Scholarlink

<p>Disasters such as pandemics and natural disasters can spill over to affect employees by introducing uncertainty that elevates employees’ anxiety concerning their work situation. Economic inequality among those impacted by disasters results in individuals lower in social class experiencing disproportionate negative health and economic outcomes. However, inconsistent findings suggest that these disaster-related events emotionally impact members of lower social class differently. Although many studies indicate being of lower social class exacerbates negative emotional effects, some studies show a potential buffering effect. We aim to better understand these inconsistent findings by examining the role of individuals’ self-definition based on their social class, or social class identity centrality. We utilize the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion and the sociocultural self model of behavior to propose that employees of lower (versus higher) social class who perceive their social class as highly central to their self-concept experience greater disaster-related work anxiety in response to stronger levels of disaster salience. In turn, employees respond to this work anxiety by engaging in avoidance behaviors at work to escape the threat posed by the disaster. We find support for our model in a 2-wave experiment. In a 3-wave study and an additional 2-wave experiment, we then find that the emotion of feeling devalued underlies this 3-way interactive effect on disaster-related work anxiety. This work theoretically contributes to the organizational and psychology literatures and has important practical implications for how organizations should help employees cope with disaster events.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

The “haves” and the “have nots”: Interactive Effect of Disaster Salience, Social Class, and Identity Centrality on Emotions and Workplace Avoidance

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月14日

查看全文
  • Hana Huang Johnson,
  • Fong T. Keng-Highberger,
  • Jay T. Bates,
  • Elizabeth E. Umphress

摘要

Disasters such as pandemics and natural disasters can spill over to affect employees by introducing uncertainty that elevates employees’ anxiety concerning their work situation. Economic inequality among those impacted by disasters results in individuals lower in social class experiencing disproportionate negative health and economic outcomes. However, inconsistent findings suggest that these disaster-related events emotionally impact members of lower social class differently. Although many studies indicate being of lower social class exacerbates negative emotional effects, some studies show a potential buffering effect. We aim to better understand these inconsistent findings by examining the role of individuals’ self-definition based on their social class, or social class identity centrality. We utilize the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion and the sociocultural self model of behavior to propose that employees of lower (versus higher) social class who perceive their social class as highly central to their self-concept experience greater disaster-related work anxiety in response to stronger levels of disaster salience. In turn, employees respond to this work anxiety by engaging in avoidance behaviors at work to escape the threat posed by the disaster. We find support for our model in a 2-wave experiment. In a 3-wave study and an additional 2-wave experiment, we then find that the emotion of feeling devalued underlies this 3-way interactive effect on disaster-related work anxiety. This work theoretically contributes to the organizational and psychology literatures and has important practical implications for how organizations should help employees cope with disaster events.