“KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE”: COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE LINKAGES TO RESILIENCE BEHAVIOR IN WORK GOAL PURSUIT By Danielle D. King A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Psychology–Doctor of Philosophy 2018 “KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE”: COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE LINKAGES TO RESILIENCE BEHAVIOR IN WORK GOAL PURSUIT ABSTRACT By Danielle D. King Resilience to workplace adversity (i.e., continued goal pursuit despite difficulty) is a sought after, competitive advantage that, if fostered, may unlock additional benefits for both employees and organizations. Theoretically, the current work presents a clarified behavioral conceptualization of resilience at work, based within the goal and self-regulation frameworks. Empirically, this work uses both field (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) designs to explore the predictors (Studies 1 and 2) and outcomes (Study 2) of resilience. Specifically, the cognitive construal of one’s goal, alone and in combination with the perceived severity of the adversity encountered, were tested in the prediction of resilience. Subsequently, resilience was modeled as a predictor of goal performance quality as well as helping behavior, both alone and in combination with state positive affect. In the field study, a sample of 111 full-time nurses, based on occupational need for resilience, were studied over a 5-7 day period via an initial interview and two follow-up surveys. In the experiment, 284 undergraduate students were surveyed over two-time points. Both self-report and trained coder ratings of focal variables were assessed. Results demonstrated an interaction between goal construal level and perceived adversity severity in Study 1. A positive relationship between resilience and helping was also observed in Study 2. Theoretical implications for the resilience domain and practical implications are discussed. I dedicate this dissertation to those who made this accomplishment possible, though they are no longer here to see its completion: to my great grandmother, Candace Vance, and my step father, Cyril Christopher Jones. And to New Orleans, thank you for teaching me resilience. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my support system of family and friends for the encouragement, advice, and laughter that helps me through every stage of life. Thank you to my parents: Cyntrell and Cyril Jones, Azemar and Lauren King; grandparents: Alma Vance, Shirley and Lawrence Nicholas; aunt and uncle: Kelly and Maynard Fields; Rave: Ashley Prater and Araina Vance; siblings: Ashley Barard, Jacob and Azemar King Jr.; nieces: Lily Brumfield and Madison Barard; best friends: Mia Holmes, Angel Martin, and Isadore Carrie; supportive (and absolutely hilarious) great aunts, great uncles, and cousins; Lily Cheeks; and sisters in Delta Sigma Theta. I would like to thank Dr. Ann Marie Ryan for her guidance, support, and motivation throughout my entire graduate career. I couldn’t have asked for a better advisor! I would also like to thank my committee, Drs. Rick DeShon, Daisy Chang, and Linn Van Dyne, for their thoughtful and constructive insights. You all have made a lasting impression on my scholarship. I want to thank my mentors: Derek Avery, Quinetta Roberson, Ella Washington, Karen Brakke, Joana Kunst, and Sheryl Smith; and my study buddies/co-authors: Stephanie Kunst, Abdifatah Ali, Courtney Bryant, Courtney McCluney, Brent Lyons, Charles Calderwood, Dani Gardner, Mike Morrison, Jen Wessel, Charlotte Powers, and Carrie Ott-Holland. Thank you for walking beside me on this journey and making the long days and late night productive and fun. Lastly, I would like to thank my partner, Maurice Cheeks, for everything that he adds to my life. You have demonstrated and taught me that we can achieve anything we put our minds to. Thank you for helping me to grow, beyond the educational sphere. You are truly a source of inspiration and I am forever grateful for the happiness and fun you bring into my life. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. vii LIST OF FIGURES ...............................................................................................................viii INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 The Resilience Domain .............................................................................................. 6 Resilience at Work ......................................................................................... 7 Previous Resilience Research at Work .......................................................... 8 Clarified Behavioral Conceptualization of Resilience ................................... 10 Resilience in the Goal Framework ................................................................. 12 A Model of Resilience in the Work Goal Context ..................................................... 13 Goal Construal Level and Resilience ............................................................. 13 Perceived Adversity Severity ......................................................................... 17 Resilience and Performance ........................................................................... 19 Interactive Effects of Resilience and Positive Affect .................................... 21 OVERVIEW OF STUDIES ................................................................................................... 25 STUDY 1 METHOD: FIELD STUDY ................................................................................. 26 Participants and Procedure ......................................................................................... 26 Measures .................................................................................................................... 29 STUDY 1 RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 32 Preliminary Analyses ................................................................................................. 32 Hypotheses Analyses ................................................................................................. 32 Exploratory Analyses ................................................................................................. 33 Summary .................................................................................................................... 35 STUDY 2 METHOD: EXPERIMENT .................................................................................. 37 Participants and Procedure ......................................................................................... 37 Measures .................................................................................................................... 40 STUDY 2 RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 45 Preliminary Analyses ................................................................................................. 45 Hypotheses Analyses ................................................................................................. 45 Exploratory Analyses ................................................................................................. 46 Summary .................................................................................................................... 47 DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................ 49 Implications................................................................................................................ 53 Limitations and Future Directions ............................................................................. 55 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 56 v APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................... 58 Appendix A: Field Study Consent Form ................................................................... 59 Appendix B: Field Study Materials ........................................................................... 60 Appendix C: Field Study Measures ........................................................................... 64 Appendix D: Experiment Consent Form ................................................................... 66 Appendix E: Experiment Study Materials ................................................................. 67 Appendix F: Goal Construal Level Manipulations .................................................... 74 Appendix G: Job Application Tips ............................................................................ 75 Appendix H: Experiment Measures ........................................................................... 76 Appendix I: Subject Matter Expert Information and Instructions ............................. 77 Appendix J: Coder Training Materials ...................................................................... 78 Appendix K: Tables ................................................................................................... 79 Appendix L: Figures .................................................................................................. 85 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 88 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Study 1 Goal and Goal Construal Qualitative Examples................................................ 79 Table 2: Study 1 Focal Variable Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations ......................... 80 Table 3: Study 1 PROCESS Moderation Results of the Interaction between Goal Construal and Adversity Severity Predicting Resilience ..................................................................................... 81 Table 4: Study 1 Qualitative Excerpts from Field Study .............................................................. 82 Table 5: Study 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations for Focal Variables ................. 83 Table 6: Study 2 PROCESS Moderation Results of the Interaction between Resilience and Positive Affect Predicting Subsequent Helping Behavior ............................................................ 84 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Full Study Model ........................................................................................................... 85 Figure 2: Field Study Recruitment Flyer ...................................................................................... 86 Figure 3: Study 1 Goal Construal and Adversity Severity Interaction in the Prediction of Resilience ...................................................................................................................................... 87 viii INTRODUCTION As the high school graduate loads her belongings into her car in preparation for the drive to college, she is both excited and nervous. After she says her farewells to her family, her aunt pulls her aside to give her words of advice. She hugs her niece and tells her “remember why you are there,” before sending her on her way. It would not be until much later during her college experience when challenges, distractions, and unexpected changes began to arise that the student would fully understand the value in her aunt’s words. For she would learn that focusing on the “why” of her education and keeping her eyes on that prize would motivate her to be resilient in challenging times. The anecdote above illustrates the idea that focusing on the why of one’s goal – broader desired value – as opposed to the how – specific steps necessary to reach the goal – may be beneficial. The current work examines whether such a focus may be particularly effective in times of adversity. Resilience – here conceptualized as the behavior of continued, self-regulated goal pursuit despite adversity – is integrated into the goal framework (Carver & Scheier, 1998) for specificity of conceptualization and to help uncover the nomological network of this construct. Construal level (the level of abstraction with which we perceive; Trope & Liberman, 2010) of one’s goal is presented as a cognitive predictor of behavioral resilience; while resilience, in addition to positive affect, is presented as a predictor of both task (i.e., goal performance quality) and contextual (i.e., helping behavior) performance. Resilience has been studied across many domains (e.g., education, medicine, clinical psychology; Gu & Day, 2007; Connor & Davidson, 2003; Davydov, Stewart, Ritchie, & Chaudieu, 2010), and the concept of employee resilience has received much attention in recent 1 years. As most individuals will face adversities of various forms over their career (e.g., Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013; Salas & Gelfand, 2013), it is valuable to understand what fosters, entails, and results from resilience. This understanding is especially important as adversity places both individuals and organizations at greater risks for negative outcomes (e.g., Goetzel, Long, Ozminkowsku, Hawkins, Wang, & Lynch, 2004; Weiss, Saraceno, Saxena, & van Ommeren, 2003; Vanhove, Herian, Harms, & Luthans, 2015). Despite the benefits of resilience, there are limitations within this domain that hinder research expansion and effective application. One limitation is that definitions of resilience have varied widely. Resilience has been variously conceptualized as a behavior, trait, state, and process (see Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, & Klieger, 2016; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). In addition, researchers have often failed to make clear distinctions between resilience and similar constructs such as self-efficacy, hope, optimism (e.g., in the PsyCap higher-order conceptualization; Luthans & Youssef, 2004), and grit (e.g., Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007). Specificity and clarity in conceptualization is vital if we are to understand the essence of, effectively measure, and build cumulative knowledge about the distinctiveness of a construct (e.g., P. Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & N. Podsakoff, 2016). A second limitation within this domain is the relative dearth of research within the work context. This limitation is surprising, as research has presented the need for resilience across occupational types and levels (King, Newman, & Luthans, 2015; Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). In an effort to ameliorate such limitations, the current work uses the goal framework to present a specific, behavioral conceptualization of resilience at work following adversity. Understanding how an individual behaves following adversity is important because resilience is, by definition, “activated” by adversity - this construct can only be assessed if this situational 2 characteristic (i.e., adversity) has occurred (see Trait Activation Theory; Kendrick & Funder, 1988; Tett & Guteman, 2000). This resilience conceptualization is also situated within the goal framework given the need for theoretical grounding in the conceptualization of resilience (see Luthar et al., 2000), better understanding of resilience in the work context (see Britt et al., 2016), and the centrality of goals to organizational life (see Carver & Scheier, 1998). Thus, the current conceptualization improves upon prior definitions of resilience at work and offers the most appropriate definition for the current investigation. This is in line with the call of Vanhove and colleagues (2015) that, “a principal goal within the resilience literature, as a whole, should be better defining resilience as a construct” (p. 299). This work also seeks to uncover important predictors and outcomes associated with resilience. In terms of predictors, prior research asserts that individuals are more likely to persist despite adverse experiences when they have social support from colleagues, leaders, and friends (e.g., Cameron & Brownie, 2010; Lamb & Cogan, 2015). Prior work also suggests that some employees might be more likely to exhibit resilience due to individual differences such as high competence and self-efficacy (e.g., Gillespie, Chaboyer, & Wallis, 2007). Determining the predictors of resilience can be useful in directing organizational interventions and decisions meant to foster resilience. In terms of outcomes, research has shown that individuals who exhibit resilience despite adversity are more likely to experience desired effects such as greater engagement (Mache, Vitzhum, Wanke, Groneberg, Klapp, et al. 2014), as well as reduced emotional exhaustion (e.g., García, Calvo, & Carlos, 2012). Uncovering the outcomes of resilience highlights its utility. Thus, theoretical goal framing along with previous empirical insights are here used to guide the development and test of a research model that outlines proximal cognitive predictors of resilience and an affective interactive factor that can help 3 employees to reach desired work outcomes, even beyond resilience, despite adversity. The tripartite classification of mental activities – includes affect, behavior, and cognition – originated in psychology in the eighteenth century and is still a useful classification scheme in psychology today (see Hilgard, 1980). As goals cannot be understood when isolated from the cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses organized in pursuing goals (Austin & Vancouver, 1996), the tripartite classification is applied here to develop a model that includes each element of this system. Overall, this work aims to make three important contributions. First, it adds to the current knowledge base of behavioral resilience at work. To date, most resilience research either conflates process, trait, and behavioral definitions of resilience or focuses solely on a trait conceptualization. In addition, research within the resilience domain is primarily based on adolescent or clinical populations. Thus, care is here taken in the use of resilience in referring to employee behavior (as opposed to resiliency, the trait; for a similar conceptual presentation see Luthar et al., 2000; King, Newman, & Luthans, 2015); which helps to avoid creating a “quicksand term” (a term used in many different ways with different implied meanings; Connell & Nord, 1996). This is important, as quicksand terminology limits the ability of researchers to understand and build upon prior work. The current presentation highlights the distinction between resilience and alternative conceptualizations as well as other related constructs (e.g., grit, hardiness). Further, resilience of adults at work is examined as most employees and organizations face unexpected changes and challenges (e.g., Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007; Shin, Taylor, & Seo, 2012), and as Kossek and Perrigino (2016) demonstrated the utility of resilience for employees across occupations. 4 Second, this research integrates resilience into a work goal framework, which helps to uncover relevant correlates and potential boundary conditions of resilience based on theoretical grounding. This integration answers the call for theoretical development within the resilience domain (e.g. Luthar et al., 2000), and highlights the value of considering goals in future resilience research. The goal framework – a well-developed domain – is used to situate and further develop the burgeoning area of resilience at work. Lastly, results of current model tests (See Figure 1) aim to offer informative development to the nomological network (interlocking system of laws which constitute a theory; Cronbach & Meehl, 1955) of resilience at work. This model highlights both proximal, cognitive predictors of resilience, as well as an affective interactive construct that qualifies the link between resilience and performance outcomes. As resilience is often considered a desired outcome at work, it is informative to also understand how resilience may foster additional, desired outcomes. Specifically, this work examines the benefits of high goal construal level following adversity in the prediction of resilience behavior and how resilience, alone and in combination with positive affect, links to task and contextual performance. The utility of organizational resilience interventions, and, more broadly, the resilience construct itself have been called into question due to construct clarity issues and subsequent nomological network confusion (e.g., Cicchetti & Garmezy, 1993; Luthar & Cushing, 1999). For example, Cicchetti and Garmwzy (1993) noted that, “Before the construct of resilience can truly reap the rich promise that it holds for promoting our knowledge … a number of caveats must be articulated … resilience is at risk for being viewed as a popularized trend that has not been verified through research and, thereby, in danger of losing credibility within the scientific community” (p. 499). Demonstrating the prediction of resilience behavior and its links to desired 5 work outcomes is needed, and findings may inform organizational decision-making and trainings. This work builds upon and extends prior resilience research in the workplace by utilizing a specific, theoretically driven conceptualization to uncover proximal predictors and outcomes. First, the resilience domain is discussed, followed by summaries of the distinction between resilience research within the work context as well as prior research on resilience at work. Next, the clarified behavioral definition is discussed, along with its integration into the goal framework. Finally, a model of resilience at work within the goal framework is detailed. The Resilience Domain The study of resilience has developed over the course of many decades. Resilience research began to draw the attention of psychological scientists in the 1950s. Early inquiries examining resilience represented a “paradigm shift from looking at risk factors that lead to psychosocial problems to the identification of strengths” (Richardson, 2002, p. 309). Increasingly, researchers began to focus more on identifying the specific characteristics of individuals who thrived while facing difficult circumstances (Garmezy, 1991; Rutter, 1990; Werner & Smith, 1992). Early work by Block (1950) introduced the concept of ego-resiliency, which concerns an individual’s trait flexibility and adaptability to their circumstances. Later, a pioneering group of psychiatrists and psychologists began to study children who overcame risk for psychopathology and other problems in development due to genetic and environmental risks (e.g., parental mental illness and/or drug addition; Anthony, 1974; Garmezy, 1971, 1974; Murphy & Moriarty, 1976; Rutter, 1979; Werner & Smith, 1982). Classic work from this group aimed to determine the personal qualities and life events that distinguished children with a high level of life success despite disadvantage from those who did not achieve such success (e.g., Werner, 1982; Werner 6 & Smith, 1982). Since this work, the study of resilience has held a prominent place in child development and clinical psychology (Anthony, 1974; Davydov et al., 2010; Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013; Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014; Werner & Smith, 1982). Resilience at Work The examination of resilience at work is different from other resilience research (e.g., general resilience, childhood, sports, community, etc.). An understanding of resilience within the work environment may provide different insights than what is gained from other spheres due to unique norms, responsibilities, expectations, and constraints within this context. For example, when facing challenges in a personal relationship one may choose to end a friendship or to no longer engage with the individual, yet if adversity arises in coworker relationships, due to constraints of the work context, it may not be a feasible option to no longer engage in the relationship. Parallel examples are also likely demonstrated concerning the option to quit or take a break from a challenging task (e.g., a difficult hobby or volunteer experience), which may not seem to be within the individuals’ discretion at work (e.g., taking a break from or quitting a difficult project assignment) if the individual aims to remain within the organization and achieve positive evaluations. In addition, individuals face unique adversities, challenges and setbacks in the workplace (e.g., role stressors, job insecurity, negative supervisor feedback, coworker incivility), and the criteria used to judge successful adaptation to such negative experiences at work are unique to the workplace context (e.g., job performance, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior, work satisfaction). Considering these unique elements is important because authors have called for greater specificity in discussing resilience (Luthar et al., 2000). In describing their findings, investigators are encouraged to specify the particular 7 spheres to which their data apply and clarify that success in one domain by no means implies success across all other important areas (Cicchetti & Garmezy, 1993; Luthar, 1993). Also, Luthar and colleagues (Luthar, 2006; Luthar et al., 2000) have asserted that the indicators used to represent positive adaptation must be appropriate to the adversity examined and the domain assessed. Thus, it is useful to examine the unique resilience effects that follow adverse experiences at work. Overall, examining employee resilience within work processes is in line with the calls of previous scholars to bring greater precision to this domain and avoid overly general statements about findings (e.g., Luthar et al., 2000). It is important to note that such investigation does not assume that underlying factors that promote resilience in other domains would not apply to the workplace. Instead, such empirical tests provide useful information about previous resilience research boundary conditions and potential generalizability. Examining the employee resilience process offers the potential for uncovering unique predictors and desired outcomes specific to the workplace, which can help employees and organizations to achieve success despite adversity. Previous Resilience Research at Work Though research on employee resilience is sparser than research in other contexts, this area of interest has offered potentially useful insights to organizational science. Research has linked resilience to individual and environmental predictors, as well as important workplace outcomes. In terms of individual predictors, Pietrzak and Southwick (2011) found that perceptions of purpose and control predicted resilience to combat exposure for veterans. Also, Gillespie, Chaboyer, Wallis, and Grimbeek (2007) conducted a national survey of nurses and found that strategic problem solving, hope, competence, and self-efficacy were positively related to resilience. 8 Environmental factors have evidenced significant relationships with resilience. For example, leadership behaviors characterized as authentic and transformational are positively associated with resilience (Gaddy, Gonzalez, Lathan, & Graham, 2017; Sommer, Howell, & Hadley, 2016). Also, Lamb and Cogan (2015) conducted in-depth focus groups with employees to investigate how they cope with work-based stressors to build and maintain resilience. Within the theme of building resilience, many workers spoke about the importance of support (e.g., spending time with family and friends), and the importance of acceptance of stressors beyond one’s control. Challenge-oriented stressors have also been presented as a factor that can foster individual resilience (Crane & Searle, 2016), along with positive perceptions of one’s social context (i.e., perceptions of one’s immediate supervisor, colleagues, and top management; Meneghel et al., 2016). Linking resilience to important organizational outcomes is useful for understanding the impact of investing resources into fostering resilience at work (e.g., training and intervention). Resilience is positively related to job satisfaction (Hudgins, 2016; Meneghel et al., 2016), openness to organizational change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000), and engagement (Mache et al., 2014), and is negatively related to emotional exhaustion, distress, workplace cynicism, problematic social network usage, and anticipated turnover (Bande, Fernández-Ferrín, Varela, & Jaramillo, 2015; Hou, Wang, Guo, Gaskin, Rost, & Wang, 2017; Hudgins, 2016; Kinman & Grant, 2011; Shoss, Jiang, & Probst, 2016). Resilience has also been shown to negatively predict counterproductive work behaviors (Shoss, Jiang, & Probst, 2016). Parker, Jimmieson, Walsh, and Loakes (2015) used an experimental design to examine the interaction between resilience and control in predicting coping, and found that for more resilient individuals, high job control 9 facilitated problem-focused coping, which was associated with higher performance. These findings highlight the benefits of resilience at work. Clarified Behavioral Conceptualization of Resilience Though prior resilience research at work is informative, care must be taken in the interpretation of effects, as an issue within this domain is conceptual clarity. Previous research has offered inconsistent definitions of resilience, which are often without theoretical grounding. Luthar and colleagues highlight this issue in the statement, “progress in the area of resilience will remain seriously constrained as long as studies remain largely empirically driven as opposed to theoretically based” (Luthar et al., 2000, p. 552). The use of varying resilience definitions reflects confusion about the nature of the construct. The term resilience has been used to refer to a variety of positive definitions that involve successfully dealing with stressful circumstances (Britt et al., 2016). Resilience has been viewed as a behavior, process, outcome, personal characteristic, and a state (Luthar et al., 2000; Richardson, 2002). For example, Masten et al. (1990) defined resilience as “the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances” (p. 426). Clarity in the conceptualization of resilience is important as, “good construct explication is essential to construct validation” (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002, p. 69). A construct must be understood before its relationships with other constructs can be interpreted and used to guide decisions. Clear construct conceptualization provides researchers with theoretically based boundaries that help determine the nature and direction of research inquiry (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2013). The goal is to prevent resilience from becoming a “quicksand term” that different people use in different ways, with different implied meanings (Connell & Nord, 1996), which hinders both incremental accumulation of scientific knowledge and identification of best practices (see 10 Britt et al., 2016). Davydov et al. (2010), as well as Fletcher and Sarkar (2013), recently noted that conceptual discrepancies hinder comparison and development within resilience research, and make it difficult to operationalize the construct for measurement purposes. These authors concluded that clarification in this area must proceed first by conceptual unification. In line with the goal of conceptual clarity, this paper follows the suggestion of previous work (e.g., Luthar et al., 2001) to use the term resilience to denote the behavior of persistence despite adversity. Specifically within the work context, in the current work, resilience refers to self-regulated goal pursuit, despite adversity. In general, regulation refers to keeping something regular - to maintain a variable at some value despite disturbances (Vancouver, 2000). Self- regulation refers to control over oneself – meaning that something within the entity controls its action in a manner appropriate to goal attainment (Binswanger, 1991). Various conceptualizations of self-regulation each share two core concepts: goals and actions. Individuals are thought to possess goals and use actions to maintain and achieve these goals (DeShon & Rench, 2009). This is the portion of the motivational system that is responsible for translating goals into actions - the process by which people initiate, adjust, or alter actions to promote attainment of goals (Baumeister, 1991; Heatherton & Baumeister, 1996; Kanfer, 1992). Self- regulation toward goal pursuit following adversity is characterized as resilience. Critical to understanding the notion of self-regulation and how self-regulation fits within the broader construct of motivation is the link to mindset (DeShon & Rench, 2009). According to Gollwitzer (1990) different mindsets are involved in the deliberative, implemental, action, and evaluative phases of goal pursuit. Self-regulation involves the implemental and action aspects (i.e. goal striving stages) of motivation. As work is structured around goals and resilience is necessary across occupations, the current paper connects these self-regulatory elements of goal 11 striving to the construct of resilience at work. The behavioral conceptualization of resilience thus should be considered: self-regulated goal striving, despite adversity. This conceptualization provides detailed, observable behavior following adversity, as characteristic of resilience. Below, the integration of resilience into the work goal framework is discussed in greater detail. Resilience in the Goal Framework Resilience is well suited for integration into the goal framework. Goal-related constructs are ubiquitous in psychology and the workplace. Goals are defined as internal representations of desired end states (Austin & Vancouver, 1996). Goals can be outcomes such as receiving an educational degree (Cantor & Langston, 1989), broad modes of conduct such as being “good” (Schwartz, 1992), or emotional states such as being happy (Hyland, 1988). Carver and Scheier (1998) present an in depth discussion of the role of self-regulation in goal pursuit. These authors assert that most behavior is goal directed and that human behavior is a continual process of moving toward, and away from, mental goal representations. Goals are presented as critical to life – such that without goals, behavior is expected to lose its form because goals engage and direct the activities of those who adopt them. These assertions implicitly convey the sense that goals give meaning to people’s lives (cf. Baumeister, 1989). This fundamental goal framework within the work context and the potential for goal directed behavior despite adversity are considered here. Integrating resilience into the goal framework at work is potentially useful for both domains as many people confront difficulties when trying to reach their work goals, and an understanding of how this experience differs from “normal” goal pursuit (i.e., in the absence of adversity) is informative. When goal attainment is threatened (i.e., adversity occurs) and self- regulation is seen as going poorly with respect to the goal, one result is negative feelings (for 12 discussion see Carver & Scheier, 1998). Although affect is one response to such difficulty, there are also potential behavioral responses, which may or may not be parallel to one’s affective response. When facing difficulty in goal pursuit, people confront an important decision: How much effort to invest following the adversity? How to conceptualize this response type is not well developed (Carver & Scheier, 1998). As Martin and Tesser (1989) argued that frustration of goal-directed effort sets in motion a set of cognitive processes aimed at unblocking the path to goal attainment, the current work explores the role of cognitive goal construal level in predicting one’s behavioral resilience response. As the cognitive processes discussed by Martin and Tesser are said to not always unblock the path to goal attainment successfully, below we present a model that explores one route through which the benefits of resilience may be realized and lead to additional desired goal outcomes, due to an effective cognitive reaction. A Model of Resilience in the Work Goal Context Goal Construal Level and Resilience The current study presents goal construal level following adversity as a potential cognitive predictor of employee resilience behavior. Here, the focus is on the element of a goal that an individual focuses on when undertaking effort on a particular work goal following adversity. Construal level theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2010) concerns the level of abstraction with which we perceive. Construal levels expand and contract one’s mental horizon. High-level construals are relatively abstract, superordinate mental representations, compared with low-level construals. Higher levels of abstraction contain less detail about the specific type of action performed, the objects it involves, and its immediate context, and more information about the meaning and the purpose of the action (Trope, 1986, 1989). For example, values are commonly viewed as super-ordinate abstract cognitive structures that provide continuity and 13 meaning under changing circumstances (Feather, 1995; Rohan, 2000), and as trans-situational guides for action (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). This would be an example of a high-level construal; while specifically what one is doing at one moment to enact those values, would be the low-level counterpart. It is important to note that higher-level construals are not simply more vague, as compared to low-level construals. In fact, high-level construals often convey additional information about the value of the stimulus and its relations to other stimuli. Thus, the process of greater abstraction involves not only a loss of idiosyncratic and incidental information, but also ascription of meaning from knowledge organized in a structured representation. It is useful to consider the distinction as: high-level construals concern the why while low-level construals concern the how. Empirical evidence has accumulated for the link between construal level and subsequent individual actions (e.g., Förster, Freidman, & Liberman, 2004; Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006). For example, Liberman and Förster (2009) primed participants with either temporal proximity or temporal distance by asking them to write essays about their lives tomorrow or their lives on a day a year later, and then imagine taking an attention test on that day. Next, a visual task was presented to participants (i.e., Novon’s task; Novon, 1977). Relative to the control group, in which participants did not write an essay, greater temporal distance, which is associated with a higher-level construal, facilitated processing of global visual letters and impaired processes of local visual letters, whereas temporal proximity, which is associated with a lower construal, produced the opposite effect. Similar effects were found for priming of spatial distance and social distance. Overall, this research domain asserts that high-level, abstract construals representing psychologically distant objects are “vital for effective functioning in many domains: for developing object constancy, orienting in space, planning the future, learning 14 from the past, relating to and understanding other people, and for considering alternative outcomes and courses of action” (Trope & Liberman, 2010, p. 441). Organizational behavior is typically goal-directed, making the functional aspects of construal level highly applicable to behavior within this context (Weisenfeld et al., 2017). Further, in terms of resilience, higher goal construal level may be particularly effective because, while lower-level construals focus attention on feasibility of how easily an end state can be reached (i.e., the how), higher construals emphasize desirability or the value associated with some target end goal (i.e., the why; Wiesenfeld et al., 2017); which is a particularly important distinction when adversity makes goal pursuit more difficult. Thus, following adversity, higher- level goal construal may be most beneficial in motivating employees to engage in greater goal striving efforts (i.e., resilience). For example, if the student in the anecdote shared at the start of this paper, whose goal is to graduate from college, fails a required course, she may be more likely to invest greater effort into retaking and completing the course if she construes her goal at a higher level following this adverse experience. Meaning, the most effective cognitive strategy for this student may be to focus on the reasons why her goal is valuable, such as making her family proud and using her education to help her community following graduation. This may be more effective in determining whether she will retake the course and invest significant effort, as compared to if she were to focus on the re-registration process, specific assignments, course required preparation, and other tasks that must now be completed in order to achieve her goal following this adversity. Thus, goal construal level is a cognitive response that may be predictive of self-regulation following an adverse event, which is in line with the impact of cognitive processes on self-regulation following difficulty discussed by Martin and Tesser (1989). 15 Despite the potential utility of focusing on high-level goal construal following adversity, prior work has demonstrated that this is not the usual cognitive reaction in difficult times. Theoretically, Vallacher and Wegner’s (1985, 1987) action identification theory—which concerns the level of construal individuals use in thinking about their actions—suggests that when there is difficulty in carrying out an activity, individuals drop downward to a lower, less abstract level of action identification. Empirically, De Dreu et al. (2009) explored the relationship between construal level and dealing with obstacles in negotiations. Based on the work of Henderson et al. (2006) they expected that encountering obstacles in negotiations would lead to higher construal in service of enabling negotiators to reach a broader, overarching agreement. On the other hand, they considered the possibility that encountering obstacles in a negotiation process would trigger a lower construal level by drawing attention to the details in the process that were negatively impacted by the adversity, making it more difficult for people to come up with creative solutions and leading to more negative negotiation outcomes. Their negotiation studies confirmed the latter – they found that people held lower-level construals after encountering obstacles. De Dreu et al. then demonstrated that obstacles did not negatively influence negotiators’ joint outcomes when negotiators were induced to use a global, higher construal processing mode. Thus, these authors found that people tend to utilize lower-level construals following adversity, despite evidence suggesting that higher construals are more likely to yield effective negotiation outcomes. The current work builds upon these findings by testing whether, specifically, high-level construal of one’s goal is effective in helping employees to engage in goal pursuit despite adversity (i.e., demonstrate resilience). The potential benefit of high level construal following adversity has been suggested by Weisenfeld et al. (2017) in stating that, “we might expect that as people make progress toward a 16 goal, they may hold lower construal levels, enabling them to develop more specific implementation intentions [Gollwitzer, 1999]. In contrast, when they encounter obstacles it may be most adaptive to draw upon more abstract representations that may serve as a bridge to solutions” (p.370). These authors also state that, “it is therefore possible that raising people’s construal level may increase their perseverance, such as their motivation to enact immediate behaviors that foster long-term goals or motivation to overcome obstacles” (p. 372). This theoretical expectation is also in line with previous research on the utility of construal level in self-control contexts. A series of studies by Fujita et al. (2006) showed that construal level affects people’s tendencies to exert self-control – higher-level construals made people more likely to do what is in their long-term interest. Recent organizational research (Rosen et al., 2016) extends these self-control findings to workplace incivility. After one experiences incivility at work, responding to one’s coworkers in a civil manner requires self-control. Using experience- sampling methodology, Rosen et al. found that people with dispositional higher construal levels were more likely to behave in a civil manner after experiencing incivility, thus demonstrating greater self-control. In parallel form, as abstraction allows individuals to go beyond their immediate experience in the here and now and traverse distances mentally (Trope & Liberman, 2003), and resilience involves continued goal pursuit despite current situational difficulty, it is here posited that higher-level goal construal, following adversity, will lead to greater resilience. Hypothesis 1: Goal construal level will have a positive predictive relationship with resilience. Perceived Adversity Severity In addition to individual factors (e.g., goal construal level) the prediction of resilience may be informed by consideration of environmental factors. One important factor is perceived adversity severity. Severe adverse experiences may exert a dampening effect on the potential 17 benefits of protective resources following adversity. Previous work has explored the impact of adversity severity on resilience by characterizing adversity along a continuum and observing subsequent effects. Seery, Holman, and Silver (2010) found that greater exposure to adversity lead to worse outcomes – those with a history of moderate adversity reported better mental health and wellbeing outcomes than others exposed to severe adversity. The potential dampening effect of severe adversity on resilience effects has been discussed theoretically and supported empirically. Masten, Best, and Garmezy (1990) note, “protective processes, such as efforts by a parent to foster adaptation, may not be adequate if the vulnerability of the individual or the severity of the adversity is too great to overcome” (p. 426). Masten, Hubbard, Gest, Tellegen, Garmezy, and Ramirez (1999) empirically gathered ratings of adversity from independent judges and examined its interaction with two individual resources: IQ and parenting. Desired developmental outcomes (i.e., socialized behavior) were significantly predicted by the interaction of resources and adversity such that high adversity dampened the potential positive effect of resources on resilience. In exploring the potential impact of adversity severity, one limitation to previous work is the observer-rated methodology. As the severity of an adverse event to the individual experiencing it can differ substantially from the researcher’s perspective (Bartlett, 1994; Gordon & Song, 1994), the use of adversity categorizations determined by the researcher or judges may lead to misinterpretations that ignore or do not fully capture individual differences in experienced adversity. For example, some individuals may see themselves as relatively well off, even though others may define their circumstances as being highly stressful, and the characterization of these individuals as resilient would not be well aligned with the theory of resilience to capture adaptive outcomes despite experienced adversity. In other words, if the 18 experience is not adverse to the individual, resilience cannot be measured. Thus, in order to take a person-centric approach in the characterization of adversity, the employees’ perceived level of adversity severity is presented as a potential interactive predictor of resilience, as it may dampen the potential effects of goal construal level on resilience at high levels. Hypothesis 2: Perceived adversity severity and goal construal level will interact in the prediction of resilience, such that the positive relationship between goal construal level and resilience will be weaker at a high level of adversity severity. Resilience and Performance An important relationship to consider is that between resilience and performance, as the intent in continued goal pursuit despite adversity is to attain one’s goal. Motowidlo and Kell (2013) define performance as, “the total expected value to the organization of the discrete behavioral episodes that an individual carries out over a standard period of time” (p. 82). This definition highlights an important characteristic of performance: the property of expected value to the organization. In fact, Motowidlo and Kell state that, “performance refers only to behaviors that can make a difference to organizational goal accomplishment” (p. 84). Despite this emphasis on utility of employee output to the organization, many performance measures and conceptualizations capture quantitative behavioral effort as representative of performance. In an effort to distinguish resilience – goal-striving behavior/effort – from goal performance – expected value of an employee’s output in goal pursuit – performance is here conceptualized as quality of goal-related output. Hence, we use the term goal performance quality throughout. No work to date has tested the link between resilience and performance. However, some work has used resiliency trait measures in the prediction of performance. PsyCap (which includes a resiliency facet) has been shown to positively predict job performance (Avery et al., 19 2011; Luthans et al., 2007), and other resiliency trait measures have been shown to predict performance at both the individual (Bartone et al., 2008; Fleig-Palmer et al., 2009) and team level (Meneghel et al., 2016). These findings provide indirect support for the current expectation that resilience will positively predict employee goal performance quality. Hypothesis 3: Resilience will have a positive predictive relationship with goal performance quality. Along with task performance (i.e., goal performance quality), the construct of resilience may also be linked to contextual performance (behavior that contributes to the organization through its effects on the psychological, social, and organizational context of work; Borman and Motowidlo, 1993). Both performance types are important to organizational functioning and effectiveness. Borman and Motowidlo highlight one way that individuals can engage in contextual performance is by positively affecting other individuals’ ability to carry out organizationally valuable behaviors (i.e., helping behavior). Helping behavior (taking voluntary actions to help coworkers with goals, problems and issues; Mossholder, Richardson, & Setton, 2011) is a part of Borman, Buck et al.’s (2001) dimension of contextual performance labeled personal support. Helping behavior has been shown to predict overall organizational performance (Podsakoff et al., 2000; Whiting et al., 2008), experienced wellbeing for both the helper and the receiver (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010), as well as enhanced coordination among employees (e.g., Brief & Motowidlo, 1986). As prior work has linked the resiliency trait to engagement in contextual performance behaviors (Avery et al., 2011; Luthans et al., 2007), the current work builds upon and extends this research to consider whether behavioral resilience positively effects subsequent helping behavior. 20 Hypothesis 4: Resilience will have a positive predictive relationship with subsequent helping behavior. Interactive Effects of Resilience and Positive Affect Though resilience is a desirable outcome at work, it is also informative to understand how resilience, when paired with other factors, may lead to other desired work outcomes. One potential interactive factor is positive affect. In the presentation of their self-regulation and goals framework, Carver and Scheier (1998) assert that no model of human action can go too far without considering emotional experiences because much of human behavior is accompanied by feelings. These authors assert that affect can arise on the way to goals, not only when goals are attained (or not). According to Watson and Clark (1999), the dimensions of affect are positive and negative affect, and affect is conceptualized as being unipolar (i.e., the opposite of positive affect is the absence of positive affect, rather than negative affect, and vice versa) because each dimension concerns either positive or negative affect activation. This structural perspective of affect is the most widely used in organizational psychology (Dalal, 2013). In addition, within this domain exists four levels of conceptualization: sensory experiences, emotions, moods, and emotional traits (Keltner & Lerner, 2010). Sensory experiences include short-lived, immediate pleasure and/or pain. Emotions are felt experiences that are targeted towards an object (or objects) in a certain context (e.g., feeling disappointed in someone) and are non-permanent. Moods represent more diffuse and long-lasting positively or negatively valenced experiences, as compared to emotions, and are without an immediate target. Finally, emotional traits reflect typical patterns of feeling in interpersonal experiences that display consistency across contexts and situations. 21 Within this work, affect is considered a non-permanent, felt experience in reaction to a specific event – following adversity – thus we employ the emotion level of conceptualization throughout. The Broaden and Build Theory (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001) offers useful insights for understanding the potential role of positive affect, in combination with behavioral resilience, in impacting subsequent work outcomes (i.e., performance). This theory asserts that positive affect broadens an individual’s thought-action repertoire, which in turn fosters individual physical, intellectual, and social resources. People experiencing negative emotions are said to “miss the forest for the trees” (Fredrickson, 1998, p. 307), due to a narrowed focus and action repertoire. Positive emotions, however, widen the array of thoughts and actions that come to mind (Fredrickson, 1998; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2001), “broadening” the potential for creative and unconventional outcomes. Prior theorizing supports the potential benefit of this interaction. Folkman and colleagues have argued that experiences of positive affect during chronic stress helps people to cope (Folkman, 1997; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000; Lazarus, Kanner, & Folkman, 1980). In addition, Aspinwall and colleagues asserts that positive affect and positive beliefs benefit those coping with adversity (Aspinwall, 2001; Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997; Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower & Gruenewald, 2000). Following adversity, greater goal-striving behavior (i.e., resilience) is expected to enhance the desired work outcomes of task performance (i.e., goal performance quality) and contextual performance (i.e., helping behavior), especially when individuals experience higher levels of positive affect. As proposed by the Broaden and Build theory (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001), positive affect during times of stress prompts individuals to pursue novel and creative thoughts and actions, that otherwise may not be expected. In such cases, employees are hypothesized to consider the benefits of and pursue high quality performance and the helping of others, despite 22 hardship, as positive affect lends individuals to see and explore these benefits. In line with the heightened performance quality expectation, empirical work has shown that positive affect enhances the creativity invested into one’s output (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Fodor & Greenier, 1995; Ziv, 1976). And, in terms of helping behavior, a long tradition of research in social psychology suggests that positive affect increases the likelihood that an individual will help others who are in need (for a review, see Isen, 1987). These outcomes align with the suggestion that positive affect facilitates approach-oriented behavior (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999; Watson, Wiese, Vaidya & Tellegen, 1999) – as experiences of positive affect prompt individuals to engage with and invest in their environments by carrying out activities which are beneficial for the individual and others. Within the goal framework, Carever and Scheier (1998) assert that both behavioral and affective reactions arise in work goal pursuit, and while the behavior element handles what is called the directional function (choosing one’s behavior from among options, keeping the action as intended), the affective component handles the intensity function (the vigor, enthusiasm, or thoroughness with which an action is pursued). Though prior empirical work has not examined the interactive effect of affect and resilience, the theoretical work reviewed above leads to the current expectation that positive affect is as an interactive mechanism that strengthens the observed relationships between resilience and performance. Hypothesis 5: Resilience and positive affect will interact in the prediction of goal performance quality, such that the positive relationship between resilience and goal performance quality will be stronger at a high level of positive affect. 23 Hypothesis 6: Resilience and positive affect will interact in the prediction of subsequent helping behavior, such that the positive relationship between resilience and helping behavior will be stronger at a high level of positive affect. The goal of this work is to present and test a full model of resilience in which a proximal predictor, two interactive factors, and important work-related outcomes are examined in tandem. It is here posited that, following adversity, the cognitive construal of one’s goal will lead to one’s level of resilience and subsequent performance outcomes. Moderation of this resilience path is expected at the first stage by perceived adversity severity, impacting resilience, and at the second stage by positive affect, impacting performance outcomes. Mediation (via resilience) and moderated mediation (via perceived adversity severity and positive affect, respectively) will be examined. Thus, the following are posited: Hypothesis 7: Resilience will mediate the relationship between a) goal construal level and goal performance quality and between b) goal construal level and helping behavior. Hypothesis 8: The mediated relationship between goal construal level and a) goal performance quality and b) helping behavior, by resilience, will be moderated at the first stage by perceived adversity severity. Hypothesis 9: The mediated relationship between goal construal level and a) goal performance quality and b) helping behavior, by resilience, will be moderated at the second stage by positive affect. 24 OVERVIEW OF STUDIES This work explored employees’ cognitive, behavioral, and affective experiences following adversity to determine whether expected variable relationships were supported empirically. Study 1 tested the first half of the current model (i.e., the prediction of behavioral resilience) in a sample of adults working in the nursing field via an initial interview and two follow-up surveys. Study 2 experimentally tested the full model in a laboratory context in a sample of undergraduate students. Participants in each study engaged in different goal tasks, which helped to assess generalizability of effects across situations and populations. In addition, these studies utilized multi-time point and multi-source data to combat concerns of temporal precedence confusion and same source bias in findings, respectively. Study 1 focused on working adults facing adversity and subsequent reactions and outcomes experienced within their job, testing these effects in a real world environment. In Study 2, manipulation of goal construal level following adversity, random assignment to construal level conditions, and experimental control helped in drawing causal conclusions about observed effects. The goal of these studies was to gather data concerning the role of construal level in fostering resilience (Studies 1 and 2) and to examine whether resilience predicts subsequent performance outcomes (Study 2). 25 STUDY 1 METHOD: FIELD STUDY Participants and Procedure Inclusion criteria for this study involved age (18 years and older) and full-time employment status as a nurse. The choice to focus on the nursing population was made for several reasons. First, occupation-based sampling helps to constrain the scope and type of goal that is assessed and, potentially, the adversities encountered – facilitating comparison based on focal variables with reduced heterogeneity on other work factors. In addition, Kossek and Perrigino (2016) used a grounded approach to develop an integrated occupational resilience framework and to present specific occupational tasks and contextual demands relevant to resilience. These authors determined that in terms of breadth of job demands – number of tasks rated as highly important to perform a job – nurses (along with firefighters and teachers) had the highest number of tasks that were classified as important. Of the 953 occupations surveyed, nurses also ranked in the top 20% in terms of need for resilience, as the unique forms of adversity that nurses experience in their everyday work include exposure to pain, grief, and death (Shorter & Stayt, 2010). In addition, this review highlighted the multitude of challenges nurses face including intense daily workloads and adverse patient events, which can lead to an accumulation of stress (e.g., Bail, 2007). These adversities could result in unhealthy coping mechanisms, making it more difficult to maintain a long-term career. Thus, studying resilience in this occupation is important and potentially impactful. Participants for this study were recruited via the researcher contacting nursing and human resource employees at hospitals in Lansing, Michigan and New Orleans, Louisiana. These employees were contacted to discuss potential data collection at their locations and collaborative efforts to recruit nursing professionals. Solicitation for participation was shared with nursing 26 employees via flyers emailed through listservs and posted in hospital locations (See Figure 2 for recruitment flyer). In addition, snowballing methodology was used as participants shared the recruitment flyer and study information with other nursing employees within their social and professional networks. To begin the study, participants completed an enrollment/screening survey online via the Qualtrics platform. The purpose of this survey was to gain participant consent (See Appendix A for consent form), determine eligibility (e.g., whether the individual was over 18 years of age and full-time nursing employee status), collect study control variables, and to collect contact information (i.e., email address, phone number, and preferred method of contact). Once the screening survey was completed, the researcher contacted eligible individuals to schedule a phone interview. The purpose of the phone interview was to explain study procedures, collect information concerning goals and construal level, and to answer any participant questions. After the researcher explained the general purpose of the research, participants were given information defining work goals, goal levels (i.e., goal construal levels), and adversity. An illustrative example of goals, goal level, and adversity was shared and any questions from participants were answered. Participants then reported their main work goal for the upcoming 5-7 workday period and detailed the high- and low-level construal of that goal (See Table 1 for example goals and construal levels of these goals). Participants also reported typical goal construal level when working towards work goals. Finally, each participant was asked to share her or his work schedule for the upcoming two-week period, to facilitate scheduling of when he or she would receive the two online surveys. Participants were then told that they would receive Survey 1 after two to three days of work and subsequently receive Survey 2 two to three workdays after 27 completing Survey 1. Any participant who did not complete a survey within 24 hours of receiving the link was sent a reminder message. See Appendix B for field study materials. The two surveys were conducted online using the Qualtrics survey platform. The Survey 1 link was sent to participants after 2-3 days of work following the phone interview, along with a reminder of the goal that she or he shared in the phone interview. A screening question at the start of the Survey 1 asked participants whether they had experienced adversity in the past 2-3 workdays in pursuit of their main work goal shared. Participants who indicated they had not experienced adversity were taken to the end of the survey. Participants who reported that they had experienced adversity were asked to share details about the adversity, report the severity of that adverse experience, and report goal construal level following the adversity. Following the completion of Survey 1, participants received Survey 2 after 2-3 additional days of work. In Survey 2 participants answered a screening question that asked whether they described an adverse experience in Survey 1. Participants who answered “no” were taken to the end of the survey and participants who answered “yes” reported resilience following that adversity, over the study period. Each nurse who completed the initial interview and two online surveys received a $20 gift card to Target, Starbucks, or Amazon (her or his choice). A total of 195 participants were deemed eligible, based on the completed screening surveys. Of this 195, 16 individuals did not complete the interview and two surveys, and were removed from the final sample population. Of the remaining 179 participants, 9 individuals failed the attention check item that asked participants to skip a question and a total of 59 participants indicated, in Survey 1, that they did not experience an adversity, and thus could not report adversity severity, goal construal following adversity, or resilience. Mean comparisons were conducted between participants who reported experiencing adversity and those who 28 reported no experienced adversity in Survey 1. Results demonstrated no differences between these two groups on a) typical goal construal, b) conscientiousness, c) neuroticism, d) gender, e) age, or f) years of nursing experience. A significant difference was observed between these two group on organizational tenure, such that newer employees were more likely to report experiencing adversity during the study period, as compared to employees who had been with the company for a longer period of time, t (141) = 4.68, p < .05. The final, useable sample consisted of 111 participants. The individuals in the final sample were, on average, 36.35 years old (SD = 12.13), 92.8% female, 69.4% Caucasian, 18.9% African American, 9% Biracial, .9% Hispanic, .9% Asian, and .9% Middle Eastern. Participants reported having a mean of 11.02 years of experience in the nursing field (SD = 9.98) and an average tenure with current organization of 6.84 years (SD = 5.63). Most participants indicted that they experienced adversity at work on a daily basis (39.6%), multiple times a week (41.4%), or at least once a week (10.8%). Measures See Appendix C for Study 1 measures. Conscientiousness and Neuroticism were included as control variables, as prior work has linked these two personality traits to resilience (negative relationship with neuroticism and positive relationship with conscientiousness; Campbell-Sills, Cohan, & Stein, 2006; Friborg, Barlaug, Martinussen, Rosenvinge, & Hjemdal, 2006). The Goldberg et al. (2006) measure of these two Big Five factors was used to capture trait Conscientiousness (α = .81) and Neuroticism (α = .85). An example conscientiousness item reads: I am always prepared. An example neuroticism item reads: I have frequent mood swings. 29 Typical Goal Construal Level was controlled for because goal construal level tendency may relate to goal construal level following adversity. To assess typical goal construal participants were asked, during the initial interview, which level of their goals they typically focus on when pursuing work goals: 0 (low; the how) or 1 (high; the why). The researcher recorded this answer provided during the phone interview. Total Number of Adversities (encountered over the study period) was controlled for because the number of adversities experienced may impact resilience (e.g., Seery, Holman, & Silver, 2010). To capture adversity total, participants were asked to indicate, in Survey 2, how many adversities (i.e. difficult experiences that made pursuing their main work goal more stressful) they encountered when pursuing their work goal during the course of this research study. Response options were ranged from 1 (one – two) to 4 (five or more). Goal construal level (post-adversity) was measured using a dichotomous response question, which asked participants to report, in Survey 1, whether their goal level of focus following adversity was 0 (low = the how) or 1 (high = the why). This question and the response options were based on the participant’s main goal for this time period as well as the construal levels of this goal, as shared in the phone interview. Perceived adversity severity was measured via a 3-item scale adapted from Stewart et al. (1999) and Paternoster and Iovanni (1986) to focus on work goal adversity encountered. An example item reads: “How would you rate the severity of this adversity?” with scale anchors ranging from 1 (not severe at all) to 5 (very severe) (α = .77). Resilience was measured using the 6-item Psychological Capital (PsyCap) Resiliency dimension scale (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007), adapted to reflect behaviors enacted after an adverse experience, rather than one’s general tendencies at work. An example item reads: I 30 took this stressful thing at work in stride (α = .71). The PsyCap Framework (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007) is the dominant perspective on resiliency that has permeated the organizational literature, and is the only measure that has been meta-analytically linked to work outcomes (see Avey, Reichard, Luthans, & Mhatre, 2011). PsyCap is conceptualized as a single, higher-order construct that includes hope, optimism, resiliency and self-efficacy (Luthans et al., 2007). PsyCap is defined as an individual’s positive psychological state of development, and resiliency (within this framework) is defined as “sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond to attain success” when facing problems (Luthans et al., 2007, p. 3). As the current work sought to measure resilience behavior in the work context, we administered this scale. 31 Preliminary Analyses STUDY 1 RESULTS CFA analyses using MPlus, with listwise deletion and maximum likelihood estimation (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012) demonstrated good fit for the hypothesized 4-factor model: adversity severity, resilience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism (Χ2 [344] = 561.02; RMSEA = .08; CFI = .80; SRMR = .08). This model was superior (Δ Χ2 [3] = 187.90, p < .001) to a plausible, alternative 3-factor model that combined the two personality scales: neuroticism and conscientiousness (Χ2 [347] = 748.92; RMSEA = .10; CFI = .63; SRMR = .11). Table 2 summarizes means, standard deviations, and correlations for Study 1. Frequency analyses demonstrated that participants’ typical goal construal level was low (typical goal construal: 63% = low; 37% = high), and the predominant goal construal held after adversity was also low (goal construal post adversity: 65% = low; 35% = high). In addition, variability was observed in both perceived adversity severity (minimum = 1.33 maximum = 5.00; M = 3.55, SD = .83) and resilience (minimum = 2.60 maximum = 5.00; M = 3.95, SD = .50). Hypotheses Analyses Hypothesis 1 predicted that goal construal level would positively predict resilience and Hypothesis 2 predicted that adversity severity would interact with goal construal in the prediction of resilience. We tested these relationships in one model using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS program to reduce the inflation of the Type I error rate (Field, 2011), as compared to a piecemeal approach in which main and interactive effects would be tested in isolation (i.e., in separate statistical models) (See Table 3). Prior to analyses, adversity severity was centered. Results did not demonstrate a significant relationship between goal construal level and resilience (β = -.07, p > .05, 95% CI: -.26, .11, ns). Thus, Hypotheses 1 was not supported. 32 Results demonstrated a significant interaction between goal construal level and perceived adversity severity in the prediction of resilience (β = -.24, p < .05, 95% CI: -.47, -.02), ΔR2 (due to interaction)= .04, F(1,103) = 4.81, p < .05. This significant interaction was subsequently probed using simple slopes analysis (Aiken, West, & Reno, 1991; Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). Results demonstrated that the slope for the prediction of resilience by goal construal was non- significant at 1 standard deviation below the mean of adversity severity (simple slope for low adversity severity = .13, SE = .12, t = 1.04, p > .05, ns), but was significant and negative at 1 standard deviation above the mean of adversity severity (simple slope for high adversity severity = -.28, SE = .14, t = 2.01, p < .05). At high levels of adversity severity, those with a low construal level evidenced greater resilience than those with high goal construal (See Figure 3). Hypothesis 2, which posited a significant interaction such that the positive relationship between goal construal level and resilience would be weaker at a higher level of adversity severity, was not supported. Exploratory Analyses In addition to tests of proposed hypotheses, exploratory analyses were conducted to better understand the resilience process in this sample and context. First, the researcher examined the goal construal levels provided in the initial interview. The researcher then coded the observed variability within the high construal condition. Qualitative comments shared concerning the high construal of one’s goal were coded for internal-orientation (for the individual’s benefit) versus external-orientation (for the benefit of another or some external entity). Notably, the majority of the sample shared an externally oriented high goal construal (internal-orientation of high goal construal: 32%; external orientation of high goal construal: 68%). For example, many nurses indicated that the “why” of their goal centered around a concern for patient physical safety and 33 health outcomes (e.g., wanting to save a patient’s life, wanting to help the patient get well and go home soon) (n = 41; 37% of participants), or on patient comfort, satisfaction, and/or emotional wellbeing (n = 20, 18% of participants). Still, some offered a “why” that focused on individual benefits such as pay, recognition, fulfillment, or work-life balance. Independent samples mean comparisons between those who offered internally-oriented high goal construal versus those who offered an externally-oriented “why” demonstrated no differences in age, organizational tenure, years of nursing experience, conscientiousness, neuroticism, or resilience. Interestingly, significant mean differences were observed based on perceived adversity severity, such that individuals with an externally-oriented “why” tended to rate their experienced adversity as more severe, as compared to those with an internally oriented high goal construal, t (109) = 4.08, p < .05. In addition, Chi-squared analyses indicated that there was no statistically significant associated between high goal construal orientation with typical goal construal, gender, or goal construal post-adversity. Regression analyses demonstrated that high goal construal orientation did not predict resilience, as a main effect or in interaction with perceived adversity severity. Subsequently, details of the adversities shared in Survey 1 were explored. Adversities, as work-related stressors that made work goal pursuit more challenging, were coded into two role stress categories: role conflict or role overload (Katz & Kahn, 1978; Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970).1 Role stressors are some of the most commonly studied work adversities (Jackson & Schuler, 1985; Tubré & Collins, 2000). Role conflict refers to simultaneous, contradictory expectations placed on the employee that make it difficult to complete a work task. Role overload describes employees having too many responsibilities and tasks expected of them, given the time available and their abilities. Based on reading the adversity details provided, this 1 No adversities described fit into the third, potential role stressor category of role ambiguity. 34 categorization described most of the adversities encountered and shared. Specifically, 42% of participants described encountering a role conflict (e.g., the need to educate and connect with a patient while also having limited time with each patient due to a need to see all patients; medicine shortages that needed to be addressed while addressing other patient care needs; a patient needing close and attentive care while another needed to be transported for a medical test) and 43% of the sample described experiencing role overload (e.g., short staffed so not enough nurses present to share the workload; increased flu occurrence leading to an influx in the number of patients to treat each day; inability to complete all expected work tasks in the given amount of time).2 Mean comparisons between those who faced a role conflict versus role overload adversity evidenced no differences in age, organizational tenure, years of nursing experience, perceived adversity severity, or resilience. Interestingly, chi-squared analyses demonstrated significant associations based on gender, such that women tended to encounter role overload and men tended to encounter role conflict, Χ 2(1) = 3.97, p < .05. No significant chi- squared association was observed between adversity type and post-adversity goal construal level. In addition, regression analyses demonstrated that adversity type did not predict resilience, either as a main effect or in interaction with goal construal level. Summary Some overall patterns in the current study were noted. Newer employees were more likely to encounter adversity during the study time period, nurses tended to hold a low goal construal – both on average and post-adversity, most participants’ “why” of their goal focused on an external factor (e.g., helping the patient or the organization), and this high goal construal external-orientation related to greater perceived adversity severity. Finally, a gender difference 2 Adversities that did not fit into either category (e.g., lack of learning opportunity presented, disgruntled patient) were not included in adversity type comparison analyses. 35 was observed in adversity type, as women typically encountered role overload and men tended to face role conflict. This information helps in understanding sample tendencies, as well as factors that shape the person-centric approach to adversity. Study 1 hypotheses results showed that an important condition for the effect of goal construal level on resilience involved how severe the adversity seemed to the individual - when adversity was perceived as highly severe, low goal construal lead to greater resilience behavior. Goal construal level alone did not predict resilience and the interaction was not significant at low levels of perceived adversity severity. This further highlights the value of the person-centric approach to characterizing adversity (e.g., Bartlett, 1994; Gordon & Song, 1994). These findings also speak to the value in, perhaps especially in a time-sensitive and task-oriented occupational context, focusing on the specifics (i.e. the “how”) of one’s goal when challenges arise at work. Table 4 presents selected, qualitative quotes from the nursing participants’ phone interviews. These quotes provided additional insights and potential explanations for the observed effects, which are discussed in greater detail in the discussion. In Study 2, hypothesis tests were conducted in a controlled, experimental context and extended via an examination of the full model - Study 2 included an examination of performance outcomes following resilience. 36 STUDY 2 METHOD: EXPERIMENT Participants and Procedure Inclusion criteria included age (18 years of age and older). Participants were recruited from the Michigan State University human subjects SONA participant pool. Individuals interested in the study first viewed general information about the study on the SONA website, viewed inclusion criteria, and were permitted to sign up for the study if they met the inclusion criteria. Prior to beginning the study, participants consented to participation (See Appendix D for consent form). The full experiment was conducted online using the Qualtrics survey platform and occurred across two time points. At Time 1, participants received information about the general purpose of the study and were asked to voluntarily participate in the two-part job application task. Participants were told that the job application task was both beneficial to students – as an opportunity to practice applying for a job – and for research purposes – to help the researchers assess how prepared MSU students are for the job market. The goal of this task was two-fold. First, this task aimed to ensure that participants were engaged and interested by a) using a task that is realistic – as undergraduate students either are or will become job seekers and complete application materials similar to those used in this study – and also by b) making sure that the task is personally relevant to participants – as gaining experience and resources concerning self- presentation strategies and job application materials for an ideal position could benefit students’ current and/or future job seeking efforts. As participants engaged in a task that job applicants engage in regularly (completing a job application and answering questions concerning one’s fit for a position) and this experience can directly translate to individual work-pursuit activities, this task is work-related, personally relevant, and offers high, expected realism for participants. 37 Within the study task, participants first provided a detailed description of their ideal job following completion of their undergraduate degree – they were asked to detail the position title and (in one paragraph) information about the position’s tasks and responsibilities. After providing information about this position, participants were given a job application to complete for the position (See Appendix E for study materials). As part of the job application, participants were prompted to provide 1-10 persuasive and job-relevant reasons she or he should be hired for this job. Participants were instructed to list as many reasons as possible, as more reasons listed is associated with greater perceived effort and potential fit for one’s ideal position. After completion of the application, participants provided demographic information and completed control variable measures. Participants received instructions and a Qualitrics link for the second part of the job application study task (Survey 2) via email two to three days later. At Time 2, participants first read instructions about the overall job application task and then were shown a moving “loading” message. After 10 seconds, the loading message disappeared and an error message appeared stating that a computer glitch occurred in the job application system, which caused their application materials from Time 1 to be lost. Participants were then asked to submit feedback to the study committee – this feedback involved completing measures of perceived adversity severity and state positive affect following the adverse experience. Participants were then reminded of the study’s purpose. Within this reminder, goal construal level was manipulated such that some participants read a message that focused on the “why” of this task (high-level benefits to completing the task, despite the adversity of having one’s materials lost), while others read a message focused on the “how” of the task (low-level steps that must be taken to complete the task, despite the adversity of having one’s materials lost) 38 (See Appendix F for manipulation text; See Study 2 results for manipulation pilot test results). Manipulation wording was based on items and response choice examples in the Construal Level measure by Vallacher and Wegner (1989) as well as the key aspects of construal (e.g., meaning and abstractness) outlined by Trope and Liberman (2010). After reading the reminder message, participants were asked to re-write the message in the space provided (to ensure attention to and processing of the manipulation message). This manipulation process was in line with the established procedure for the manipulation of general construal level developed by Liberman, Trope, McCrea, and Sherman (2007), which involved participants reporting why (or how) people would perform an activity. Venus, Johnson, Zhang, Whang, and Lanaj (2018) recently asserted, “it is well established that thinking about why (how) an activity is done primes a high (low) construal level” (p. 9). Participants then answered the question “What is your current goal in completing this task? (Choose only one option)” with one of four answer options corresponding to the high goal construal level and one corresponding to low goal construal - used to check the goal construal level manipulation’s effectiveness in shaping participant goal construal level. Participants were then given the opportunity to re-complete the application for the ideal job. After completion of the application, participants were given an opportunity to help a fellow MSU student in their pursuit of her or his ideal job. This task involved participants reviewing a job application submission from a fellow student and helping to re-complete their materials that were also lost in the computer glitch. Participants could voluntarily review the student’s resume and enter the information into a cover letter form for the student’s ideal job. Participants received course credit in accordance with the MSU SONA guidelines for their participation and all students who completed the full task received a detailed information sheet containing job application tips and advice (See Appendix G). 39 A total of 548 participants signed up to participate in this research study, via the SONA website and were deemed eligible. Of this 548, 136 individuals did not complete Part 2 of this study, and were removed from the useable sample population. Of the remaining 412 participants, 70 individuals failed the attention check item that asked participants to skip the question and a total of 58 participants failed the manipulation check item, which asked participants to report goal construal level following exposure to one of the two construal level manipulations. The final, useable sample consisted of 284 participants.3 The individuals in the final, useable sample (N = 284) were, on average, 19.62 years old (SD = 2.02), 79.2% female, 77.7% Caucasian, 8.7% Biracial, 8.2% Asian, 2.5% Middle Eastern, 2.1% Hispanic, .4% African American, and .4% Native American. Measures See Appendix H for experiment measures. Trait positive affect was collected at Time 1 as a control variable. The positive affect (PA) dimension of Watson, Clark, and Tellegen’s (1988) PANAS measure was used to capture trait PA (α = .88). Ten items list various positive emotions and participants are asked to indicate whether they experience the emotion, in general. The scale ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Trait resiliency was included as a control variable, as this trait likely relates to behavioral resilience in the current study. Resiliency was measured using the 6-item Brief Resilience Scale (Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, Tooley, Christopher, & Bernard, 2008; α = .90). From the Brief Resilience Scale, an example item reads: I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times. Scale anchors ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Although a number of scales 3 No significant differences on study variable were observed between participants who completed both surveys and those who only completed Survey 1. 40 have been developed for measuring trait resiliency across various domains (e.g., clinical and child psychology), there is no widely adopted measure and no one scale is typically recommended over others (Windle et al., 2011). However, the Brief Resilience Scale was chosen based on the systematic review of the psychometric rigor of resiliency scales conducted by Windle and colleagues (2011). These authors found that the Brief Resilience Scale earned the highest psychometric ratings of those examined. The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS, Smith et al., 2008) is the only measure that assesses a single factor reflective of recovering from adversity without confounding the concept with strategies or other factors used to promote behavioral resilience (e.g., support; Windle et al., 2011). In an effort to use the most psychometrically sound instrument to capture general, trait resiliency this scale was administered. Goal construal level was manipulated based on items and response choice examples in the Construal Level measure by Vallacher and Wegner (1989), the key aspects of construal outlined by Trope and Liberman (2010), and the established procedure for the manipulation of general construal level developed by Liberman, Trope, McCrea, and Sherman (2007). Because the goal construal level manipulations were developed for the purposes of this study, pilot testing was conducted to assess validity of the manipulations. The goal construal level manipulations were presented to 15 subject matter experts (SMEs) who have research experience and are currently enrolled in or have completed graduate degree training in organizational science. After being presented with detailed information concerning goal construal level background and examples, the SMEs were asked to read each prompt and then to rate the materials on goal construal level from 1 (low) to 7 (high) (See Appendix I). Comparison of mean differences between condition ratings was used to determine whether these manipulations achieved the goal of conveying differential goal construal level. Results demonstrated a significant difference 41 between the low (M = 1.93, SD = 1.71) and high (M = 5.21, SD = 1.85) construal level manipulations, t(13) = -3.61, p < .01 [CI: -5.25, -1.32]. Thus, these manipulations were deemed appropriate for use in the experiment. Perceived adversity severity was measured via the same 3-item scale from Stewart et al. (1999) and Paternoster and Iovanni (1986) used in Study 1, adapted to detail the specifics of the current study adversity: having one’s application materials lost. An example item reads: “How would you rate the severity of having your part I application materials lost?” with scale anchors from 1 (not severe at all) to 5 (very severe) (α = .85). Resilience was measured via the researcher’s quantitative count of how many reasons participants provided conveying fit to the ideal position, after the experience of having one’s materials lost. As part of the job application, participants were prompted to provide 1-10 persuasive and job-relevant reasons she or he should be hired for this job. Participants were instructed to list as many reasons as possible, as more reasons listed is associated with greater perceived effort and potential fit for one’s ideal position. State positive affect (PA) was measured via the same PA dimension of Watson, Clark, and Tellegen’s (1988) PANAS that was used to assess the control variable, trait PA. This measure was adapted to assess state positive affect after adversity (α = .93). Ten items listed various positive emotions and participants were asked to indicate whether they were experiencing each emotion, currently. The scale range: 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Goal performance quality was measured via trained coders rating quality of the reasons provided by participants, concerning why they should be hired for their ideal job position at Time 2 (post-adversity). Participants were instructed to give high-quality, job-relevant reasons, 42 as this is associated with better performance in the job application process. Trained coders, blind to study hypotheses, viewed the job application task and were given an opportunity to discuss the task and rating assignment with the researcher - coders were trained on the rating system (See Appendix J for coder training materials). Coders rated each reason shared by participants on the dimension of quality (whether a listed reason was work-related, coherent, complete, and would likely be viewed positively by hiring personnel; Mumford et al., 1996). Once coders demonstrated conceptual grasp of the quality dimension, they were instructed to view study participants’ ideal job title and subsequently rate reasons provided for hiring on quality. The scale ranged from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). An example reason that received a “1” was a student, interested in applying for the ideal job of Governor of Michigan who wrote, “All other politicians [are not good at their job or good people].” A score of “5” was given to the participant whose ideal job was to work as a graphic designer in an advertising setting who stated, “ I am skilled. Not only do I have experience in design, but I also have experience in the surrounding areas, such as writing, public relations, and photography.” To establish the reliability of the each coder’s ratings, 88 lists of reasons provided (of the 284) were simultaneously rated by both coders – allowing the assessment of inter-rater agreement and reliability for performance quality of 31% of the data. Because performance quality was a continuous variable, the intra-class correlation was used to assess whether the ratings of each coder was reliable. Used in this way, higher ICC values result when the correlation between two sets of ratings is high and the variance between observer ratings is low (i.e., higher inter-rater agreement and reliability; Bliese, 2000; Strout & Feliss, 1979). Results confirmed that the degree of agreement across raters on performance quality was acceptable (ICC(2,1) = .62 and ICC(2,2) = .76 (F(87,87) = 4.18, p < .01). 43 Thus, the remaining data set was split into halves and each coder rated one half of the data. Coders were instructed to work independently and to keep their ratings confidential. Helping behavior was measured quantitatively using a behavioral count, conducted by the researcher, of how many answers participants input for the fellow MSU student’s job application – out of the 13 possible responses that could be input based on resume information provided. 44 Preliminary Analyses STUDY 2 RESULTS CFA analyses using MPlus, with listwise deletion and maximum likelihood estimation (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012) demonstrated good fit for the hypothesized 4-factor model: adversity severity, state positive affect, trait positive affect, and trait resiliency (Χ2 [371] = 757.77; RMSEA = .06; CFI = .91; SRMR = .05). This model was superior (Δ Χ2 [3] = 600.23, p < .01) to a plausible, alternative 3-factor model that combined the two affect scales (Χ2 [374] = 1358.00; RMSEA = .10; CFI = .78; SRMR = .10). Table 5 summarizes means, standard deviations, and correlations for Study 2. Overall, there was variability observed on perceived adversity severity (minimum = 1, maximum = 5; M = 3.01, SD = .97), resilience (minimum = 0, maximum = 10; M = 6.40, SD = 3.04), and helping behavior (minimum = 0, maximum = 13; M = 8.45, SD = 3.41). Though less so, there was also variability in goal performance quality (minimum = 1, maximum = 5; M = 3.51, SD = .54). In terms of positive affect, participants tended to have a high trait PA (minimum = 2, maximum = 5; M = 4.01, SD = .53). However, variability was observed in state PA, after adversity (minimum = 1, maximum = 5; M = 3.33, SD = .89). Participants also tended to report above average trait resiliency (minimum = 1, maximum = 7; M = 5.10, SD = 1.08). Hypotheses Analyses We tested the main effects and moderation regression relationships of Hypotheses 1-6 using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS program. Hypotheses 1 and 2 predicted that goal construal level and the interaction between goal construal level and perceived adversity severity, respectively, would predict resilience. Results did not demonstrate a significant predictive relationship between manipulated goal construal (β = .30, p > .05, 95% CI: -2.00, 2.60, ns) or its interaction 45 with perceived adversity severity (β = -.35, p > .05, 95% CI: -1.07, .37, ns) in the prediction of resilience. Thus, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were not supported. Hypotheses 3 and 5 predicted that resilience (3) and its interaction with state positive affect (5) would predict goal performance quality. Results did not demonstrate a significant predictive relationship for resilience (β = -.03, p > .05, 95% CI: -.12, .06, ns) or its interaction with positive affect (β = .01, p > .05, 95% CI: -.20, .14, ns) in the prediction of performance quality Thus, Hypotheses 3 and 5 were not supported. Hypotheses 4 and 6 predicted that resilience (4) and its interaction with state positive affect (6) would predict subsequent helping behavior. Results demonstrated a positive relationship between resilience and helping behavior (β = .28, p < .01, 95% CI: .15, .41). There was not a significant interaction between resilience and state positive affect in the prediction of helping (β = - .15, p = .05, 95% CI: -.30, -.00, ns), ΔR2 (due to interaction)= .01, F(1, 276) = 3.93, p = .05 (See Table 6). Thus, Hypothesis 4 was supported and Hypothesis 6, which predicted a significant interaction in which the positive relationship between resilience and helping behavior would be stronger at a high level of positive affect, was not supported. As the first stage main and interactive effects of goal construal level and adversity severity on resilience were not supported, further tests of mediation via resilience (Hypotheses 7a and 7b) or moderated mediation via both resilience and perceived adversity severity or state positive affect (Hypotheses 8a, 8b, 9a, and 9b) were not conducted. Hypotheses 7-9 were not supported. Exploratory Analyses To further understand the resilience process, additional associations among study variables were examined. In examining goal construal level, regression analyses demonstrated 46 that goal construal level (manipulated) significantly, a) negatively predicted to perceived adversity severity –higher goal construal related to less severe adversity perceptions (β = -.17, p < .01, 95% CI: -.56, -.10); b) positively predicted state positive affect (post adversity), after controlling for trait PA – higher goal construal related to greater state positive affect (β = .24, p < .01, 95% CI: .06, .41); and c) positively predicted goal performance quality – higher goal construal related to better goal performance quality (β = .14, p < .05, 95% CI: .03, .28). Regression analyses showed that goal construal level did not directly relate to subsequent helping behavior (post-adversity). Next, additional associations with resilience behavior were tested. First, regression analyses were used to test the fundamental (but often assumed and unexplored) relationship between general trait resiliency and observed, behavioral resilience. Notably, a non-significant association was observed between this behavioral and trait measure (r = 02). In addition, demographic variable associations with observed, behavioral resilience were tested via independent samples t-test (gender) and correlation (age), and no significant associations were observed. Finally, no significant associations were observed between demographic variables (age and gender) and either outcome variable: goal performance quality or helping behavior. Summary Study 2 results did not replicate the finding from Study 1 that goal construal level interacts with perceived adversity severity to predict resilience – high adversity severity with low goal construal lead to greater resilience in Study 1. No significant effects were observed for resilience (alone or in combination with state positive affect) in predicting goal performance quality. Study 2 demonstrated that individuals who engage in greater resilience behavior after 47 adversity are more inclined to offer help to other individuals experiencing adversity. In addition, exploratory analyses revealed that goal construal level condition predicted perceived adversity severity (negative relationship), state positive affect (positive relationship), and goal performance quality (positive relationship). Of note, trait resiliency did not predict observed, behavioral resilience. Next, an overarching interpretation, presentation of implications, and discussion of future directions will be detailed. 48 DISCUSSION The purpose of this research was to explore cognitive, affective, and behavioral elements of the resilience process. Here, resilience is integrated with the work goal framework to develop a clarified, behavioral conceptualization. Within this study, behavioral resilience is the focus – a major distinction from the predominant focus on self-reported traits in prior resilience research – and trait resiliency, reported resilience behavior, and observed resilience behavior are each examined. Based on previous theoretical linkages, a model was developed and tested to answer a series of inter-related research questions: Does focusing on the ‘why’ after adversity help individuals to be resilient? Could the severity of an adversity “dampen” the potential benefit of focusing on the ‘why’? Does resilient behavior lead to improved performance quality and helping others to reach their goals? Can experiencing positive emotions when engaging in resilience lead to “heighted” benefits? The goal was to uncover both proximal predictors and important outcomes of resilience behavior at work. In Studies 1 and 2, interesting effects were observed - some in line with and others contrary to expected findings. In the nursing sample, high adversity severity paired with low goal construal lead to resilience behavior. Qualitative comments from participants were informative in better understanding observed processes (See Table 4). Multiple nurses shared the adaptive need for focusing on the ‘how’ (low goal construal) in this occupation, marked by high adversity. For example, one stated, “There is not enough time to focus on the 'why'.” This highlights the perspective that nursing requires quick determination and enactment of the ‘how’ to reach desired work outcomes – likely enhanced in times of difficulty. In addition, another participant stated “Once I have situated the 'how', my mind goes to the 'why' b/c that is what keeps me motivated.” This comment highlighted the motivational benefits of high goal construal, as 49 expected in current study hypotheses, but only after first focusing on the ‘how.’ These, and other comments highlighted the benefits of low goal construal, especially in times of difficulty, in an occupation marked by high time constraints and many required task responsibilities. There seems to be a time-based trade-off with high-level goal construal, which may explain the lowered likelihood of a high goal construal and lower reported resilience behavior following such a focus in nursing. In the experiment (Study 2), this interaction effect was not replicated. It is of note that the samples and measures of resilience were different – which may explain this lack of replication. In Study 2, participants were not permitted to choose / detail goal construal – it was manipulated – which may lead to differences in variable effects. In addition, the Study 1 measure of resilience was a self-reported behavioral scale while Study 2 utilized an observed, researcher coded, behavioral count of resilience behavior. These observed differences highlight the need to better understand and further research differences and potential benefits of various methods of measuring goal construal and resilience at work. In the experiment, individuals who engaged in greater resilience behavior were more inclined to help others who were experiencing adversity. This is in line with research that has linked trait resiliency to engagement in contextual performance (Avery et al., 2011; Luthans et al., 2007). Certain elements of this study may help to explain this finding. In particular, individuals were asked whether they would like to help “a fellow MSU student” who was facing the same adversity they had encountered. Both factors of similarity and shared experience may have fostered a form of collective/shared identification for participants. Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1985) presents relevant consequences associated with collective identification. One such consequence is the tendency of individuals to enact behaviors that support those that 50 embody their social identity. Scholars have asserted that “as the definition of the self changes [e.g., from “I” to “we”], the meaning of self-interest and self-serving motivations also change accordingly” (Brewer, 1991, p. 476). Thus, group welfare may become a desired end state in itself (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). Further, research has demonstrated that group identification works to promote efforts aimed at achieving collective good (Brewer & Kramer, 1986; Caporael, Dawes, Orbell, & van de Kragt, 1989; Kramer & Brewer, 1984). Thus, participants may have felt a connection to the fellow MSU student who was facing the same challenge and thus, as they were better able to overcome this challenge, were more inclined to help the other student. Additional research can be conducted to compare resilience and helping in conditions of potential, shared identity to when this is unlikely. Interestingly, goal construal level was not linked to the resilience outcome, as expected. Higher goal construal level was expected to be particularly effective in times of adversity because lower-level construals focus attention on feasibility of reaching an end state (i.e., the how) and higher construals emphasize desirability or value associated with the end state (i.e., the why; Wiesenfeld et al., 2017). This distinction was expected to be particularly important when adversity made the goal pursuit “how” more difficult – and thus potentially less motivating. However, as this effect was not observed, the role of joint construal effects and goal term / type are considered. First, in terms of joint construals effects, goal construal levels may work in conjunction at different stages of the resilience process – making a focus on one or the other inadequate for understanding its relation to outcomes. Perhaps it is often important for individuals to first figure out the “how” – which may have changed due to adversity – and then focus on the “why” to motivate goal directed behavior. Alternatively, perhaps those who focus first on the “why” following adversity, followed by determining the “how” would be less 51 frustrated throughout the post-adversity process and subsequently more resilient – as exploratory analyses demonstrated that induced high goal construal was associated with lower perceived adversity severity and higher positive affect following adversity (Study 2). Longitudinal research that explores potential sequential, additive, and interactive effects of goal construal would be beneficial for understanding this possibility. Second, long-term / more abstract versus short-term / more concrete initial goal types may determine which goal construal is most beneficial for motivating and guiding goal directed behavior. Prior research that asserts the importance of high construal for effective outcomes in difficult times concerned goals of, for example, reaching broad, overarching agreement in negotiations (De Dreu et al., 2009) and pursuing long-term weight loss goals (Fujita et al., 2006). However, in the current work, which explored weekly, task-oriented goals, lower construal proved to be more effective in times of high adversity (Study 1). As research asserts that high- level, abstract construals are “vital for effective functioning in many domains… (like) planning the future, learning from the past, relating to and understanding other people, and for considering alternative outcomes and courses of action” (Trope & Liberman, 2010, p. 441), perhaps this construal level is best when aligned with long-term / more abstract work goals. Future work could develop a goal framework for abstraction and determine whether alignment with construal level post-adversity is the most adaptive response to attain desired outcomes. Exploratory analyses highlighted the value of goal construal in the examination of other outcomes in times of adversity. Study 2 experimental results demonstrated that an induced high goal construal helped participants to perceive adversity as less severe, experience more positive emotions, and perform better (i.e., higher quality) on their goal. Thus, this seems to be an important factor for further consideration in work goal and adversity related research. 52 Of note, resilience behavior was not associated with performance quality. Though this finding is contrary to work that has shown significant, positive associations between trait resiliency and performance (e.g., Avery et al., 2011; Bartone et al., 2008; Fleig-Palmer et al., 2009; Luthans et al., 2007; Meneghel et al., 2016), this is informative. As the first study to explore this relationship using behavioral resilience, one goal of this work was to distinguish goal directed effort from quality of performance. Results further highlighted this distinction – resilience behavior (self-regulated goal pursuit despite adversity) did not significantly relate to quality of outcome. As prior resilience research often uses the term “overcoming” in definitions, it is important to note that research focused on resilience should not conflate goal accomplishment / performance outcomes with effort invested in the process. Cases in which individuals continue investing effort in goal pursuit despite adversity, as demonstrated in this work, are conceptually and empirically distinct from goal attainment or a rating of the goal outcome. This finding further supports the need to utilize behavioral measures of resilience, as effects do not necessarily parallel those observed for trait resiliency. Observed findings highlight, empirically, the utility of low goal construal during high levels of adversity severity for fostering resilience, and resilience for subsequent helping behavior. Theoretically, this work highlights the value in (the expected) shift to low goal construal in certain times of difficulty (Vallacher & Wegner, 1985, 1987), as well as a person- centric approach in considering perceptions of adversity and other experiences in the resilience process (e.g., Bartlett, 1994; Gordon & Song, 1994). Implications Theoretical implications can be garnered from this work. Here, a clarified, behavioral conceptualization of resilience, as distinct from trait resiliency, was detailed and modeled. This is 53 important because prior research has tended to utilize conceptualization not based on theory, to conflate state, trait, behavioral, and process conceptualizations, and to usually only empirically measure self-reported trait resiliency. Demonstrating the theoretical and empirical links between behavioral resilience and the goal framework offers development to the resilience domain, as informed by a well-developed framework in the work context. Thus, this conceptual presentation offers a novel perspective on the resilience process and measurement. Second, by using this conceptualization to parse apart the unique effects of resilience behavior and trait resiliency in this process, a novel perspective on reconciling nomological network confusion and uncovering appropriate placement of related variables is uncovered. In line with this, findings concerning goal construal’s prediction of behavioral resilience and resilience predicting subsequent helping behavior demonstrates the value of integrating resilience literature with other work theories (e.g., cognitive or performance oriented). This work further highlights that some such pairs with trait resiliency would not be well-aligned (i.e., state construal level predicting trait resiliency). These insights inform theoretical development of the resilience domain, as definitional clarity can be used to help to inform variable placement in resilience models. Current findings also have practical implications. Given that many employees experience adversity at work, results highlight the practical importance of focusing on the specific ‘how’ of one’s goal when adversity is encountered in such a context. Specifically, it is important for employees to, at least initially, make sure they plan and focus on what needs to be done to accomplish a goal, after difficulty, if they are to be resilient to this experience. It may be useful for organizations to offer training and development on contingency planning that helps to outline the ‘how’ for different, potential adversities encountered or teaches this focus-related skill. As 54 demonstrated in this study, resilience facilitated helping behavior. Thus, organizations could develop programs meant to help individuals facing goal frustrations at work, that call upon those who have encountered such difficulties themselves. Such paired work (e.g., mentoring, advice channels) could serve as a volunteer opportunity that helps individuals currently facing difficult. Limitations and Future Directions The use of a multi-study design with two unique samples and time-lagged assessments of the resilience process in a field sample of nurses and an experiment of college adults strengthens the current design. In addition, the multi-source nature of variables improves upon the over- reliance of previous resilience research on self-reported factors. However, current findings should be interpreted in light of potential limitations, and future research could work to address these limitations. First, the occupation-based design in Study 1, though useful for limiting confounds and understanding current effects in jobs high on “need for resilience,” may reduce current effect’s generalizability to other occupations (e.g., those with less concrete tasks requirements or reduced time pressure). Future research would do well to address this potential limitation by exploring current resilience effects across level of need for resilience (as ranked by Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). Second, though effects were tested at multiple time-points, the current work did not explore (and thus can not speak to) the longitudinal effects of goal construal or resilience. There may be value in both construal levels at different points in the resilience process and differential effects may be observed at later points than during initial encounters of adversity. In addition, both studies only focused on a one-time adverse experience. This is limiting as some employees face repeated, chronic adversities at work. Future research could assess current study variables at multiple time points (e.g., each day or multiple times a day over a 5-10 day period) to explore 55 cross-lagged effects as well as the potential attrition of observed effects over time. In addition, such assessments could be paired with qualitative analyses to gain a deeper understanding of the full resilience process and the cognitive experience of adversity and overcoming difficulty. Such qualitative assessments are especially important as the field of resilience at work begins to grow in popularity and practical application. Finally, given that results did not uncover significant effects in the experiment’s prediction of resilience via the manipulated factor of goal construal, it would be useful to consider additional, potential predictors that can be manipulated to foster behavioral resilience. As prior meta-analyses have indicted that most current resilience intervention and training programs have no or a small effect (Vanhove, Herian, Perez, Harms, & Lester, 2016), uncovering the specific, potentially altered factors that help employees to be resilient remains one of the most important practical goals of this research domain. In addition, an assumption within this domain (theoretically and practically) is that trait resiliency is malleable. Beyond manipulations meant to affect behavioral resilience to a specific adverse encounter, research that explores within-person dynamics of trait resiliency and factors that shape changes in this process would be informative. Such findings would be useful for resilience theory development as well as improved intervention and training outcomes in the workplace. Conclusion As most individuals will face unexpected and uncontrollable adversities throughout their careers, it is important to understand how employees can achieve resilience and what resilience means for outputs. The goals of this work were to improve upon limitations in the resilience domain such as conceptual confusion and limited application in the work context. In addition, this work sought to expand current knowledge about specific factors that predict and result from 56 behavioral resilience at work. Overall, this study’s presented resilience conceptualization and model tests offered detailed insights into the resilience process and many areas for further development. 57 APPENDICES 58 Appendix A: Field Study Consent Form The purpose of this research study is to understand how employees handle adversity (experiences that make goal achievement more difficult or stressful) at work and to help employees better handle future experiences of adversity. If selected to participate, you will complete an initial interview and two subsequent online surveys. This research study will take about 45 minutes total to complete (15-minute initial interview and 2 15-minute follow up surveys). Your responses provided in this study are completely confidential – no members of your organization will view you responses and identifying information will not be stored with your study data. Here are the tasks you will be expected to complete for this study: 1. Initial interview in which you discuss the study procedure and your current work goals with the researcher. 2. After 2-3 days of work, you will complete Survey 1. 3. After 2-3 additional days of work, you will complete Survey 2. Compensation for participation: 1. All employees who complete the initial interview and both surveys will receive a $20 gift card to Target, Starbucks, or Amazon (your choice) in exchange for participation. Your participation is voluntary and greatly appreciated. You may choose not to participate at all or you may refuse to participate in certain procedures, answer certain questions, or discontinue your participation at any time without consequences (e.g., will not affect treatment you will receive). Also, you have the right to request that your responses not be used in the data analyses. Participation in this research study does not involve any foreseeable risks. This experiment is confidential and no personally identifiable information will be stored with your responses. Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowed by law. All data will be stored on the hard drive of a secure computer, and on a secure server. Data will only be accessed by trained experimenters. Data will be stored for up to five years after the publication of research stemming from this project---as specified by the American Psychological Association. Ann Marie Ryan, a professor in the Department of Psychology is conducting this scientific study. If you have questions about the study, contact Ann Marie Ryan, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: 517-355-0203, e-mail: ryanan@msu.edu. 59 Appendix B: Field Study Materials INITIAL INTERVIEW SCRIPT Welcome to the Goal Study. You will receive a $20 gift card for your participation. This initial interview and the two follow- up surveys are expected to take about 45 minutes or less to complete. In addition, all participants who complete this study will receive a report of current study findings that may offer useful insights concerning helpful responses to future adversity experiences - reports will not contain any identifying or personal information. Your responses provided in this study are completely confidential – no members of your organization will view you responses and identifying information will not be stored with your study data, and your participation is GREATLY appreciated! Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand your work goals (desired aim or result) and exposure to adversity (experiences that make goal achievement more difficult or stressful). We also aim to uncover helpful strategies that may make dealing with adversity less difficult for employees in the future. What is a work goal?: Desired aim or result / accomplishment at work. What is adversity?: An experience or condition that makes goal accomplishment more stressful or difficult. What are different goal levels?: The level of abstraction/specificity with which we think about a goal. One’s goal can focus on the how or the why: 1. LOV LEVEL: The “how” of a goal = The specific steps to goal accomplishment a. For example: I will complete steps 1, 2, and 3 to accomplish this goal. 2. HIGH LEVEL: The “why” of a goal = The broader reasons for goal accomplishment a. For example: I will accomplish this goal because it would make me proud. Work Goal and Adversity Example: Amy’s goal is to complete the inventory count of the heart monitors in her unit this week. On Wednesday, after Amy has completed 1/3 of her inventory task, the computer system fails and her prior input data is lost. What different levels of her goal might Amy think about following this adversity? The “How” of a Goal: Amy might focus on exactly how she will now accomplish the goal. For example Amy may think: “To accomplish my goal, I will now re-do the first 1/3 of the inventory count and input this into the system. I will then stay at work late today to catch up for the time lost in losing the initial data. I will then work extra hard (i.e., be more efficient) the remainder of this week to ensure I complete my goal of input by Friday.” 60 The “Why” of a Goal: Amy might focus on exactly why accomplishing the goal now is valuable. For example Amy may think: “I will accomplish my goal, because accomplishing this goal will give me a sense of pride. Also, the inventory will be checked by our national headquarters team next week and if we do not complete this task, this unit will be reprimanded. I will work to accomplish this goal because I want to be an effective employee who shows leadership that I accomplish my goals.” Instructions: Please detail your main work goal you aim to accomplish over the next 5-7 work days and then answer the questions that follow concerning this goal. What is your main work goal you aim to achieve over the next 5-7 work days: The How of Your Goal Please use the following lines to write a specific sentence concerning how you will accomplish this work goal (i.e., specific actions / steps you will take): 1. _____________________________________________________________________ The Why of Your Goal Please use the following lines to write a specific sentence concerning why you wish to accomplish this work goal (i.e., specific reason this goal accomplishment is valuable): 1. _____________________________________________________________________ Which element of your work goals do you typically focus on: a. The “how” of my work goals – specific steps I will take to accomplish a goal b. The “why” of my work goals – broader reasons that I wish to accomplish a goal SURVEY 1 – Post-adversity survey Welcome to Survey 1 of 2 Surveys for the Goal and Adversity Study. You will receive a $20 gift card for your participation. The initial interview and the two follow- up surveys are expected to take about 45 minutes total to complete. In addition, all participants who complete this study will receive a report of current study findings that may offer useful insights concerning helpful responses to future adversity experiences - reports will not contain any identifying or personal information. 61 Your responses provided in this study are completely confidential – no members of your organization will view you responses and identifying information will not be stored with your study data, and your participation is GREATLY appreciated! Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand your work goals (desired aim or result) and exposure to adversity (experiences that make goal achievement more difficult or stressful). We also aim to uncover helpful strategies that may make dealing with adversity less difficult for employees in the future. What is a work goal?: Desired aim or result / accomplishment at work. What is adversity?: An experience or condition that makes goal accomplishment more stressful or difficult. What are different goal elements?: The level of abstraction/specificity with which we think about a goal. One’s goal can focus on the how or the why: 2. The “how” of a goal = The specific steps to goal accomplishment a. For example: I will complete steps 1, 2, and 3 to accomplish this goal. 3. The “why” of a goal = The broader reasons for goal accomplishment a. For example: I will accomplish this goal because it would make me proud. The goal you have set for this week period is: ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Have you experienced adversity in pursuit of this work goal over the last 2-3 work days – an experience that made pursuing this goal more difficult or frustrating? ☐YES ☐NO • • If no, participants will be directed to the end of this survey. If yes: *Participants will report perceived adversity severity* Following the experience of adversity, which element of your goal did you focused on? a. The “how” of my goal – specific steps I will take to accomplish the goal, despite the experienced adversity b. The “why” of my goal – broader reasons that I wish to accomplish the goal, despite the experienced adversity SURVEY 2 – Final Survey Welcome to Survey 2 of the 2 Surveys for the Goal Study. You will receive a $20 gift card for your participation. The initial interview and the two follow- up surveys are expected to take about 45 minutes to complete. In addition, all participants who complete this study will receive a report of current study findings that may offer useful insights 62 concerning helpful responses to future adversity experiences - reports will not contain any identifying or personal information. Your responses provided in this study are completely confidential – no members of your organization will view you responses and identifying information will not be stored with your study data, and your participation is GREATLY appreciated! Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand your work goals (desired aim or result) and exposure to adversity (experiences that make goal achievement more difficult or stressful). We also aim to uncover helpful strategies that may make dealing with adversity less difficult for employees in the future. What is a work goal?: Desired aim or result / accomplishment at work. What is adversity?: An experience or condition that makes goal accomplishment more stressful or difficult. Did you report an experienced adversity in pursuit of this work goal in Survey 1– an experience that made pursuing this goal more difficult or frustrating? ☐YES ☐NO • • If no, participants will be directed to the end of this survey. If yes: *Participants will report resilience behavior following the adverse experience and number of adverse experiences encountered this week. 63 Appendix C: Field Study Measures Goal Construal Level Following the experience of adversity, which element of your goal are you focused on? a. The “how” of my goal – specific steps I will take to accomplish the goal, despite the experienced adversity b. The “why” of my goal – broader reasons that I wish to accomplish the goal, despite the experienced adversity Perceived Adversity Severity (1 = Stewart, W. F., Lipton, R. B., Simon, D., Liberman, J., & Von Korff, M., 1999; 2-3 = Paternoster, R., & Iovanni, L., 1986) 1. How would you rate the severity of this adversity? a. 1 (not severe at all) to 5 (very severe) 2. How much of a problem is this adversity for your work goal completion? a. 1 (not a problem at all) to 5 (a very big problem) 3. How would you characterize the setback of this adversity? a. 1 (a very minor setback) to 5 (a very major setback) Resilience PsyCap’s Resiliency Dimension (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007) 1. When I had a setback at work, I had trouble recovering from it, moving on 2. I managed this difficulties one way or another 3. I took this stressful thing at work in stride 4. I got through this difficulty with ease 5. I got through this difficult time at work because I’ve experienced difficulty before Typical Goal Construal Level Which element of your work goals do you typically focus on: a. The “how” of my work goals – specific steps I will take to accomplish a goal b. The “why” of my work goals – broader reasons that I wish to accomplish a goal Conscientiousness 1. I am always prepared 2. I pay attention to details 3. I get chores done right away 4. I carry out my plans 5. I make plans and stick to them 6. I waste my time 7. I find it difficult to get down to work 8. I do just enough work to get by 9. I don’t see things through 10. I shirk my duties Neuroticism 1. I often feel blue 64 2. I dislike myself 3. I am often down in the dumps 4. I have frequent mood swings 5. I panic easily 6. I rarely get irritated 7. I seldom feel blue 8. I feel comfortable with myself 9. I am not easily bothered by things 10. I am very pleased with myself Number of Adversities Encountered during Study Period -How many difficult experiences did you encounter, that made pursuing your work goal (the oe you shared for this study) more stressful? a. 1-2 b. 3 c. 4 d. 5 or more Attention Check 1. Please skip this question for data quality purposes Demographics -Gender___________________________ -Age (in years)___________________________ -Ethnicity_______________________________ -Current Job Position: a. R.N. b. L.P.N. c. Other -How long have you been an employee at this organization___________________ -How long have you been working in your current industry___________________ -How often do you encounter adversity that makes your work goals more difficult to achieve, in general? a. Daily b. Multiple times a week c. Once a week d. Every few weeks e. Once a month f. Every couple months g. Once a year h. Never 65 Appendix D: Experiment Consent Form The purpose of this research study is to understand how prepared Michigan State University students are for full time employment and to help students become better prepared. You will complete two surveys in which you practice applying for your ideal job. At the end of the second questionnaire you will also be asked to provide information about yourself and your views, in general. If you complete both surveys you will receive a brochure with resume preparation and interview information and advice. This research study will take about 1 hour to complete (30 minutes per survey), and you will receive 2 research credits for your participation at the end of the second questionnaire. Your participation is voluntary and greatly appreciated. You may choose not to participate at all or you may refuse to participate in certain procedures, answer certain questions, or discontinue your participation at any time without consequences (e.g., will not affect treatment you will receive, will not affect your grade or evaluation, etc.). You may either participate in other studies within the Psychology Department, or receive credit by other means, as stated in your Psychology course syllabus. Also, you have the right to request that your responses not be used in the data analyses. Participation in this research study does not involve any foreseeable risks. The benefit of participating in this research study, however, is that you have the opportunity to learn more about the research process, help contribute to scientific advancement, and also to gain valuable information in preparing for job applications. This experiment is anonymous and no personally identifiable information will be stored with your responses. Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowed by law. All data will be stored on the hard drive of a secure computer, and on a secure server. Data will only be accessed by trained experimenters. Data will be stored for up to five years after the publication of research stemming from this project – as specified by the American Psychological Association. It is our goal that you learn about the research you participated in today. The experimenter will be happy to answer any questions you have about the research. Ann Marie Ryan, a professor in the Department of Psychology is conducting this scientific study. If you have questions about the study, contact Ann Marie Ryan, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, phone: 517-355-0203, e-mail: ryanan@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University's Human Research Protection Program at 517-355- 2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 408 West Circle Drive. Room 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824. Your continued participation indicates your voluntary consent to participate in this research. 66 Appendix E: Experiment Study Materials PART 1 Purpose: The purpose of this task is to better understand the job preparation process for undergraduate students and to help increase post-graduation employment rates. The William- Schultz Foundation is committed to career preparation for undergraduate students. Within this task you will be asked to detail your ideal job, complete a job application, and provide feedback to the foundation concerning your job application experience. Each student who completes both aspects of this task will receive the William-Schultz Job Market Preparation Guide – which includes helpful tips and fun facts about resume and job interview preparation. William-Schultz Foundation Opportunity. Commitment. Impact. 2017 Job Application Preparation Task Email:___________________________________ Goal: The goal of this job application task is to better understand how prepared undergraduate students are for the job market and to also provide students with experience and resources for success in the job pursuit process. Process: This task is a two-part process. Part I will ask participants to complete a job application for her or his ideal job post-graduation. Two to three days later, participants will complete an evaluation to provide feedback to the foundation concerning this job application experience. Benefits: All students who complete this task will receive course credit in accordance with the University participation in research policy and will also receive the William-Schultz Job Market Preparation Guide – which includes helpful tips and fun facts about success in resume preparation and job interviews. 67 William-Schultz Foundation Opportunity. Commitment. Impact. Job Application Preparation Task Part I Section A-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instructions: Please detail the title and information about your ideal job after graduation. This information will be used to guide your job application task. Ideal Post-Graduation Job Title: __________________________ Ideal Post-Graduation Job Description: in one paragraph below please detail the tasks and responsibilities associated with your ideal job post-graduation ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Section B--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOB APPLICATION GENERAL INFORMATION City___________________________ State__________________________ Zip____________ Birth Date ______________________ Have you applied for a job before? ☐ YES ☐ NO Are you currently employed? ☐ YES ☐ NO EDUCATION School ________________________________ Degree_____________________ Expected Graduation Date: _______________________ Type of Institution ☐ Two-Year Institution ☐Four-Year Institution EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE 68 Last Employer __________________________________________________ City___________________________ State__________________________ Zip____________ Job Title__________________________ Date of Employment: From ________ to __________ Reason for leaving job___________________________________________________________ Section C-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most frequently asked questions in the job application process is “Why should you be hired for this position?” Thus, it is an important question that applicants should practice answering prior to applying to the ideal job. Practicing answers to this question in the current task will allow applicants to build ready responses, to feel more prepared for the application process, and gain valuable experience for the job application process in a low-pressure setting. To effectively convey why one should be hired for a position persuasive, job-relevant statements about one’s fit to and preparation for the position should be conveyed. Below, please answer the application question to the very best of your ability, remaining aware that doing your best in answering this question will be helpful for your future job pursuit process and will help us to understand how prepared students are to answer such questions. We advise that you take your time on this task and list as many reasons as you can – as this is associated with better performance on this task. It is also important that each reason be high in quality (i.e., job-relevant, coherent, complete sentences that would likely be viewed positively by hiring personnel) and novelty (i.e., different from other reasons listed and would likely delight and surprise hiring personnel). Please list (in complete sentences) the reason(s) you should be hired for this ideal position you previously described: 1. _____________________________________________________________________ 2. _____________________________________________________________________ 3. _____________________________________________________________________ 4. _____________________________________________________________________ 5. _____________________________________________________________________ 6. _____________________________________________________________________ 7. _____________________________________________________________________ 8. _____________________________________________________________________ 9. _____________________________________________________________________ 10. _____________________________________________________________________ *Participants will complete measures of trait positive affect, resiliency, and demographics* ______________________________________________________________________________ 69 PART 2 William-Schultz Foundation Opportunity. Commitment. Impact. Job Application Preparation Task Email:___________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ SYSTEM ERROR ALERT: Unfortunately, there was an error is our system after your PART I materials were submitted. Because of this technology error, your PART I materials were lost. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 70 Please provide detailed feedback to the Foundation Board of Directors concerning your job application experience. [Study measures of perceived adversity severity and positive affect; See Appendix H] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Goal Construal Level Manipulation; See Appendix F] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What is your current goal in completing this task? (Choose only one option) A. To become better prepared for the job market by completing in this task B. To determine the ideal job that you are interested in applying to C. To make sure that you complete all parts of the full job application task D. To assess how prepared you are for your ideal job -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Participants will complete Part 1 again – behavioral resilience* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As many of your fellow students are seeking jobs, you will now be given the option to help a fellow student complete the ideal job application. The student was asked to complete a cover letter form as part of the job application, based on their submitted resume. However, their materials were also lost in the recent computer glitch and your assistance would benefit the student. Based on the attached resume, please fill in the following sections of the student’s cover letter form. As only complete applications will be reviewed, your assistance in completing the requested areas would help the fellow student complete this full task and receive the job information and advice. Your participation in this part of the task is voluntary. If you wish to help your fellow classmate, please review the resume below and complete the cover letter form by entering the resume information, as only complete applications will be reviewed. 71 RESUME Note: The student’s contact information has been removed to ensure confidentiality. 72 COVER LETTER FORM General Information EDUCATION School ____ ____________________ Type of Degree_____________________ Expected Graduation Date: ___________________________ Employment Experience Last Employer ______________________________________________ Job Title __________________________ Date of Employment: _________________________ Previous Employer: ____________________________________________ Job Title __________________________ Date of Employment: _________________________ Volunteer Experience Volunteer Agency: ____________________________________________ Title __________________________ Date of Volunteer Work: _________________________ Affiliations: 1. ______________________________________________ 2. ______________________________________________ 3. ______________________________________________ Skills: 1. _____________________________________________ 2. _____________________________________________ 3. _____________________________________________ Comments to share about this study: ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Please provide your best guess of the study hypotheses: ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 73 Appendix F: Goal Construal Level Manipulations Low Goal Construal Manipulation REMINDER: Your goal in this task is to complete a practice job application. To complete this task, you must first re-complete PART 1 and then you are to complete PART II. To complete Part I, you must complete a job application for your ideal job post-graduation. Then, in PART II you must complete an evaluation in which you provide feedback to the foundation concerning your job application experience. You must complete all aspects of the PART I job application and PART II evaluation to complete this task. High Goal Construal Manipulation REMINDER: Your goal in this task is to complete a practice job application. If you complete this task, you will receive the William-Schultz Job Market Preparation Guide – which includes helpful tips and fun facts about success in resume preparation and job interviews. Practicing the current task will allow you to build ready responses, to feel more prepared for the application process, and gain valuable experience for the job application process in a low-pressure setting. 74 Appendix G: Job Application Tips Resume Preparation Tips • Hiring managers may have to review many resumes, so make yours organized with important, job-relevant information • Double check your resume for spelling and grammatical errors • Have multiple others, with different Job Interviews Tips • Conduct research on the organization, hiring manager, and job opportunity to share your knowledge and ask insightful questions in the interview • Be sure to dress in a • Job Seeking Helpful Tips You are receiving this information because you completed all required sections of the job application study at Michigan State University. The purpose of this material is to help undergraduate students to prepare for the job search and application process. *This information brochure is meant to supplement independent research, especially information specific to one’s career field, and should not be considered a comprehensive guide to job seeking. * areas of expertise, review your resume and provide feedback In general, a resume should be concise (i.e., 1-2 pages) • Use clear headings to separate each section • Selectively use bold and italic typeface to help guide the reader’s eye – reserve this for headings or special formatting (e.g., APA formatting) • Use bullets selectively to bring attention to important points • Highlight specific, quantified actions and accomplishments Include information and experiences relevant to the positions to which you are applying • • Use key words from the job description in your resume • Review example resumes to help guide your resume preparation 75 professional manner, tailored to the organizational norms where you are applying • Arrive early for the interview to complete paperwork and allow yourself time to settle in and meet others at the organization • Review common interview questions online and prepare your potential responses • Be enthusiastic - express your passion and interest for the organization and job • Prepare specific, insightful questions that you can ask the interviewer(s) about the position and organization • Send “thank you” emails to the interviewer(s) after the encounter BEST OF LUCK AND GO GREEN!!! Appendix H: Experiment Measures Perceived Adversity Severity (1-2 = Stewart, W. F., Lipton, R. B., Simon, D., Liberman, J., & Von Korff, M., 1999; 3-4 = Paternoster, R., & Iovanni, L.,1986). 1. How would you rate the experience of having your part I application materials lost? a. 1 (not severe at all) to 5 (severe) 2. How much of a problem is having your materials lost for your application completion? a. 1 (not a problem at all) to 5 (a big problem) 3. How would you characterize the setback from having your materials lost? a. 1 (a minor setback) to 5 (a major setback) Positive Affect PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) “This scale consists of a number of words that describe different feelings and emotions. Read each item and then mark the appropriate answer in the space next to that word. Indicate to what extent you feel each emotion at the current time (or in general, for the general affectivity scale). 1(very slightly or not at all), 2(a little), 3(moderately), 4(quite a bit), 5(extremely) ___interested (+) ___distressed (-) ___excited (+) ___upset (-) ___strong (+) ___guilty (-) ___scared (-) ___hostile (-) ___enthusiastic (+) ___proud (+) ___irritable (-) ___alert (+) ___ashamed (-) ___inspired (+) ___nervous (-) ___determined (+) ___attentive (+) ___jittery (-) ___active (+) ___afraid (-) Trait Resiliency The brief resilience scale (Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, Tooley, Christopher, & Bernard, 2008) 1. I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times 2. I have a hard time making it through stressful events 3. It does not take me long to recover from a stressful event 4. It is hard for me to snap back when something bad happens 5. I usually come through difficult times with little trouble 6. I tend to take a long time to get over set-backs in my life Demographics -Gender___________________________ -Age (in years)___________________________ -Ethnicity_______________________________ -Current employment status: 0(unemployed) 1(part-time employee) 2(full-time employee) -How much experience do you have in completing job applications: 1(very little) to 5(a great deal) -Year in undergraduate studies: 1(freshman) 2(sophomore) 3(junior) 4(senior) 76 Appendix I: Subject Matter Expert Information and Instructions CONSTRUAL LEVEL Construal level theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2010) concerns the level of abstraction with which we perceive. Construal levels expand or contract one’s mental horizon. • Low-level construals are relatively specific, focused mental representations - low construal level concerns the specific “how” of ideas. • High-level construals are relatively abstract, superordinate mental representations – high construal level concerns the broader “why” of ideas. Values Example: • Low-level construal = Specifically what one is doing at one moment to enact one’s values o “I value being a good person so I want to engage in community service, treat others in a kind manner, and learn from my mistakes” – the how • High-level construal = Super-ordinate reasons concerning why one has adopted and/or is enacting a certain value o “I value being a good person because I was taught that this is the best way to live and I believe that this will help to make the world a better place” –the why GOALS Goals are defined as an internal representation of a desired aim or result (Austin & Vancouver, 1996). Goal Examples: • Goals can be outcomes such as receiving an educational degree, broad modes of conduct such as being “good”, or emotional states such as being happy. GOAL CONSTRUAL LEVEL Goal construal level concerns the element of a goal a person has in mind. Goal Construal Examples: • Low-level goal construal level involves a focus on the specific action(s) one will engage in to complete a goal o I want to complete the charting for all of my patients today by entering all the data in the system carefully and saving the files to the hard drive before the end of my shift. • High-level goal construal level involves a focus on the broader reason(s) one wishes to complete a goal o I want to complete the charting for all of my patients today because an organized system helps to ensure good quality patient care and information sharing among our partners. Instructions: Below you will read four prompts that give job seekers a goal to strive towards – completing a job application task. Please rate each prompt on goal construal level and provide qualitative comments to explain your rating decision. 77 Appendix J: Coder Training Materials Background Information • You will use the excel file to locate and score sentences. • Each participant was given an opportunity to list up to 10 reasons she or he should be hired for their ideal job. • Each participant had the opportunity to complete this task twice - you are to score Set 1 and Set 2 separately Your tasks • Using the colored excel columns, enter the corresponding scores for each reason provided in the green spaces following each sentence. • You will be assigned excel row numbers to work on, please note this and complete those rows. • There may be multiple sentences in each row for each set; please code all sentences in your assigned rows. • Please do not move, delete or manipulate any of the information in the excel file. • Make the scores as objective as possible by basing them on the coding scheme provided in training and below. • As you code, feel free to email me any questions or concerns (Kingda11@msu.edu). • Saving the file after each few sentence scores are coded may be a useful practice. • Email the complete code file to Kingda11@msu.edu Coding term definitions • Quality = the reason listed is work-related, coherent, and is likely to be viewed positively by hiring personnel. o If you are confused, do not feel the reason listed involves work-related fit, or is not a positive reason for hiring, then the sentence provided is not of high quality. Coding Scheme* 1 = poor 2 = low 3 = moderate 4 = high 5 = excellent *Note: If no reason is provided, leave the corresponding cell blank 78 Table 1: Study 1 Goal and Goal Construal Qualitative Examples Appendix K: Tables ID Goal Feel confident in abilities to work independently 1 2 Complete at least 30 charts each day 3 Improve confidence on the job 4 Achieve and maintain patient safety 5 Get off work on time each day Help a new nurse get her time management skills in order Have all of patients who show up to dialysis to run their entire treatment time Complete assessments and medication distribution before 9am 7 6 8 Have at least a 5 minute personal conversations with each patient Make time to pump breast milk during shifts Restructure / add consistency to onboarding for new nurses 9 10 11 12 Keep patients safe and alive Have all charts completed by the end of the week Improve time management 13 14 15 Be exceptionally positive at work High Construal Want to keep my job and love what I do I want to feel like I am doing a good job Makes me a better nurse who could save lives I am caring for other peoples loved ones Then I could get my personal stuff done This will help her to be more efficient and independent This is proven to help patients quality of life and mortality rate I need to stay prepared and available to handle whatever comes up Provides emotional support to patients I have to feed my baby and I would be uncomfortable Provides solid guidance for nurse work training I want them be safe and I want to improve their outcomes if not done, this will put me behind for the next week's tasks Can see more people and help them Improved job satisfaction and team building Low Construal Researching questions and problems during days off Not taking breaks Ask a lot of questions of those with more experience Fully assess patients before administering medications Delegate some tasks to others Write a flow chart for her day Persuade patients who want to quit Delegate some tasks to technicians Do charting outside of room to give myself more time in the room to talk Set out specific times and plan around it Rewrite course objectives Verify medications and constantly check vital signs Not procrastinate Go to work early Remind myself and others of things to appreciate 79 Table 2: Study 1 Focal Variable Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations (1) Conscientiousness (2) Neuroticism (3) Typical Goal Construal (4) Adversity Total (5) Goal Construal (6) Adversity Severity (7) Resilience M 4.10 2.20 .37 SD .46 .59 .49 1.70 1.05 .49 .83 .49 .35 3.55 3.95 (1) - -.30** .15 .01 .12 -.11 .20* (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (2) - -.00 .04 .12 .10 -.32** - .05 .18 -.11 .18 - .06 .13 -.17 - -.20* -.02 - -.22* - Note. N = 111. Typical Goal Construal: 0=low, 1=high. Adversity total: 1= one-two to 4= five or more. Goal Construal (Post- Adversity): 0=low, 1=high. All other scales: 1=strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. * p < .05. ** p < .01. 80 Table 3: Study 1 PROCESS Moderation Results of the Interaction between Goal Construal and Adversity Severity Predicting Resilience Resilience Coeff. SE t p 95% CI Intercept Conscientiousness Neuroticism Typical Goal Construal Adversity Total Goal Construal (X) Adversity Severity (M) Interaction (XM) 4.00** .10 -.25** .09 -.04 -.07 -.01 -.24* 8.05 1.04 -3.10 1.83 -.91 -.78 -.13 -2.19 .50 .10 .08 .05 .05 .09 .07 .11 R2 = .22, MSE = .20 .00 3.02, 4.99 -.09, .30 .30 -.41, -.09 .00 .07 -.01, .19 -.14, .05 .36 -.26, .11 .44 .90 -.14, .12 -.47, -.02 .03 F(7, 103) = 4.22, p < .01 Note. *p < .05. *p < .01. 81 Table 4: Study 1 Qualitative Excerpts from Field Study ID A "When I am home and I am off, I think about the 'why' so that I will go back to work" "Once I have situated the 'how', my mind goes to the 'why' b/c that is what keeps me motivated" "I think about the' why' after the 'how' in the moment, b/c 'why' is more long term "The 'why' motivates the 'how'" "When you step back and reflect on your day, that is when you think about the 'why'" "In my job, I have to develop a list of differentials based on the 'why' and figure out why the patient is there and suffering from those symptoms" "There is not enough time to focus on the 'why'" "There is a list of things to do at work, so it is easy to forget 'why'" "I focus on the 'how' because I am new to the nursing field" "I focus on the 'how' because nursing is all skills. It is easy to forget about the big picture often because this is a job with so many tasks, checklists, etc." B C D E F G H I J K "The' why' is ingrained, so it is automatic. I don't think about it. The 'how' is what I have to think about and adapt for each patient." 82 Table 5: Study 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations for Focal Variables (7) (8) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) - .60** .03 - .02 .13* .52** - .00 .09 - .11 - .10 .02 .36** .01 - .01 - - .17** - .11 .15* .14* - .09 - - .15* -. 07 - .02 - .08 - .08 - .00 .27** - .02 .09 - - .05 - (1) Trait Positive Affect (2) Trait Resiliency (3) Goal Construal Condition (4) Adversity Severity (5) Resilience (6) State Positive Affect (7) Goal Performance Quality (8) Subsequent Helping Behavior SD M 4.01 .53 5.10 1.08 .50 .56 3.01 .97 6.40 3.04 3.33 .89 3.51 .54 8.45 3.41 Note. N = 284. Trait Resiliency: 1= strongly disagree to 7= strongly agree. Goal Construal Condition: 0= low, 1= high. Resilience: 0 - 10. Goal Performance Quality: 1= poor to 5= excellent. Subsequent Helping Behavior: 0 – 13. All other scales: 1=strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree *p < .05. **p < .01. 83 Table 6: Study 2 PROCESS Moderation Results of the Interaction between Resilience and Positive Affect Predicting Subsequent Helping Behavior Coeff. 7.86** .53 -.29 .28** .24 -.15 Intercept Trait Positive Affect Trait Resiliency Resilience (X) State Positive Affect (M) Interaction (XM) Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. Subsequent Helping Behavior SE 1.74 .50 .23 .07 .26 .08 t 4.51 1.05 -1.28 4.35 .92 -1.98 p .00 .30 .20 .00 .35 .05 R2 = .09, MSE = 10.60 F(5, 276) = 5.54, p < .01 95% CI 4.43, 11.29 -.46, 1.52 -.73, .16 .15, .41 -.27, .74 -.30, -.00 84 Figure 1: Full Study Model Appendix L: Figures 85 Figure 2: Field Study Recruitment Flyer 86 Figure 3: Study 1 Goal Construal and Adversity Severity Interaction in the Prediction of Resilience E C N E I L I S E R 4.5 4.3 4.1 3.9 3.7 3.5 3.3 Low Adversity Severity High Adversity Severity Low Goal Construal High Goal Construal 87 BIBLIOGRAPHY 88 BIBLIOGRAPHY Aiken, L. S., West, S. G., & Reno, R. R. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. SAGE. Anthony, E. J. (1974). Introduction: The syndrome of the psychologically vulnerable child. In E. J. Anthony, & C. Koupernik (eds.). The child in his family: Children at Psychiatric Risk (pp. 3-10). New York: Wiley. Aspinwall, L .G. (2001). 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