Emily Zitek

Cornell University | CU · Department of Organizational Behavior

Researchers in psychology and management have recently examined what leads competitors to perceive that they are in a rivalry (e.g., repeated competitions) and what the consequences of rivalry are (e.g., better performance). Other researchers have long focused on the importance of social identity for how people evaluate themselves and others. In tw...

Past research indicates that people tend to react adversely to surveillance, but does it matter if advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence conduct surveillance rather than humans? Across four experiments (Study 1, N = 107; Study 2, N = 157; Study 3, N = 117; Study 4, N = 814), we examined how participants reacted to monitoring and eva...

There has been a recent push toward placing restrictions on when and how employers can ask about job applicants’ criminal records. In our research, we asked hypothetical employers to evaluate job applicants so we could examine whether certain ‘ban the box’ practices increase the chances that formerly incarcerated individuals find jobs. Our results...

In this research, we examined whether psychological entitlement predicted noncompliance with the health guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic. People higher in psychological entitlement typically try to avoid behaviors that might cause themselves harm, but their high expectations, lack of concern about others, and distrust of authority figures could...

Three studies examined the relationship between psychological entitlement and anger in the context of bad luck. Anger is often described as an emotion that arises when a person experiences a negative outcome for which someone else was responsible. Simple bad luck, without an intentional agent clearly responsible for one's misfortune, should therefo...

We examined the negative outcomes, particularly social costs that result when a person harms their group by performing poorly, and whether self-compassion could buffer against these negative outcomes. In Studies 1 and 2, participants performed poorly and harmed their group or performed equal to their group. Harmful poor-performing participants felt...

This review identifies two cognitive benefits of social hierarchy that may contribute to hierarchy maintenance. First, research indicates that people pay attention to hierarchies automatically, early, and accurately. As a result, hierarchies feel easy to process, which increases liking and support of hierarchy. Second, through their clear, predicta...

Six studies examined the relationship between psychological entitlement and not following instructions. In Study 1, more entitled individuals were more likely to ignore instructions about how to format their responses. Studies 2–4 investigated possible boundaries on the association between entitlement and ignoring instructions; however, entitled pe...

Rejections differ. For those who are rejected, one important difference is whether they are rejected for someone else (comparative rejection) or no one at all (noncomparative rejection). We examined the effect of this distinction on emotional reactions to a rejection in four studies ( N = 608), one of which was fully preregistered. Our results show...

Five studies tested the relationship between narcissism and support for hierarchy. Narcissism was associated with endorsing group-based hierarchy, income inequality, and hierarchy in business (Studies 1a–1b) and with liking organizations with a hierarchical structure (Studies 2a–2b). Analyses suggested that more narcissistic participants’ preferenc...

Four studies demonstrated that making people feel more entitled leads them to be more creative. In Study 1, entitlement was manipulated through a writing prompt task, and entitled participants generated more creative uses for a common household object and drew more creative pictures than participants in the control condition did. In Study 2, the sa...

Entitlement, or the feeling that one is more deserving of positive outcomes than other people are, has negative consequences in the workplace and in interpersonal relationships. It is therefore important to understand the sources of entitlement. We test the hypothesis that hunger, a self-focused state, leads people to feel more entitled. In Study 1...

The role of stress in reproduction, particularly during treatment for infertility, has been of considerable interest; however, few studies have objectively measured stress and anxiety over the course of the IVF cycle or compared the experience of first-time and repeat patients. This prospective cohort pilot study enrolled 44 women undergoing IVF at...

This paper explores the interactive effect of competitiveness and choice structure on symbolic (noninstrumental) choices in competitive situations. When individuals in competitive situations learn the stated preference of their opponent, their own choice depends on their competitiveness and on whether they are in an inclusive-choice situation (in w...

When people see themselves as having benefited unfairly, they subsequently act more prosocially. Participants who had been rewarded despite poor performance were subsequently more likely to donate to charity (Study 1); more willing to volunteer for a good cause (Study 2); and more helpful (Study 3).

Three studies documented effects of marital status on perceptions of employees or prospective employees. In Experiment 1, participants rated a married female job applicant as less suitable for employment than a single counterpart. In Experiment 2, participants again perceived a female job applicant less favorably when she was married; in contrast,...

A dataset including all players from five consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) seasons was analyzed to determine the relationship between displays of hostile aggression-as measured by the number of technical fouls a player received-and markers of successful performance. Analyses revealed that a greater number of technical fouls predict...

We tested the hypothesis that social hierarchies are fluent social stimuli; that is, they are processed more easily and therefore liked better than less hierarchical stimuli. In Study 1, pairs of people in a hierarchy based on facial dominance were identified faster than pairs of people equal in their facial dominance. In Study 2, a diagram represe...

A dataset including all players from five consecutive National Basketball Association (NBA) seasons was analyzed to determine the relationship between displays of hostile aggression—as measured by the number of technical fouls a player received—and markers of successful performance. Analyses revealed that a greater number of technical fouls predict...

Three experiments demonstrated that feeling wronged leads to a sense of entitlement and to selfish behavior. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall a time when their lives were unfair were more likely to refuse to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants who recalled a time when they were bored. In Experime...

Social influence has been shown to be a powerful, but underexamined, tool in altering prejudice-related attitudes. Most notably, hearing one person condemn or condone discrimination can influence another person to do the same (Blanchard, Crandall, Brigham, & Vaughn, 1994). The current study assesses a potential underlying mechanism that may determi...

Desde el primer diagnóstico de SIDA en los Estados Unidos en 1982, las personas con SIDA has sido severamente estigmatizadas. En este artículo exploramos el origen del estigma asociado al SIDA y ofrecemos una explicación de las razones por las cuales se estigmatiza a las personas con SIDA. Entonces, revisamos estudios que ejemplifican cómo el estig...