Psychology Research Digest
Journal of Applied Psychology - Vol 111, Iss 6
The Journal of Applied Psychology will emphasize the publication of original investigations that contribute new knowledge and understanding to fields of applied psychology.
An integrative conceptual review of gender bias in leader evaluations: An observer-focused motive-driven process model.
Over the past decades, research on gender bias in leader evaluations has proliferated across multiple disciplines, significantly expanding contexts, outcomes, and theoretical perspectives examined. Despite these valuable contributions, the literature remains fragmented in explaining the persistent variability in how and why gender bias manifests, from severe penalties against women leaders in certain contexts to evaluative advantages in others. To resolve these discrepancies, we shift the focus from leaders to the motivated processes driving observer evaluations. We begin with an integrative review of research, revealing that observers, ranging from supervisors and subordinates to clients and investors, are not conduits of stereotypes but active evaluators whose motives shape how they selectively appraise women leaders. Drawing on motivated cognition theory, we develop a novel motive-driven process model that identifies three core directional motives: identity protection, value alignment, and resource dependence. Using this model, we integrate the literature by highlighting individual-level and contextual antecedents of each motive and explicating how motives drive distinct selective appraisal processes. By unpacking “why” and “how” observers evaluate women leaders through motivated processes, our model also offers targeted interventions that address observer motives rather than changing women’s behaviors, underscoring a pressing need to engage various stakeholders in addressing gender bias in leader evaluations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>When do people prefer to be asked or told? The interplay between participative/directive advising style and expertise superiority in recommendation acceptance.
Conventional wisdom in the advisor–advisee literature predominantly condemns directive advising as detrimental and praises participative advising. However, such theoretical predictions seem inconsistent with existing findings. Our research aimed to reconcile this inconsistency by developing a balanced framework grounded in expectation states theory. We propose that the effect of advising style (i.e., participative vs. directive advising) on recommendation acceptance depends critically on advisors’ expertise superiority relative to advisees. Across three studies conducted in different advisor–advisee contexts (i.e., doctor–patient, hairdresser–customer, and lawyer–client), we demonstrate that while participative advising is more acceptable when advisors’ expertise superiority is lower, directive advising can be equally effective when advisors’ expertise superiority is higher. This pattern emerges because expertise superiority shapes advisees’ desired participation, creating different participation expectation validation scenarios under participative versus directive advising. Our research suggests that directive advising can be as effective as participative advising in certain situations, offering novel insights into the contingent effectiveness of participative versus directive advising for recommendation acceptance in advisory relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Resolving the complexity–flexibility dilemma in multi-issue negotiations: Nested bracketing as a strategy to enhance negotiation outcomes.
Multi-issue negotiations present a complexity–flexibility dilemma: While multiple issues provide structural flexibility—offering opportunities for win–win agreements through variable-sum agreement options—they also entail structural complexity, requiring negotiators to process numerous trade-offs, concession patterns, and agreement alternatives. This research examines how negotiators navigate this dilemma by focusing on issue bracketing strategies—cognitive approaches for managing complexity by mentally grouping issues into subsets. Across six experiments (N = 1,602), we investigate how different bracketing strategies influence joint outcomes. We first examine subset bracketing, a widely used cognitive strategy that improves outcomes when it aligns with task flexibility—namely, when integrative trade-off opportunities are concentrated within subsets—but hinders outcomes when it misaligns, with such opportunities scattered across subsets. To address this limitation, we propose nested bracketing—a hierarchical information-processing strategy in which issues are organized into subordinate subsets to manage complexity and then integrated into a superordinate structure to preserve flexibility. Across studies, nested bracketing enables negotiators to recognize dispersed integrative trade-off opportunities by fostering insight into counterparts’ priorities, thereby improving joint negotiation outcomes. This work clarifies when subset bracketing helps or hurts in multi-issue negotiations and introduces nested bracketing as an effective approach for managing complexity without sacrificing flexibility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>If it does not kill you, does it make me stronger? The double-edged consequences of observing resilience in the workplace.
The literature on resilience has focused predominantly on the consequences of resilience for the resilient individuals themselves. Yet, current theorizing on workplace events suggests that the critical and eye-catching nature of demonstrating resilience is likely to draw the attention of other employees. We explore these interpersonal dynamics surrounding resilience by developing and testing a model that delves into the consequences of employees observing their coworkers’ resilience. Drawing from social comparison theory, we explain how observing resilience is related to both positive (inspiration) and negative (anxiety) social comparison emotions, based on perceptions of similarity with the resilient individual. We further theorize about the downstream consequences of these emotions for the observer’s attitudes (positive mindset about stress) and behavior (adaptive performance). Across a combination of lab and field studies, we found that observing resilience is related to feelings of anxiety when the observer perceives themselves as being dissimilar to the resilient individual. However, the significant positive effect of observing resilience on inspiration was not conditional upon similarity perceptions. In turn, these feelings of inspiration and anxiety were associated with the observer having a more, or less, positive attitude toward stress, respectively, which was ultimately related to helping or hindering their adaptive performance in the workplace. We discuss how our research provides a rich avenue for future studies on the social dynamics surrounding employee resilience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>The psychology of following: Conceptualizing and validating the Fundamental Follower Needs Inventory.
Humans possess an evolved followership psychology that enables them to identify and endorse different types of leaders depending on situational demands. But what fundamental needs guide these follower endorsements? Across a preliminary study and five validation studies (N = 3,514), we developed and validated the Fundamental Follower Needs Inventory (FFNI)—a psychometrically robust measure that identifies six core follower needs: protection, affiliation, status, guidance (including vision and expertise), and fairness. In Studies 1 and 2, we conducted content validation, tested reliability, and confirmed the factor structure of the FFNI across three domains (general, political, and workplace), three countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, and China), and multiple time points. Study 3 demonstrated FFNI’s convergent and discriminant validity. Studies 4 and 5 explored the nomological network, examining its antecedents, consequences, and both predictive and incremental validity. The FFNI provides a novel tool for researchers to investigate how follower needs vary across contexts and cultures and how these needs shape leader endorsements and perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Practically, the FFNI offers leaders a framework to better understand and respond to the psychological needs of those they lead. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>Translating human capital amid varying intentions to stay: An integrative conceptual review of the immigrant employment attainment process.
Immigrants face a unique challenge in translating their home country human capital to secure employment in their host country’s labor market, potentially leading to underemployment. In this integrative conceptual review, we formalize a framework to explain the process of human capital translation for immigrants, specifically laborers and professionals. Synthesizing findings across disciplines, we explicitly model and consider the theoretical role of intended duration of stay, which refers to the amount of time an immigrant desires to stay in their host country. We derive this notion from socioemotional selectivity theory to theorize that an immigrant’s intended duration of stay influences proximal social goals central to human capital translation, and in turn, employment speed (i.e., how quickly they attain a job) and quality (i.e., the extent to which the job aligns with their knowledge, skills, and abilities). We contribute to scholarship by (a) enhancing the conceptual accessibility and precision of the “immigrant” construct for future organizational psychology and management scholarship; (b) synthesizing and integrating multidisciplinary literature on the labor and professional immigrants’ employment attainment process to advance a foundational framework that explains human capital translation and how underemployment may occur for these immigrants; and (c) generating a future research agenda and delineating practical implications for practitioners. We also develop and showcase a novel approach for using supervised machine learning, unsupervised machine learning, and large language models to conduct high quality, multidisciplinary systematic reviews more efficiently. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Publication date: Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access the article >>