Does feedback matter for job search self‐regulation? It depends on feedback quality

Feeling Positive, Negative, or Both? Examining the Self-Regulatory Benefits of Emotional Ambivalence

According to self-regulation theories, affect plays a crucial role in driving goal-directed behaviors throughout employees’ work lives. Yet past work presents inconsistent results regarding the effects of positive and negative affect with theory heavily relying on understanding the separate, unique effects of each affective experience. In the current research, we integrate tenets of emotional ambivalence with self-regulation theories to examine how the conjoint experience of positive and negative affect yields benefits for behavioral regulation. We test these ideas within a self-regulatory context that has frequently studied the benefits of affect and has implications for all employees at one point in their careers: the job search. Adopting a person-centered (i.e., profile-based) perspective across two within-person investigations, we explore how emotional ambivalence relates to job search success (i.e., interview invitations, job offers) via job search self-regulatory processes (i.e., metacognitive strategies, effort). Results illustrate that the subsequent week (i.e., at time t + 1; Study 1) and month (Study 2) after job seekers experience emotional ambivalence (i.e., positive and negative affect experienced jointly at similar levels at time t), they receive more job offers via increased job search effort and interview invitations. Theoretical and practical implications for studying emotional ambivalence in organizational scholarship are discussed.

What are agile, flexible, or adaptable employees and students? A typology of dynamic individual differences in applied settings

The applied psychology literature has discussed and used a variety of different definitions of dynamic individual differences. Descriptions like dynamic, agile, adaptive, or flexible can refer to a variety of different types of constructs. The present article contributes to the literature by presenting an organizing typology of dynamic constructs. We also conducted a literature review of four major applied journals over the last 15 years to validate the taxonomy and to use it to map what type of dynamic individual differences constructs are typically studied in the applied psychology literature. The typology includes six basic conceptualizations of dynamic individual differences: Variability constructs (inconsistency across situations), skill acquisition constructs (learning new skills), transition constructs (avoiding “loss” in behavior/skill after unforeseen change), reacquisition constructs (relearning after change), acceleration/deceleration constructs (losing or gaining energy by displaying the behavior), and integration/dissolution constructs (behavior becomes more or less uniform). We provide both verbal and statistical definitions for each of these constructs, and demonstrate how these conceptualizations can be operationalized in assessment and criterion measurement using R code and simulated data. We also show how researchers can test different dynamic explanations using likelihood-based R2 statistics.

Job Seeking: The Process and Experience of Looking for a Job

This review distills available empirical research about the process and experience of looking for a job. Job search varies according to several dimensions, including intensity, content, and temporality/persistence. Our review examines how these dimensions relate to job search success, which involves job finding as well as job quality. Because social networking and interviewing behavior have attracted significant research attention, we describe findings with respect to these two job search methods in greater detail. We provide examples of the relevance of context to job search (i.e., the job seeker's geographical region, country, and culture; the economy; the job seeker's current or past employment situation; and employer behaviors and preferences) and review research on bias in the job search. Finally, we survey work on job search interventions and conclude with an overview of pressing job search issues in need of future research.