Check out our projects in progress!
Employee sexual health
Sexual health is essential to personal and public health, but it is a neglected topic in the organizational sciences. We are currently collecting data to test how workplace experiences relate to sexual frequency and satisfaction outside of work.
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Healthy leisure decisions
Leisure time offers a regular opportunity to unwind from work and invest in fulfilling, healthy activities. Yet most people struggle to choose healthy activities during leisure time. We are studying the role of workplace stressors in shaping decision-making processes during leisure time.
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Chronic disease & work
Half of adults have at least one chronic condition (i.e., heart disease, cancer, or depression). We are exploring how conditions impact work break frequency, content, and efficacy. We will also examine workplace practices to help employees flexibly manage conditions to benefit their work and health.
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Publication Spotlight
Expand the titles below to learn about some of our most exciting findings! Click the links to learn more
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People are often shamed for their lack of physical activity, but stressful work demands may also be to blame! Our findings published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology show that emotional demands at work could undermine your ability to make healthy, logical decisions about whether or not to exercise after work.
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Healthy Sleep is more than quantity and quality
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Across interdisciplinary publications in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Business & Psychology, SLEEP Advances, and Social Science & Medicine, we have identified distinct profiles that describe a person's overall pattern of sleep health, not only including their sleep quantity and quality but also sleep schedule regularity, daytime tiredness, time to fall asleep, and napping.
Not only do your job design and work demands put you at risk for two unhealthy sleep phenotypes (i.e., co-occurring insomnia symptoms, co-occurring "catch up" strategies like napping and sleeping in on weekends), but these unhealthy phenotypes are at risk for lower life satisfaction and even cardiovascular disease. |
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Most people experience interference between their work and family lives (also known as work-family conflict or WFC). Research assumes that WFC fluctuates frequently as we experience new instances of conflict, but our research published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology shows that WFC is 75-80% stable over the course of several months to several years. Our findings can help improve measurement in work-family research.
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Organizations are hesitant to invest in training and onboarding contingent employees (seasonal workers, independent contractors) due to their short-term contracts. Yet our work published in the Journal of Business & Psychology provides strong evidence that effective onboarding sparks engagement, better performance, and intent to return to the employing organization in the future. Extending human resources practices to non-permanent employees may be both ethical and practical.
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Incivility, or minor rude encounters, at work has major consequences for employee health and productivity. However, our findings published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology indicate that within ongoing client/provider relationships in a healthcare setting, client incivility can effectively signal their dissatisfaction with the care being provided and prompt a more creative approach by the healthcare provider.
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Feeling Pressure to Work While Sick
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Presenteeism, or when an employee works despite feeling unwell, can occur for more than personal reasons (e.g., strong work ethic, high workload) -- also due to organizational obligation to do so, which we call presenteeism pressure. Published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, we developed a scale of presenteeism pressure and linked it to counterproductive behaviors, intentions to quit, and worse well-being. Not only do we highlight organizational culture in forcing employee attendance, but the study also enables organizations to use the scale to assess these issues internally and work toward healthier norms.
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In the News!
our recent news publications, podcast appearances, and more!
Mindfulness and managing emotions link to better daily sleep (USF News and Safety and Health Magazine) |
Researchers identify distinct sleep types and their impact on long-term health (PennState News) |
Job demands affect exercise decision-making (Healthy Work Podcast) |
