Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Department

Psychological Sciences

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an evident impact on the workforce. Pandemicrelated job demands have been linked with an increase of emotional exhaustion (Barello et al., 2020) and burnout in healthcare workers (Cotel et al., 2021). Research suggests emotional demands and social comparison are associated with emotional exhaustion (Geisler et al., 2019; Tuxford & Bradley, 2015; Fischer, 2009; Buunk, et al., 2001). Furthermore, emotional exhaustion may be facilitated by not saying no to extra work demands. The relationship between social comparison behaviors, emotional demands, and not saying no may be different for male and female employees. Integrating the job demands-resources model with role theory, I examined gender differences in the relationship between social comparison behaviors, emotional demands, and not saying no in tenure-track and tenured faculty. A sample of 460 participants recruited via snowball sampling between April and June 2020 was used for analyses. Using a moderated mediation model and ordinary least squares regression analyses, results suggest that the relationship between social comparison behaviors and not saying “no” is fully mediated by emotional demands, and that gender moderates this relationship such that women who engage in more social comparison behaviors experience a greater degree of perceived emotional demands compared with their male counterparts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Advisor(s) or Committee Chair

Katrina Burch, Ph.D.

Disciplines

Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Social Psychology

Download

Share

COinS