Jeffrey Spence
I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and my research interests cover several areas within industrial/organizational psychology and fall within three themes: (a) methods, statistics, and replications, (b) intraindividual process and job performance appraisals and (c) performance appraisals. My interests in methods and statistics are largely concentrated on issues related to replications and reproducibility. My research on job performance concentrates on the dimensions of prosocial and deviant workplace behaviours. Specifically, I am interested in understanding intraindividual (within-person) processes that lead to the occurrence of prosocial and deviant workplace behaviour. In the domain of employee performance appraisals, my work has been aimed at understanding the causes and consequences of managers having considerations other than accuracy when rating employee performance.
Education
PhD, University of Waterloo, 2010.
MASc., University of Waterloo, 2006.
Selected Publications
Statistics, Methods, and Replications:
Cassidy, S. A., Dimova, R., Giguere, B., Spence, J. R., & Stanley, D. J. (2019). Failing grade: 89% of introduction-to-psychology textbooks that define or explain statistical significance do so incorrectly. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2, 233-239.
Spence, J. R., & Stanley, D. J. (2018). Concise, simple, and not wrong: In search of a short-hand interpretation of statistical significance. Frontiers in Psychology, 9: 2185. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02185
Stanley, D. J., & Spence, J. R. (2018). Reproducible tables in psychology using the apaTables package. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1, 415-431. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2515245918773743
Spence, J. R., & Stanley, D. J. (2016). Prediction interval: What to expect when you’re expecting…a replication. PLOS ONE, 11(9): e0162874. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162874
Stanley, D. J., & Spence, J. R. (2014). Expectations for replications: Are yours realistic. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 9, 305-318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614528518
Intraindividual Processes and Job Performance:
Baratta, P. L. & Spence, J. R. (2018). Capturing the noonday demon: Development and validation of the State Boredom Inventory. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27, 477-492.
Spence, J. R., Brown, D. J., Keeping, L. M., & Lian, H. (2014). Helpful today, but not tomorrow? Feeling grateful as a predictor of daily organizational citizenship behaviors. Personnel Psychology, 67, 705-738.
Ferris, D. L., Spence, J. R., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2012). Interpersonal injustice and workplace deviance: An esteem threat perspective. Journal of Management, 38, 1788-1811.
Spence, J. R., Ferris, D. L., Brown, D. J., & Heller, D. (2011). Understanding daily organizational citizenship behaviors: A social comparison perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32, 547-571.
Performance Appraisals:
Spence, J. R. & Baratta, P. L. (2015). Performance appraisal and development, In Kurt Kraiger, Jonathan Passmore, & Nuno Rebelo dos Santos (Eds.), Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Training, Professional, Development and E-Learning (pp. 439-461). Oxford, UK: Wiley and Sons.
Spence, J. R., & Keeping, L. M. (2013). The road to performance ratings is paved with intentions: A framework for understanding managers’ intentions when rating employee performance. Organizational Psychology Review, 3, 360-383.
MacDonald, H. A., Brown, D. J., Spence, J. R., & Sulsky, L. M. (2013). Cross-cultural differences in the motivation to seek performance feedback: A comparative policy-capturing study. Human Performance, 26, 211-235.
Spence, J. R., & Keeping, L. M. (2011). Conscious Rating Distortion in Performance Appraisal: A Review, Commentary, and Proposed Framework for Research. Human Resource Management Review, 21, 85-95.
Spence, J. R., & Keeping, L. M. (2010). The impact of non-performance information on ratings of job performance: A policy-capturing approach. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 587-608.