goals and behaviors, which are also serial in nature. In short, recent scholarship that explains the formation of human consciousness allows not only the understanding of how a conscious mind operates, it opens new perspectives for advancing self-theories and their linkage to selective attention, motivation, and behavioral processes. TABLE 15.1  Typical Features of Local and Brain-Scale Processing

Local Modular Activation

Global, Brain-Scale Activation

- Accesses self-relevant knowledge structures - Domain specific, localized self-schemas, e.g., self as intelligent, motivated - Is usually slow learning - Associative processing - Processing is parallel with multiple modules operating at the same time - Self-relevant motives can be activated - Memory access: very fast (automatic) 300 milliseconds

344  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

Consciousness and Global Brain-Scale Processing Information processing and sharing processes in the brain play a crucial role in explaining consciousness which can be closely related to identity activation and construction. Human consciousness, according to Dehaene (2014), is a brain-scale phenomenon of ‘global information sharing’ amongst different local processors of the brain. This can be initiated when attentional and perceptual stimuli are consciously picked up from the environment and then sufficiently activated through resonance with memory structures. This activation can be connected to other local processors, which control memory, evaluation, and motor systems, allowing a self-sustaining pattern to be maintained and elaborated in this conscious workspace. A conscious thought is described as “an avalanche” of information processing, resulting “from a wave of neuronal activity that tips the cortex over its ignition threshold” (Dehaene, 2014: 140). As local information gets encoded symbolically and represented in the global neuronal workplace (GNW), a brain-wide integration of information creates meaning which is contextualized and specific. This contextualized meaning is then broadcast back to the local knowledge structures creating a dynamic, cascading information flow. When the contextualized meaning is self-relevant, the information convergence at the GNW level allows the creation of a new, contextualized identity. Applied to identity processes, this theory affords an understanding of how self-identity is contextualized and dynamically created by inwardly focused social construal processes. If consciousness is the “mind’s virtual-reality simulator” as described by Dehaene (2014), then the self-identity, when subjected to dynamic constraints from internal and external stimuli, is a virtual creation that is represented in this conscious, symbolic system. Internally, self-identities are grounded in active self-schemas, and externally they reflect organizational roles and social feedback. This identity system is also connected to actions through its influence on goal activation and pursuit (Lord & Brown, 2004; Lord, Diefendorff, Schmidt, & Hall, 2010; Shah, 2003). Thus, self-identities allow one to contextualize goals and actions in a way that also reflects internal values and meanings, which carry through to evaluating action outcomes both internally and through social reactions. However, when external control of actions predominates, the needsatisfying aspects of self-relevant actions and accomplishments can be undermined (Diefendorff, Houlfort, Vallerand, & Krantz, 2018, this volume). When the external context or one’s active internal self-schemas pertain to leadership or followership, this dynamic self-system also helps us understand leadership and followership processes as being the connection of two self-systems and the selfregulation strategies they support (e.g., Johnson et al., 2017). That is, leadership (followership) self-construals in this dynamic virtual system create the basis for both generating and evaluating social behavior by connecting an actor to task, other individual, or larger groups.

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  345

Self-Schemas, Identities, Psychological, and Sociological Aspects of Processes Although “identity” is a common topic in organizational studies, it can have a psychological or sociological basis. Grounded in William James’s (1890) perspective that an individual introspective process dominates personal consciousness, the psychological tradition emphasizes individual characteristics as a basis for self-schemas or identities. It is reflected in ideas like chronic and peripheral self-schemas (Markus & Wurf, 1987) or individual level identities that differentiate the self from others (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). In contrast, Mead’s (1934) assertion that self-knowledge is derived from interactions with others is a cornerstone of the sociological tradition. Social identity theories at relational or collective levels (Brewer & Gardner, 1996) reflect the contemporary application of this perspective, as does research on organizational identification (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume). Recent notions of self-identity (Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016; Lord et al., 2016) combine both of these perspectives, recognizing that social validation is needed to solidify a self-construal. Similar ideas apply in the leadership domain, in that leadership claims may arise from the match of self-schemas to roles and situational demands, reflecting one form of person-environment fit (Diefendorff et al., 2018, this volume), but leadership claims must also be supported by social processes whereby others grant leadership status to an actor based on his or her behavior (DeRue & Ashford, 2010). Leadership processes can also emphasize individual level processes such as a leader’s traits and behaviors (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002), relational processes grounded in roles (Graen & UhlBien, 1995), or group and organizational processes (van Knippenberg et al., 2004; van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume). What connects psychological and sociological theories regarding selfprocesses is the convergence of “individual” and “social” information within a conscious mind. In the virtual simulations that constitute internal reality, both individual attributes and social reactions are represented, and it is their interaction that creates a situation-specific meaning or self-construal. Because it is virtual and symbolic, this representation can also time travel, revisiting past self-relevant events or projecting into the future as one constructs coherent organizational narratives (Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010), as one elaborates future work selves (Strauss, Griffin, & Parker, 2012), or as one invents the future (Lord & Braun, 2017). This capacity to abstractly represent the self also allows one to interpret feedback in terms of self-improvement rather than self-enhancement motives, particularly when one is future focused (Anseel, Strauss, & Lievens, 2018, this volume). Thus, it is a merging of internal and external factors in a virtual symbolic system that allows one to contextualize and create meaning for one’s identity, and it also allows one to connect to that context through task or social goals and feedback.

346  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

Nevertheless, for the sake of exposition, we separate both automatic and conscious processes and internal psychological and external sociological processes as we consider the four quadrants of Table 15.2. In this table, we organize both perspectives on the self or identity and an internal or social orientation as we cover both identity and leadership research. We will address the issue of integration across these quadrants in a later section.

Individual Self-Schemas Psychological processes. The top left quadrant of Table 15.2 depicts selfschemas that pertain to internal aspects or characteristics. We maintain that such schemas tend to be activated automatically by relevant contexts as they interact with associated memory structures. Processing in such a system is fast, operating below the range of conscious cognitions (in less than 50 milliseconds). This kind of automatic self-schema activation is domain specific, and it may arouse a variety of self-relevant motives such as self-consistency or self-verification. Schemas depicting the self as being “intelligent” or a “leader” might be TABLE 15.2  Perspectives on Identity Activation of Individual and Social Selves

Self-Schemas (Domain-Specific Individual Activation)

Self-Identities (Individual & Global Construal)

- Domain specific, localized selfschemas, e.g., self as intelligent, motivated - Memory access: Very fast & automatic activation 300 milliseconds - Connected to complex self-motives, e.g., self-enhancement

Social Schemas (Domain-Specific Social Activation)

Social Identities (Global Construal)

- Web of connections between self and others (connectionist architecture) - Memory access: Fast activation – 200–500 milliseconds - Self and others always joined (Balcetis & Dunning, 2005) - Inclusion of other-self expansion model (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) - Connected to social motives, e.g., need to belong & relatedness

- Social categorization or self-construal (integrates social and task context, roles) - Activation time: Slower & conscious > 500 milliseconds - Inclusive or exclusive social processes (Tyler & Lind, 1992) - Claims (personal) and grants (social) (DeRue & Ashford, 2010; Johnson & Lord, 2010) - Social Identity Theory (Hogg, 2001) - Connected to complex social motives, e.g., collective efficacy

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  347

typical of such self-schemas. Similarly, ought or ideal selves may automatically arouse different types of self-regulatory processes (Higgins, 1997; Kark & van Dijk, 2007). As noted by Sonnentag and Fay (2018, this volume) work roles that activate self-schemas tend to be engaging, and when work roles disengage from the self, processes such as burnout tend to occur. Whether outcomes are socially just can also affect the type of identity that is activated (Johnson & Lord, 2010). Leadership processes. Although it is atypical to think of leadership in a non-social context, the process whereby self-schemas activate and organize skills associated with leadership (Lord & Hall, 2005) provides one example. Selfschemas also provide a context for goal emergence and thereby elicit related motivational and cognitive processes. Because this happens automatically, as in the connection of traits (Judge et al., 2002) or identities (Johnson et al. 2012) to behaviors, it is likely that leaders have little reflective insight into such processes. Recent attention to narcissistic or authentic tendencies also reflects leadership research in this quadrant. Schyns (2015) reviewed the dark behaviors of narcissistic leaders whose characteristics were dominated by self-relevant focus and impetuousness. Narcissistic CEOs were found to receive better compensation than non-narcissistic CEOs of the same rank. Other associated narcissistic leader behaviors include bad decision making due to impulsivity and inflated self-ratings, showing tendencies connected to individual self-schemas. Reflecting another contemporary line of research in this quadrant, authentic leadership related to leading with integrity was found to be predicted by leader self-knowledge and self-consistency (Peus, Wesche, Streicher, Braun, & Frey, 2012) which reflects the importance of dominant self-schemas in leading and directing with authenticity. In short, leadership processes, whether destructive or constructive, can be strongly linked to leaders’ activation of dominant selfschemas which steer day-to-day task and responsibility enactment. Evaluating others using self-relevant schemas, which is ubiquitous, provides another example of the automatic effects of self-schemas on leadership processes. Although there is an extensive literature relating leadership perceptions to automatic use of categorical structures (Epitropaki et al., 2013; Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Lord, Foti, & De Vader, 1984; Lord & Maher, 1991), how this process dovetails with self-schema activation has not been extensively investigated. One exception shows that the accessibility of leadership self-schemas, as operationalized through priming procedures, also can affect raters’ definition of what types of behaviors are prototypical of leaders. Specifically, interdependent primes made transformational leadership more prototypical, and priming independent identities affected the prototypicality of transactional leadership behaviors (MacDonald et al., 2008). The use of group prototypes to evaluate leadership (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume) may bear closely on the automatic use of self-schema because leaders tend to emerge by conforming to such prototypes, reflecting “the extent to which the leader is not only ‘one of us’ but also represents what is

348  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

‘core to us’” (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume). Van Knippenberg and Hogg also suggest that the self-categorization process has an uncertaintyreducing function both for perceivers and actors. Similar to the use of ethnic (Sy, 2010), racial (Rosette, Leonardelli, & Phillips, 2008), or gender-related categories to adjust leadership to social contexts, prototypes may also involve self-schemas and may reduce uncertainty. Interestingly, Scott and Brown (2006) have shown that the use of gender-related schemas in describing others also affects self-descriptions.

Individual Self-Identities Psychological processes. The second psychological perspective on identity is constructed by brain-scale, conscious processes and is represented in the upper right quadrant of Table 15.2. Lord et al. (2016) maintain that such processes integrate information from multiple domains, including one’s external context, to create a context sensitive self-construal. This integrative process is slower (typically over 300 milliseconds), reflecting a convergent interpretation that can combine past history, multiple skill sets, and experiences. Processes like constructing identity narratives, developing self-relevant stories, or elaborating future selves reflect this type of integrative processing. Interestingly, the brain seems to have extensive, dedicated brain structures called default networks (Addis & Schacter, 2012; Gusnard, 2005) for this type of self-relevant, integrative processing. These networks are active at rest, but suppressed when engaged in conscious activities, hence the name default networks or default mode processing. Leadership processes. When contextual cues such as power structures, organizational culture, professional expertise, or resource constraints are carefully processed for achieving personal goals, interpretive, identity-relevant factors can shape leadership or followership behaviors. For example, leadership that addresses paradoxical demands such as integrating business case logic and environmental sustainability frames (Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, & Frigge, 2014) may require conscious integration to construct an identity encompassing these very different perspectives. Similarly, the high self-awareness related to self-regulation while pursuing goals may require conscious identity construction (Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, & Lin, 2018, this volume). When identities align with goal pursuit, ego depletion may be avoided. However, if self-regulation or an integrative identity was very well learned, it may be that self-schemas automatically guide leadership, which would be better classified in the upper left rather than the upper right quadrant in Table 15.2. Making sense of diverse personal experiences in constructing a personal narrative is another example of individually focused integration related to leadership. It may also produce a more complex leader self-identity.

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  349

Social Aspects of Self-Schema Social processes. The lower left quadrant in Table 15.2 describes the automatic activation of the social and relational self-schema. Such automatic social activation is likely produced by connectionist architectures (with a memory access of 200-500 milliseconds upon stimulation), in which social stimuli cue or prime various self-schema in others. Both cognitive scholars (Dehaene, 2014) and social psychologists (Brewer, 1991; Baldwin, 1992) maintain that “social knowledge” (Dehaene, 2014, p. 113) naturally involves the internalization of relationships with others or significant others. Supporting such reasoning, many studies show that primes from significant others affect self-regulatory processes (Andersen & Chen, 2002; Baldwin, 1992; Shah, 2003). Further, as noted earlier, social feedback, which may often be automatic, maintains active self-schema (Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016). Leadership processes. The notion that leadership involves both leaders and followers places many leadership processes in this quadrant. For example, Johnson, King, et al. (2017) show in a series of five studies that a subordinate’s regulatory focus is influenced by the promotion or prevention orientation (and leadership behaviors) of their supervisor. On a broader level, Lord and Brown (2004) extensively discuss the effect of social stimuli like leaders on the activation of individual, relational, or collective self-schema of followers. Priming self-schema can occur through processes as subtle as pronoun use (“I” versus “we”) or as blatant as social justice processes (Johnson & Lord, 2010). Relational dynamics that characterize leadership processes often involve automatic, schema-guided processes. For example, the match of one’s leader to subordinate leadership prototypes can affect leader–member exchanges and employee outcomes (Epitropaki & Martin, 2005). Chang and Johnson (2010) show that relational identities can moderate such LMX processes. Further, as already noted, the prototypical basis of leadership perceptions often reflects group level identities (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume). All of these lines of research show the impact of social processes on leadership and leadership prototypes.

Social Aspects of Self-Identities Social Processes. The lower right hand quadrant of Table 15.2 depicts conscious processes that incorporate one’s social context. For instance, one’s self-construal includes information on how one would expect others to interpret and react to one’s salient characteristics. This contextualization of one’s identity is a controlled, conscious processing that integrates social, task, and role information. Because it involves the manipulation of symbolic structures and brain-scale communications,

350  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

such processing likely takes 500 milliseconds to several seconds. The self in this perspective considers more complex social motives and is probably involved in more complex social processes such as shared leadership. Other conscious social processes likely include cooperative behaviors and group engagement (Tyler & Blader, 2001, 2003) or justice effects on identity activation (Johnson & Lord, 2010). Self-related emotions such as guilt (Schaumberg, Flynn, & Tracey, 2018, this volume) also reflect a conscious assessment of one’s negative impact on others, and thus serve an important social regulation function. Schaumberg et al. suggest that highly guilt-prone leaders have a strong sense of responsibility and awareness towards the social and emotional needs of others, producing a sturdier sense of duty and obligation in leadership. Taking a process-oriented perspective, social identities that have been activated may not be crystalized until sufficient time allows their full construction. For example, Ashmore, Deaux, and McLaughlin-Volpe (2004) describe an identity construction process that begins with self-categorization in terms of a social group and evolves into a cascade of sensemaking behaviors culminating with the simulation of the global contextual factors. These processes not only involve conscious identity construction, but they are distributed over time. Leadership processes. To the extent that social identity processes are incorporated into conscious self-construals as in social identity theory (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume), leadership processes would be in this quadrant. As leaders motivate “group-oriented” effort and group performance towards a common goal, followers can develop strong identification salience with the group’s collective self (van Knippenberg & Ellemers, 2014). This explains why institutional leaders in social movements and social entrepreneurship (Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009) can mobilize resources and collective actions as they create a vision for addressing social issues and fostering divergent change. Vision pursuit (Stam, Lord, van Knippenberg, & Wisse, 2014) may also depend on the conscious construction of a vision-relevant identity though social processes. Effective leadership communicates visions in ways that promote such self-relevant elaboration. When the general give and take of social processes affect leadership or follower identities, processes related to social dynamics would be in this quadrant. For example, leadership emergence often involves social dynamics such as leadership claims by an individual with an active leadership schema and social grants of leadership when others accept leadership influence (DeRue & Ashford, 2010). Grants are a form of social feedback that sustains active leadership identities. Role-making processes associated with leadership (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) would also be in this quadrant to the extent that they influence a consciously created organizational identity. More long-term effects on the development of leadership (or followership) identities might also be in this quadrant if they involve conscious self-construal processes. For example, McLean, Pasupathi, and Pals (2007) review extensive

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  351

evidence that identity develops through constructing self-relevant stories and telling them to others (thereby obtaining social verification). Leaders also use this strategy to construct social identities, and Shamir and Eilam (2005) maintain that authentic leadership stems from the self-relevant meaning of stories that leaders construct and communicate to others throughout their lifetime.

Integrating Psychological and Social Identity Processes A Dynamic Process Perspective Time and integration. The four perspectives depicted in Table 15.2 form a useful framework for organizing a somewhat fragmented identity literature and applying it to leadership. We argue this is because most research emphasizes only one of the dual processes we have discussed, and is grounded in either the psychological or sociological traditions. Entity perspectives on identity (e.g., identity as stable traits) and the tendency to emphasize cross-sectional research designs also obscures the more dynamic processes that can link these quadrants. In this section, we use a more dynamic, process-oriented perspective to show how integration could be developed. This integration also focuses on how time relates to self-schemas and identity. A process approach suggests that identity processes begin with localized schema activation (the left half of Table 15.2) that can arise from internal or interpersonal sources. Often these schema and associated goals or regulatory structures can directly activate behavior; but when one is self-focused and conscious processes are used to adjust these schema to contexts, one shifts to the processes depicted in the right half of this table. Further, moving to the lower right quadrant, this framework allows the extension to social schemas with the latter emphasizing how other people evaluate one’s self and perhaps shifting control from an internal identity to external factors, including leadership (see Diefendorff et al., 2018, this volume). Feedback processes are often overt and provoke both emotions and conscious processing when relevant to salient identities. Indeed, people often seek social feedback to support active identities and are more receptive to such feedback when abstract future selves are involved because it is associated with self-improvement motivation (Anseel et al., 2018, this volume). A more dynamic, process-oriented approach also emphasizes the role of time in identity related processes. Default networks (Addis & Schacter, 2012; Gusnard, 2005) construct episodic information on contextualized events, one’s actions, and resulting outcomes; and as many theorists stress, people integrate such information over time to make sense of their lives and to construct work identities. This is an important basis for identity development, which may begin in a particular domain with very simple processes – perhaps the match of one’s chronic self-schema to context activates automatic role behavior based on the general information one has in semantic memory (e.g., one may initially behave

352  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

in new situations based on general knowledge of appropriate roles). Yet, incorporating time also allows for the cyclical effects of identity creation, self-control and self-regulation, associated actions, social reactions or task outcomes, and learning. Based on such processes, default networks automatically store information on actions, setting, and outcomes, allowing one to build a basis for action guided by episodic memory as well as the more general semantic memory (Addis & Schacter, 2012). Episodic memory is more vivid, context specific, and detailed than semantic memory, and generally includes a specific knowledge of oneself in a particular event (Addis & Schacter, 2012; Tulving, 2002). Because this episodic selfknowledge is more closely connected to goals, it allows one to link goals to skills and contexts, creating proceduralized skills associated with specific identities. Further, as one builds repertoires of case-based knowledge (see Mumford, Todd, Higgs, & McIntosh, 2017, for a discussion of this type of skill learning), a sense of self-efficacy in a domain develops, along with an associated identity and a motivation to engage in relevant actions (e.g., motivation to lead; Chan & Drasgow, 2001). In this way, skills, identities, and motivations are linked and associated with particular task or social contexts. Specific social processes such as trust may also become linked with episodes (Hansbrough, Lord, Schyns, & Foti, 2017), and acting in a way that promotes social outcomes, such as being trustworthy, may also become part of one’s identity. Such cycles can be repeated over time as self-schema are created for familiar identities, and self-construals in new contexts create new identities. In this way, more complex and socially grounded selves are created and used to guide behaviors. These identities are grounded in social processes such as social validation (Ashforth & Schinoff, 2016), granting and claiming (DeRue & Ashford, 2010), and identity negotiation (Swann, Johnson, & Bosson, 2009); and they may eventually be the source of more new complex self-schemas. Figure 15.1 depicts these processes in terms of a dual processing dynamic self, self-regulation, and social interaction. We expect that over time there are patterns of development from one quadrant to another in this figure that could guide longitudinal research and the development of leadership theory. What we expect is most common is a clockwise progression from upper left to upper right to lower right quadrants. For example, an organizational context or task may prime a leadership self-schema which directly activates prototypical behavior guided by implicit leadership theories – perhaps indicating that leadership is needed. As one considers meeting agendas and likely scenarios, a more contextualized selfidentity is created to guide thought and mental simulations (movement from top left to right), yet when the meeting occurs, a team-oriented identity is activated which prompts different behaviors than one had previously considered because leadership is now guided by a group identity and social reactions to one’s behavior as depicted in the lower right portion of Figure 15.1.

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  353

DYNAMIC SELF

Automac Acvaon of Self Concept

Self Concept: acvated self schemas

Self Concept:

Regulaon via Socially Acvated Selves

FIGURE 15.1 

Self Idenes:

Controlled Self-Identy Construal

integraon of diverse self – relevant informaon

Collecve Idenes:

with significant with salient diverse others in dyads factors for collecve & groups interest

Social Interacon

 our Perspectives on the Self as Integrated Across Time and Internal F Versus Social Context.

Alternatively, movement from lower left to lower right quadrants in Figure 15.1 also seems like a common pattern. To illustrate, other individuals may prime self-identities (seeing a friend may prompt a relational identity), which gives rise to automatic social behavior (lower left quadrant), but social reactions to that behavior may prompt more careful consideration of one’s social identity (lower right). For example, one might automatically greet a friend rather enthusiastically when they are seen at a library, but stares from disturbed patrons may prompt one to consciously consider a self-in-library identity which elicits more subdued behavior. What we have tried to emphasize in this chapter is that the processes in Figure 15.1 may span time frames from a few milliseconds to multiple seconds, when one focuses on actual clock time. But if the focus is on time in the virtual simulator described by Dehaene (2014), then time may stretch from one’s distant past to the futures one anticipates or hopes will occur. Processes in self-relevant default mode networks support the flexible use of episodic memory to simulate such time travel (Addis & Schacter, 2012). To illustrate, the virtual reality in which selfidentities are constructed also allow projection into the future in terms of future work selves (Strauss et al., 2012), identity invention (Lord & Braun, 2017), or in terms of general prospective activities (Addis & Schacter, 2012; Baumeister, Vohs, & Oettingen, 2016). Such projections can be restricted to one’s individual self, but they often involve social contexts, accomplishments, or concerns, and

354  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

thus would incorporate social processes in the lower right quadrant of Table 15.2. An alternation of leadership and followership self-schema and associated behavior in shared leadership situations is one example of such dynamics playing out over time (Sy et al., 2017). Leadership implications. This chapter provides an integrated framework for the individual and social self as they engage in automatic or controlled information processing, which provides a more process-oriented counterpoint to more entity-focused approaches to identity and leadership. As the dynamic self is part of leadership phenomena, it has four important implications for leadership which we describe in this section. First, organizational leaders who are only good at automatic processing using their domain-specific expertise (top left quadrant) but have restricted relational experiences (bottom left quadrant) are limited by their chronic self-schemas, and they may lack sufficient self-complexity to adjust to the many constituencies leaders must successfully manage. Individuals who excel in a technical area and are promoted to leadership positions would fit with this description. Greater cognitive complexity is one solution to such limitations, as Hooijberg’s (1996) work on leadership maintains. However, complexity also may be created on-the-spot using conscious processes as individuals and groups dynamically develop the requisite complexity needed in complex situations (Hannah, Lord, & Pearce, 2011; Lord, Hannah, & Jennings, 2011). This construction process involves a shift from the left to right half of Figure 15.1, and it reflects the capacity of global conscious brain processes to symbolically represent and integrate information, rather than relying on more automatic schema-based processes. It also allows more contextually tuned, personal experience and skills to guide leadership processes. As discussed in this chapter, such requisite complexity is integrated with identity processes that draw on semantic knowledge such as leadership self-schemas, but more importantly, it includes the episodically based knowledge and skills that contextualized, conscious identities help leaders to access. Episodic memory allows leaders to draw on specific past experience as a guide to future actions (Addis & Schacter, 2012) rather than more general leadership knowledge, and these actions are more likely to fit with a specific context because their retrieval is guided by contextually tuned identities. Further, episodic knowledge includes not just recall of specific actions in a particular context, but also outcomes associated with actions in those contexts, so this information can improve a leader’s forecasting and decision making. In short, a left to right shift in Figure 15.1 contextualizes leadership which is likely to be beneficial, but has the cost of more effortful, controlled processing and greater uncertainty. A second leadership implication relates to team-based leadership and team diversity which are becoming a pervasive reality in organizational life (van Knippenberg & Mell, 2016). Leaders who thrive on the relational aspect of the leader–member exchange (prominent in the bottom left quadrant) that

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  355

emphasizes internal integration and relational identification may often find that they have to expand to the team-member exchange (Seers, 1989) (prominent in the bottom right quadrant) that focuses on the social integration of collective identification. Such flexibility allows leader and follower self-systems to align for both dyads and teams, which is another form of person-environment fit discussed by Diefendorff et al. (2018, this volume). Further, group prototypes may form the basis of identities and imply appropriate behaviors, as social identity theory suggests (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2018, this volume), so it is not just identities that need to be flexible, they also need to access different leadership behaviors and skills. Illustrating this trend, the nature of social exchanges in leadership research has gradually shifted to a focus on building trust and a common goal, both of which can become a collective “glue for binding the social fabric together,” reflecting a more team-oriented, shared-leadership approach (Lord et al., 2016). Shared leadership represents a distributed leadership function whose performance can exceed that of hierarchical leadership (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2014), but it can lead to identity conflict as well as social integration (see Sy et al., 2017). The emerging importance of team leadership further implies that situationally embedded leadership processes will characterize the dynamic, interactive nature of leaders and followers, and these processes are associated with the contextualized, social identities shown in the lower right portion of Figure 15.1. A third implication pertains to the mechanisms by which leaders and followers adjust motivational processes and identity content to contexts. Effective leadership requires leaders to flexibly transition among the different aspects of the dynamic self (Figure 15.1) in response to changing task, role, and social demands. More importantly, leaders also motivate followers to do the same. Johnson et al. (2012) suggest that successful leaders nurture teams in a way that hinges not only on developing skill and knowledge but also identities, “which bestow the proper motivation” (p. 1269). An active individual identity propels motivation towards self-development of skills and knowledge. (However, it can also facilitate abusive behaviors.) In contrast, a strong collective identity can promote transformational leadership behaviors and a more collaboratively adaptive orientation (Lord et al., 2016). At times, each of these identity types may be needed by leaders or followers. Therefore, effective leadership may require the ability to manage dynamic shifts among identity types in leaders and followers to align with different situational and task demands. A fourth and final leadership implication pertains to leadership development, which has been suggested to follow a progression from novice to intermediate to expert level leadership performance (Day & Sin, 2011; Lord & Hall, 2005). This progression is closely tied to social identities and the skills they access. Novice leaders, who rely on chronic self-schema and automatic responses (top left quadrant), would experience surface level change in leadership development over time as their learning remained localized and modular in domain

356  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

specific applications. This knowledge may be closely linked with semantic memory and general constructs such as implicit leadership theories. As we have already described, episodic knowledge, tied to situated identities that characterize the right part of Figure 15.1, also builds up over time, and can be the basis for more unique leadership skills and motivations which are context specific. As the leadership development trajectory matures to include more social aspects associated with experts, the integration of value-based principles in decision-making, regulatory control of emotions, and understanding of collective interest rather than self-interest, it can facilitate deep, structure change in leaders (Lord & Hall, 2005). An example can be drawn from the story of the late founder and chairman of the US commercial carpet company, Interface. In 15 years’ time from 1994 to 2009, Ray Anderson steered the company to cut gas emissions by 82 percent, fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent, water use by 75 percent, and increased sales by 66 percent, while also doubling earnings and raising profit margins. He showed how profit and sustainability were not mutually exclusive but could be achieved only after breaking away from the automatic and schema-based orientation of profit-making and resources depletion. Such stories themselves are a basis for further identity development as they are told to others by authentic leaders (Shamir & Eilam, 2005) and as such, story telling receives social support (McLean et al., 2007). These stories also convey the values and principles associated with expert leadership which may underpin leadership identities. In summary, leaders and followers in organizational landscapes adapt and evolve when confronted with political, social, and technological challenges. Underlying this adaptation are dynamic, collective, and complex identity phenomena. Taking a social cognitive perspective on identity and leadership phenomena offers an integrated view of the micro, intrapersonal, and interpersonal forces at work within the selves that create contextualized identities and meanings. When applied aptly to understand leadership situations, this perspective offers insights for integrating leadership theories and a basis for advancing theory.

Conclusion This chapter extends a developing trend to understand leadership in terms of the dynamic relationships between the self-related constructs, including self-schemas and self-identities, and their triggered effects on motivation, self-regulation, decision-making, and performance (Epitropaki et al., 2017). In order to integrate the psychological and sociological paradigms of identity theories, we used Dehaene’s (2014) neuroscience theory on consciousness to offer a unified intrapersonal and social view of the dynamic self for understanding contextualized leadership processes. This view proposes that brain-scale symbolic processes construct a situated meaning that reflects information from many brain areas, including active self-schemas, was well as anticipated social reactions and other contextual constraints. It also allows the resulting structure

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  357

to access episodic knowledge and skills and engage appropriate motivational processes as people attempt to address work demands and still satisfy their own individual needs and values. As we have tried to show, many of the chapters in this book aptly describe various aspects of this process. Yet, this chapter serves only as a starting discussion on how the dynamic self is related to leadership processes in terms of mental functioning and information processing. These leadership situations and processes deserve more specific and topical examination. Moreover, other longer-term aspects such as self or leadership development also deserve to be elaborated with the same framework of Figure 15.1. One promising area for development is to integrate followers’ mental functioning and self-identities into this understanding of the leadership processes (see Sy et al., 2017, for one approach). Another is to look at the leader–follower interactional dynamics in situations such as granting and claiming or the collaborative, adaptive activities of idea-generation in shared leadership. Finally, we have taken a decidedly cognitive approach to identity and leadership, but we should stress that emotions are another important component that result from self-relevance, and they help to ground experiences in episodic memory. Future research needs to better integrate emotions with the perspective we have developed.

References Addis, D. R., & Schacter, D. (2012). The hippocampus and imagining the future: Where do we stand? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 1–14. Andersen, S. M., & Chen, S. (2002). The relational self: An interpersonal social-cognitive theory. Psychological Review, 109, 619–645. Anseel, F., Strauss, K., & Lievens, F. (2018). How future work selves guide feedback seeking and feedback responding at work. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of other in the self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612. Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39. Ashforth, B. E., & Schinoff, B. S. (2016). Identity under construction: How individuals come to define themselves in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 111–137. Ashmore, R. D., Deaux, K., & McLaughlin-Volpe, T. (2004). An organizing framework for collective identity: Articulation and significance of multidimensionality. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 80–114. Baars, B. (1997). In the theatre of consciousness. Global workspace theory, a rigorous scientific theory of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 292–309. Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2005). Judging for two: Some connectionist proposals for how the self informs and constrains social judgement. In M. Alicke, D. Dunning, & J. Krueger (Eds.), Self and social judgment. New York, NY: Psychology Press. Baldwin, M. W. (1992). Relational schema and the processing of social information. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 461–484.

358  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

Battilana, J., Leca, B., & Boxenbaum, E. (2009). How actors change institutions towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Annals, 3, 65–107. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Oettingen, G. (2016). Pragmatic prospection: How and why people think about the future. Review of General Psychology, 20, 3–16. Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 475–482. Brewer, M. B. & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “We”? Levels of collective identity and self-representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83–93. Chaiken, S. (1980). Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 752–766. Chan, K. Y., & Drasgow, F. (2001). Toward a theory of individual differences and leadership: Understanding the motivation to lead. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 481–498. Chang, C-H. D. & Johnson, R. E. (2010). Not all leader-member exchanges are created equal: Importance of leader relational identity. Leadership Quarterly, 21, 796–808. Day, D. V., & Sin, H.-P. (2011). Longitudinal tests of an integrative model of leader development: Charting and understanding developmental trajectories. Leadership Quarterly, 22, 545–560. Dehaene, S. (2014). Consciousness and the brain. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Dehaene, S., & Naccache, L. (2001). Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: Basic evidence and a workspace framework. Cognition, 79, 1–37. DeRue, D. S., & Ashford, S. J. (2010). Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35, 627–647. Diefendorff, J. M., Houlfort, N., Vallerand, R. J., & Krantz, D. (2018). Emphasizing the self in organizational research on self-determination theory. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge Epitropaki, O., Kark, R., Mainemelis, C., & Lord, R. G. (2017). Leadership and followership identity processes: A multilevel review. Leadership Quarterly, 28, 104–129. Epitropaki, O., & Martin, R. (2004). Implicit leadership theories in applied settings: Factor structure, generalizability, and stability over time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 293–310. Epitropaki, O., & Martin, R. (2005). From ideal to real: A longitudinal study of the role of implicit leadership theories on leader-member exchanges and employee outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 659–676. Epitropaki, O., Sy, T., Martin, R., Tram-Quon, S., & Topakas, A. (2013). Implicit leadership and followership theories “in the wild”: Taking stock of informationprocessing approaches to leadership and followership in organizational settings. Leadership Quarterly, 24, 858–881. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (2013). Social cognition: From brains to culture. London: Sage. Graen, G., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying A multi-level multi-domain perspective. Leadership Quarterly, 6, 219–247. Gusnard, D. A. (2005). Being a self: Considerations from functional imaging. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 679–697.

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  359

Hahn, T., Preuss, L., Pinkse, J., & Frigge, F. (2014). Cognitive frames in corporate sustainability: Managerial sensemaking with paradoxical and business case frames. Academy of Management Review, 39, 463–487. Hannah, S. T., Lord, R. G., & Pearce, C. L. (2011). Leadership and collective requisite complexity. Organizational Psychology Review, 1, 215–238. Hansbrough, T. K., Lord, R. G., Schyns, B., & Foti, R. J. (2017). Separating episodic and semantic memory to improve the validity of leadership scales. Manuscript submitted for publication. Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300. Hoch, J. E., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2014). Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(3), 390–403. Hogg, M. A. (2001). A social identity theory of leadership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 184–200. Hooijberg, R. (1996). A multidirectional approach toward leadership: An extension of the concept of behavioural complexity. Human Relations, 49, 917–946. Howell, J. M., & Shamir, B. (2005). The role of followers in the charismatic leadership process: Relationships and their consequences. Academy of Management Review, 30, 96–112. Ibarra, H., & Barbulescu, R. (2010). Identity as narrative: Prevalence, effectiveness and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review, 35, 135–154. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York, NY: Henry Holt. Johnson, R. E., King, D. D., Lin, S-H., Scott, B. A., Jackson Walker, E. M., & Wang, M. (2017). Regulatory focus trickle-down: How leader regulatory focus and behavior shape follower regulatory focus. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 140, 29–45. Johnson. R. E., & Lord, R. G. (2010). Implicit effects of justice on self-identity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 681–695. Johnson, R. E., Muraven, M., Donaldson, T., & Lin, S-H. (2018). Self-control at work. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge. Johnson, R. E., Venus, M., Lanaj, K., Mao, C., & Chang, C-H. (2012). Leader identity as an antecedent of the frequency and consistency of transformational, consideration, and abusive leadership behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 1262–1272. Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 765–780. Kark, R. & van Dijk, D. (2007). Motivation to lead, motivation to follow: The role of the self-regulatory focus in leadership process. Academy of Management Review, 32, 500–528. Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Social cognitive neuroscience: A review of core processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 259–289. Lord, R. G., & Braun, S. (2017). A quantum approach to invention and time travel: How a self-fleet can time-travel to a distant future. Working paper. Lord, R. G., & Brown, D. J. (2004). Leadership processes and follower self-identity. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers. Lord, R. G., Brown, D. J., & Freiberg, S. J. (1999). Understanding the dynamics of leadership: The role of follower self-concepts in the leader/follower relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 78, 167–203. Lord, R. G., Diefendorff, J. M., Schmidt, A. M., & Hall R. J. (2010). Self-regulation at work. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 543–568.

360  Robert G. Lord and Susanna L. M. Chui

Lord, R. G., Foti, R. J., & De Vader, C. (1984). A test of leadership categorization theory: Internal structure, information processing, and leadership perceptions. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 34, 343–378. Lord, R. G., Gatti, P., & Chui, S. L. M. (2016). Social-cognitive, relational, and identitybased approaches to leadership. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 136, 119–134. Lord, R. G., & Hall, R. J. (2005). Identity, deep structure and the development of leadership skills. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 591–615. Lord, R. G., Hannah. S. T., & Jennings, P. L. (2011). A framework for understanding leadership and individual requisite complexity. Organizational Psychology Review, 1, 104–127. Lord, R. G., & Maher, K. J. (1991). Leadership and information processing. London, Routledge. MacDonad, H. A., Sulsky, L. M., & Brown, D. J. (2008). Leadership and perceiver cognition: Examining the role of self-identity in implicit leadership theories. Human Performance, 21, 333–353. Markus, H., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337. McLean, K. C., Pasupathi, M., & Pals, J. L. (2007). Selves creating stories creating selves: A process model of self-development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 262–278. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meindl, J. R. (1995). The romance of leadership as a follower-central theory: A social constructionist approach. Leadership Quarterly, 6, 329–341. Mumford, M. D., Todd, E. M., Higgs, C., & McIntosh, T. (2017). Cognitive skills and leadership performance: The nine critical skills. Leadership Quarterly, 28, 24–39. Peus, C., Wesche, J. S., Streicher, B., Braun, S., & Frey, D. (2012). Authentic leadership: An empirical test of its antecedents, consequences, and mediating mechanisms. Journal of Business Ethics, 107, 331–348. Riggio, R. E., Chaleff, I. & Lipman-Blumen, J. (2008). The art of followership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Rosette, A. S., Leonardelli, G. J. & Phillips, K. W. (2008). The white standard: Racial bias in leader categorization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 758–777. Schaumberg, R. L., Flynn, F. J., & Tracy, J. L. (2018). The benefits and drawbacks of guilt in the workplace. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge Schyns, B. (2015). Dark personality in the workplace: Introduction to a special issue. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 64, 1–14. Scott, K., & Brown, D. J. (2006). Female first, leader second? Gender bias in the encoding of leadership behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101, 230–242. Seers, A. (1989). Team-member exchange quality: A new construct for role-making research. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 43, 118–135. Shah, J. (2003). Automatic for the people: How representations of significant others implicitly affect goal pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 661–681. Shamir, B., & Eilam, G. (2005). “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 395–417. Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organizational Science, 4, 577–594.

DP Models of Self-Schemas and Identity  361

Sigman, M. & Dehaene, S. (2008). Brain mechanisms of serial and parallel processing during dual-task performance. The Journal of Neuroscience, 28, 7585–7598. Smith, E. R., & DeCoster, J. (2000). Dual-process models in social and cognitive psychology: Conceptual integration and links to underlying memory systems. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4, 108–131. Sonnentag, S., & Fay, D. (2018). The self and engagement at work. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge. Stam, D., Lord, R. G., van Knippenberg, D., & Wisse, B. (2014). An image of who we might become: Vision communication, possible selves, and vision pursuit. Organizational Science, 25, 1172–1194. Strauss, K., Griffin, M. A., & Parker, S. K. (2012). Future work selves: How salient hoped-for identities motivate proactive career behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 580–598. Swann, W. B. Jr., Johnson, R. E., & Bosson, J. K. (2009). Identity negotiation at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 81–109. Sy, T. (2010). What do you think of followers? Examining the content, structure, and consequences of implicit followership theories. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113, 73–84. Sy, T., Reiter-Palmon, R., Horton, C., Royston, R., Leung, A., & Scheller, E. (April, 2017). Advancing a multidimensional model of follower-leader identity integration (FLII). Paper presented at the 32st Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Orlando, FL). Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 1–25. Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2001). Identity and cooperative behavior in groups. Group Process & Intergroup Relations, 4, 207–226. Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2003). The group engagement model: Procedural justice, social identity, and cooperative behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 349–361. Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 115–191. Uhl-Bien, M. (2006). Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 654–676. van Knippenberg, D., & Ellemers, N. (2014). Social identity and group performance identification as the key to group-oriented effort. In S. A. Haslam, D. van Knippenberg, M. J. Platow, & N. Ellemers (Eds.), Social identity at work: Development theory for organizational practice (pp. 29–42). New York, NY: Psychology Press. van Knippenberg, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2018). Social identifications in organizational behavior. In D. L. Ferris, R. E. Johnson, & C. Sedikides (Eds.). The self at work. New York, NY: Routledge. van Knippenberg, D., & Mell, J. N. (2016). Past, present, and potential future of team diversity research: From compositional diversity to emergent diversity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 135–145. van Knippenberg, D., van Knippenberg, B., De Cremer, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2004). Leadership, self, and identity. A review and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 825–856.

INDEX

absenteeism: alcohol use 273; autonomysupportive management 155; guilt proneness 181, 183, 187; need satisfaction 158 absorption 320–321, 322, 326–327, 328–329, 330, 333 academic outcomes 48, 53–54 academic self-concept 32 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) 285 accidents 276 accountability 195, 196, 200, 201, 208–209, 212, 239 achievement motivation 227, 229 Adam, H. 236 affect 4, 6; cognition-based 239; power 201; self-control 8, 134; see also emotions; negative affect; positive affect affirmative action 106, 110 agency 174, 175 aggression: fairness 231; powerful people 202; self-control depletion 128; selfesteem 51, 55 agreeableness 44, 182 alcohol use 9, 273–292 Alicke, Mark 8, 15–39 allocation games 210, 212, 213 Allport, G. A. 2–3 Altmann, R. 282

Amazon Mechanical Turk 180 ambiguity: favorable construals 105; role ambiguity 157; self-affirming reflections 107; self-enhancement 98 Ames, G. M. 285–286 Anderson, C. 96 Anderson, Ray 356 anger 55, 181, 227, 235–236, 279 Anicich, E. M. 202, 209–210 animals 121, 131, 173 Anseel, Frederik 9, 47, 104, 108–109, 295–318 Antonakis, J. 195, 213 anxiety: alcohol use 282; compassionate mind training 284; guilt proneness 181; interpersonal function of the self 4; obsessive passion 159; role anxiety 323; self-esteem 44; Terror Management Theory 58 apologies 235 approach: approach goals 46; approachinhibition theory 196–197; approachoriented tasks 123 Armeli, S. 279 Armenakis, A. A. 45–46 Arndt, J. 306 Ashford, S. J. 299 Ashforth, B. E. 72, 73, 74, 85, 330 Ashmoore, R. D. 350 assertiveness 57

Index  363

attachment 57 attention 125, 136; attentional demands 195, 196, 201, 204–205; engagement 320; selective 343; self-control 132, 133 attitudes: cognitive resources 136; guilt and shame 181; justice 232; organizational identification 73, 76; self-esteem 41, 50; teamwork 237 attraction-selection-attrition processes 161 attributions: cultural differences 242; guilt and shame 175, 176, 180, 183; impression management 264; negative self-evaluations 279, 281–282; selfesteem 45; self-serving 93–94, 95 Audia, P. G. 101, 103, 105, 106 Austin, S. 155–156 authentic leadership 347, 351, 356 authenticity 333 autonomy 1, 6, 8, 145–146, 147, 149; autonomy-supportive management 155–156, 158, 162–163; engagement 331; harmonious passion 159; independence 227, 239; integrated regulation 150; job characteristics 156, 157; job demands-resources framework 157, 325; job enrichment 229; meaningful tasks 323; personenvironment fit 161; Relative Autonomy Index 152; self-control 129, 136 avoidance: avoidance goals 46; avoidanceoriented tasks 123; global self-integrity 183–184; shame 280, 281 Avolio, B. J. 230, 261 Baard, P. P. 155, 158 Baer, M. D. 104–105, 257 Bakker, A. B. 321, 322, 325, 326–327, 334 Bandura, Albert 15, 16–19, 32–33; competence beliefs 31; experimental studies 20, 21; observational studies 22, 23, 24; resource allocation 27; roles of self-efficacy 25, 26, 29; social cognitive theory 24, 29 Bannister, B. D. 240 Barlow, D. H. 278 Barnard, L. K. 284 Barnes, C. M. 127, 131 Barney, J. B. 209 Bartel, C. A. 47

basic psychological needs 145, 147–148, 150, 157–158, 160–161, 163, 325 “basking in reflected glory” 93, 94, 103 Baumeister, R. F.: alcohol use 277, 278; “burden of selfhood” 274; ego depletion 120; escape from the self 275–276, 279, 280–281; self and emotions 273; self-control 131; selfesteem 15; self-related concepts 2; shame-proneness 281; tripartite view of the self 3, 4, 10n1 Baumert, A. 282 Beal, D. J. 127 Bedeian, A. G. 45–46, 322 behavioral plasticity 46 behaviorism 2, 34, 42, 154 Belding, J. N. 308 beliefs: “better-than-average” 94, 95, 105–106; cognitive revolution 16; competency 31; goal decisions 26; impression management 261; justice 232; overconfidence 31; self-efficacy 15, 16–19, 21, 25–26, 29, 33–35; self-esteem 55; self-expression 320; self-schemas 342 belonging 6, 184 Benedetti, A. A. 157 Benet-Martínez, V. 241–242 Bennett, J. B. 285–286 Berkowitz, L. 197 “better-than-average” beliefs 94, 95, 105–106 biases 3, 4; accountability 208; competence beliefs 31; correspondent inferences 262; impression management 259; intergroup 73, 83, 84; negotiation 234; perceptions of others 266; self-concept 32 biculturalism 241–242 big-fish-little-pond-effect 32 Big Five personality constructs 19, 179 Bigley, G. A. 76–77, 79 Blader, S. L. 202 Blais, M. R. 155 blame 181, 280 Block, J. 96 Boivie, S. 260 Bolger, N. 301 Bolino, Mark C. 9, 253–272, 334 Bowling, N. A. 50

364 Index

Boyer, D. A. 21 brain glucose levels 130, 131, 134 brain processing 342–344, 348, 349–350, 354, 356 Brett, J. M. 235 Brewer, M. B. 243 Brière, N. M. 155 Brion, S. 101, 105 Brockner, J. 45, 46, 47, 232–233 Brown, Douglas J. 8, 40–71, 104, 158, 348, 349 Brown, G. 104–105 Buckingham, M. 313 bullying 128 “burden of selfhood” 274 burnout: death anxiety 58; engagement 321–322, 325, 333; guilt and shame 181; obsessive passion 159; selfschemas 347; value incongruence 326 Burris, E. R. 210 Byrne, Z. S. 322, 324 Cable, D. M. 47, 330 Cadiz, D. 286 Cai, H. 99 calamity-driven escape 275, 276, 277–278, 279, 280–281 Campbell, J. D. 15 capacity 18–20, 21, 23–24, 28, 33–35 career advancement 253 Carpenter, J. 161 Carpenter, M. 260 CEOs see chief executive officers Cerasoli, C. P. 154 CET see Cognitive Evaluation Theory Chandler, M. M. 157 Chang, C-H. D. 349 change: autonomy-supportive management 155; resistance to 81, 82; self-efficacy as change mechanism 34–35; social identity 8, 73, 81–82, 84 charismatic leadership 80–81 Chatel, D. 58 Chatterjee, A. 102, 105 cheating 128, 135, 206–207, 208, 281 Chemolli, E. 162 Chen, C. C. 239 Chen, G. 260 Chen, X. P. 239 Chen, Y. 52, 101, 103, 158 Chen, Y. R. 232–233 Cheng, B. H. 127 chief executive officers (CEOs): accountability 201; Core

Self-Evaluations 50; defensiveness 103; impression management 260; narcissism 5, 102, 105, 347; social identity theory of leadership 79; see also leadership China 240, 242 Chiu, Chi-yue 9, 225–252 Chiu, W. 240 Chow, C. W. 237 Christakopoulou, S. 234 Christian, M. S. 334 Chui, Susanna L. M. 9, 341–361 client-centered approach 42 clothing 257 codes of conduct 208 coercion 159 cognition 3, 4, 42; cultural differences 226, 233; interpersonal mistreatment 6; power 201; reactions to feedback 297; self-control 8; self-esteem 44; teamwork 237 cognitive dissonance theory 92 Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) 148, 154 cognitive psychology 55 cognitive resources: attentional demands 204; person-organization fit 323; reactions to feedback 310; self-control 129, 136; self-enhancement 98; shame-proneness 282; see also resource allocation cognitive revolution 16 Cohen-Charash, Y. 45 Cohen, G. L. 184 Cohen, T. R. 178, 187 Cole, M. S. 322 collective interest 74, 75, 186, 238, 356 collectivism 3, 226, 228–229; equality norms 231–232; group cohesion 239; leadership 230; negotiation 233–234, 235–236; teamwork 237–238; trust 235; see also interdependence Colquitt, J. A. 257 Colvin, C. R. 96 commitment: guilt proneness 181; multiple foci of 185, 186–188; need satisfaction 158; self-control 129, 330; Self-Determination Theory 160; social identity 77 communal narcissism 109 communication: accountability 209; cultural differences 239; virtual environments 211–212 commuting 127, 130

Index  365

compassionate mind training (CMT) 284 competence 6, 8, 145–146, 149; autonomy-supportive management 158; impression management 257, 258, 261, 267; job demands-resources framework 157; person-environment fit 161; self-deception 31 competition 75, 99, 230, 233 complexity 302–303, 354 confidence 46, 323, 335 conflict: conflict management 181; family 127; self-affirming reflections 107; selfratings by leaders 105; see also workfamily conflict Conger, J. J. 276 Connell, J. P. 153 conscientiousness: engagement 326; guilt proneness 182; impression management 258, 261; self-control 129; self-esteem 44 consciousness 343, 344, 356; see also reflexive consciousness construal level theory of psychological distance 295–296, 303–311 context: culture and 240, 241; episodic memory 354; guilt and shame 284; interpersonal 4, 155; leadership 341; power 195, 199–200, 201–212; selfenhancement 99 contingencies of self-worth model 92, 101 contingent self-esteem 53–54 control: guilt and shame 174, 175; job demands-resources framework 325; person-job congruence 325; see also self-control Converse, S. A. 236–237 cooperation 99, 239, 242, 350 Coopersmith, S. 42 Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) 40, 50–51, 129, 153, 327 Corley, K. G. 330 correspondent inferences 262, 264–265 counterfactual thinking 94, 95, 106, 279 counterproductive behaviors 127–128, 129, 231; see also deviant behavior Craven, R. 32 creativity 110, 136, 203–204; meaningful tasks 323; power and 205; selfexpression 333; teams 239–240 cross-cultural IO psychology (CCIO) 229–240, 241, 242 CSE see Core Self-Evaluations culture 9, 225–252; future research 241–242; justice 231–233; leadership

229–231; negotiation and 233–236; power 209–211, 212; self-enhancement 99; self-expression 332; teams 236–240; see also organizational culture culture fit 241 Curry, J. F. 284 cynicism 322, 325 “Dark Triad” 52, 109 Dastmalchian, A. 231 Davidson, J. 282 De Charms, R. 145 De Cremer, D. 232–233 De Dreu, C. K. W. 203 De Winne, S. 158 Dearing, R. 176 death anxiety 58 Deaux, K. 350 Deci, Edward 148, 152–156 decision-making: accountability 208–209; attentional demands 204; executive function 4; group 207; leadership development 356; moral 75; narcissistic CEOs 347; organizational culture 209; risk-taking and power 203; self-control 119–120, 126; self-efficacy 26; team 239; virtual communication 211–212 dedication 321, 322, 328–329, 330, 333 default networks 348, 351–352, 353 defensiveness 55, 93–94, 103–104, 285 Dehaene, S. 342, 344, 353, 356 DeNisi, A. 107 Denissen, J. J. A. 96 depression: alcohol use 282; compassionate mind training 284; guilt proneness 181; self-esteem 44 DeShon, R. P. 29–30 desire 133 Destin, M. 309 Detert, J. R. 210 deviant behavior: agentic narcissism 109; mistreated employees 104; self-control depletion 5, 128, 135; self-enhancement 107, 110; self-esteem 41, 47, 48 Dhensa-Kahlon, R. K. 257 Dickinson, T. L. 236–237 Dickson, M. 229 Diefendorff, James M. 8, 145–171, 355 Diestel, S. 329 Dietz, B. 75 dignity cultures 235 discretionary work behaviors 126, 128

366 Index

discrimination 56, 280, 283 disengagement 320, 321 disinhibition 204 dispositional self-esteem 43–52 distributive justice 231, 232 diversity 83–84 DMP see Dualistic Model of Passion Dobbins, G. H. 239 Donaldson, Tina L. 8, 119–144 Donnerstein, E. 197 Dorfman, P. 231 Downs, D. L. 56–57 downward counterfactual thinking 94, 95, 106 dramaturgical approach 258 drug use 1, 9, 276, 278, 282, 283, 285 dual process models 9, 342–344 Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP) 150–151, 164 Dufner, M. 96, 97 Dutton, J. E. 333 Earley, P. C. 228–229, 230, 238, 241 Eastern cultures 99, 210, 211, 226, 233, 234 Eby, L. T. 239 Eden, D. 21–22, 35 Edwards, I. R. 160 ego 2 ego depletion 120–122, 132, 135, 348 Ehrlich, M. 254 Eilam, G. 351 Eisenkraft, N. 334 elaboration 302–303, 310 Ellis, B. J. 57 Elsbach, K. D. 106 embarrassment 4, 266 emotional exhaustion 132, 134, 156, 157; see also exhaustion emotional regulation 45, 184, 356 emotional stability 129, 327 emotions 2, 8–9, 273; alcohol use 276–278; cultural differences 226, 227, 233, 235–236; emotional display 127, 240, 329, 332; episodic memory 357; feedback 297, 351; groups 6; harmonious passion 159; interpersonal 4; mood-as-input model 185–186; self-conscious 9, 172, 173, 177, 274, 350; self-control 132–133; self-esteem 44–45; self-relevance 6 empathy 174, 181, 235, 320 employment relationship 77–78

empowerment 237 energy: mental 119–120, 124, 134; physical and emotional 323, 333–334 engagement 1, 9, 319–340; autonomysupportive management 155, 156; conceptualizations of 319–322, 330–331; future directions 330–335; need satisfaction 158; predictors of 323–326, 327–330, 331–332; role of the self 326–330, 331–332; self-control depletion 128; self-schemas 347 Ennis, N. 327 envy 45 episodic memory 351–352, 353, 354, 357 Epitropaki, O. 343 equality 231–232, 239 equity 231–232, 239 equity theory 172, 174 Erez, M. 228–229, 230, 238, 240, 241 ethical behavior: codes of conduct 208; fairness and justice 232–233; guilt and shame 174, 179, 182; moral selflicensing 133–134 evaluation of others 4, 5; see also self-evaluation evolutionary perspectives 31, 57 executive function 3, 4, 6, 10n1 exhaustion 322, 325, 326, 333–335; see also emotional exhaustion expectancy 17–18, 21, 22, 30; goal pursuit 26–27; self-control depletion 123, 130 expectations 16, 25, 185; escape from the self 275; guilt proneness 187; impression management 264; leadership 231; organizational identification 77; shame 279, 280, 283 experimental realism 195, 197, 198, 213 external regulation 149, 162 extraversion 44, 129 extrinsic motivation: job demandsresources framework 157, 325; self-control 123; Self-Determination Theory 148, 149–150, 154; see also motivation face 259, 266 failure 5; alcohol use 277; defensive reactions to 93–94, 103; escape from the self 275; guilt compared with shame 175; negative self-evaluations 275–276, 281; self-affirming reflections 95; self-control depletion 123;

Index  367

self-efficacy 25, 30; self-enhancement 8; self-esteem 45, 101; selfpresentational 266; shame-proneness 274, 282 fairness: company rules 127; cultural differences 231, 232–233, 234; leadership 81; person-job congruence 325; violations of 176; see also justice family: conflict and self-control depletion 127; nepotism 6; work-family conflict 41, 50, 156, 159 fatigue 119, 124, 131–132 favorable construals 93, 94, 95, 105–106 Fay, Doris 9, 319–340, 347 feedback 1, 295–318, 345; autonomysupportive management 156; construal level theory of psychological distance 303–311; cultural differences 229; defensiveness 94, 103, 104; dynamic process perspective 351; favorable interpretations of ambiguous 94, 95, 105; future work selves 301–303, 306–307, 308–312, 313; implications for practice 311–312; impression management 254, 259, 265; job characteristics 156, 157; job demandsresources framework 325; positive and negative 297, 309, 311; positivity embracement 94, 95, 104–105; providing 312–313; reactions to 297–298, 308, 310, 311; seeking 9, 41, 298–299, 308, 310, 311; self-efficacy 21, 23, 29–30, 31; self-enhancement 8, 99, 107–108, 110; self-motives 299–301; self-verification theory 47; social schemas 349 feedforward interviews 312 Fehr, R. 235 Fellows, S. 326 Fernet, C. 155–156, 157 Ferris, D. Lance 1–12, 54, 91–118, 158 Ferris, G. R. 254 Festinger, L. 32 Fiske, S. T. 196 fit research 160–161 Flicker, L. 278 Flood, P. C. 237 flow 275 Flynn, Francis J. 8–9, 172–193 Fong, C. 238 Fong, C. T. 109–110 Ford, M. T. 154 Forest, J. 161

forgiveness 181, 203, 235 frame switching 241–242 Freitas, A. L. 306, 308 Freud, Sigmund 41–42 friendships, selective 93, 94, 99, 103 Froidevaux, Ariane 9, 273–292 Frone, M. R. 273, 287n2 Fulmer, C. A. 235, 236 fundamental attribution error 227 Funder, D. C. 96 future work selves 9, 295–296, 301–303, 306–307, 308–312, 313, 345, 353 Gabriel, A. S. 157 Gaertner, L. 99 Gagné, M. 154, 155, 157, 162 Gailliot, M. T. 130 Galinsky, Adam D. 9, 194–221 Ganster, D. C. 46 Gardner, D. G. 53, 104, 328 Gardner, W. L. 243, 261 GASP see Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale Gati, E. 240 Gavanski, I. 279 Gebauer, J. E. 96 Gelfand, Michele J. 9, 225–252 gender 348 Gervey, B. 301 Gibbons, A. M. 103 Gibson, C. B. 237, 242 Gilbert, P. 284 Gillet, N. 158 Gino, F. 330 Glikson, E. 240 global identity 240, 243 Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project (GLOBE) 230–231 global neuronal workplace (GNW) 344 global self-esteem 43–52 global self-integrity 183–184 globalization 242, 243 GLOBE see Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project glucose 130, 131, 134 GNW see global neuronal workplace goals: approach and avoidance 46; collective 173, 174, 239; concept of the self 148; cultural differences 226, 229; episodic self-knowledge 352; executive function 4; identity

368 Index

construction 348; impression management 253, 255, 259, 260, 262–263, 267; internalization of organizational 161, 164; meaningful tasks 323; multiple motivations 162; self-concordance model 152–153; selfcontrol 125, 128; Self-Determination Theory 8, 147; self-efficacy 22–23, 25, 26–30; self-enhancement 103; selfprocesses 345; social identification 8; work engagement 330 Goffman, E. 253, 258 Goncalo, J. A. 232, 239–240 Goodall, A. 313 Graffin, S. 260 Gramzow, R. H. 93 grandiosity 109 Grant, Adam 253 Greenberg, J. 58 Greenwald, A. G. 2, 3 Gregg, A. P. 92, 102 Greguras, G. J. 158, 160, 161 Griffin, M. A. 301 group value model 232 groups 5–6, 8; cultural differences 229, 238, 239; guilt proneness 187; impression management 267; minority and majority 207; multiple organizational identifications 75–77; person-group fit 158, 161; prototypicality 79–80, 82, 347–348, 349, 355; psychological safety 323; social identity perspective 72–73, 82–84; see also teams Guay, F. 155–156 guilt 1, 4, 8–9, 172–193, 284, 350; assessment of proneness to 177–178; discriminant validity of guilt proneness 182; future research 182–188; introjected regulation 149; job attitudes and burnout 181; leadership 180–181; negotiation and conflict management 181; person-centered perspective 176–177; prosocial and ethical behavior 179; regulation of behavior 173–174; self-esteem 44; shame distinction 175–176; task effort and job performance 179–180 Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale (GASP) 178 Gunia, B. C. 235

Haggard, D. 104 Halbesleben, J. R. B. 334 Haldane, J. B. S. 15 Halper, Leah R. 8, 15–39 Hambrick, D. C. 102, 105 Handgraaf, M. J. J. 213 Hanges, P. 229, 231 Hannover, B. 227 happiness 145 Hardré, P. L. 155 harmonious passion 151, 159–160, 161, 163 Harrison, G. L. 237 Harrison, S. H. 330 Harvey, J. 334 Hau, K.-T. 32 Haverly, Sarah N. 9, 273–292 health issues 48 heart rate variability 133 Heggestad, E. D. 23 Hekman, D. R. 74–75, 76–77, 79 Heller, D. 104, 307 Henrich, J. 199 Hepper, E. G. 93, 102, 107 Hereford, J. F. 76–77, 79 heritability 44 Hideg, I. 106, 127 hierarchy 201–202, 203, 204, 209–210, 212, 267 hierarchy of needs 42 Higgins, E. T. 75 hiring decisions 254, 260, 266 Hirsh, J. B. 202, 204 Hobfoll, S. E. 327 Hofmann, W. 198, 212 Hogg, Michael A. 8, 72–90, 347–348 honesty 261 Hong Kong 239 Hong, Ying-yi 9, 225–252 honor cultures 235 Hooijberg, R. 354 Horvath, S. 101 hostility 44, 174, 181 Houlfort, Nathalie 8, 145–171 House, R. 231 Hoyle, R. H. 301 Hsu, G. 106 Huang, G.-H. 104 Hull, J. G. 277, 280 human resource management 158 humanism 42

Index  369

identification 5, 72–90, 345; autonomysupportive management 155; future research 84–85; groups 5–6, 8, 72, 75–77, 82–84; intergroup relations 82–84; leadership 79–81; organizational change 81–82; organization’s best interest 74–77; procedural justice 158; Self-Determination Theory 160; social exchange 77–79; work engagement 330 identified regulation 150, 151, 162 identity 345; alcohol use 277, 278; dual process models 342; Dualistic Model of Passion 151; dynamic process perspective 351–356; engagement 327, 330, 336; global 240, 243; impression management 261; intergroup relational 83, 84–85; leadership 341, 349, 355, 356; multiple identities 52, 163, 164, 241; organizational 72–73; selfidentities 285, 343–346, 348, 349–351, 352–353, 357; social context 341; threats to 285; workplace identity negotiation 5; see also self; social identity “illusion of transparency” 266 ILTs see implicit leadership theories image discrepancy 259, 260–261, 275–276 implementation intentions 123 Implicit Association Test (IAT) 55–56 implicit leadership theories (ILTs) 342, 352 implicit self-esteem 55–56 impression management 4, 9, 253–272; actor-perceiver model 258–259; actor’s perspective 259–262; definition of 267n1; dimensions 257–258; feedbackseeking behavior 298–299, 310; future research 266–267; perceiver’s perspective 262–265; perceptions of success 265–266; positivity embracement 95; self-consciousness 323; self-enhancement 101; tactics 256–257; see also self-presentation incentives 133, 136, 153–154, 208; see also rewards inclusion 56–57 independence 210, 226–227, 228, 240–241; justice 232, 233; leadership 230; negotiation 234, 235–236; selfenhancement 99; teamwork 237

India 235 individualism 3, 210, 226, 228–229; creativity 239–240; equity norms 231; group cohesion 239; leadership 230; negotiation 233, 234, 235–236; teamwork 237–238; trust 235; United States 233 industrial-organizational/organizational behavior (IO/OB) 5, 7–8, 9; selfenhancement 91, 92, 99–110 industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology: culture 225, 228–243; narcissism 52; self-esteem 40–41, 43–50, 53–55, 57, 59; self-verification theory 47; see also organizational psychology inferences 262, 264–265 influence 46, 239 information processing: attentional demands 204; consciousness 344; cultural differences 227; dual process models 342–344; group 84; leadership and culture 229; paradigm shifts in psychology 42; power research 198; self-control depletion 128; selfefficacy 34; self-esteem 45, 55; virtual communication 211 “ingratiator’s dilemma” 263 ingroups 73, 83, 187, 231–232 inhibition 133, 196–197 instrumental value 187–188 integrated regulation 150, 151, 162 interactional justice 231, 232 interdependence 210, 226–227, 228, 229, 240–241; justice 232; leadership 230; negotiation 235–236; power issues 195, 196, 201, 205–206, 212; selfenhancement 99; teamwork 237, 238; trust 239; see also collectivism intergroup relational identity 83, 84–85 intergroup relations 73, 82–84 internalization 152, 160, 163–164; culture 242; Dualistic Model of Passion 151; motivation types 162; Organismic Integration Theory 149–150; personenvironment fit 161; social knowledge 349; work environments 157 interpersonal adjustment 96 interpersonal roles 3, 4, 10n1 interpersonal style 55, 153, 154, 155

370 Index

interviews: feedforward 312; impression management 255–256, 261, 262, 263–264 intrapersonal adjustment 96 intrinsic motivation: cultural differences 227; interpersonal context 155; job characteristics 157; job demandsresources framework 157, 325; selfcontrol 123, 124; Self-Determination Theory 8, 147, 148, 150–151, 152; undermined by rewards 154; see also motivation introjected regulation 149–150, 151, 152, 162 investment decisions 208 I/O psychology see industrial/ organizational psychology IO/OB see industrial-organizational/ organizational behavior Ireland 237 Jackson, A. P. 327 Jackson, C. L. 19 James, L. 309 James, William 2, 3, 4, 41, 42, 345 Japan 229, 234 Javidan, M. 231 JD-R see job demands-resources framework JES see job engagement scale job attitudes 41, 50, 181; see also attitudes job challenges 184 job characteristics 156–157, 164n1, 164n2, 334–335 job choice 160 job crafting 333 job demands-resources (JD-R) framework 156, 157, 325–326, 331 job design 164n1, 229 job engagement scale (JES) 322, 324, 331 job enrichment 229 job satisfaction: autonomy-supportive management 155; Core SelfEvaluations 50; guilt proneness 181; narcissism 52; organizational identification 76; procedural justice 158; self-esteem 48, 49 job search: Core Self-Evaluations 50; future work-self salience 302; SelfDetermination Theory 160; selfesteem 41, 46

Johnson, R. J. 327 Johnson, Russell E. 1–12, 119–144, 232, 349, 355 Johnson, S. K. 103 Jones, E. E. 257–258 Jones, M. P. 276 Jones, R. G. 6 Jordan, A. H. 103, 106 Jordan, J. 203 Judge, T. A. 19, 22, 50, 105 Jung, D. I. 230 justice: culture and 231–233; identity activation 350; procedural 158, 231, 232–233; self-esteem 41; social identity 78, 85; see also fairness Kahn, W. A. 319–326, 330–334 Kamdar, D. 235 Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. 49 Kanfer, R. 23 Kapadia, C. 334 Karasek, R. A. 156 Kark, R. 343 Karremans, J. C. 203 Kashima, Y. 243 Kay, V. S. 47 Keltner, D. 196–197, 204, 208 Kennedy, J. A. 96 Kiesler, S. 211 Kifer, Y. 307 Kim, S. H. 232 King, D. D. 349 Kinias, Z. 106 Kipnis, D. 196 Kirkman, B. L. 237 Kirkpatrick, L. A. 57 Kirsch, I. 20–21 Kitayama, S. 226, 237, 240 Klein, W. M. 285 Kluger, A. N. 107, 312 knowledge: case-based 352; episodic 352, 354, 356–357; impression management 259, 261, 264–265; social 349; see also self-knowledge knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) 161, 261, 262 Koestner, R. 155, 157 Kopelman, S. 210 Korman, A. K. 47, 100 Kowalski, R. M. 261, 284 Krantz, Daniel 8, 145–171 Krueger, J. I. 15

Index  371

KSAs see knowledge, skills, and abilities Kühnen, U. 227 Kurman, J. 229 Kurzban, R. 31 Kwan, V. 104

looking-glass self 4 Lord, R. G. 229, 232 Lord, Robert G. 9, 341–361 loyalty 74, 187, 261 Luo, S. 260

Lam, S. S. 239 Lammers, J. 206 Lanaj, K. 127, 131 Lawler, J. J. 230 leadership 9, 341–342; construal level theory of psychological distance 304, 305; culture and 229–231; dynamic process perspective 351, 352, 354–356, 357; engagement 326, 331; guilt proneness 180–181, 182, 350; implicit leadership theories 342, 352; impression management 253, 261; individual self-schemas 347–348; intergroup 83, 85; narcissistic 52; organizational change 82, 84; selfconstruals 344; Self-Determination Theory 154–156; self-esteem 41; self-identities 348; self-processes 345; self-ratings 105; self-schemas 342–343, 346–348; shared 355, 357; social identity 73, 79–81, 84–85, 350–351; social schemas 349; transactional 230, 347; transformational 18, 80–81, 153, 230, 347, 355; see also chief executive officers; managers learning goal-orientation 33 Leary, Mark R. 9, 56–57, 253–272 Lee, Alice J. 9, 194–221 Lee, C. 104, 240 Leiter, M. P. 321, 325, 326 Leung, K. 242 Levy, P. E. 45 Lewin, Kurt 41–42 Liang, J. 240 Lievens, Filip 9, 47, 104, 108–109, 295–318 life satisfaction 50, 145 likeability 257, 265 Lin, Szu-Han (Joanna) 8, 119–144 Liu, J. 100, 104 Liu, S. 282 Liu, W. 101 Locke, E. A. 19, 21, 22–23, 27, 29 locus of control 50, 147, 327 loneliness 44 Long, D. M. 257

McDaniel, M. A. 47 Machiavellianism 52, 109, 264 McKinnon, J. L. 237 McLaughlin-Volpe, T. 350 McLean, K. C. 350–351 McQueen, A. 285 Maddux, W. W. 234 Mael, F. 72, 73, 74, 85 Mahadevan, N. 57 Mainemelis, C. 343 Mäkikangas, A. 335 Man, D. C. 239 managers: autonomy-supportive management 155–156, 158, 162–163; feedback-seeking behavior 299; hierarchical differentiation 201; interpersonal style 153, 154, 155; performance-contingent rewards 154; see also leadership; supervisors Mannix, E. A. 206 Marescaux, E. 158 marijuana 1, 278 Markus, H. R. 226, 237, 240, 302 Marsh, H. W. 32 Maslach, C. 321, 325, 326 Maslow, A. H. 42 mastery 20, 136, 328 material self 2 May, D. R. 320–321, 323–324, 332 Mead, G. H. 345 Mead, Margaret 41–42 meaningfulness 323–324, 331 meditation 124, 275 Meindl, J. R. 239 memory 3, 5, 184, 343, 344; attentional demands 204; episodic 351–352, 353, 354, 357; self-schemas 346 Menon, T. 105–106 mental energy 119–120, 124, 134 mental models 29 mergers and acquisitions 81, 110, 243 meta-analyses: cultural differences 231; ego depletion research 121–122; engagement 322, 325–326, 331; organizational identification 74; passion research 159; Self-Determination

372 Index

Theory 163; self-efficacy 19–20, 28, 35; self-enhancement 96, 97; selfesteem 50 Mexico 238 Michela, J. L. 106 Milgram, S. 196 Miller, R. S. 278 mindfulness 124, 275, 284, 285 mirrored self 4 mistakes 1, 175, 176; see also failure mistreatment 6, 103–104, 126 Mitchell, M. 104 Mitchell, T. R. 105 modeling 21 modesty 99, 211 Mohr, Cynthia D. 9, 273–292 Monahan, C. J. 160 mood: alcohol use 279–280; mood-asinput model of emotions 185–186; self-control 132–133; shame-reduction interventions 285 Moore, D. A. 96 moral affectivity 177, 178 moral decision-making 75 moral judgment 188 moral self 3 moral self-licensing 133–134 morale 267 morality 129, 257; see also ethical behavior Morf, C. C. 101 Morris, M. W. 241–242 mortality, awareness of 58 Mosewich, A. D. 284 Mossholder, K. W. 45–46 motivation 6, 136; Core Self-Evaluations 50; cultural differences 226, 228, 233, 241; feedback 295, 296, 299–301; impression management 259, 260–261; job characteristics 157; job demands-resources framework 157, 325; leadership 155, 355; organizational identification 74–75; power 201; selective 343; self-control 122–123, 124, 129, 131, 134; Self-Determination Theory 8, 147, 148–151, 152, 153–154, 158, 162–163; self-efficacy 25, 26, 27; self-enhancement 91, 92, 97, 100–101, 110; self-esteem 41; teamwork 237; see also extrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation Muchinsky, P. M. 160

Mueller, J. S. 45 multicultural teams 240, 242 multidimensional model of drinking motivations 276–277 multitasking 125 Muraven, Mark 8, 119–144 Name-Letter Task 55–56 Nandkeolyar, A. K. 235 narcissism 3; CEOs 5, 105; communal 109; leadership 347; self-enhancement 98, 101–102, 103, 109, 110; selfesteem 40, 51–52 Narcissistic Personality Inventory 102 Nathanson, D. L. 280 Neale, M. A. 206 needs: basic psychological 145, 147–148, 150, 157–158, 160–161, 163, 325; hierarchy of 42 Neff, K. 284 negative affect 44–45, 132–133, 184 negotiation: asynchronous communication 211; cultural differences 233–236, 243; guilt proneness 181; impression management 255; organizational culture 209; power 195, 206, 213 nepotism 6 neuroscience 9, 342, 356; see also brain processing neuroticism: alcohol use 282; Core SelfEvaluations 50; self-esteem 44; shameproneness 281 Ng, K. Y. 239 Nicklin, J. M. 154 Niedenthal, P. M. 279 Nijstad, B. A. 203 Nir, D. 312 Nisbett, R. E. 238 Niu, X. 104 nonverbal communication 211, 256 norms: adherence to company 126–127; cultural 99, 211, 226, 236, 242; emotional display 240, 332; equity and equality 231–232; ethical behavior 133–134; feedback 265; impression management 259; internalization of 152; organizational identification 75, 77; psychological safety 323; self-control 129; Self-Determination Theory 163 Nouri, R. 240 Nurius, P. 302

Index  373

O’Boyle, E. H. 322 OBSE see organization-based self-esteem obsessive passion 151, 159–160, 163 OCBs see organizational citizenship behaviors OIT see Organismic Integration Theory O’Neill, C. 286 openness to experience 44 optimism: engagement 327–328; job demands-resources framework 325; self-enhancement 94, 95, 307; selfesteem 56 Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) 149–150, 152 organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) 5, 49–50, 53, 57, 328–329, 331–332 organizational change: autonomysupportive management 155; social identity 8, 73, 81–82, 84 organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) 107, 254–255; guilt and shame 179; impression management 260–261, 265; justice 231, 232; organizational identification 74, 76, 78–79; selfcontrol 127–128; time demands 334 organizational culture 1, 201, 209–211, 348 organizational identification 5, 72–90, 345; autonomy-supportive management 155; future research 84–85; intergroup relations 82–84; leadership 79–81; organizational change 81–82; organization’s best interest 74–77; social exchange 77–79; work engagement 330 organizational justice: culture and 231–233; self-esteem 41; social identity 78, 85 organizational psychology: impression management 253, 254, 258, 267; leadership 79; person-centered approach 162; self-monitoring 266; social identity 72, 73, 82, 85; see also industrial/organizational psychology organizational realism 195, 197, 198, 200, 212, 213 organizational support: harmonious passion 159; perceived 53, 78–79; see also social support Orth, U. 49 ostracism 6, 107, 128 outcome expectancies 16, 17–18, 21, 25 outgroups 73, 94, 187 Outlaw, R. 257

overconfidence 31, 96 Oyserman, D. 309 Pals, J. L. 350–351 Papamarcos, S. D. 231 Parhankangas, A. 254 Park, H. 104 Park, L. E. 210–211 Park, S. H. 103 Parker, S. K. 301 passion 150–151, 158–160, 161, 163, 164 Pasupathi, M. 350–351 Patil, S. V. 322 Pavlov, Ivan 42 perceived organizational support (POS) 53, 78–79 perfectionism 160, 282 performance: autonomy-supportive management 155; fairness 231; favorable construals 105; guilt and shame 172, 179–180, 182, 186; harmonious passion 159; impact of feedback on 295, 296, 311; job challenges 184; narcissism 52; need satisfaction 158; organizational culture 209; organizational identification 73, 74–75; performance-contingent rewards 154; procedural justice 158; self-affirming interventions 184; selfaffirming reflections 107; self-control 120–122, 125, 127–128, 130–131, 136; self-efficacy 17, 19–20, 21, 22–24, 28–31, 33; self-enhancement 96; selfesteem 48, 50, 54; self-presentational accuracy 267; teams 238 performance appraisals/evaluations 107, 208, 313; impression management 254, 260; shame 280, 283 persistence 30, 50 person-centered approach: guilt and shame 176–177; Self-Determination Theory 162–163, 164; vigor and exhaustion 335 person-environment (PE) fit 160–161, 345, 355 person-group (PG) fit 158, 161 person-job congruence 325 person-job (PJ) fit 158, 160–161 person-organization (PO) fit 158, 161, 323 personal growth 100 personal power 206 personal resources 325, 327 personality: Big Five constructs 19, 179;

374 Index

“Dark Triad” 52, 109; guilt and shame 176–177, 281, 284; self-esteem 44 perspective taking 174, 181, 202, 205 persuasion 21 pessimism 93, 94 Petrou, P. 334 Pfeffer, J. 109–110 phobias 20–21 physical objects 257 Pierce, J. L. 53, 104, 328 Pillutla, M. 197 Pitesa, M. 197, 208 Pittman, T. S. 257–258 pleasure 92 politicking 129 polynomial regression 108–109 POS see perceived organizational support positive affect: engagement 326; procedural fairness 233; selfcontrol 124, 133; shame-reduction interventions 285 “positive illusions” 96 positivity embracement 93, 94, 95, 104–105 possible selves 9, 301–302, 303, 310; see also future work selves posture 210–211 Poulson, C. F. 280, 283 power 1, 3, 6, 9, 194–221; evolution of research 196–197; individual level factors 201–205; interpersonal level factors 201, 205–207; laboratory studies 195, 197–200, 213; leadership 348; organizational level factors 201, 207–212; self-enhancement 109; selfworth associated with 58; shame 280 power distance 209–210, 229, 233, 240 Powers, W. T. 24 Pratkanis, A. R. 2, 3 “preferred self” 326, 335 prejudice 51, 208 pride 227, 236 prior knowledge 259, 264–265 proactive personality 326 procedural justice 158, 231, 232–233 Procter, S. 284 professional identification 76–77, 79 promotions 1, 160, 254, 260 prosocial organizational behavior: communal narcissism 109; guilt and shame 179; organizational identification 73, 74; self-control depletion 5, 128, 135–136; self-esteem 75

prototypicality, group 79–80, 82, 347–348, 349, 355 psychological availability 323–324, 327, 331, 333 psychological contracts 104, 153 psychological distance 295–296, 303–311 psychological needs 145, 147–148, 150, 157–158, 160–161, 163, 325 psychological presence 320, 324, 333 psychological safety 323–324, 331 psychopathology 48 psychopathy 52, 109 pure ego 2 Purl, J. D. 30 Pyszczynski, T. 58 RAI see Relative Autonomy Index Ramamoorthy, N. 237 Rast, D. E. III. 83 ratings 5, 6 “real self” 326 realism 195, 197, 198, 200, 212–213 recall-a-time procedure 196, 198 reciprocity 77–78, 328 recognition 133 recruitment 110 Reeve, J. 155 reflected appraisals 4 reflexive consciousness 3–4, 5, 10n1, 92 regulation: dynamic process perspective 353; guilt and shame 173–174; types of 149–150, 151; see also self-regulation rejection 56, 57 relatedness 8, 145–146, 149, 152; autonomy-supportive management 158; job demands-resources framework 157; person-environment fit 161 relational devaluation 54, 57 relational value 187–188 relationships: interdependent selfconstrual 226, 227; intergroup relational identity 83; Organismic Integration Theory 150; power 194, 199, 200; psychological safety 323; Self-Determination Theory 145–146; self-esteem 48, 54, 56–57 Relative Autonomy Index (RAI) 152 repeated interactions 201, 206–207 reputation 3, 181, 207 research methods 108–109, 212, 283 residualized past performance 23 resilience 45, 129

Index  375

resource allocation 26–27, 28–29; see also cognitive resources respite 136 retention 160 rewards: attention to reward cues 133, 134; cultural differences 239; distributive justice 231; motivation 148, 153–154; person-job congruence 325; social 105; transactional leadership 230 Rich, B. L. 19, 320–321, 322, 326, 327, 332 Riketta, M. 74, 76 risk-taking 174, 179, 195, 203, 208 Rivkin, W. 329, 330 Rogers, C. R. 42 role ambiguity 157 role clarity 185 role conflict 45–46, 202 role constraints 259, 261 role models 10n1 roles 3, 4, 5; impression management 259; meaningful 323; self-efficacy 10n1, 33 Rosen, C. C. 158 Rosenberg, M. 42, 56 Rothbard, N. P. 320, 322 Rothmund, T. 282 Rothstein, H. R. 35 rules 126–127 Rupp, D. E. 103 Ryan, J. 276 Ryan, R. M. 148–149, 152–153, 155 Sabiston, C. M. 284 sadness 44 safety 210, 276; psychological 323–324, 331 Salanova, M. 328 salaries 49; see also rewards Salas, E. 236–237 Salmon, E. 236 Sama, L. M. 231 San Martin, A. 207 Sanchez-Burks, J. 238 SCENT (Self-Concept Enhancing Tactician) model 97–99 Schaerer, Michael 9, 194–221 Schaubroeck, J. 46 Schaufeli, W. B. 321, 322, 325, 326–327, 330–331 Schaumberg, Rebecca L. 8–9, 172–193, 350 Scheff, T. J. 176

schemas 198, 238, 342–345, 346–348; cultural differences 229, 242; dynamic process perspective 351–353, 354, 356; leadership development 355; social aspects 349, 350 Schlegel, R. J. 306 Schmeichel, B. J. 131, 133 Schmidt, A. M. 29–30 Schmidt, K.-H. 329 Schoorman, F. D. 106 Schubert, B. 227 Schyns, B. 347 Scott, B. A. 19 Scott, K. 348 scripts 198, 342–343 SDT see Self-Determination Theory Sedgwick, W. A. 284 Sedikides, Constantine 1–12, 91–118, 307 Selenta, C. 232 self 2–7, 15, 40; “burden of selfhood” 274; culture and the 225–227, 228, 236, 240, 243; definition of the 2; dynamic 52–55, 242, 344, 352–355, 356–357; engagement 326–330, 331–332, 335–336; escape from the 273–274, 275–276, 277–278, 279–282, 283, 286; feedback 295, 296–301; feedforward interviews 312; future work selves 9, 295–296, 301–303, 306–307, 308–312, 313, 345, 353; integrated regulation 150; positive view of the 91–92; Self-Determination Theory 145, 146–147, 148–149, 152–153, 160, 162–163, 164; selfefficacy 30–33; three components of the 186, 225–226; tripartite view of the 3–4, 10n1; see also identity self-affirmation 92, 110, 184; selfaffirming reflections 93, 94, 95, 106– 107; self-control replenishment 124; shame-reduction interventions 285 self-assessment 97–98 self-awareness: alcohol use 9, 276, 277, 278, 280, 286; identity construction 348; negative self-evaluations 279, 286; reflexive consciousness 3–4; selfconscious emotions 173; self-control depletion 122; smoking cessation 125 self-categorization 348, 350 self-compassion 284 self-complexity theory 302–303 self-concept 15; academic 32; dynamic process perspective 353; future

376 Index

work selves 301, 302; impression management 259, 261, 262; justice 232; self-complexity theory 303; selfenhancement 92, 300; social-cognitive view 52–53; structure 55 Self-Concept Enhancing Tactician (SCENT) model 97–99 self-concordance model 152–153 self-consistency: cultural differences 228; leadership 346, 347; self-schemas 346; self-verification theory 46–47 self-construals 3, 345; cultural differences 9, 226–227, 228, 230–231, 234–235, 240–241; dynamic process perspective 352, 353; justice 232, 233; leadership 344, 350; self-identities 343, 348, 349; social identities 346 self-control 3, 5, 6, 8, 119–144; alternative explanations for diminished 132–134; antecedents of employee depletion 125–127; boundary conditions 129; dynamic process perspective 352; ego depletion research 120–122; engagement 327, 329–330, 332, 336; executive function 4; future research 134–136; measurement issues 131–132; moderators of depletion 122–123; practice 124–125; replenishment 124, 127, 136; underlying process 130–131; work-based consequences of depletion 127–128 self-deception 31, 51, 101 self-destructive behaviors 280 Self-Determination Theory (SDT) 8, 145–171, 325; Cognitive Evaluation Theory 148; Dualistic Model of Passion 150–151; future research 160–163; Google Scholar citations 146; job characteristics 156–157; leadership 154–156; Organismic Integration Theory 149–150; passion research 158–160, 163; personcentered view 162–163; rewards and employee motivation 153–154; the self in 148–149, 152–153, 160, 164; see also psychological needs self-discipline 261 self-discrepancy theory 92 self-doubt 27, 126, 327 self-efficacy 8, 15–39; capacity beliefs 33–34; case-based knowledge 352; as change mechanism 34–35; concept

of 10n1; Core Self-Evaluations 51, 327; cultural differences 228–229; definition of 15; dimensions of 16–17; engagement 327–328, 331–332, 335; experimental studies 20–22; focus on the self 30–33; job demands-resources framework 325; measurement of 17–18, 33; meta-analyses 19–20, 28, 35; observational studies 20, 22–24; reflexive consciousness 4; role anxiety 323; self-control replenishment 136; self-enhancement motive 92; shameproneness 282; smoking cessation 125; teamwork 239; theoretical debates 24–30 self-employment 319, 320, 321 self-enhancement 6, 8, 91–118; benefits of 96–97; centrality assumption 92; contributions of IO/OB research 107–109; cultural differences 9, 227, 228, 234; definition of 100; engagement 335; feedback 9, 295–296, 299–300, 305, 307–309, 311, 313, 345; future research 109–110; illustrative examples of research 102–107; individualism 233; measurement of 100–102; SCENT model 97–99; selfverification theory 47; strategies 93–97, 101, 102–107 self-esteem 1, 5, 8, 15, 40–71; autonomysupportive management 156; benefits and pitfalls of 48–52; contingent 53–54; Core Self-Evaluations 50, 327; definition of 43; deviant behavior 104; engagement 327–329, 335; feedback 298–299, 306, 311; function of 56–58; global trait-based view 43–52; historical overview 41–43; implicit 55–56; instability 54–55; job demands-resources framework 325; measurement of 42–43; reflexive consciousness 4; self-affirming interventions 184; self-control replenishment 136; self-enhancement conflated with 100, 101; shameproneness 281; social-cognitive view 43, 52–56 self-evaluation 3, 299–300; Core SelfEvaluations 40, 50–51, 129, 153, 327; domain-specific 44, 49, 53; engagement 327, 336; global 46; guilt and shame 8–9, 172, 175, 178, 183–184, 188; negative 9, 273–276,

Index  377

277, 279, 281–283, 285, 286; SCENT model 97; self-enhancement motive 92; self-evaluation maintenance model 92; Western cultures 226 self-expression 319, 320, 321, 326, 332–333 self-handicapping 93, 94 self-identities 285, 343–346, 348, 349–351, 352–353, 357; see also identity self-image: cultural differences 227; escape from the self 280–281; narcissism 52; negative self-evaluations 275–276; self-enhancement 94, 103 self-improvement 6; feedback 9, 295–296, 299–301, 305, 307–311, 313, 345, 351; personal growth 100; SCENT model 97–98 self-injury 280, 283 self-interest 74, 75, 126; ethical behavior 133–134; guilt proneness 186; negotiation 233; procedural justice 232; United States 236 self-knowledge 42, 52–53, 55, 343, 345; cultural differences 227; episodic 352; future work selves 302; leadership 347; self-complexity theory 303 self-managing work teams 237 self-medication hypothesis 276 self-monitoring 4, 125, 266 self-perception 94, 108 self-presentation 31, 253–254, 255–256; actor-perceiver model 258–259; definition of 267n1; dimensions 257–258; future research 266–267; perceiver’s perspective 262–265; perceptions of success 265–266; positivity embracement 94; tactics 256–257; see also impression management self-protection 92–93, 100 self-ratings 105, 108 self-regulation 3, 6, 8, 344, 347; continuum of 162; Core Self-Evaluations 50; dynamic process perspective 352; feedback 297; identity construction 348; self-awareness 122; self-efficacy beliefs 35; social schemas 349 self-representation 173, 228, 229, 230, 241 self-schemas 342–345, 346–348; dynamic process perspective 351–353, 354, 356; leadership development 355; social aspects 349 self-serving biases 234

self-verification 46–47, 54, 97–98, 108–109, 110n1, 346 self-worth 5, 33; contingencies of 92, 101; Core Self-Evaluations 50; global self-esteem 44; introjected regulation 149–150; job enrichment 229; narcissism 51–52; power associated with 58; self-esteem and 45, 54, 55; shame 174 Sels, L. 158 Senécal, C. 155–156, 157 shame 1, 8–9, 173–178, 188, 278–282; alcohol use 274, 277, 279–280, 282–283, 285–286; assessment of proneness to 177–178; collectivist negotiations 236; cultural differences 227; future research 182–188; guilt distinction 175–176; leadership 180; negative psychosocial outcomes 181; negotiation and conflict management 181; organizational responses 283–284; person-centered perspective 176–177; prosocial and ethical behavior 179; regulation of behavior 173–174; self-esteem 44; shame-reduction interventions 284–285, 286; task effort and job performance 180; trait shameproneness as boundary condition 281 Shamir, B. 351 Shapiro, D. L. 237 shared leadership 355, 357 Shaw, C. V. 19 Sherman, D. K. 184 Sherrill, M. R. 301 Shi, J. 282 Shidlovski, D. 307 Shipp, A. I. 160 Shokef, E. 240 Showers, C. J. 55 Sim, J. 106 Simon, H. A. 204 Simon, L. 58 Sims, C. S. 103 Sitzmann, T. 20, 24, 28, 103 Sivanathan, N. 203 skills 156, 159 Skinner, B. F. 42 sleep 124, 127, 136, 329 Sligte, D. J. 203 Smith, P. K. 198, 203, 212 smoking 124–125 social categorization 84, 346 social climate 267

378 Index

social cognition: correspondent inferences 262; power research 196; self-esteem 43, 52–56 social cognitive theory 24, 29, 323, 356 social comparison: academic self-concept 32; feedback 306; self-efficacy 30–32, 34; self-enhancement 8, 110; upward 300; Western cultures 226 social connections 257 social context: culture and creativity 240; dynamic process perspective 353–354; leadership 341; power research 199–200; Self-Determination Theory 157; selfenhancement 99; self-identities 349 social contingency model 208 social distance 212 social events 136 social exchange 73, 77–79, 85, 355 social exclusion 56 social identity 72–90, 345, 346, 349–351; dynamic process perspective 353; future research 84–85; group prototypes 355; intergroup relations 82–84; leadership 79–81; organizational change 81–82; organization’s best interest 74–77; self-enhancement motive 92; social exchange 77–79; work engagement 330 social image 259, 261–262 social influence 239 social loafing 238 social media 256 social power 9, 194–221; evolution of research 196–197; individual level factors 201–205; interpersonal level factors 201, 205–207; laboratory studies 195, 197–200; organizational level factors 201; see also power social psychology 7–8, 225–227; culture and self 236, 240–241, 242, 243; guilt and shame 173–174; impression management 253–254, 258, 267; information processing 55; justice 232–233; leadership 79; narcissism 52; organizational level factors 207–212; power 194–196, 200, 203, 208; self-enhancement 96; self-esteem 41, 42–43, 44–45, 48–49, 59; selfmonitoring 266; self-motives 299; selfverification 47; social categorization 84; social identity 80, 82–83, 85; student research participants 199 social rewards 105 social schemas 346, 349, 351

social self 2 social support: job demands-resources framework 157, 325; Organismic Integration Theory 150; poor 152; self-control 129 socialization 44, 160, 161 sociometer model 56–57 Solomon, S. 58 Somach, A. 238 Sonnentag, Sabine 9, 319–340, 347 specificity matching 49–50 Spence, J. R. 104 spiritual self 2 Sprince, N. L. 276 Sproull, L. 211 Staats, B. R. 330 standards of behavior 185–186, 188–189 state self-esteem 54–55 status 3; impression management 253, 267; meaningfulness 323; overconfidence 96; power and 202; self-esteem 49, 56, 57–58 Staw, B. M. 172, 239–240 Steele, C. M. 183 Steensma, H. K. 76–77, 79 Stephan, E. 307 stereotypes 196, 206–207 Stern, I. 103 Stevens, C. K. 105 Stone-Romero, E. F. 35 stories 351, 356 Strauss, Karoline 9, 295–318 stress: alcohol use 277, 278, 282; attentional demands 204; Core SelfEvaluations 50; escape from the self 275; heart rate variability 133; job characteristics 156; powerful people 195; self-control 119–120, 126; selfesteem 45–46, 50 stressors 45–46, 126, 129, 326, 335 Stroop test 121, 132 Strube, M. J. 92, 97–98 Sturm, R. E. 195, 213 success 5; self-control depletion 123; self-efficacy 25, 30; self-enhancement 8; self-esteem 101; self-serving attributions 94, 95 suicide 276, 280 supervisors 106, 128, 285, 286; see also managers support: harmonious passion 159; perceived 53, 78–79; see also social support

Index  379

Swaab, R. I. 209–210 Swann, W. B. 47, 49 symbolic self-completion theory 92 sympathy 227 systematic desensitization 20 systems theory 25 Taiwan 236, 237 Takeuchi, R. 101 Tang, Y. 260 Tangney, J. P. 173–174, 176, 278, 279 Tannenbaum, S. I. 236–237 tasks: job characteristics 156, 157; task behaviors 127–128, 136; task effort 179–180, 182 Tavares, S. 78 Taylor, S. E. 101, 102 teams 5; cultural differences in negotiation 236; culture and 236–240; diversity 83–84; identification 76; impression management 267; information sharing 208; leadership 354–355; power research 206; threat perceptions in 105–106; see also groups temporal comparisons 94, 95 Tennen, H. 279 tension-reduction hypothesis 276 Tepper, B. J. 104 Terror Management Theory 58, 92 Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) 177–178 Thau, Stefan 9, 194–221 Thompson, L. 105–106 Thompson, T. 282 Tice, D. 131 time pressure 126, 184, 205 Todd, M. 279 Tolman, E. C. 26 Tong, J. Y. 260 Torchetti, L. 101 TOSCA see Test of Self-Conscious Affect Tost, L. P. 199 Tracy, Jessica L. 8–9, 172–193, 284 training: autonomy-supportive management 155; nurse supervisors 286; psychological contracts 104; self-control interventions 136; SelfDetermination Theory 160; shamereduction interventions 285 trait-based view of self-esteem 43–52, 54 transactional leadership 230, 347 transformational leadership 18, 80–81, 153, 230, 347, 355

transparency 208; “illusion of” 266 Triandis, H. C. 225–226, 240, 243 tripartite view of the self 3–4, 10n1 Tripp, T. M. 105 Troester, C. 161 Trope, Y. 301 Trougakos, J. P. 127 trust: autonomy-supportive management 155; building 355; cultural differences 239; impression management 264, 267; negotiation 235, 236 Truxillo, D. 286 Tsaousis, I. 334 Tsui, A. S. 299 turnover: alcohol use 273; organizational identification 73, 74, 78; SelfDetermination Theory 160 Twenge, J. 131 ultimatum game 210, 213 uncertainty: leader group prototypicality 80, 348; self-assessment 97; selfcontrol 126 unemployment 48 unethical behavior 6, 133–134 United States 233–234, 236, 237–240 unrelated positives 94 Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) 322, 324, 331, 332 Vallerand, Robert J. 8, 145–171 values: cognitive resources 136; company rules and norms 126–127; concept of the self 148–149; congruence 161, 325, 326; cultural 3, 228–229, 230, 237, 239, 240–242; global work 240; impression management 259, 261; internalization of organizational 161, 164; multiple motivations 162; selfaffirmation 106, 285; self-control 129; Self-Determination Theory 145, 152, 163; self-expression 320 van den Bos, K. 232–233 Van der Kam, N. A. 105 van Dick, R. 76, 78 Van Dyne, L. 239 van Gils, S. 75 Van Kleef, G. 236 van Knippenberg, Daan 8, 72–90, 347–348 van Schie, E. C. M. 76 Vancouver, Jeffrey B. 8, 15–39 verbal communication 211

380 Index

Vess, M. 306 vigilance: impression management 259, 263–264; self-control 125, 126, 133 vigor 321, 322, 328–329, 330, 333, 335 violence 280 virtual work 201, 211–212 vision 350 Vohs, K. D. 15, 131 Vroom, V. H. 22 Vygotsky, Lev 41–42 Walter, F. 322 Walumbwa, F. O. 230 Wang, Mo 9, 273–292 Watson, John D. 42 Wayne, S. J. 254 well-being 8, 145, 147, 284; autonomysupportive management 155, 156; engagement 319, 321, 324–325, 331; harmonious passion 159; job characteristics 156, 157; job enrichment 229; need satisfaction 158; Organismic Integration Theory 150; person-environment fit 161; “positive illusions” 96; psychological contracts 104; self-concordance model 153 Western cultures 99, 210, 211, 226, 234, 284 Westphal, J. D. 103 Wheeler, Jasmine L. 9, 225–252 Whelpley, C. E. 47

White, R. W. 145 Wiesenfeld, B. M. 47 Wiltermuth, S. S. 184 withdrawal 280 Wolf, S. T. 279 women 262 Woo, S. E. 47, 103 Wood, R. E. 23 work-family conflict 41, 50, 156, 159 work-self salience 302 working memory 184, 204 workload 126, 205, 325, 326 Wrzesniewski, A. 333 Wu, A. 237 Wyer, R. Jr. 238 Xanthopoulou, D. 327–328 Yan, M. 158 Ybarra, O. 238 Yeo, G. B. 20, 24, 28 Yun, S. 101, 102 Zeigler-Hill, Virgil 8, 40–71 Zell, E. 32 Zellmer-Bruhn, M. 237, 242 Zhan, Y. 282 Zimbardo, P. G. 196 Zuckerman, M. 155 Zuk, Y. 21–22 Zwerling, C. 276