Emotional And Information Seeking Reactions To Occupational Identity Threat:Evidence From Medical Physicians

Occupation is important to everyone in the day of the meaning and value of work is rising increasingly.As an important component of self-concept,occupational identity reflects meaning and value related to occupation and occupational groups.Everyone's occupation can shape and decide his(or her)cognition about the fundamental problem of‘who am I?'.Individuals will feel occupational identity threat when the meaning and value of occupation cannot get approval or guarantee.There are few study about occupational identity threat both in the research fields of career management and identity threat,so the outcomes of identity threat and the underlying mechanisms need to be researched further.What are the outcomes when individuals encounter the occupational identity threat?Furthermore,are there any different outcomes when individuals with different traits encounter the occupational identity threat?Based on identity theory,this paper explored the influences of occupational identity threat on individuals with different performance self-esteem traits from two aspects,these are,emotional reaction and information seeking reaction.By conducting one survey study(140 medical physicians)and two experimental studies(preliminary experiment,64 medical students;formal experiment,136 medical students),the empirical results showed that,(1)occupational identity threat causes negative emotional reactions,and leads individuals to take emotional catharsis behavior further.For individuals with high level of performance self-esteem,negative emotions caused by occupational identity threat becomes more evident;and(2)occupational identity threat motivates individuals to take feedback-seeking behavior,and negative emotion plays a full mediating role in the relationship between occupational identity threat and feedback-seeking behavior.This research has several innovative points:(1)This research focused on a new research topic named occupational identity threat,which can enrich the literature of identity threat;(2)Based on the identity theory,this paper explored the outcomes of occupational identity threat on individuals from emotional reaction and information seeking reaction,these are negative emotion,emotional catharsis behavior and feedback-seeking behavior,in which emotional catharsis behavior and feedback-seeking behavior are positive outcomes;(3)This research explored the different reactions to the occupational identity threat when individual with different performance self-esteem traits and found that performance self-esteem plays a moderating role in the relationship between occupational identity threat and negative emotion while the moderating effect is not significant in the relationship between occupational identity threat and feedback-seeking behavior,which have deepened the recognition on the boundary mechanism of theoutcomes of the occupational identity threat.(4)Using both questionnaire survey and experimental research as research methods,based on the correlation test about occupational identity threat,negative emotion and feedback-seeking behavior by questionnaire survey,we using the experimental research tested the negative emotion and feedback-seeking behavior caused by occupational identity threat.Consistent conclusion with these two research methods were obtained,which made the research conclusions more persuasive.Furthermore,combined the background of the occupational identity dilemma faced by medical physicians,this research indicated some practical significance.Firstly,hospital administrators should understand the impacts of occupational identity threat on medical physicians,including negative effect like negative emotion and positive effect like emotional catharsis behavior and feedback-seeking behavior.Hospital administrators should guide medical physicians to vent their negative emotion properly to reduce the harm of negative emotion on diagnosis and treatment process and create favorable conditions to encourage them to seek feedback proactively.Secondly,hospital administrators should pay more attention on individuals with high level of performance self-esteem and understand these individuals will produce stronger negative emotions when encounter occupational identity threat.Thus,hospital administrators should help these people to channel their emotions if necessary.