How you speak up at work can affect whether you’re picked for a team
December 4, 2021
Science Daily/Iowa State University
Business leaders and management experts often encourage people to speak up in the workplace. Suggesting a creative idea or a more efficient way to work can help companies overcome challenges and meet goals. But new research shows another, more subtle and often overlooked form of speaking up has a big effect on the way work gets done and how teams come together.
"What we say within a group, the ideas we suggest and the way we support others, signals something about who we are to our coworkers. It can attract people to us or repel them," said Melissa Chamberlin, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Iowa State University, and co-author of a paper recently published in Journal of Management.
In the paper, Chamberlin and her research team demonstrate how two different ways of communicating work-related issues shape reputations and affect the formation of teams to complete short-term projects. They found people who use "supportive voice," which fuels trust and cooperation, have a higher chance of being recruited to a team compared to those who use a more task-oriented "challenging voice."
Challenging voice pushes back against the status quo and offers ideas for improvement. While it has some downsides, such as perceived criticism or conflict, challenge voice tends to signal an employee's competence or expertise. Chamberlin said managers, especially in dynamic and fast-paced industries, often value this communication behavior as something that can help teams complete tasks efficiently and effectively.
"Supportive voice is still about speaking up in the workplace, but it's looking at what's going well in the group or team. It might defend the status quo by saying there's value in what the team is already doing," said Chamberlin.
Supportive voice signals someone's approachability and trustworthiness. It fosters strong interpersonal relationships, which Chamberlin said affects a team's ability to communicate and coordinate efforts in order to reach goals.
To understand the effects of the two communication behaviors on team formation, the researchers collected data from a cohort of full-time, first-year Master of Business Administration students over a four-month period. The students were periodically assigned to different teams to complete projects and then asked to rate fellow team members' use of challenging and supportive voice, quality of work, reputation and trust. Near the end of the study, students were allowed to assemble into teams without any direction from the MBA office.
The study results revealed students who ranked high on challenging voice built a reputation for conducting high-quality work, but students preferred to work in teams with those who frequently used supportive voice. Chamberlin said the results were surprising.
"Because challenging voice is the predominant form of speaking up we encourage in classrooms and as managers, we thought it was going to be strong driver of people selecting team members later. But as it turns out, this more supportive voice that helps establish relationships and a sense of trust amongst individuals in the group was more important," Chamberlin said.
The researchers pointed out that having both types of voice would be ideal, but between the two, supportive voice was a stronger driver of team formation.
Chamberlin said the paper's findings could help employees realize the way they speak up can have a strong effect on informal teaming up at a later point and help them move into leadership roles. As for managers, Chamberlin said the results could encourage them to foster and provide space for more supportive voice by coaching this type of behavior and rewarding employees who speak up supportively.
"There might be times that challenging voice reigns supreme but other situations where supportive voice becomes more critical for a team," said Chamberlin. "Supportive voicers can keep teams together to make sure the work gets done."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211204190835.htm
Daytime meals may reduce health risks linked to night shift work
December 3, 2021
Science Daily/NIH/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
A small clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health has found that eating during the nighttime -- like many shift workers do -- can increase glucose levels, while eating only during the daytime might prevent the higher glucose levels now linked with a nocturnal work life. The findings, the study authors said, could lead to novel behavioral interventions aimed at improving the health of shift workers -- grocery stockers, hotel workers, truck drivers, first responders, and others -- who past studies show may be at an increased risk for diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
The new study, which the researchers noted is the first to demonstrate the beneficial effect of this type of meal timing intervention in humans, appears online in the journal Science Advances. It was funded primarily by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of NIH.
"This is a rigorous and highly controlled laboratory study that demonstrates a potential intervention for the adverse metabolic effects associated with shift work, which is a known public health concern," said Marishka Brown, Ph.D., director of the NHLBI's National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. "We look forward to additional studies that confirm the results and begin to untangle the biological underpinnings of these findings."
For the study, the researchers enrolled 19 healthy young participants (seven women and 12 men). After a preconditioning routine, the participants were randomly assigned to a 14-day controlled laboratory protocol involving simulated night work conditions with one of two meal schedules. One group ate during the nighttime to mimic a meal schedule typical among night workers, and one group ate during the daytime.
The researchers then evaluated the effects of these meal schedules on their internal circadian rhythms. That's the internal process that regulates not just the sleep-wake cycle, but also the 24-hour cycle of virtually all aspects of your bodily functions, including metabolism.
The researchers found that nighttime eating boosted glucose levels -- a risk factor for diabetes -- while restricting meals to the daytime prevented this effect. Specifically, average glucose levels for those who ate at night increased by 6.4% during the simulated night work, while those who ate during the daytime showed no significant increases.
"This is the first study in humans to demonstrate the use of meal timing as a countermeasure against the combined negative effects of impaired glucose tolerance and disrupted alignment of circadian rhythms resulting from simulated night work," said study leader Frank A.J.L. Scheer, Ph.D., professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston.
The researchers said that the mechanisms behind the observed effects are complex. They believe that the nighttime eating effects on glucose levels during simulated night work are caused by circadian misalignment. That corresponds to the mistiming between the central circadian "clock" (located in the brain's hypothalamus) and behavioral sleep/wake, light/dark, and fasting/eating cycles, which can influence peripheral "clocks" throughout the body. The current study shows that, in particular, mistiming of the central circadian clock with the fasting/eating cycles plays a key role in boosting glucose levels. The work further suggests the beneficial effects of daytime eating on glucose levels during simulated night work may be driven by better alignment between these central and peripheral "clocks."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211203151433.htm
Study casts doubt on theory that women aren't as competitive as men
November 1, 2021
Science Daily/University of Arizona
As researchers investigate reasons for America's persistent gender wage gap, one possible explanation that has emerged in roughly the last decade is that women may be less competitive than men, and are therefore passed over for higher-ranking roles with larger salaries.
But a new study suggests that it's likely not that simple. Researchers found that women enter competitions at the same rate as men -- when they have the option to share their winnings with the losers.
The study, conducted by Mary L. Rigdon, associate director of the UArizona Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, and Alessandra Cassar, professor of economics at the University of San Francisco, is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rigdon's research involves studying how market structure, information and incentives impact behavior. Her work over the last 20 years has explored questions about trust, reciprocity, competition, altruism, cheating and more, with a particular focus on gender differences, especially the gender wage gap.
"If we're finally going to close the gender pay gap, then we have to understand the sources of it -- and also solutions and remedies for it," said Rigdon, who is also a faculty affiliate in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
In 2021, women will earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, Rigdon said, meaning women work nearly three months extra to receive the same amount of pay. This statistic does not account for certain characteristics, such as an employee's age, experience or level of education.
But even when considering those characteristics, women are still paid about 98 cents for every dollar earned by men, Rigdon said. In other words, a woman is paid 2% less than a man with the same qualifications.
Economists have considered a few possible explanations for this, Rigdon said. One theory, known as the "human capital explanation," suggests that there are gender differences in certain skills, leading women to careers that pay less. Another theory -- perhaps the most widely considered -- is patent discrimination.
Rigdon and Cassar zeroed in on the relatively new theory that women are less competitive and less willing to take risks than men.
But if women were more reluctant to compete, then they would occupy fewer high-ranking positions at the tops of major companies, and that's not the trend that's taken shape over the last several years, Rigdon said. Women make up about 8% of the CEOs leading Fortune 500 companies. While that number is low overall, it's a record high.
"We thought it must be the case that women are as competitive as men, but they just exhibit it differently, so we wanted to try to get at that story and demonstrate that that is the case," Rigdon said. "Because that's then a very different story about the gender wage gap."
Rigdon and Cassar randomly assigned 238 participants -- split nearly evenly by gender -- to two different groups for the study. Participants in each of those two groups were then randomly assigned to four-person subgroups.
For all participants, the first round of the study was the same: Each was asked to look at tables of 12 three-digit numbers with two decimal places and find the two numbers that add to 10. Participants were asked to solve as many tables as possible -- up to 20 -- in two minutes. Each participant was paid $2 for every table they solved in the first round.
In round two, participants were asked to do the same task, but the two groups were incentivized differently. In the first group, the two participants in each four-person team who solved the most tables earned $4 per table solved, while their other two team members were given nothing. In the other group, the top two performers of each four-person team also earned $4 per table, but they had the right to decide how much of the prize money to share with one of the lower performing participants.
In the third round, all participants were allowed to choose which payment scheme they preferred from the two previous rounds. For half the study participants, this meant a choice between a guaranteed $2 per correct table, or potentially $4 per correct table if they became one of the top-two performers in their four-person subgroup. For the other half of the participants, the choice was $2 per correct table, or $4 per correct table for the top-two performers with the option to share the winnings with one of the losing participants.
The number of women who chose the competitive option nearly doubled when given the option to share their winnings; about 60% chose to compete under that option, while only about 35% chose to compete in the winner-take-all version of the tournament.
About 51% of men in the study chose the winner-take-all option, and 52.5% chose the format that allowed for sharing with the losers.
Rigdon said she and Cassar have a few theories about why women are more inclined to compete when they can share the winnings. One suggests female participants are simply interested in controlling the way the winnings are divvied up among the other participants.
Another theory that has emerged among evolutionary psychologists, Rigdon said, suggests that female participants may be inclined to smooth over bad feelings with losers of the competition.
"We really have to ask what it is about this social incentive that drives women to compete. We think it's recognizing the different costs and benefits that come from your different biological and cultural constraints," she said. "But at the end of the day, I think we still have this question."
Rigdon and Cassar are now developing an experiment that gets to the heart of that question, Rigdon said.
The researchers are careful to not propose policies for corporate America based on a line of research that still has many questions. But, Rigdon said, the latest finding suggests that corporations might do well to engage in more socially responsible activity.
"Maybe you'll attract a different set of applicants to your CEO positions or your board of director positions," she said. "Women might be more attracted to positions where there is this social component that isn't there in more traditional, incentive-based firms where it's all about CEO bonuses."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211101154808.htm
10 Things You Can Do to Deal With Career Stress
Guest Post by Felix Prasetyo
As a solopreneur, I've had to learn how to deal with career stress because nobody was there to help me. Working on my own has its benefits--behind the scenes while everyone else is still at work, charging only for the time I spend on an assignment or project, making my own hours and schedule work for me. But it takes learning on how to be self-motivated and control my own focus level. If I get distracted, procrastinate all day long, stop taking breaks during the day, then suddenly realize that it's 10 pm, and I haven't done any meaningful work in two days...I'm screwed!
But if you're like most young professionals out there who are managing their careers themselves for the first time, then you might find yourself dealing with some stress that doesn't come from your new career. Maybe it's because of school, especially if you're juggling one or two degrees while trying to work, or maybe even it's moving to a new city for the first time on your own, or maybe it's family problems...either way, here 10 things you can do to cope with it all.
1. Take up yoga.
I know what you're thinking: "Yoga? Ha ha ha! More like Yogurt!" Well guess what--yogurt won't help reduce your blood pressure or deal with anxiety attacks before an important pitch meeting. Yoga is great for learning how to breathe properly and really control every part of your body, which helps keep your mind centered too!
Experts believe that incorporating yoga into a daily routine has many benefits in our lives, emotionally as well as physically. As more research is conducted regarding the positive effects of yoga on our health, it becomes more apparent that this practice truly does have some amazing benefits even for those who consider themselves "healthy".
2. Try seeing a doctor for medication.
I'm not joking--you could have some sort of anxiety disorder that is making it hard to be comfortable in your new career, and if you're feeling overwhelmed then that's not normal or healthy. A doctor can prescribe something that will help control that, so don't ignore the signs!
3. Practice meditation at least once a day (in addition to yoga).
It helps clear your mind and gives you perspective on any problems you might have. It also helps make it easier to focus on what you need to do during the day--if you've had time to sit down, center yourself, and think about everything, then it'll be easier for you to tackle each item one at a time.
A study conducted by Harvard neuroscientists showed that meditation actually changes grey matter concentration in the brain regions responsible for memory, learning ability, and compassion. Meditation helps control your emotions also because it reduces activity within our amygdala - a region associated with fear and anxiety response.
4. Find friends at work--or approach coworkers who seem friendly so you can get to know them better outside of the office.
It'll be nice to have some people that you can talk to about any problems or frustrations, particularly when it's someone that understands what you're going through in your career right now! Sometimes having just one person with whom you can approach personal issues is enough to cut out stress in half for the day.
5. Save up some money when times are good so you have some extra leeway if things don't turn out as planned during a rough patch of job.
Sure, I live with my family...but not everyone has that luxury! If your parents will let you stay with them rent-free while you find a job, then that's great. If not, then make sure to keep some money tucked away for the day when you come home and say "I don't know what to do anymore!"
6. Find ways to relax outside of work (even if it means taking time off).
As much as this is about dealing with stress at work, it's also about learning how to take care of yourself...so make sure you're doing things that are enjoyable too! You can use up all your vacation days or personal days on relaxing--that way there'll be no guilt involved the next time you have an assignment due which is eating up your last few hours of free time!
7. Find ways to escape work at work (and don't feel bad about it).
Your job might be stressful, but that doesn't mean you can't take a few minutes out of your day to check your personal email or text the people who are closest to you! If anything, it'll make you feel better for the rest of the day so you can tackle each problem with more ease.
8. Take advantage of company programs designed to help employees relax and refocus themselves.
There's no shame in asking HR if they have any services available for their staff. You might need to go through some training or counseling sessions before anything is approved, but there's nothing wrong with taking part in something that could improve your mental health during these tough times.
9. Reach out to your S.O., family, or friends for support.
Sometimes it's easier to talk about tough problems with people who won't be directly impacted by the outcome (or at least not until they find out how things turn out!). They can give you a different perspective on what you're going through, and help remind you of the good parts of the situation too!
10. Make sure you have some activities planned during downtime.
When work does start to weigh on your mind, it'll be nice to have something else waiting for you! A new book series? An upcoming movie marathon? Exciting plans with your best friend from back home? Whatever it is, just sure there's something there which will make you happy--because there's no point in dealing with stress if it doesn't make you feel better!
Hobbies are great for keeping your mind busy during times of stress, especially if the hobby is something that keeps you active. If entering a 5K race to support cancer research or hula hooping for fun will help take away your worries, then go out and do it! Be sure to check what types of activities are offered through work too--if they'll reimburse you for them, then even better!
Final thoughts
You are so worth it. When you're feeling stressed, it's important to take time for yourself and find ways to relieve the tension. Because at the end of the day, we all face challenges in our lives. Stress, because of that, is inevitable. But by implementing these 10 tips you can reduce the amount of time it takes for your brain and body to recover. Implementing even one tip will make a difference in how you feel. Let us know if any of these ideas resonate with you or share some that work well for you!
Author bio (Gravatar email: felix@lifengoal.com):
Felix Prasetyo is the founder and writer at Lifengoal.com, where he talks about anything related to personal growth. Download his free ebook “The 8 Relationship Advice I Wish I’d Known 10 Years Ago”, featuring the likes of Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty, Matthew Hussey, and more!
Mentally reattaching to work important for leader success
August 31, 2021
Science Daily/Portland State University
A new study found that on the days that leaders and managers were better able to reattach to work in the morning, they experienced higher positive moods and work focus and that in turn allowed them to be more successful throughout the day.
Getting into the right mindset for work can set the tone for the rest of your day -- and it's an especially beneficial practice for managers, a new Portland State University study found.
Mentally reconnecting to work -- thinking about what you want to accomplish that day, what's on your day's agenda or what situations you might encounter before you even open your work email -- better prepares an employee to be engaged throughout the workday. The study found that on the days that leaders and managers were better able to reattach to work in the morning, they experienced higher positive moods and work focus and that in turn allowed them to be more successful throughout the day.
Reattachment to work can occur while still at home (thinking about the upcoming day during breakfast), during the commute (anticipating events at work that day) or when arriving at work (mentally running through the day's to-do list after parking). For those working from home, the time saved by not commuting can be used to sit down in front of the computer and mentally get into a work mindset before opening your email or logging into a Zoom meeting.
Charlotte Fritz, the study's lead author and an associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology at PSU, previously found that employees who mentally reconnect to work in the morning are more engaged at work, but she says that this study's focus on leaders is important as they are also responsible for the work and engagement of their employees.
This study found that by successfully reattaching to work at the start of their day, managers were better able to accomplish their own work tasks, felt more energetic throughout the workday and engaged in more transformational leadership behaviors.
"These leader behaviors are crucial for a variety of employee outcomes," Fritz said. "Providing a vision, being inspirational and motivating for employees, listening carefully and supporting employee needs and providing them with opportunities for growth."
More than 400 leaders filled out daily surveys throughout the workweek and Fritz said their levels of vitality, goal accomplishment and positive leadership fluctuated based on how they mentally reconnected with work in the morning.
"On days when leaders do this, they're going to do better at work," Fritz said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210831095617.htm
Attractiveness pays off at work — but there’s a trick to level the playing field
August 18, 2021
Science Daily/University at Buffalo
Beautiful people are more likely to get hired, receive better performance evaluations and get paid more -- but it's not just because of their good looks, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management.
The study, forthcoming in Personnel Psychology, was recently published online. It found that while a "beauty premium" exists across professions, it's partially because attractive people develop distinct traits as a result of how the world responds to their attractiveness. They build a greater sense of power and have more opportunities to improve nonverbal communication skills throughout their lives.
"We wanted to examine whether there's an overall bias toward beauty on the job, or if attractive people excel professionally because they're more effective communicators," says Min-Hsuan Tu, PhD, assistant professor of organization and human resources in the UB School of Management. "What we found was that while good looking people have a greater sense of power and are better nonverbal communicators, their less-attractive peers can level the playing field during the hiring process by adopting a powerful posture."
The researchers conducted two studies that evaluated 300 elevator pitches of participants in a mock job search. In the first study, managers determined the good looking people to be more hirable because of their more effective nonverbal presence.
In the second study, the researchers asked certain participants to strike a 'power pose' by standing with their feet shoulder-width apart, hands on hips, chest out and chin up during their pitch. With this technique, the less attractive people were able to match the level of nonverbal presence that their more attractive counterparts displayed naturally.
"By adopting the physical postures associated with feelings of power and confidence, less attractive people can minimize behavioral differences in the job search," says Tu. "But power posing is not the only solution -- anything that can make you feel more powerful, like doing a confidence self-talk, visualizing yourself succeeding, or reflecting on past accomplishments before a social evaluation situation can also help."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818200229.htm
Use your team’s emotions to boost creativity
August 17, 2021
Science Daily/Rice University
If you're putting together a team for a project, you might be inclined to pick people with cheerful, optimistic dispositions and flexible thinking. But a new management study indicates your team might also benefit from people who are exactly the opposite, according to experts at Rice University, the University of Western Australia, Bond University and the University of Queensland.
The study, co-authored by Jing Zhou, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business, investigates the effects of "team affective diversity" on team creativity. The paper published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior is among the first research to reveal how, why and under what condition teams' "affective diversity" promotes team creativity.
Team members with what researchers call "negative affect" exhibit critical and persistent thinking that allows them to identify problems needing solutions, as well as to search out and critically evaluate relevant information. On the other hand, team members with "positive affect" engage in broad and flexible thinking that expands their range of information and helps them see unusual and creative connections, the researchers say.
"At any given point in time, some team members may experience positive affect such as joy and inspiration, whereas others may experience negative affect such as frustration and worry," Zhou said. "Instead of trying to homogenize team members' affect, teams should embrace affective heterogeneity."
When a team experiences a high level of this "affective heterogeneity," what Zhou describes as "dual-tuning" leads to greater creativity.
The researchers tested their hypotheses among 59 teams working on a semesterlong project in an undergraduate management course at a university in Hong Kong. Each team developed a business plan, which involved designing a new product and differentiating it from potential competitors in the market.
Zhou stresses that a team's "affective heterogeneity" can serve as a resource for team creativity. This unique type of diversity facilitates team creativity, provided the teams have a strong so-called "transactive memory system." "Our study suggests that teams may be aided in using their affect heterogeneity via interventions that focus on building the team's transactive memory system, which can be accelerated when team members spend time together, share goals, receive information about member specializations and train on the task together," Zhou said.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210817193007.htm
Night shift work is linked to increased risk of heart problems
August 16, 2021
Science Daily/European Society of Cardiology
People who work night shifts are at increased risk of developing an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation (AF), according to research published in the European Heart Journal.
The study is the first to investigate the links between night shift work and AF. Using information from 283,657 people in the UK Biobank database, researchers found that the longer and more frequently that people worked night shifts over their lifetimes, the greater their risk of AF. Night shift work was also linked to an increased risk of heart disease, but not to stroke or heart failure.
In addition, the researchers, led by Professor Yingli Lu, of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital and Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and Professor Lu Qi, of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, USA, investigated whether genetic predisposition to AF could play a role in the increased risk. They evaluated the overall genetic risk on the basis of 166 genetic variations known to be associated with the condition but found that the genetic risk levels did not affect the link between working night shifts and AF risk, regardless of whether participants had a low, medium or high genetic risk.
Prof. Lu said: "Although a study like this cannot show a causal link between night shifts and atrial fibrillation and heart disease, our results suggest that current and lifetime night shift work may increase the risk of these conditions.
"Our findings have public health implications for preventing atrial fibrillation. They suggest that reducing both the frequency and the duration of night shift work may be beneficial for the health of the heart and blood vessels."
The study included 286,353 people who were in paid employment or self-employed. A total of 283,657 of these participants did not have AF when they enrolled in UK Biobank, and 276,009 did not have heart failure or stroke. Information on genetic variants was available for 193,819 participants without AF, and 75,391 of them answered in-depth questions about their lifetime employment in a questionnaire sent out in 2015. Among the participants free of heart disease and stroke when they joined the study, 73,986 provided information on their employment history. During an average follow-up time of over ten years, there were 5,777 AF cases.
The researchers adjusted their analyses for factors that could affect the results, such as age, sex, ethnicity, education, socioeconomic status, smoking, physical exercise, diet, body mass index, blood pressure, sleep duration and chronotype (whether someone was a 'morning' or an 'evening' person).
They found that people who currently worked night shifts on a usual or permanent basis had a 12% increased risk of AF compared to people who only worked during the day. The risk increased to 18% after ten or more years for those who had a lifetime duration of night shifts. Among people who worked an average of three to eight night shifts a month for ten years or more, the risk of AF increased to 22% compared to daytime workers.
Among participants currently working night shifts, or working night shifts for ten or more years, or working a lifetime of three to eight night shifts a month, the risk of coronary heart disease increased by 22%, 37% and 35% respectively compared to daytime workers.
Prof. Qi said: "There were two more interesting findings. We found that women were more susceptible to atrial fibrillation than men when working night shifts for more than ten years. Their risk increased significantly by 64% compared to day workers. People reporting an ideal amount of physical activity of 150 minutes a week or more of moderate intensity, 75 minutes a week or more of vigorous intensity, or an equivalent combination, had a lower risk of atrial fibrillation than those with non-ideal physical activity when exposed to a lifetime of night shift work. Thus, women and less physically active people may benefit particularly from a reduction in night shift work."
A strength of the study is its size, with detailed information on over 283,000 people. In addition, it is the first study to link these data with genetic information in a population that also has detailed histories available on current shift work and lifetime employment.
Limitations of the study include the fact that it cannot show shift work causes heart problems, only that it is associated with them; some cases of atrial fibrillation may have been missed; lifetime employment was assessed only when people joined UK Biobank, was self-reported and, therefore, may have changed or be prone to some errors; there may be unknown factors that might affect the results; and the people in UK Biobank were mainly white British and so it may not be possible to generalise the findings to other ethnic groups.
Prof. Lu said: "We plan to analyse the association between night shift work and atrial fibrillation in different groups of people. This may strengthen the reliability of these results and serve as a warning to groups working in certain types of occupations to get their hearts checked early if they feel any pain or discomfort in their chests."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210816111941.htm
'Why you gotta be so rude?' Study highlights 'vicious cycle' of workplace incivility
August 10, 2021
Science Daily/Portland State University
Workplace incivility is on the rise, and a new Portland State University study found that employees who experience or witness incivilities are more likely to be uncivil to others -- a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to in-person work.
"People have gotten used to not having to engage in interpersonal communication as much and that can take an already distressing or tense situation and exacerbate it because people are out of practice of not having to have difficult conversations," said Larry Martinez, associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology and co-author of the study. "These spirals that we're seeing might be stronger in a post-pandemic world."
Uncivil behavior at work can range from criticizing someone in public, rude or obnoxious behavior or withholding important information to more subtle acts such as arriving late to a meeting, checking email or texting during a meeting, or ignoring or interrupting a colleague.
Incivility can mean different things to different people, so it can be easily overlooked or missed.
"Incivility is typically ambiguous and not very intense, but it has harmful effects all the same," said Lauren Park, a recent Ph.D. graduate in industrial-organizational psychology who now works as an HR research scientist.
Park and Martinez's study is the first comprehensive review of its kind to analyze the factors that predict uncivil behavior in workplaces. They focused on the instigator's perspective to better understand incivility and how to stop it at its source.
Among the findings:
Employees who have more control over their jobs are less likely to reciprocate incivility. Researchers suggest that employees with greater job control have more freedom in deciding when and how their work tasks are completed, offering them the time and energy to seek social or organizational support, mentally and/or physically detach from work, reflect on the situation, or confront their uncivil colleague.
Employees whose immediate team or workgroup engages in more civil behavior are less likely to reciprocate incivility.
Employees who are older are less likely to reciprocate incivility.
In a remote working world, Park and Martinez said incivility could more easily go unchecked as people hide behind Zoom boxes or chat messages and it can be difficult to discern intent from text without body language or tone of voice. Even as people return to work, organizations may choose to adopt a hybrid model where employees may only come in for team-based work.
"There will inevitably be some conflict as people might be meeting coworkers in person for the first time or they'll be working together again in the same physical space," Martinez said. "Relationships will need to be renegotiated in different kinds of ways and the likelihood that people are going to be able to address these situations in a conducive manner as compared to before the pandemic will decrease."
Park said it's key that organizations provide support to employees who've experienced incivility.
"They're at a high risk of starting these vicious cycles," she said. "Providing support is not only the right thing to do but it stops that behavior from spiraling through the organization."
Martinez added that complaints about uncivil behavior shouldn't be discounted and organizations should have policies and practices in place that take incidents seriously and address them in a way that curtails them from continuing.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210810121051.htm
‘Hey, do you have a second?’— The upside of workplace interruptions
Research shows these disturbances can create a sense of belonging
August 3, 2021
Science Daily/University of Cincinnati
If you work in an office environment, it's a common occurrence: You're right in the middle of a project and a co-worker stops by to ask for help with a task or to share a photo of their new puppy.
When this happens, don't sigh at being distracted. A new study finds that these interruptions are beneficial to a sense of belonging and can counterbalance negatives such as lost productivity.
According to the study, which predominantly took place at the University of Cincinnati and soon will appear in the print edition of the Journal of Applied Psychology, while there were downsides to interruptions at work, like raising levels of stress and lowering people's energy, there was also an upside: Employees felt more like they "belonged" and that eventually led to higher job satisfaction.
"If the past year of social distancing and isolation has shown us anything, it is that humans are social beings who have an inherent need for interacting with others," says the study's lead author Harshad Puranik, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Managerial Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago.
In the study, the team surveyed 111 full-time employees twice a day for three weeks. They asked participants about their experience at work (since the beginning of the day for lunchtime surveys and since lunch for the end of workday surveys), including work interruptions, how mentally drained they felt, their sense of belonging and overall job satisfaction. The researchers found that while work interruptions can take a toll on interrupted employees' mental resources, thereby reducing job satisfaction, social interaction with an interrupter can also help boost employees' level of belonging, which was associated with increased job satisfaction.
What previous research has not considered, Puranik says, is that apart from their task-based aspect, work interruptions by others also involve a social component -- the social interaction with the interrupter. "Our study revealed that by providing this avenue for social interaction with one's colleagues, work interruptions led to a greater sense of belonging. This sense of belonging, in turn, led to higher job satisfaction."
The bulk of the study was conducted as part of Puranik's UC doctoral thesis, with two former UC faculty members at UC's Carl H. Lindner College of Business: Joel Koopman, now at Texas A&M University, and Heather C. Vough, now with George Mason University.
"We find that interruptions can actually benefit individuals from an interpersonal perspective -- people feel like they belong when others come and talk to them or ask them questions, even while being distracted from their tasks," says Vough.
What was surprising, Vough says, is that "the sense of belongingness mitigated the negative effect of interruptions on job satisfaction. Thus, interruptions at work may have gotten a bad rap due to a failure to consider their human element."
Since management historically has focused on ways to eliminate work interruptions, the study suggests alternatives to address interruptions, such as allowing employees more leeway in choosing when and where they work from and how they schedule their work.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210803175253.htm