Psychology Theses and Dissertations

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    Work adjustment in persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA): A biopsychosocial perspective
    (2004-11-15) Baker, Lisa; Hoffman, Mary Ann; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    While there is evidence that Persons Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHWA) have unique and changing needs and concerns in their workplaces, such as changes in health status, high medical costs, emotional consequences of the disease, and concerns about discrimination, no previous studies could be found on work adjustment (e.g., job satisfaction) in PLWHA. However, past research has linked employment disruption and decisions to disease progression, cognitive impairment, physical symptoms, depression/anxiety, concern about discrimination, and medical costs (e.g., Ezzy et al., 1999; Heaton et al., 1994; Martin, Brooks, Ortiz, & Veniegas, 2003). Therefore, this study tested a biopsychosocial model of work adjustment in employed PLWHA (N = 57), based on Hoffman and Driscoll's (2002) Concentric Biopsychosocial Model. It was hypothesized that physical health (fatigue and pain), psychological adjustment, and work support/environment would uniquely predict work adjustment (e.g., job satisfaction), where psychosocial variables were expected to account for the most of the variance explained. With the exception of pain symptoms, the predictor variables in the model were found to correlate with the primary outcome, job satisfaction. A hierarchical block-wise regression was then utilized to test the model, where the physical health variable (i.e. energy/fatigue) was entered first, followed by the entry of the psychological adjustment variable in the second block. The work environment variables (i.e., perceived supervisor support, perceived discrimination) were entered in the third and final block. Results partially supported the proposed model with 25% of the variance in job satisfaction explained in the third step, where perceived supervisor support and workplace discrimination accounted for a statistically significant amount of the variance. These findings support the importance of examining perceptions of workplace environment when addressing work adjustment and employment concerns of PLWHA.
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    The Effect of Organizational Climate on the Attribution to Discrimination Process
    (2004-04-12) Leslie, Lisa Michelle; Gelfand, Michele J; Stangor, Charles; Psychology
    Research on the multi-stage attribution to discrimination process (construct accessibility, perceiving, and reporting of discrimination) focuses on individual difference antecedents and tends to examine one stage in each study (e.g. Major et al., 2002; Stangor, Sechrist, & Swim, 1999; Swim & Hyers, 1999). The current study extends research on this process by examining the interactive effect of individual differences and organizational climate on all three stages of the attribution to discrimination process in an organizational simulation study. Findings indicate that Climate for Intolerance for Discrimination interacts with individual based sensitivity to sexism to predict perceptions of discrimination. Furthermore, perceptions of discrimination fully mediate the relationship between the climate by sensitivity interaction and reporting of discrimination to the organization.