Rejected and Reluctant to Retry: An Experimental Study Examining Professional Rejection and Its Impact on Affect and Willingness to Perform

Rejection is ubiquitous, and its effect has been extensively examined within the social psychology literature. Various forms of rejection exist, yet few studies have investigated the more nuanced form of rejection that focuses on the negation of deliverables within the context of the professional environment (e.g., workplaces, universities). My study aims to uncover the effect of professional rejection (i.e., rejection of people’s deliverables or productions) on affect and willingness to perform by using the findings from an experimental design that mitigated the involvement of the more social forms of rejection. My results revealed that the professional rejection event resulted in lower levels of positive affect and higher levels of negative affect. A mediation and moderated mediation analysis showed that the effect of professional rejection on willingness to perform was mediated via positive affect and that this mediation effect depended on the level to which a person identified with the goal of the experimental task (i.e., identity centrality). Overall, my study advances the rejection literature by examining a work-relevant form of rejection that has been generally unexamined.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology, Industrial and Organizational

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Granillo-Velasquez, Kenneth Eduardo

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Reyes, Denise L

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Oswald, Frederick L
• Hoff, Kevin A
• Ng, Vincent

• Psychology, Behavioral
• Psychology, Experimental

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/18310

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/18310