Psychology Research Digest
Journal of Applied Psychology - Vol 111, Iss 9
The Journal of Applied Psychology will emphasize the publication of original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understanding to fields of applied psychology.
The many facets of leadership: A meta-analysis of personality facets, leader effectiveness, and emergence.
Personality traits can be useful predictors of leader effectiveness and emergence. Although these traits are recognized as important, existing research has neglected the potential advantages of considering personality at the facet level to clarify and extend theory regarding how personality relates to leader outcomes, as well as improve the use of personality as a predictor of leader effectiveness and emergence. This meta-analysis examines how narrow personality dimensions relate to leader emergence and effectiveness across theoretically relevant contextual differences including leader hierarchical level and organization type. A final set of k = 203 data sets was analyzed to examine these relationships. The results of this work highlight that personality facets vary substantially in their relationships to leader effectiveness and emergence. This variability can be used to advance theory regarding specific personality–leader outcomes relations and to improve the prediction of leader outcomes when the effects of facets are considered in regression weighted composites. The results also suggest that certain facets’ validities differ in student samples or depending on a leader’s hierarchical level within an organization. This work contributes to understanding regarding when and why narrow dimensions of personality may be useful to consider in relation to leader outcomes and helps clarify distinctions between traits relevant for leader emergence and leader effectiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>For good and for bad: The distinctive effects of successors’ leadership behavior on collective engagement and organizational performance.
Leadership transitions are a fact of organizational life, yet the impact of successors’ leadership behavior on organizational outcomes is little understood. Building on change readiness, uncertainty management, and romance of leadership theory and research, we propose a novel theory describing the distinctive effects of successors’ versus incumbents’ leadership behavior in driving change in collective engagement and organizational performance. We theorize that when employees perceive a great need for organizational change, successors’ vision communication and coaching are more likely than incumbents’ to yield improvements in collective engagement and organizational performance. But when employees perceive little need for change, successors’ vision communication and coaching are more likely than incumbents’ to yield declines. To test our model, we conducted a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study of principal succession in a sample of 113 U.S. elementary schools. As predicted, when employees perceived a great need for change, successors’ coaching sparked gains in collective engagement and organizational performance. When employees perceived little need for change, successors’ coaching backfired, spurring declines in collective engagement and organizational performance. As predicted, the effects of incumbents’ coaching were muted. Finally, contrary to our predictions, neither successors’ nor incumbents’ vision communication drove change in collective engagement and performance. Our theory and findings illuminate the distinctive risks and benefits of successors’ leadership behavior in driving change in collective engagement and organizational performance. For good and for bad, successors’ coaching changes their organizations in ways that incumbents’ leadership does not. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The hidden cost of courage: How oppositional courage shapes trans employees’ diminished image belief.
Fulfilling the promise of greater workplace inclusion increasingly hinges on advantaged group employees’ oppositional courage (OC)—a nonnormative form of allyship involving significant risk to the actor. Research suggests OC may not only offer instrumental benefits to marginalized employees but also convey a powerful “message of value” from the actor. Yet these courageous acts do not occur in a vacuum, suggesting they may carry social consequences for marginalized employees. Drawing from theory on helping relations and research on social cognition, we argue these risky acts can inadvertently signal unique strength in the actor, triggering marginalized employees’ diminished image belief—a concern others see them as weak and unable to stand up for themselves. We further propose that this perceived “image cost” depends on the actor’s humility as it relates to OC—what we term OC-specific humility—and that these dynamics have implications for marginalized employees’ avoidance reactions. Our investigation utilized data from 959 trans employees. In Study 1, a qualitative analysis identified three behavioral themes reflecting humility in relation to OC (i.e., OC-specific humility) and provided initial support for its role in shaping how OC is perceived. In Study 2, we tested our hypotheses experimentally. In Study 3, we sought to replicate the results with a time-lagged survey. Three supplemental studies included a scale development effort aimed at validating a measure of OC-specific humility and two additional experiments. Overall, results provided partial support for our model. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research, as well as avenues for future work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The gendered costs of voice (un)enacted: Differential effects on belonging in traditionally male-dominated contexts.
Recent research indicates that performance benefits on complex tasks accrue when members with diverse social identities speak up and their voice is enacted—that is, incorporated into the team’s approach to the task. In this article, we argue that the cost of not enacting diverse members’ voice may extend beyond performance to negatively affect their belonging. Integrating social belonging theory with the literature on gender and voice, we examine the case of women in traditionally male-dominated contexts. Archival data from teams of active-duty Marines (Study 1) and student engineering project teams (Study 2) showed that voice enactment was more strongly associated with women’s belonging than men’s, and women’s belonging was disproportionately harmed when voice enactment was low. A preregistered scenario study set in a male-dominated high-tech organization (Study 3) further showed that these differences were explained by the gender-based voice threat women experience when presented with a voice opportunity. This unique sense of threat amplified the relationship between voice enactment and belonging for women and, by extension, their future voice. A supplemental study showed that the costs in belonging when women’s voice was not enacted could be mitigated when the leader framed voice as having value for the group even if it is not enacted. Still, only when voice enactment was high did women’s sense of belonging reach parity with that of men, showcasing the power of acting on voice as a way of achieving belonging for all in diverse organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The paradox of structural empowerment: How and when structural empowerment fuels psychological entitlement and undermines resource sharing.
In recent decades, many organizations have been restructuring in ways that formally decentralize the necessary resources, information, and sociopolitical support, which is labeled “structural empowerment.” Although prior research suggests that structural empowerment enhances resource exchanges, I challenge this conventional wisdom by theorizing its potential drawbacks for resource sharing. Integrating the evolutionary perspective of work design and the dominance–prestige model, I developed a comprehensive model of how and when structural empowerment can hinder employees’ resource sharing via psychological entitlement. I employed multiwave (Study 1) and multisource (Studies 2 and 3) field surveys and experimental methodology (Study 4) to test my hypotheses. The results reveal that dominance-oriented individuals are more likely to feel entitled in response to structural empowerment. Moreover, psychological entitlement decreases resource sharing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>When (collective) losses loom larger than voice pains: The effect of loss framing on willingness to speak up at work.
Previous research indicates that employees often believe that it is too risky to voice their concerns about organizational problems; however, prospect theory suggests that people are more willing to take risks when problems are framed in terms of potential losses rather than potential gains. To reconcile these perspectives, we draw on prospect theory and the principle of loss aversion to explain why loss framing (compared to gain framing) will increase employees’ willingness to engage in voice behavior. In Study 1, we used a scenario experiment and found that participants who considered potential losses (compared to gains) after writing about a problem at work were more willing to speak up. Further, integrating prospect theory with research on other orientation, we extended these findings in Study 2 by hypothesizing an interaction between loss (compared to gain) framing and collective (compared to self) framing. Using experimental vignette methodology, we found the most voice behavior with framing that highlights potential for collective losses. In Study 3, we conducted a multiwave, multisource survey study using three organizational samples from different industries—health care, consulting, and auditing—and again found that employees were more willing to engage in voice when framing made collective losses salient. Altogether, our three studies integrate prospect theory and research on other orientation to show that framing, particularly in terms of losses and collective outcomes, is an important tool for eliciting employee voice. Theoretical and practical implications of our work, as well as ideas for future research, are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>