Work and Organizational Psychology
Psychology Research Institute / PsyRes
In today’s rapidly changing world, organizations face economic, societal, technological, and labor market pressures. To navigate these challenges, it is vital to understand how people manage their careers and well-being, regulate their learning and development, and work together to deliver high-quality, responsible performance in a safe and nurturing work environment. Our group addresses these issues at the level of individuals, teams, and their interaction.
We develop and test theory on (1) individual adaptation, well-being, self-regulation, and behavior (e.g., career adaptability, coaching, learning, motivation, decision-making, ethical behavior, and innovation), (2) team regulatory processes and performance (e.g., decision-making, creativity, leadership, power, and diversity) and (3) cross-level dynamics, including how organizational cultures, leaders, groups, individuals, and AI jointly shape co-regulation, work climates, and performance.
Our research programme combines fundamental and applied work, using multi-method approaches that enable triangulation, cross-validation, and robust, evidence-based practice. Our group can be characterized by “unity in diversity”. We have a wide range of expertise in personnel, organizational, occupational health and sport and performance psychology that we complement with advanced, interdisciplinary methodologies.
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The role of psychological safety, ethics, fairness, and inclusion in teams and organizations
People are more likely to be attracted to, remain in, and contribute to organizations and teams that offer a safe, fair, ethical, and inclusive work climate. Such climates do not emerge by chance: they are shaped from the bottom-up, through everyday interactions between colleagues, and from the top down, through communication, decisions, and behaviors of leaders.
Our work examines these dynamics in the context of major contemporary developments: the rise of AI, the balance between productivity demands and the responsible treatment of human capital, and evolving societal expectations around fairness, equity, safety, and inclusion. By integrating insights from research and practice, we aim to help organizations create and sustain workplaces where people can perform at their best and where everyone genuinely feels they belong and can be authentic.
Examples of projects and papers
Chronic health conditions are a unique form of organizational diversity. Cook and Zill found that the severity of symptoms among employees with multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel diseases is linked to higher burnout symptoms and lower work engagement. This indicates that chronic illnesses can be seen as a resource loss, highlighting the need for future research into organizational support for a health-diverse workforce.
Georganta and Ulfert showed that trust dynamics differ between human–AI and human–human teams. In two-member teams, interpersonal trust—via perceived trustworthiness—was lower when the team member was an AI rather than a human. However, in three-member teams, these differences disappeared, and similar mechanisms of trust formation applied to both human–AI and human–human teams. Overall, the findings suggest that established theories of team trust largely extend to human–AI teams, while highlighting important contextual differences depending on team composition.
Homan and her colleagues were the first to show that behaviors that bend rather than break rules signal both prestige and dominance, which makes it more likely that norm-benders are granted leadership.
Meral, Heerdink, and van Kleef reviewed literatures ranging from management to ethology and psychology to develop an organizing framework that explains how ostracism can either curb unethical behavior in organizational teams or inadvertently sustain or intensify it.
Nevicka, Van Den Hee, Van Loenen and Brummelman showed that the dominance and confidence of narcissistic leaders match well with the submissiveness and insecurity of followers with lower self-esteem, demonstrating the importance of leader-follower complementarity (already present in childhood) for understanding the allure of narcissistic leaders.
- Participative leadership and workgroup commitment as multilevel resources for employee well-being (Sijbom & Grutterink. in press, Applied Psychology: An International Review)
Sijbom and Grutterink showed that participative leadership functions as a key multilevel resource for employee well-being within workgroups, with both individual and collective perceptions enhancing job satisfaction and reducing burnout. They further identify workgroup commitment as a cross-level moderator, demonstrating that group-level resources shape the effectiveness of participative leadership behaviors. Together, these findings underscore the importance of adopting an integrative, multilevel perspective in understanding how leadership and team resources jointly sustain employee well-being.
Versteegen and Adams show that beyond simply belonging to a group, feeling uniquely valued within a group is important for being included and for enhancing individual well-being.
Faculty working on “The role of psychological safety, ethics, fairness, and inclusion”
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Individual and team adaptation, decision making, creativity, and performance
When and how do individuals and teams perform at their best, adapt and innovate, and make sound decisions? What motivates them to seek and process task-relevant information? How do individual decision-making biases shape their own outcomes and those of others? How do factors at different levels influence motivation, self-regulation, and goal setting?
Our research aims to illuminate the conditions under which individuals and teams are more likely to show high-quality performance, become more creative, and make better decisions—insights that can inform both theory and practice. To achieve this, we adopt a dynamic, multilevel perspective. We examine individual characteristics (e.g., traits, skills, life stage, income), team features (e.g., diversity, shared mental models), and contextual conditions (e.g., the use of AI, leadership style, financial incentives, competitive pressures).
Examples of projects and papers
De Dreu, Nijstad, and Baas summarize their work on the person characteristics, contextual factors, and processes that predict greater creativity in individuals and teams.
Georganta, Peus and Niess showed in their review that interactive technologies generally have positive effects on team effectiveness, particularly on action processes and task-related outcomes. These effects are especially strong when technologies enable physical proximity or synchronous interaction among team members. However, evidence remains limited regarding affective processes and affect-related outcomes, and much of the existing research relies on experimental studies with student samples. Overall, the review highlights both the potential of interactive technologies for enhancing teamwork and the need for more interdisciplinary and methodologically robust research.
Grutterink and Meister show that meta-perceptions - employees’ beliefs about how others see them- are crucial in workplaces where others’ evaluations shape outcomes such as promotions, bonuses, and dismissals, yet remain understudied and inconsistently defined. Synthesizing diverse research streams, they propose a framework that clarifies the content, structure, and consequences of meta-perceptions for employees’ affect, cognition, and behavior, and outline promising directions for future research on leadership and work teams.
Hilbert and colleagues show that financial stress leads to a perceived lack of control over one's life across the globe, but particularly in societies with stronger individualistic and secular values, higher economic development, and higher welfare expenditure.
Homan and colleagues developed a comprehensive theoretical model that explains when and how leaders can effectively manage diversity in teams.
Meijen and colleagues outlined how performers (athletes, musicians, dancers) can approach an upcoming event such as a sport competition as a challenge, not a threat.
- The sources of self-efficacy in experienced and competitive endurance athletes (Anstiss, Meijen, & Marcora, 2020, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology) & “Short and Sweet”: A Randomized Controlled Initial Investigation of Brief Online Psychological Interventions With Endurance Athletes (McCormick, Meijen, & Marcora, 2018, The Sport Psychologist, link to article; Meijen et al., 2021, The Sport Psychologist)
Endurance performance: Meijen and colleagues explore how psychological determinants (self-efficacy) and psychological strategies can benefit endurance performance.
Solms, Van den Heuvel, Nevicka and Homan developed and compared two brief intervention programmes focused on optimizing well-being in PhD students. They found that the program combining self-compassion with psychological capital (e.g. self-confidence, resilience) helped PhD students feel less pressure, seek more support, and improve their well-being, beyond the effects of the psychological capital programme.
- Self- and team regulation (ten Brink and colleagues)
For her Educational Research Fellowship project and as a member of the SELFLEX-consortium, ten Brink and colleagues investigate how instructional design strategies can strengthen students’ self- and team regulation in higher education to enhance learning and collaboration, with the aim of informing educational practice.
Because boredom occurs regularly in the workplace, it is important to understand how employees can best cope with boredom to reduce its negative consequences. Van Hooff and Van Hooft uncovered that employees typically seek distraction when feeling bored. However, such distractive behaviors result in more boredom and reduced well-being. Instead, employees can better invest self-regulatory resources to engage in job crafting.
Faculty working on “Individual and group adaptation, decision making, creativity and performance”
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Effectively managing and developing jobs and careers
How people look for work and shape their development and careers within and between organizations is a central theme in our research. We study how individuals use self-regulation to search for jobs, learn new skills, and navigate career transitions, and how changes in the way we work—such as the implementation of AI or experiences of job insecurity—influence motivation and performance. We also examine how people can proactively craft their jobs and careers to enhance meaning, satisfaction and well-being.
At the same time, we investigate how organizations and other stakeholders (e.g., universities) can support growth, adaptability, and development through coaching, training, and targeted interventions of relevant skills and abilities. A key emphasis within this theme is on expanding opportunities for individuals who may face marginalization or discrimination (e.g., due to their age, gender, ethnic background, or chronic illness), and understanding how their identities shape work experiences and behaviors.
Through this work, we aim to help people turn today’s labor market challenges into opportunities for building sustainable and successful careers.
Cook and van den Hoek show that menstrual pain disclosure to the supervisor may be an important protective factor to prevent employees from working despite experiencing severe menstrual pain. The paper further indicates that the quality of the relationship may be an important predictor for disclosure, and thus to ensure sustainable work for employees with menstrual pain.
Daldrop, Buengeler, and Homan show that our mental image of a leader does not fit our stereotypes of young individuals, creating a bias against young individuals in leadership roles.
Because job insecurity is harmful for health and well-being, it is important to understand how workers can cope with job insecurity. Langerak, Van Hooft, and Koen focused on job insecurity among solo self-employed workers, and demonstrated the importance of proactive coping activities (e.g., career planning, skill development, career consultation, networking, and scenario thinking), building career resources, self-compassion, and recovery activities.
Meijen en Martin show that athletes perceive menstrual cycle symptoms impact their performance and that contextual constraints inform their selection and use of coping strategies to deal with the impact of menstrual symptoms.
Meral, Moss-Racusin and Van der Toorn show that when both studied anti-queer bias, a queer researcher was perceived as more biased, and the straight researcher was perceived as less informed than identical (straight and queer) researchers studying a different topic, suggesting that both queer and allied researchers are stereotyped when studying prejudice and discrimination.
Solms and colleagues show that a good match between the coach attributes that coachees prefer and those they actually experience during coaching is essential for a high-quality working alliance and positive coaching outcomes.
Solms and colleagues show that job and personal resources protect physician engagement and mitigate the risk of exhaustion during COVID-19. Participation in professional support programs, like coaching, can safeguard work engagement during high-stress periods.
Van Hooft, Kammeyer-Mueller, Wanberg, Kanfer, and Basbug provide a synthesis of factors that explain whether job seekers successfully obtain new employment. Based on meta-analyses of primary studies, they found that while spending time on job search matters, it is even more important to approach the job search as a self-regulatory process. Their analyses provide pointers for diagnostic instruments and interventions for job seekers.
Van Leeuwen, Taris, Van den Heuvel, Knies, Van Rensen and Lammers examined the effects of a Career Crafting training for physicians in a Dutch hospital. Although no effects were found on employability, the training improved career self-management behavior and reduced hindering job demands.
Faculty working on “Effectively managing jobs and careers”