Dear colleagues,
Applied Psychology just published an exciting special issue on New Methods in Work and Organizational Health Psychology (WOHP) edited by Liu-Qin Yang, Daisy Chang and Vivien Lim. The contributions range from state-of-the-art reviews of methods in WOHP, randomized control trials, diary and ambulatory methods, to papers on insufficient effort responding, longitudinal modelling techniques, organizational health climate and twitter-based well-being data.
Are you interested in proposing a special issue to Applied Psychology yourself? Have a look at our guidelines http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1464-0597/homepage/call_for_special_issues.htm.
If you encounter problems accessing any of the papers below, email us at appliedpsychol@gmail.com to receive a copy for private use.
Enjoy reading,
Ute Stephan
Editor-in-Chief, Applied Psychology: An international Review
****Scroll down for abstracts****
Special Issue: New Methods in Work and Organisational Health Psychology
Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol 65 (2), 2016
Yang, L.-Q., Chang, C.-H. (Daisy), & Lim, V. K. G. (2016). Introduction to the Special Issue of New Methods in Work and Organisational Health Psychology. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 185–189. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12067
O'Shea, D., O' Connell, B. H., & Gallagher, S. (2016). Randomised Controlled Trials in WOHP Interventions: A Review and Guidelines for Use. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 190–222. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12053
Ilies, R., Aw, S. S. Y., & Lim, V. K. G. (2016). A Naturalistic Multilevel Framework for Studying Transient and Chronic Effects of Psychosocial Work Stressors on Employee Health and Well-Being. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 223–258. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12069
Sonnentag, S., & Pundt, A. (2016). Organisational Health Behavior Climate: Organisations Can Encourage Healthy Eating and Physical Exercise. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 259–286. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12059
McGonagle, A. K., Huang, J. L., & Walsh, B. M. (2016). Insufficient Effort Survey Responding: An Under-Appreciated Problem in Work and Organisational Health Psychology Research. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 287–321. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12058
Eatough, E., Shockley, K., & Yu, P. (2016). A Review of Ambulatory Health Data Collection Methods for Employee Experience Sampling Research. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 322–354. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12068
Wang, W., Hernandez, I., Newman, D. A., He, J., & Bian, J. (2016). Twitter Analysis: Studying US Weekly Trends in Work Stress and Emotion. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 355–378. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12065
Liu, Y., Mo, S., Song, Y., & Wang, M. (2016). Longitudinal Analysis in Occupational Health Psychology: A Review and Tutorial of Three Longitudinal Modeling Techniques. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 379–411. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12055
Spector, P. E., & Pindek, S. (2016). The Future of Research Methods in Work and Occupational Health Psychology. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 412–431. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12056
****Papers and abstracts****
O'Shea, D., O' Connell, B. H., & Gallagher, S. (2016). Randomised Controlled Trials in WOHP Interventions: A Review and Guidelines for Use. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 190–222. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12053
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have long been considered a gold standard for intervention design and the most rigorous method for understanding causal mechanisms. However, their implementation in work and organisational health psychology (WOHP) can be challenging. We review the use of RCTs in WOHP interventions and demonstrate that their adoption has been relatively scarce in comparison to areas such as health psychology and medical sciences. For WOHP researchers to be able to compare the effectiveness of their work-specific health interventions with other interventions in health and medicine, it is important that the design methodology, rigor, and reporting are comparable. Thus, there is a need for a clearer road map and guidance for WOHP researchers, to encourage greater use of RCTs in WOHP intervention research. In the paper, we provide an overview of RCTs, and review past research that has utilised an RCT design when evaluating WOHP interventions. We develop an adapted RCT checklist for use in WOHP settings, which takes specific organisational issues into account. Thus, our paper provides for future researchers a clearer road map for the design and reporting of WOHP RCT studies.
Ilies, R., Aw, S. S. Y., & Lim, V. K. G. (2016). A Naturalistic Multilevel Framework for Studying Transient and Chronic Effects of Psychosocial Work Stressors on Employee Health and Well-Being. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 223–258. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12069
Research in work and organisational health psychology (WOHP) has traditionally employed methodologies targeted at examining between-individual associations of psychosocial stressors, psychological strain, health, and well-being. Recently, however, there has been a shift towards more ecologically valid assessments of these classes of constructs, i.e. assessing them as and when they occur, often involving multiple assessments of the individual within a day. Known as Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), studies employing this methodology enable examinations of within-individual (daily) fluctuations in well-being as a result of work stressors and other environmental factors, as well as investigations of person–environment interactions. In addition, the study of employee health and well-being can benefit from the application of new and exciting technologies for measurement, such as smartphones and wearable devices for the tracking of physiological well-being indicators. Drawing on the Allostatic Load Model as an integrative framework, the current article aims to organise previous EMA research efforts in the field of WOHP, provide an overview of methodological tools that can be used in EMA research, and provide guidelines for analyzing EMA data. Finally, we conclude by discussing opportunities and challenges in the use of EMA in WOHP.
Sonnentag, S., & Pundt, A. (2016). Organisational Health Behavior Climate: Organisations Can Encourage Healthy Eating and Physical Exercise. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 259–286. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12059
This paper presents a multi-dimensional measure of organisational climate covering two domains of health behavior (healthy eating, physical exercise). To develop and validate the climate measure, we conducted three independent studies. In Study 1, items were generated and evaluated in expert ratings and confirmatory factor analyses (N = 483 employees), resulting in a total of 24 items comprising three dimensions (values and expectations, organisational practices, communication) within the domains of healthy eating and physical exercise. Study 2 cross-validated the factor structure of this measure of organisational health behavior climate (OHBC), and examined its nomological net. Based on data from 464 employees, we found significant correlations among OHBC and other dimensions of organisational climate (e.g. employee welfare, safety climate), healthy eating and exercise identity, eating behavior, and body mass index (BMI). Study 3 demonstrated within-organisation agreement and between-organisation differences in OHBC, and replicated the factor structure with a multi-level data set (N = 1,077 employees from 48 organisations). This new measure assesses organisational eating climate and exercise climate in a comprehensive way, opening up multiple avenues for future research and evaluation studies in organisations.
McGonagle, A. K., Huang, J. L., & Walsh, B. M. (2016). Insufficient Effort Survey Responding: An Under-Appreciated Problem in Work and Organisational Health Psychology Research. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 287–321. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12058
Insufficient effort responding (IER) is problematic in that it can add a systematic source of variance for variables with average responses that depart from the scale midpoints. We present a rationale for why IER is of particular importance to Work and Organisational Health Psychology (WOHP) researchers. We also demonstrate its biasing effects using several variables of interest to WOHP researchers (perceived work ability, negative affectivity, perceived disability, work–safety tension, accident/injury frequencies, and experienced and instigated incivility) in two datasets. As expected, IER was significantly correlated with the focal study variables. We also found some evidence that hypothesised bivariate correlations between these variables were inflated when IER respondents were included. Corroborating IER's potential confounding role, we further found significant declines in the magnitude of the hypothesised bivariate correlations after partialling out IER. In addition, we found evidence for biasing (under-estimation) effects for predictors not contaminated by IER in multiple regression models where some predictors and the outcome were both contaminated by IER. We call for WOHP researchers to routinely discourage IER from occurring in their surveys, screen for IER prior to analyzing survey data, and establish a standard practice for handling IER cases.
Eatough, E., Shockley, K., & Yu, P. (2016). A Review of Ambulatory Health Data Collection Methods for Employee Experience Sampling Research. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 322–354. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12068
Experience sampling research can offer unique insight into state conditions of employee health. Over the past several years, there has been a surge of popularity for such designs in work and organisational psychology, especially with regard to employee health measurement. Experience sampling health measurement can be executed using a variety of different methods including various objective health metrics such as cardiovascular activity measurement, cortisol response tracking, and actigraphy. Furthermore, recent innovations with personal fitness tracking devices open up many possibilities for researchers to continuously monitor activity and health patterns over many days. Technological advances in self-reporting methods, especially in combination with innovations in objective health measurement, can offer modern researchers richer sets of data. We summarise and describe these methods, offering insight into their advantages and disadvantages for contemporary health researchers interested in experience sampling designs.
Wang, W., Hernandez, I., Newman, D. A., He, J., & Bian, J. (2016). Twitter Analysis: Studying US Weekly Trends in Work Stress and Emotion. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 355–378. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12065
We propose the use of Twitter analysis as an alternative source of data to document weekly trends in emotion and stress, and attempt to use the method to estimate the work recovery effect of weekends. On the basis of 2,102,176,189 Tweets, we apply Pennebaker's linguistic inquiry word count (LIWC) approach to measure daily Tweet content across 18 months, aggregated to the US national level of analysis. We derived a word count dictionary to assess work stress and applied p-technique factor analysis to the daily word count data from 19 substantively different content areas covered by the LIWC dictionaries. Dynamic factor analysis revealed two latent factors in day-level variation of Tweet content. These two factors are: (a) a negative emotion/stress/somatic factor, and (b) a positive emotion/food/friends/home/family/leisure factor, onto which elements of work, money, achievement, and health issues have strong negative loadings. The weekly trend analysis revealed a clear "Friday dip" for work stress and negative emotion expressed on Twitter. In contrast, positive emotion Tweets showed a "mid-week dip" for Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday and "weekend peak" for Friday through Sunday, whereas work/money/achievement/health problem Tweets showed a small "weekend dip" on Fridays through Sundays. Results partially support the Effort-Recovery theory. Implications and limitations of the method are discussed.
Liu, Y., Mo, S., Song, Y., & Wang, M. (2016). Longitudinal Analysis in Occupational Health Psychology: A Review and Tutorial of Three Longitudinal Modeling Techniques. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 379–411. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12055
There is an increasing call for the collection of longitudinal data and the use of longitudinal analysis in occupational health psychology research. Some useful and popular longitudinal analysis techniques include the cross-lagged model, the latent growth model, and the latent change score model. However, previous reviews and discussions on these modeling techniques are quite generic and often overlook the connections among these techniques. Therefore, in the current article, we first reviewed the three modeling techniques as well as their existing applications in occupational health psychology research. We then present a detailed tutorial regarding how to utilise these techniques to analyze a simulated dataset. Finally, we compare the three techniques and discuss their utility for addressing different research questions in occupational health psychology.
Spector, P. E., & Pindek, S. (2016). The Future of Research Methods in Work and Occupational Health Psychology. Applied Psychology, 65(2), 412–431. http://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12056
A content analysis of the two leading WOHP journals (Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Work & Stress) from 2010 to September 2014 revealed current practices in research design, sampling, and statistics, as well as the popularity of six major topics. Five suggested future trends are discussed that we feel will move the field forward in a positive way. First, the field is too dominated by the theory-based deductive approach, and needs to make better use of exploratory/inductive methods that are more common in medical and natural sciences. Second, more explicit approaches are needed to illuminate processes, that is, the temporal sequence of events, whereby organisational conditions lead to health-related outcomes. Third, qualitative approaches should be more widely utilised, not only in the beginning stages of research, but as a means of studying process and testing hypotheses, as well. Fourth, researchers need to make more frequent use of complex research designs that go beyond cross-sectional self-reports by incorporating multiple methods and/or longitudinal structures in order to draw more definitive conclusions. Fifth, the rapid increase in the use of multilevel modeling statistics is likely to continue, having opened the door to isolating the effects of group phenomena, as well as investigating daily fluctuations in variables over time.
*********About "Applied Psychology: An International Review"*********
Applied Psychology: An international Review (AP:IR) is the official journal of the International Association of Applied Psychology. AP:IR publishes research across the field of applied psychology, often across different national and cultural contexts. AP:IR has an impact factor of 1.984 (2-year) and 2.645 (5-year, 2014 Journal Citation Reports(r), Thomson Reuters, 2015). It is ranked '3' on the UK Chartered Association of Business Schools Academic Journal Guide 2015 (ABS list), 'A' on the Australian Business Dean's Council Journal Quality List 2013 (ABDC list) and 'B' on the German VHB-JOURQUAL 3. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1464-0597