Research
My interest is in the psychological experience of work, broadly defined. Here are some current topics that our lab is investigating . . .
1) What comes first?. . . Judgments of (un)fairness or emotions?
Imagine that your supervisor just criticized your work on a project. As a result, you might feel angry or sad or guilty, or some combination of these. You also might consider your supervisor's evaluation as unfair and unwarranted. In this case, which came first. . . . your determination of unfairness or your emotional reaction? If emotional reactions precede judgments of unfairness, this also might imply that some of these judgements are simply the result of emotions from other events. For instance, perhaps we are more likely to see our supervisors as unfair if we are experiencing stress at home or if we arrive at work after being stuck in traffic for two hours.
2) The effects of subliminal affective primes on task performance
Xiaoxiao Hu is doing some really interesting work examining how subliminal cues impact how we feel about work tasks and how we perform on those tasks.
3) How accurate are we in predicting how we will feel at work?
Jill Bradley and I, along with several graduate students, are examining whether people really know how they feel while at work? Our findings suggest that people tend to report being feeling better at work than they predict they will feel. This holds even for longtime employees. . .suggesting that we do not "learn" about or correct our misperceptions of what work feels like.
4) How can we train leaders to help employees manage their emotions?
Jose Cortina and I, along with several graduate students, are investigating what leaders can do to help employees manage their emotions and how we can train leaders in this area.
5) How should teams communicate during crises?
Alcia Stachowski, Mary Waller, and I have are examining the way that nuclear power plant control rooms crew communicate during crises. In particular, we are looking at whether these crews should adhere to standardized communication patterns or abandon these patterns as the situation changes? |
Representative Publications
Barsky, A.P. & Kaplan, S.A. (2007). If you feel bad, it’s unfair: A quantitative synthesis of
affect and organizational justice perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 286-295.
Baskerville Watkins, M., Kaplan, S.A., Brief, A.P., Shull, A., Dietz, J., Mansfield,
M.T., & Cohen R. (2006). Does it pay to be a sexist? The relationship between
modern sexism and career outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69, 524-537.
Kaplan, S.A. Polychronicity in work teams: A theoretical examination of
antecedents and consequences. In R.A. Roe, M.J. Waller, & S. Clegg (Eds.), Time in Organizational Research: Approaches and Methods (pp. 103-126). Routledge: London.
Kaplan, S., Bradley, J.C., Luchman, J.N., & Haynes, D. (2009). On the role of positive and negative affectivity in job performance: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 162-162-176.
Kaplan, S.A., Santuzzi, A., & Ruscher, J.B. Elaborative metaperceptions
in outcome-dependent situations: The diluted relationship between default self-perceptions and metaperceptions. Paper in press at Social Cognition.
Stachowski, A*.,Kaplan, S.A.*, & Waller, M.J. The benefits of flexible team interaction during crises. Paper in press at Journal of Applied Psychology.
Thoresen , C.J., Kaplan, S.A., Barsky, A., Warren, C.R., & deChermont, K. (2003). The affective underpinnings of job perceptions and attitudes: A meta-analytic review and integration. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 914-945.
Zyphur, M. J., Kaplan, S. A., & Christian, M.S. (2008). A note on assumptions of invariance made in the analysis of multilevel data: Problems and solutions. Group Dynamics, 12, 127-140. |