1) Demircioğlu, Zeynep Işıl (ongoing). Why Women Don’t Acknowledge They Have Been Sexually Harassed? Personal Factors Affecting Sexual Harassment Acknowledgement.

2) Düzgün, Meltem (ongoing). Do Victim Demographics Play a Role on Sexual Harassment Myth Activation?

3) Keleş, Nurdan (ongoing). Do You Hear the Women Sing? A Model of Women’s Voice in Organizations.

4) Çıkan, Fuat (ongoing). Antecedents and Outcomes of Self-Determined Motivational Interest Profiles: A Latent Profile Analysis Investigating the Role of Vocational Interests and Interest Complexity.

5) Göksu-Beşkaya, Zeynep (ongoing). Response Distortion in Personality Testing.

6) Okat, Atakan (ongoing). Passive Aggressive Work Behaviors.

7) Çetinbinici, Aysu (March, 2022). Moderating Role of the Dark Triad Personality Traits on the Association Between Emotional Labor and Work Outcomes: An Examination Based on Activation/Inhibition Pathways. Doctoral Dissertation, METU, Ankara. Tez Merkezi No: 725147. https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/96727

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The current study combined the literature on the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, sub-clinical psychopathy) and emotional labor (deep acting and surface acting) with an aim to investigate the relationship between them according to the activation and inhibition regulatory fit theory. Hypotheses addressed associations between Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy and emotional labor strategies and also potential bright and dark moderator effects of these dark traits on the relationship between emotional labor and outcome variables (affective delivery, service sabotage, emotional exhaustion and work engagement). In addition, cross-lagged effects between emotional labor strategies and employee well-being (emotional exhaustion and work engagement) were investigated. Two preliminary studies were conducted to develop an affective delivery and service sabotage checklist and to gather empirical data about the activation and inhibition orientation of the Dark Triad personality traits. For the main study 68 employees working in the service sector completed a 10-day diary study. v Results showed that only activation-oriented pathways (pathways from deep acting to affective delivery and work engagement) were moderated by primary psychopathy and the tactic dimension of Machiavellianism (activation-oriented traits). Also, random intercept cross-lagged panel model supported the cross-lagged effects between surface acting and emotional exhaustion. Studying dark personality traits in the workplace and with relation to emotional labor makes the current study a novel one and important for the industrial and organizational psychology literature.

8) Ceylan, Hazal (September, 2021). Effects of Reading Job Descriptions on Personality Test Response Distortion. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. Tez Merkezi No: 697967.https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/93242

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People are changing their jobs almost every 4 years. Everybody can find a job posting on the Internet. Furthermore, companies are using personality test for hiring processes and the candidates are generally reading the job descriptions before coming to the testing session. However, the priming effect is a known fact; therefore, reading job descriptions before the test might affect people’s responses. The current study aimed to examine the effect of reading job descriptions on response bias in personality tests. 291 university student participants received two personality tests which were the Big Five Inventory (BFI), some factors from the International Personality Item Pool; and a spatial ability test. After the first test, participants were assigned to three groups. One experimental group read a job description with job-related personality adjectives; another experimental group read a job description with job-related behavioral indicators, and the control group read an instruction stating that they should fill out the tests as if they are applying for a job. After reading the materials all participants again took the two personality tests. The results revealed reading job descriptions has no effect on the response distortion on the BFI scores; however, for two of the IPIP factors, reading the job descriptions resulted in more response distortion as compared to the control group. For all factors from the two tests, the main effect of time was significant meaning that participants distorted their responses when they imagined applying for a job. The results were in line with the response bias literature.

9)  Yüce-Selvi, Ümran (November, 2020). Examining Behavioral Responses to Individual Job Insecurity and Job Insecurity Climate. Doctoral Dissertation. (Principal advisor. Co-advisor: Prof. Dr. Nebi Sümer) Tez Merkezi No: 654666 https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/69078

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Having a job is essential in numerous ways for many individuals to sustain their lives. Perceiving a threat regarding the future of the job (i.e., job insecurity), on the other hand, is one of the most substantial work stressors associated with many adverse impacts. Job insecurity has traditionally been viewed as an individual experience; however, there can be a climate of job insecurity representing a collective concern. The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the job insecurity construct and its relation to employee behaviors. Two empirical studies were conducted to investigate this aim. Study 1 tested the dimensionality of the job insecurity construct and how different dimensions relate to exit, voice (considerate), loyalty, and neglect in a sample of employees in Turkey. The results showed that job insecurity had a four-dimensional structure containing individual and climate job insecurity, both with the concerns about losing the job itself (quantitative job insecurity) and valuable job features (qualitative job insecurity). Different dimensions had distinct relationships with behaviors, and job insecurity climate had incremental validity beyond individual job insecurity in explaining exit and loyalty. Study 2 investigated the effects of job insecurity dimensions on different voice responses in a sample of unionized employees in Turkey. The results indicated that qualitative aspects of job insecurity were more potent in predicting unionized employees’ voice than quantitative aspects. Overall, the findings demonstrate the importance of considering the dimensionality of the job insecurity construct to reach a better understanding of this phenomenon and its effects on employee behaviors.

10) Koç, Yasemin Doğa (January, 2020). Workplace Cyberslacking: An Investigation based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624962/index.pdf

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The use of computers and mobiles at workspaces increased dramatically in the last decade. Employees’ access to the Internet is inevitable and mostly required within working hours. Cyberslacking is a phenomenon that describes the non-work-related behavior conducted in the workplace by using the Internet. The effect of Cyberslacking behaviors in the workplace still controversial. Literature suggests that Cyberslacking can be facilitator of both positive and negative workplace behaviors. Thus, it is compelling to identify different types of Cyberslacking that might have contrasting effects on workplace elements. The antecedents of this behavior still need investigation (Göncü Köse & Metin, 2018). According to prior literature, there are different theories that explain the concept of cyberslacking. The present study adopts Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 2012) to predict Cyberslacking. The theory suggests that behavior is predicted by behavioral intentions, which is also determined by three factors; norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control. In this study, first the current cyberslacking measure is updated and validated followed by predicting cyberslacking based on the Theory of Planned behavior. Further moderation analyses were conducted to validate the proposed model by including interaction effect of organizational norms and personality factors. Results showed that, Cyberslacking behavior has three dimensions, each successfully modeled with Theory of Planned behavior. Individual differences play a role in predicting the presence of the behavior in the workplace.

11) Koçoğlu, Öykü (January, 2020). Moderating Effects of Perceived Situational Strength on the Relationship between the Dark Triad and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624966/index.pdf

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Counterproductive Work Behaviors (CWBs) can be defined as intentional and harmful behaviors of employees that are against the organization, members of the organization or both. The literature provides a link between CWBs and the Dark Triad personality traits which consist of three antagonistic traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Individuals who are high on the Dark Triad characteristics engage in more deviant workplace behaviors than their non-dark themed counterparts. It was hypothesized that situational strength, which inhibits and shapes people’s behaviors and thus minimizes individual differences in displayed behaviors, moderates the relationship between the Dark Triad characteristics and CWBs. This study used six facets (clarity, consistency, constraints, consequences, group norms, performance monitoring) to assess situational strength and two facets (interpersonal and organizational) to assess CWBs. Moderation analysis results partially supported the hypothesis as situational strength moderated specific the Dark Triad and CWB relationships. More specifically, group norms moderated all three Dark Triad traits and interpersonal CWB relationship, and the relationship between psychopathy and organizational CWB. Clarity moderated these three traits and organizational CWB relationship. In addition, consistency moderated organizational v CWB’s association with Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

12) Dinçal, Didem (October, 2019). Cultural Factors as Associates of Workplace Sexual Harassment Perceptions and Coping Preferences. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara.

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624094/index.pdf

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The present study examined the association of cultural variables which were liberalism/conservatism, uncertainty avoidance, ambivalent sexism, and organizational climate related to workplace Sexual Harassment (SH) with perceiving the ambiguous forms of social-sexual incidents namely sexist hostility, sexual hostility, and insinuation of interest as SH. Women’s coping preferences for different forms of SH were examined on an exploratory basis. Data were collected from 226 women and 154 men employers who were mostly white-color workers. Results showed that there were no significant relationships between benevolent sexism and participants’ perception of ambiguous SH forms in either sample. Hostile sexism had small negative correlations with perceiving the composite ambiguous forms of SH, sexual hostility, and insinuation of interest; while it had no correlation with sexist hostility in the women sample. It had a small significant negative correlation with sexist hostility in the men sample. Conservatism had a significant negative correlation with perceiving only sexist hostility amongst women. Uncertainty avoidance had a significant positive but small correlation with perceiving sexual v hostility as a form of SH amongst women. Amongst men there were no associations between conservatism and uncertainty avoidance with perceiving ambiguous forms of SH. Finally, there were no significant associations between SH related organizational climate and ambiguous SH forms for either sample. Results of exploratory analyses showed that perceiving sexual hostility was correlated with a preference for reporting to authorities and avoiding the harasser as coping mechanisms; while perceiving sexist hostility correlated with an inclination towards reporting to authorities and not avoiding the harasser.

13) El, İsmail (October, 2019). The Effects of Psychological Capital and Social Capital on Nurses' Work Engagement and Burnout. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624347/index.pdf

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In today’s challenging business world, for human resources management and organizations, dealing with work engagement and burnout have always been a challenging task regarding their positive and negative outcomes to the organization. Besides, the occupational context of health sector is mostly regarded as stress-filled (Tennant, 2001). In order to deliver a high quality healthcare service, organizations need to develop and boost the staff’s intrapersonal and social resources so as to make them more engaged in their work without letting them be deprived of their wellbeing. Concerning the positive resources of personality, psychological capital is a principal concept of positive organizational behavior (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). Research verified the existence of psychological capital’s significant effect on work engagement and burnout (Youssef & Luthans, 2007) as well as the significance of social capital’s effect on work engagement (Susanne et al., 2013) and burnout (Boyas, Wind, & Kang, 2012; Farahbod, Chegini, Eramsadati, & Mohtasham-Amiri, 2015). In addition to direct effects of psychological capital and social capital on work engagement and burnout, the present study has a focus on the mediating role psychological capital on social capital in this association. The research question was applied with participation of 363 nurses. Structural equation modeling was employed to check the model’s reliability and construct validity. Furthermore, path analysis was conducted to examine the direct and indirect effects of psychological capital and social capital. Next, soebel test was employed to examine the significance of mediation. Results verified that both of psychological and social capitals significantly increased work engagement and decreased burnout. Besides, psychological capital partially mediated the social capital’s association with work engagement and burnout.

14) Düzgün, Meltem (September, 2019). Gender-Congruent Leadership Style and Prejudiced Personality in Relation with Job/Leader Satisfaction and Trust. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara.

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12624064/index.pdf

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Prejudice toward leaders might be problematic for employees and organizations because of its negative consequences for employees like lower job satisfaction or leader satisfaction. One of the reasons which can cause prejudiced attitudes toward leaders is the mismatch between gender roles and the leadership style displayed, as according to role incongruity theory, employees expect their leaders to show behaviors consistent with their gender roles in society (Eagly & Karau, 2002). According to Altemeyer (1998), there are two personality types which have strong correlations with prejudice; Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Altemeyer stated that these two personality traits are the reason for many kinds of prejudice including prejudice toward women. For that reason, it was expected that those personalities would interact with gender congruent and incongruent leadership styles in predicting job-, organization-, and leader-related outcomes of employees. Data were collected from 332 employees and moderated regression analyses were performed. Results of the current study showed that, on the one hand, follower RWA and SDO did interact with the leadership style of male leaders in a way that more prejudiced personalities had more positive outcomes when their leader displayed a role congruent leadership style. On the other hand, having a gender role congruent women leader had positive effects on the levels of follower job satisfaction, organizational commitment, leader satisfaction and trust in the leader, while having a gender role incongruent women leader had negative effects on those outcomes, regardless of the employees’ RWA and SDO levels.

15) Demiran, Ayça (2015, April). Measurement of Transformational and Transactional Leadership through Conditional Reasoning. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. (Principal advisor. Co-advisor: Prof. Dr. H. Canan Sümer). http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618707/index.pdf

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The aim of the current study is to assess transformational leadership proclivities based on the Conditional Reasoning Test approach (CRT; James, 1998). The CRT is a relatively new implicit assessment system that is used to identify the justification mechanisms (i.e. cognitive biases) indicative of specific motives which underlie personality (James, 1998). ‘Justification mechanisms’ (JMs) are rational and sensible explanations- in contrast to irrational and foolish- that people are inclined to produce for their behaviors and decisions (James, & Mazerolle, 2002; Kunda, 1990). People with different personalities and motives have different JMs. The power motive-with its’ JMs of agentic bias and power attribution bias-, the activity inhibition motive, the change motive-with its’ JMs of efficacy and personal responsibility inclination bias, positive connotation of change bias, and identification with change initiators bias-, and finally the exhibition motive were determined as the motives of leaders and transformational leaders. The present study sample included 234 participants; 81 in a leadership position and 153 in a subordinate position. The CRT that was developed had a moderate effect size in the prediction of whether or not employees occupied a leadership position, and improved prediction of position v over conceptually equivalent self-report counterparts. Furthermore, CRT had a significant moderate association with subordinate ratings of the target leaders’ transformational leadership style offering significant incremental variance over leader’s self-rated transformational leadership perceptions, personality, and motivation to lead. The study contributes to the literature on implicit personality assessment via conditional reasoning using justification mechanisms and to the assessment of leadership.

16) Yağcı, Hazal (2015, June). Situational Strength based on Culture as a Moderator of the Personality-Job Performance Relationship. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618747/index.pdf

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The purpose of the present study is to examine the moderating influence of cultural dimensions on the relationship between personality and job performance. The main focus is on the situational strength framework (Meyer & Dalal, 2009) which claims that characteristics of situations moderate the relationship between personality and outcomes, in this case job performance. In the current study, situations are studied in terms of cultural characteristics that also pertain to organizations; namely uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinityfemininity (Hofstede, 1980; 2001). The expectation is that in strong situations, which are defined as those with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity/lower levels of femininity, the relationship between personality and job performance will be weaker when compared to weak situations. The data related to personality and culture dimensions were collected from employees working in Turkey and in Germany, while their immediate supervisors v rated their performance in terms of task performance and several organizational citizenship behaviors. Matched data from 120 employees and their supervisors were analyzed to test the hypotheses. Findings showed that there were several personality-job performance relationships moderated by cultural dimensions. Firstly, power distance moderated the conscientiousness-task performance, and -personal industry relationships. For lower power distance, conscientiousness positively predicted both task performance and personal industry. Furthermore, masculinity/femininity moderated the conscientiousness-, and extraversion-loyal boosterism relationships. For the low masculinity/high femininity level, both conscientiousness and extraversion had a positive association with loyal boosterism. Results are discussed together with the limitations and strengths. Implications for practitioners and suggestions for future research are presented.

17) Ağca, Hande (2014, September). Individual and Organizational Predictors of Perceiving Workplace Behaviors as Counterproductive. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618132/index.pdf

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In the present study, the aim was to examine the predictors of perceived counterproductive work behaviors (PCWB) by employees. The proximal variables of personality characteristics and individual values and the distal organizational variables were included in the research to study the predictors of PCWB in a comprehensive fashion. Self-control, agreeableness and conscientiousness were hypothesized as the personality predictors, of universalism, benevolence, conformity and tradition under the frame of self-transcendence and conservation values were hypothesized as the individual values predictors, and organizational uncertainty avoidance (defined as clarity of organizational rules and procedures) and overall organizational justice climate were hypothesized as the organizational predictors of PCWB. Perceived counterproductive work behaviors were included the subdimensions of abuse, theft, withdrawal and sabotage. Analyses were conducted with 220 working adults. The results of regression analyses revealed that self-control, conscientiousness, self-transcendence values and organizational uncertainty avoidance significantly predicted all sub-dimensions and the PCWB composite, v whereas conservation values predicted the theft, withdrawal sub-dimensions together with the compoiste PCWB. On the other hand, agreeableness and overall organizational justice variables did not predict any of the criteria. In addition to regression analyses, dominance analyses were conducted to reveal the relative contributions of individual values. The findings and implications of the study were discussed.

18) Dönmez, Seval (2014, September). Developing a Likert-type Measure to Assess Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles in Turkey. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12618138/index.pdf

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Aim of the current study was to develop a valid Likert-type measure to assess transformational and transactional leadership styles in Turkey. At the development stage; the literature was reviewed in terms of definitions and behavioral examples of these leadership styles and mostly prized organizational values and leadership styles observed in Turkey. Interviews were conducted to obtain behavioral examples related to how transformational leaders behave in general, followed by a content analysis of responses. A total of 37 items were developed and the Transformational and Transactional Leadership Scale (TTLS-TR) was validated with a sample of 165 employees and 38 superiors. Construct validation indicated a two-factor structure of transformational and transactional leadership, converging associations with the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), especially for transformational leadership, and a close-to expected correlation between transformational leadership and extraversion. Concurrent criterion-related validation indicated that transformational leadership predicted job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and the satisfaction of work-related basic psychological needs of relatedness and autonomy, whereas transactional leadership did not. The basic v contribution of the study is the introduction of the TTLS developed in Turkey, which includes culture-specific elements of valued leadership behaviors.

19) Gültaş, Mehmet (2014, September). Work Discipline Compound Personality Scale Development with Item Response Theory. Master's Thesis, METU, Ankara. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12617897/index.pdf

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The Big Five personality factors differentially relate to various organizational criteria. The most notable characteristic of personality scales while used in prediction is that they are criteria dependent. Nevertheless, even the predictive power of the most promising of the factors (i.e., conscientiousness) varies across occupations and situations. Increasing the specificity of a measurement instrument by designing the instrument considering criterion-relevant facet-level behaviors has been shown to improve prediction. In this study I developed a compound scale that uses facet level constructs of the Five Factor Model (FFM). By using an empirical and rational match between predictors and criteria, predictive power of the scale is expected to be better than conventional FFM factors. In the development of this compound scale, first the literature was reviewed to identify the personality facets that predict work behavior/performance. Indicator items of these facets were obtained from the International Personality Item Pool. Items were put to empirical analysis based on Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) in order to fine-tune the instrument by identifying the best items. The compound scale correlation with task performance was larger than the BFI factor compound. Herein, the proposed study will contribute to the literature on facet-based compound scales and the IRT applications in personality scale development.