An immense amount of work has investigated how adverse situations affect anxiety using chronic (i.e., average) or episodic conceptualizations. However, less attention has been paid to circumstances that unfold continuously over time, inhibiting theoretical testing and leading to possible erroneous conclusions about how stressors are dynamically appraised across time. Because stressor novelty, predictability, and patterns are central components of appraisal theories, we use the COVID-19 crisis as a context to illustrate how variation in the phenomenon’s patterns of change (specifically, total cases [average level] but also the rate of linear [velocity] and nonlinear growth [acceleration] in cases) influence anxiety. We also show the implications of anxiety for next-day functioning at work. These effects are tested in data drawn from a sample of employed adults in a daily diary study conducted in four overlapping waves. The data span the emergence, exponential rise, and initial tapering of the virus in the United States (February 10, 2020 to April 28, 2020). Our results show that although the impact of level of COVID-19 cases on anxiety decreases over time, the effect of change in cases (velocity and acceleration) increases over time. Anxiety is then associated with next-day work functioning (engagement, performance, and emotional exhaustion).

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We examine how team members respond to the inclusion of new members' physical attractiveness and sex. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory, we argue and show that incumbent team members engage in three behaviors (mimicry, ingratiation, and challenging) in response to the inclusion of more or less attractive male or female members in their team. Using a multilevel experimental design, we show that existing team members mimic newcomers who are higher on physical attractiveness and that the effect is more pronounced when there is a sex match (i.e., existing males mimic new males more). Furthermore, they ingratiate toward the physically attractive newcomers who are also committed to the task. In addition, we find that existing team members challenge physically attractive females who are committed to the task. Our findings suggest that the basic combinations of primary cues of newcomers' characteristics affect intrateam behaviors and produce different outcomes across sexes for attractiveness. By shifting the attention to the effect that newcomers have on team behaviors, the study provides novel insights for scholars that help move the discussion of team membership changes beyond the traditional accounts of new member socialization and team effectiveness.

The literature on abusive supervision largely presumes that employees respond to abuse in a relatively straightforward way: When abuse is present, outcomes are unfavorable, and when abuse is absent, outcomes are favorable (or, at least less unfavorable). Yet despite the recognition that abusive supervision can vary over time, little consideration has been given to how past experiences of abuse may impact the ways employees react to it (or, its absence) in the present. This is a notable oversight, as it is widely acknowledged that past experiences create a context against which experiences in the present are compared. By applying a temporal lens to the experience of abusive supervision, we identify abusive supervision inconsistency as a phenomenon that may have different outcomes than would otherwise be predicted by the current consensus in this literature. We draw from theories on time and stress appraisal to develop a model that explains when, why, and for which employees, inconsistent abusive supervision may have negative outcomes (specifically, identifying anxiety as a proximal outcome of abusive supervision inconsistency that has downstream effects on turnover intentions). Moreover, the aforementioned theoretical perspectives dovetail in identifying employee workplace status as a moderator that may buffer employees from the stressful consequences of inconsistent abusive supervision. We test our model using two experience sampling studies with polynomial regression and response surface analyses. Our research makes important theoretical and practical contributions to the abusive supervision literature, as well as the literature on time.

Employee mental health is a central issue in today's global workplace. This paper analyzes the effect of high performance work systems (HPWSs) on employee mental health. We integrate HPWS concepts with job demands‐resources (JD‐R) theory to examine competing theoretical perspectives—a positive HPWS influence and a negative HPWS influence on employee mental health. We examine employees' perceptions of psychological empowerment as an indicator of the motivational pathway of the JD‐R and work‐role overload as an indicator of the strain pathway to explain the differential effect of HPWSs on mental health. We also incorporate organizational identification theory to demonstrate how one's identification with the organization can either accentuate or attenuate feelings of both psychological empowerment and work‐role overload. Findings from a study of 999 employees in 174 South Korean organizations indicate that HPWSs are positively associated with employee mental health via employee perceptions of empowerment and that HPWSs are negatively associated with employee mental health through perceptions of work‐role overload. Furthermore, the study finds that organizational identification attenuates the relationship between HPWS and both empowerment and overload. Practice‐level post hoc analyses also reveal that the job design characteristics, pay level, and participative decision‐making are linked to empowerment. In addition, participative decision‐making is most strongly associated with work overload.