Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) refer to discretionary behavior that exceed minimum job requirements and contribute to the social and psychological work environment. This research was proposed to understand whether and how changes in coworkers' OCBs would be related to changes in the focal employee's OCBs and psychological strain. Applying the theory of planned behavior, I hypothesized that within individuals, three belief states of OCB – perceived value of OCB, perceived social pressure of OCB, and perceived ease of OCB – would mediate the relations between coworkers' OCBs and one's own engagement of OCB and psychological strain. Besides, I expected that promotion and prevention foci would have cross-level moderation effects on the within-individual relation between coworkers' OCB and three types of beliefs concerning OCB. I collected longitudinal data over five weeks to test the hypotheses. Analyses of 850 cases from 121 employees supported the positive within-individual relations between coworkers' OCB and all three belief states of OCB and the positive within-individual relation between social pressure of OCB and psychological strain. However, the proposed relations between three types of beliefs concerning OCB and one's own engagement of OCB, as well as the moderation effects of promotion and prevention foci, were not supported.
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