The Effects Of Cognitive Reflection Exercises On Employee Engagement: A Positive Intervention And Study Of The Role Of Cognition In Increasing Engagement In The Workplace

Abstract

The employee engagement literature suggests that in order to increase engagement in the workplace, the number and availability of job resources (e.g., performance feedback, social support, autonomy, etc.) to which employees have access must also increase. This dissertation explores the role of cognition in employee engagement interventions by creating and testing a theoretical model that proposes the relationship between job resources and engagement is mediated by increased cognitive perceptions of those resources (perceptions of resource presence, and perceptions of resource importance). I tested hypotheses by creating a cognitive reflection intervention, similar to those used in the positive organizational scholarship literature, which asked participant to briefly reflect, at the end of each workday, and write about a positive experience they had related to one of five specific job resources. This intervention lasted for five weeks, and included pretest-posttest surveys to analyze overall changes to employee engagement and other key outcomes, as well as five end-of-week surveys to assess within-person changes in outcomes during the intervention period. The active-treatment condition was then compared to results from an active-control condition (who were asked to reflect about positive events more generally, rather than focusing specifically on job resources) and a no-treatment condition. Results revealed no significant changes to engagement for participants assigned to the active-treatment condition, or in differences between the active-treatment group and the other two conditions. Nevertheless, engagement scores for both reflection conditions increased or remained steady during the intervention period, while engagement scores for the no-treatment condition decreased. I conclude with a discussion of findings, theoretical and practical implications, and study limitations.