From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, psychologists are theorizing that, as compared to introverts, extraverts experience more profound negative social consequences from protective measures (e.g., travel restrictions and bans on public gatherings). As the empirical evidence for this claim is lacking, this study tested the hypothesis that extraversion moderates the relationship between the stringency of COVID-19 protective measures and depressive symptoms. Our results were based on survey data from 93,125 respondents collected in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 20–April 6, 2020) across 47 countries and publicly available data on measure stringency. Findings demonstrate that extraversion moderates the relationship between measure stringency in the early days of the pandemic and depressive symptoms. For introverts, measure stringency has a negative effect on depressive symptoms, while for extraverts, it has a positive, but non-significant effect on depressive symptoms. This study suggests that, although stringent measures generally help people to worry less and feel safer, the lifestyle associated with such measures feels more natural to introverts than to extraverts.

Regular physical activity is important for general health and reduces the risk for COVID-19 infections and for severe outcomes among infected people. However, measures to mitigate COVID-19 likely decrease population physical activity. This study aimed to examine 1) changes in exercise frequency in a representative sample of US adults during the pandemic (04/01/2020–07/21/2021), and 2) how sociodemographic characteristics, pre-COVID health-related behaviors and outcomes, and state-level stringency of COVID-19 containment measures predict exercise frequency. Self-reported exercise frequency and its individual-level predictors were determined based on 151,155 observations from 6,540 adult participants (aged ≥ 18 years) in all US states from the Understanding America Study. State-level stringency of COVID-19 control measures was examined from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. Exercise frequency varied significantly over 28 survey waves across 475 days of follow-up ( F 1,473 = 185.5, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.23-1.00), where exercise frequency decreased between April 2020 and January 2021, and then increased from January 2021 to July 2021. Those who were younger, living alone, non-White, had no college degree, lower household income, low pre-pandemic physical activity levels, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease and hypertension had lower exercise frequency. State-level stringency of COVID-19 control measures was inversely associated with exercise frequency (B = 0.002, SE = 0.001, p < 0.01) between April and December 2020 when the overall stringency level was relatively high; but the association was non-significant (B = 0.001, SE = 0.001, p > 0.05) between January and July 2021, during which the stringency index sharply declined to a low level. This longitudinal probability survey of the US population revealed significant fluctuations in exercise during COVID-19. Low exercise levels are concerning and deserve public health attention. Health inequalities from physical inactivity are likely to exacerbate because of COVID-19. Physical activity promotion in safe environments is urgently warranted, especially in at-risk population subgroups.

Worker well-being is a hot topic in organizations, consultancy and academia. However, too often, the buzz about worker well-being, enthusiasm for new programs to promote it and interest to research it, have not been accompanied by universal enthusiasm for scientific measurement. Aim to bridge this gap, we address three questions. To address the question ‘What is worker well-being?’, we explain that worker well-being is a multi-facetted concept and that it can be operationalized in a variety of constructs. We propose a four-dimensional taxonomy of worker well-being constructs to illustrate the concept’s complexity and classify ten constructs within this taxonomy. To answer the question ‘How can worker well-being constructs be measured?’, we present two aspects of measures: measure obtrusiveness (i.e., the extent to which obtaining a measure interferes with workers’ experiences) and measure type (i.e., closed question survey, word, behavioral and physiological). We illustrate the diversity of measures across our taxonomy and uncover some hitherto under-appreciated avenues for measuring worker well-being. Finally, we address the question ‘How should a worker well-being measure be selected?’ by discussing conceptual, methodological, practical and ethical considerations when selecting a measure. We summarize these considerations in a short checklist. It is our hope that with this study researchers – working in organizations, in academia or both – will feel more competent to find effective strategies for the measurement worker well-being and eventually make policies and choices with a better understanding of what drives worker well-being.

BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has led to a profound change in the organization of work in the health care sector. As frontline health care workers are essential in battling the pandemic and their work is appreciated in society, we argue that health care workers who are forced to work from home are likely to perceive their jobs as less meaningful, which in turn may negatively affect their engagement at work. Cognitive crafting, or the altering of the perceptions one has about their tasks and relationships with the aim to enhance the meaningfulness of work, may be a fruitful cognitive strategy to counter the problems remote health care workers face.PurposeThe primary purpose was to study the relationship between cognitive crafting, working from home (WFH), and work engagement.MethodologyWe collected cross-sectional survey data between May 7 and June 2, 2020, from a single hospital in the Netherlands (n = 278). The central hypothesis was tested using multiple regression analysis.ResultsThe relationship between cognitive crafting and work engagement was moderated by WFH, such that the relationship is more positive for health care workers who work from home permanently since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic than for frontline workers and workers who work partially from home.ConclusionOur findings are consistent with previous research on cognitive crafting. We conclude that cognitive crafting is an interesting cognitive strategy to stay engaged for health care workers who are mandated into WFH.Practice ImplicationsWe advise organizations to provide remote workers virtual group trainings that promote cognitive crafting and expose them to testimonies of people who are positively affected by their work. More generally, we recommend organizations to engage in effective top-down work design and foster a climate for cognitive as well as behavioral job crafting strategies.

Recent advances in computer-aided text analysis (CATA) have allowed organizational scientists to construct reliable and convenient measures from open texts. As yet, there is a lack of research into using CATA to analyze responses to open survey questions and constructing text-based measures of psychological constructs. In our study, we demonstrated the potential of CATA methods for the construction of text-based job satisfaction measures based on responses to a completely open and semi-open question. To do this, we employed three sentiment analysis techniques: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2015, SentimentR and SentiStrength, and quantified the forms of measurement error they introduced: specific factor error, algorithm error and transient error. We conducted an initial test of the text-based measures’ validity, assessing their convergence with closed-question job satisfaction measures. We adopted a time-lagged survey design (Nwave 1 = 996; Nwave 2 = 116) to test our hypotheses. In line with our hypotheses, we found that specific factor error is higher in the open question text-based measure than in the semi-open question text-based measure. As expected, algorithm error was substantial for both the open and semi-open question text-based measures. Transient error in the text-based measures was higher than expected, as it generally exceeded the transient error in the human-coded and the closed job satisfaction question measures. Our initial test of convergent and discriminant validity indicated that the semi-open question text-based measure is especially suitable for measuring job satisfaction. Our article ends with a discussion of limitations and an agenda for future research.