Because groups are not insulated from external events, we examine the effects of jolts – events that disrupt the normal functioning of the group, thereby promoting consideration of the potential change to the group and its internal processes – on status mobility in groups. We propose that jolts will trigger different psychological reactions in group members, depending on their initial status in the group, and that these reactions will lead to divergent levels of generosity behaviors. Higher status members will experience feelings of heightened threat (e.g., uncomfortable, panicky) after a jolt, which will undermine their generosity towards other group members; whereas, lower status members will experience diminished feelings of threat (e.g., comfortable, confident) after a jolt, which will bolster their generosity towards others group members. Since generosity is a critical indicator of one’s contribution to the group, we predict that the extent to which group members demonstrate lesser versus greater generosity after the jolt will critically affect their status in the group. We tested our theory in three studies including a quasiexperimental field study in the real estate industry (Study 1), a yoked experiment using full-time working adults (Study 2), and a high-involvement laboratory experiment with college students (Study 3). We also included a meta-analytic summary of our findings across the studies. Together, our results highlight the self-defeating (adaptive) reactions of higher (lower) status group members to jolts and provide insight into how jolts can indirectly trigger status mobility in groups through their effects on micro-level interactions within the group.

Despite convincing evidence that extrinsic motivation does not hamper intrinsic motivation, but in many cases in fact enhances it (Cerasoli et al., 2014), we propose and ultimately find that candidates who express interest in or satisfaction with extrinsic job features are discriminated against in selection decisions compared to candidates who signal similar levels of intrinsic motivation but who do not show interest in extrinsic job features. We also propose and find this effect to be more pronounced when intrinsic motivation is high (as opposed to low), indicating that the effect is beyond extrinsic aversion or greed perception, but that it is driven by the intolerance to the co-existence of both motivations, a phenomenon we term motivation purity bias. Based on seminal work on Theory X and Y (McGergor, 1960) in conjunction with psychological and sociological research on motivational attributions, we theorize that hiring managers see employees’ motivation as unidimensional rather than multifaceted. Three studies, conducted among HR professionals, hiring managers, and business school students, spanning across different methodologies, find support for our predictions. We discuss implications for the fairness and efficiency of organizational selection decisions.

In the current research, we develop and test a holistic model of how brief candidate introductions impact selection decisions, and how they should. We use the stereotype content model, which suggests social perception is dominated by impressions of competence and warmth, as our overarching framework. We theorize that decision makers’ impressions of candidates’ competence will shape their predictions of candidates’ task performance, while impressions of warmth will shape predictions of candidates’ contextual performance. We further propose that decision makers will rely primarily on predicted task performance when making selection decisions and that predictions of contextual performance will play a significantly smaller role. Ironically, and importantly, we theorize that decision makers should be doing the exact opposite: Their contextual performance predictions have some validity, while task performance predictions much less so. We report two studies that used a novel empirical paradigm allowing us to simultaneously examine both candidates’ and decision makers’ behavior, which found results largely consistent with our model. Our research provides a theoretical scaffolding for the study of the role of brief candidate introductions in selection decisions, resolves several outstanding puzzles in the literature, and generates novel actionable insights for organizational decision makers.

Integrative value generation through negotiated business deals is a fundamental way in which organizations attain economic benefits. It is also an important way in which individuals can improve their personal situation. Based on social cognition principles and the negotiation literature on fixed pie perception, we propose that individuals most in need of improving their financial standing, those in a financially vulnerable situation, are least likely to reap the benefits of integrative value generation. We theorize that financial vulnerability induces a zero-sum construal of success, or a view that success for one person must come at another person’s success. A more zero-sum construal of success, in turn, hampers negotiators’ ability to realize integrative potential in negotiations. In a large archival dataset (N = 191,648), we found evidence that various proxies of financial vulnerability are associated with a more zero-sum construal of success. In two face-to-face studies, financial vulnerability, measured or induced experimentally, undermined integrative value generation. The final two-part study documented that financial vulnerability was associated with a more zero-sum construal of success, which in turn was associated with less value generation. We discuss implications for research on negotiations and on low-income workers, as well as implications for organizations and policymakers.