Publication Date

2014

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Santuzzi, Alecia M.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Work--Social aspects; Social perception; Occupational psychology; Organizational behavior

Abstract

As employees navigate work and home life demands, they look to organizational policies and procedures to help in this regard. However, past research on reactions to employees taking advantage of such policies as well as expected evaluations from others, is decidedly mixed. In two studies, I examined the social cognitive mechanisms and subsequent boundary conditions that determine whether coworkers have negative reactions to leaving an interpersonal task and whether the target person expects negative reactions for doing so. The results from Study 1 showed that participants anticipate they will be evaluated more positively when the reason for leaving a shared task is due to illness rather than dislike of the task. Further, participants anticipated that they would be evaluated as having less self-discipline when the leave was voluntary rather than involuntary. In Study 2, the observed mean differences from Study 1 were not replicated. Further, metaperceptions (anticipated evaluations from the partner) were unrelated to partners' evaluations of self-discipline, conscientiousness, and trustworthiness, suggesting low meta-accuracy on these traits. However a positive relationship between metaperceptions and evaluations was observed for likeability. This relationship was moderated by choice such that meta-accuracy increased when participants were told they would be leaving involuntarily vs. voluntarily.

Comments

Advisors: Alecia M. Santuzzi.||Committee members: Lisa Finkelstein; John Skowronski.

Extent

89 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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