Browsing by Author "van der Bank, Francois"

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    Psychological appraisal in personal engagement : the influence of mindsets
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-12) van der Bank, Francois; Theron, Callie; de Bruin, Deon; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Industrial Psychology.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: The study investigates the role of psychological appraisal in the development of personal engagement, focusing on goal orientations and core self-evaluation as underlying cognitions influencing how people subjectively interpret objective features in their environment. The more cognitive approach followed in the study differs from the majority of past research studies in that it focuses on the psychological process of engagement, as opposed to searching for “drivers” of engagement. In order to test the premise that employees can appraise the same situation differently, the sample consisted of participants (N = 368) from a similar environment (i.e. full-time academics at three South African universities) and with the focus on the same target role, namely that of academic researcher. The study also controlled for the objective environment by developing an objective index measuring verifiable features in the environment and subsequently used residualised centring to remove the variance in the measurement model explained by the objective index. The study used a crosssectional correlational design, with structural equation modelling as the analytical technique for evaluating the proposed appraisal-focused personal engagement structural model. The structural model produced acceptable fit statistics (RMSEA = .055; p > .05) and 19 (82.6%) of the 23 path-specific hypotheses were supported by the data. Overall, the model explained 87% of variance in the personal engagement construct. The results confirm the intermediate and proximal role of the critical psychological states (representing employees’ appraisal of the environment) leading to personal engagement; although the current study suggests that meaningfulness and psychological availability can compensate for psychological safety. The study also demonstrates that learning goal orientation, along with the newly developed purpose goal orientation (representing mid-level cognitive schemas) is likely to result in positive appraisals of the situation, while performance goal orientation mostly leads to negative appraisals. The data further supported the influence of core self-evaluation (conceptualised as more fundamental self-beliefs) on the three goal orientations, with it having a positive effect on learning and purpose goal orientation, but an inverse effect on performance goal orientation. Finally, the results of the indirect effects corroborate the view of core self-evaluation as a distal variable, positively influencing personal engagement via a stream of intermediate variables, including the goal orientations. The cross-sectional correlational design represents a limitation in the study as it does not allow for causal interpretations on the same level as experimental designs. In addition, a longitudinal design could have provided more insight into the psychological process, given the long stream of variables, ranging from fundamental core self-beliefs to mid-level cognitions (goal orientations) to psychological appraisal, and eventually personal engagement behaviour. The study shows that to fully understand personal engagement, consideration needs to be given to both the objective environment as well as people’s subjective, internal interpretation and experiences of the environment and themselves. In terms of subjective appraisals, it is recommended that organisations focus on goal orientations as they may offer therapeutic potential to facilitate higher levels of personal engagement.