Lu Wang

Leaders are frequently put in the difficult position of repudiating critical questions in front of their followers. To help manage this situation, leaders sometimes express laughter in the hopes that it will "lubricate" their interaction and reduce perceptions that they are aggressive or confrontational with the critical questioner. Ironically, leaders' laughter may backfire by diminishing their apparent friendliness and approachability in the eyes of the witnessing followers. In this article, we employ an emotional aperture perspective to examine two seemingly contradictory theoretical perspectives regarding the potential impact of laughter on the witnessing followers' perception of a leader's warmth and effectiveness. Findings from nine studies across 2,012 adults show that leader laughter-even expressed briefly-bolsters or damages leader effectiveness depending on one important contingency: whether the leader's laughter is shared by the questioner. Unshared laughter reduces leader effectiveness by undermining leaders' apparent warmth, while shared laughter increases leader effectiveness by enhancing leaders' apparent warmth. We discuss implications for the literature on emotion expression, leadership events, and leader perception and influence.

Growing diversity in the workforce has compelled scholars and managers to create inclusive organizational environments for employees who belong to marginalized groups. Yet, little is known about how employees with stigmatized medical conditions manage their job demands. In this article, we examine the role of stigma associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in shaping the ability of employees with HIV to contribute to their organizations. Drawing on stigma and emotions literatures, we investigate the influence of HIV stigma on job effectiveness (i.e., in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors) through the mediated paths of fear and shame. We further examine whether a psychological (i.e., core self-evaluation [CSE]) and a physiological (i.e., CD4 cell count, defined as the biological indicator of HIV severity) factor would moderate these mediating relationships at the first and second stages, respectively. Using a sample of 225 employees with HIV surveyed across three measurement periods with a time lag of 3 months, we found support for the dual-stage moderated mediation model linking HIV stigma and job effectiveness via shame under lower (vs. higher) levels of CSE and CD4 cell count. By contrast, we did not find evidence for the mediating role of fear. Implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global public health issue that negatively impacts organizations and their employees. Research suggests that organizations can play a supportive role to lessen this negative impact. However, it has been relatively silent on the conditions under which organizations choose to play such a role. Integrating social role and critical mass perspectives, we examine the extent to which organizations adopt human resource (HR) practices to support employees affected by IPV. Specifically, we argue that organizations are more likely to adopt IPV‐related HR practices when they are led by female Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Top Management Teams (TMTs) with more female members. Furthermore, we argue that when women's representation reaches a critical mass plateau, appointing more women in TMTs has no incremental impact, and this non‐linear relationship moderates the CEO gender effect. Overall, we found support for our hypotheses based on a survey study of HR professionals from 414 Australian organizations (Study 1) and an archival study using 2 years of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency data from 4186 Australian organizations (Study 2). Theoretical and practical implications on the influence of gender configurations in leadership positions on the adoption of diversity, equity, and inclusion‐related HR practices are discussed.

Twenty-one parents participated in a Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) parent group targeting children’s challenging behavior; 18 parents were in a waitlist control group. All parents completed pre- and post-treatment measures on CPS learning targets, their child’s behavior, and relationship quality, and parents in the treatment group completed measures six months later. Only parents learning CPS reported significant improvements on learning targets and conflict, and changes were sustained six months later. Children’s behavior improved significantly in the treatment group by six-month follow-up. These findings support CPS parent groups as an economical and effective approach for parents of children with behavioral difficulties.

The question of how leaders' expressions of anger influence their effectiveness has long intrigued researchers and practitioners alike. Drawing on Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, we suggest the effects of leaders' expressions of anger depend on both the type of violation about which anger is expressed and the type of leader who expresses it. We tested these ideas in a programmatic series of studies using both experimental and field methods. Study 1 shows that a leader's anger expression in response to followers' integrity-based violations enhances observers' perceptions of leader effectiveness, whereas anger in response to followers' competence-based violations diminishes observers' perceptions of leader effectiveness. Study 2 provides evidence that these divergent effects occur because anger in response to integrity-based violations elicits beneficial inferential reactions among followers who observed the anger, whereas anger in response to competence-based violations provokes harmful affective reactions. Study 3 further demonstrates that the negative effects of anger expressed towards competence-based violations are exacerbated and positive effects of anger expressed towards integrity-based violations are weakened when a leader is perceived to be abusive. Together, these findings help reconcile divergent perspectives on the effects of leader anger expression, and suggest that anger can indeed enhance perceived leader effectiveness when it is expressed in the right situation and by the right person.

Research on the effects of cultural diversity on individual team member performance has typically assumed a linear relationship, but has yielded mixed findings. In the study, we address these inconsistencies by hypothesizing an optimal (mid-range) level of diversity that maximizes performance. Given the potential for negative emotions to arise within a diverse team, we also hypothesize that team members who employ emotional self-regulation strategies will demonstrate stronger performance. We adopt an individual-level perspective, assessing diversity as the cultural dissimilarity between each individual and their teammates. Using a sample of 103 postgraduate students (23 teams with 3–6 participants in each), we found evidence of a curvilinear relationship between cultural dissimilarity and individual team member performance. Contrary to our expectations, we found that individual performance is greatest at very low and very high levels of dissimilarity. In terms of emotional regulation strategies, we found that cognitive reappraisal was associated with higher performance, but there was no evidence for the effects of expressive suppression. Together, the present findings challenge the assumption that the diversity-performance relationship is linear. Our findings also indicate individual performance in culturally diverse teams is influenced by individuals’ use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate negative emotions.