Shining a spotlight on the work of members

We're starting what will hopefully be a regular feature in the newsletter, spotlighting the work of DOP members. We know there is so much interesting and exciting work being conducted across the DOP community, so we want to hear from you and shine a spotlight on the work you're doing.

Have you recently published an article in a journal, psychology magazine or trade publication? Excited to share the results and implications of your work with the wider community? Let us know!

Racial diversity at work

DOP member Victor Penda has just published 'Racial diversity at work: A psychodynamic perspective' in Psychodynamic Practice with co-author Sonya Dineva.

This study looked at the role of anxieties, defence mechanisms, and the sense making process of diverse employees' experiences in the workplace. The study found that underrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities in the workplace may create a sense of uncertainty around interpersonal relationships which exacerbate anxieties and negatively impact a sense of belonging. 

Second, stress related to job demands without effective regulation strategies negatively impact relationship quality for all participants. This was the main reason for turnover intentions. Leadership emotional competence and self-esteem were moderating factors. 

Differences in self-esteem were mostly related to differences in relationships and power dynamics. Ethnic minorities reported more discrepancies between their identities and that of their colleagues or environment. 

This was associated with unequal power dynamics which they responded through detachment of their work environment or denial and suppression of their identities. The latter led to more internal conflict and mistakes on the job. 

Tackling interpersonal uncertainty, improving leadership emotional competence, addressing power dynamics, and creating workplaces that also reflect the identities of ethnic minorities are important considerations moving forward. A better understanding of the personal experiences of employees may facilitate work cultures that are more representative of diverse teams.

Reintegrating traumatised workers

Noreen Tehrani, DOP committee member spoke to Anna Scott at the Institute of Health and Safety magazine about how to reintegrate traumatised workers: 

"After experiencing a traumatic, shocking or stressful event, most people will feel shocked, numb and unable to accept what has happened. 

"People react differently and take different amounts of time to come to terms with things. It's normal to experience a mix of feelings with varying intensity."

Noreen says that "very little" support is available to the average worker who has witnessed and experienced a traumatic incident. "Most of my referrals have been from independent occupational health practitioners who contacted me because they did not know where to go to get support for an employee," she adds.                                                     

"I don't think many organisations have trauma support policies or procedures. Organisations may refer distressed employees to an employee assistance programme, but often these general counsellors don't know how to work with trauma.

 "Organisations need to recognise they have a duty of care to assess trauma risks and put systems of support in place." 

'Open' data presents opportunities for psychologists 

Ian MacRae, DOP committee member wrote 'Why psychologists should care about blockchain data' in The Psychologist. It explains how other researchers in mathematics and economics have used publicly available data that is 'open and permissionless' to analyse human behaviour in online environments.

For example, mathematicians at City University, London, studied 245 million transactions (worth USD$25 billion that took place across dark web marketplaces between 2010 and 2021). 

Their research looked at network-level properties across the financial connections between buyers and sellers, but there are unexplored opportunities to study individual-difference level characteristics of those who use dark web marketplaces based on the digital footprints their transactions leave.

A second example of research from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the USA by Liu, Makarov, & Schoar (2023) studied 228 million transactions from nearly 4 million accounts between 2020 and 2022 to examine how social signals and coordination mechanisms affect risky financial behaviour online. 

While social signals and coordination mechanisms are interesting to economists, the social behaviour here may also be of interest to psychologists. There are significant opportunities in this area for researchers who want to use open data to study behaviour online.

Have you got something you'd like to share?

We are excited to extend an invitation to all members to share your academic or industry publications with our community. This is an opportunity to spotlight the interesting, diverse and impactful work of our members, regardless of age, career stage or research focus.

We welcome submissions showcasing the breadth and depth of expertise across occupational psychology. Please note that while we are excited to feature a wide array of work, we ask that submissions do not include advertisements for commercial products or services.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and highlighting the incredible work of our members! Just complete the form here.

*From the July/August DOP newsletter.