John A. Aitken

John A. Aitken

John A. Aitken

Graduate Research Assistant

Within-person research, emotion, self-regulation, meaning of work, and job performance

John is a fourth-year PhD student in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program working with Dr. Seth Kaplan. Prior to studying at Mason, John worked with Dr. Jason Dahling at The College of New Jersey.

Currently, John's research largely focuses on the dynamic characteristics that comprise an employee's subjective experience of work, including topics such as: how employees experience and regulate the fluctuation and shape of their emotions, and how those emotions interweave and influence attitudes and outcomes at work; how employees perform their jobs and regulate themselves, switching from one form of behavior to another over short timeframes in order to accomplish tasks; how people perceive different kinds of callings at work and subsequently live those different callings out; and how work can be meaningful, and how the loss of work (in unemployment) can be harmful. Ultimately, his interest is in the study of dynamic elements of organizational phenomena to better understand the “lived, day-to-day experience” of workers and how it can be improved.

John serves as lab manager of a project funded by the NSF to study how employees' emotions might be regulated with the aid of "just-in-time adaptive interventions." He also currently works part-time as a graduate intern at MITRE in the Social and Behavioral Sciences department. His work there focuses on evaluating climate change initiatives and the efficacy of food waste and seafood sustainability policies in U.S. states. Finally, John also served as an Assistant Editor for the Journal of Business and Psychology from 2021 to 2022.

Selected Publications

Zhou, S., Aitken, J. A., Mceachern, P. J., & McCauley, R. (in press). Data from 990 public real-world job advertisements organized by O*NET categories. Journal of Open Psychology Data.

Alaybek, B., Dalal, R. S., Fyffe, S., Aitken, J. A.*, Zhou, Y.*, Qu, X., Roman, A., & Baines, J. (2022). All’s well that ends (and peaks) well? A meta-analysis of the peak-end rule and duration neglect. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 170, 104149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104149 
 
Kaplan, S. A.*, & Aitken, J. A.* (2021). Considering the attainment of work’s latent benefits under a basic income policy. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14(4), 577-581. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2021.114 
 
Aitken, J. A., Kaplan, S. A., Pagan, O., Wong, C., Sikorski, E., & Helton, W. (2021). Affective forecasts for the experience itself: An investigation of the impact bias during an affective experience. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02337-8 
 
Aitken, J. A.*, Torres, E. M.*, Kaplan, S., DiazGranados, D., Su, L., & Parker, S. (2021). The influence of simulation-based training on reflective practice. BMJ Simulation and Technology Enhanced Learning, 7(6), 638-640. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjstel-2021-000870
 
*These authors contributed equally to this work.

Courses Taught

PSYC231 Social Psychology [Instructor on Record] - Spring 2021

PSYC300 Statistics Lab [Graduate Teaching Assistant] - Fall 2019, Spring 2020

PSYC333 Introduction to I/O Psychology [Instructor on Record] - Summer 2021

Education

M.A. Industrial/Organizational Psychology, George Mason University, 2022

B.A. Psychology and History, The College of New Jersey, 2019

Recent Presentations

Aitken, J. A., Kim, J., Ponce, L., Farrar, S., Kaplan, S., & Merlo, K. (2023, April 19–22). Delineating the performance consequences of affective states versus emotion episodes [Poster]. Accepted for presentation at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, United States.

Aitken, J. A. (Chair), Kaplan, S. A., Allan, B. A., Alliger, G. C., & Zacher, H. (2023, April 19–22). Working all our livelong days: Discussing Keynes’s 15-hour workweek prediction [Panel]. Accepted for presentation at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, United States.

Kim, J., Ponce, L., Aitken, J. A., Farrar, S., & Kaplan, S. (2023, April 19–22). Within-person examination of workplace boredom and its potential coping mechanisms [Poster session]. Accepted for presentation at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, United States.

Ponce, L. P., Aitken, J. A., Kim, J., Farrar, S., & Kaplan, S. A. (2023, April 19–22). The incremental advantage of personality facets in predicting state work engagement [Poster]. Accepted for presentation at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, United States.

Aitken, J. A., Baines, J. I., Kim, J., Zhu, Z., Hassani, J., Kaplan, S. A., Dalal, R. S., Gibson, J. L., & Merlo, K. L. (2022, May 26–29). Just-in-time adaptive intervention for cognitive reappraisal at work: Improvements in workplace affect [Poster presentation]. Presented at the 2022 Annual Convention for the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL, United States. 

Baines, J. I,, Aitken, J. A., Kim, J., Hassani, J., Zhu., Z, Kaplan, S. A., Dalal, R. S. (2022, May 26–29). The relationship between telework and counterproductive work behavior [Poster presentation]. Presented at the 2022 Annual Convention for the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, IL, United States.

Ponce, L. P., Aitken, J. A., Kim, J., Kim, H., Farrar, S., & Kaplan, S. A., (2022, August 4–6). Who will make the cut? Comparing scale shortening techniques [Paper presentation]. Presented at APA 2022, Minneapolis, MN, United States.

Aitken, J. A. (Co-Chair), Baines, J. I. (Co-Chair), Calderwood, C., Zhu, Z., Wang, M., Hofmans, J. (2022, April 27 – 30). On the promise of cultivating alliances with participants in intensive research [Panel]. Presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Seattle, WA, United States.

Aitken, J. A., Keeler, K. R., Dalal, R. S., & Kriz, S. (2022, April 27 – 30). To thine own good and bad self be true? Trait-state voluntary work behavior (mis)fit [Paper presentation]. Presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Seattle, WA, United States.

Zhou, S., Aitken, J. A., & Montano, L. (2022, April 27 – 30). Complexifying calling: Exploring the multifaceted nature of calling [Alternative presentation]. Presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Seattle, WA, United States.

McEachern, P., Zhou, S., Aitken, J. A., & Lee, P. (2022, April 27 – 30). Are we attracting the right candidates? A text analysis approach to understanding the applicability of O*NET in job advertising. [Symposium paper presentation]. Presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Seattle, WA, United States.

Aitken, J. A., Kaplan, S. A., Cannon, J., & Kim, H. (2021, July 29 – August 4). On the functions of work: A meta-analysis of Jahoda’s latent deprivation model [Paper presentation]. 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Philadelphia, PA, United States.

Aitken, J. A., & Kaplan, S. A. (2021, April). Extending the study of within-person affect: Theoretical and methodological advances [Symposium]. Symposium presented virtually at the 36th annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Aitken, J. A., Zhu, Z., Kaplan, S. A., & Dalal, R. S. (2021, April). Just-in-time adaptive interventions in organizational research. In J. A. Aitken & S. A. Kaplan (Chairs), Extending the study of within-person affect: Theoretical and methodological advances [Symposium]. Paper presented virtually at the 36th annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Aitken, J. A., Kaplan, S. A., & Kuykendall, L. (2021, April). Obstacles to task performance for full-time teleworkers. In G. Fisher (Chair), Alternative work arrangement or the new normal? Telework during COVID-19 and beyond [Symposium]. Paper presented virtually at the 36th annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Kaplan, S. A., Aitken, J. A., Torres, E., DiazGranados, D., & Su, L. (2021, April). The influence of simulation based training on reflective practice. In D. Savage & D. DiazGranados (Chairs), Integrating reflection into healthcare training: A scientist-practitioner discussion [IGNITE Discussion]. Paper presented virtually at the 36th Annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.