Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Dia Chatterjee

Committee Members

Charles Scherbaum

Harold Goldstein

Wei Wang

Zhiqing E. Zhou

Subject Categories

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Keywords

burnout, informal learning, motivation, well-being, job stress

Abstract

Given its negative effects on employees and organizations, burnout is seen as a crucial concern in the workplace. To combat burnout, researchers and organizations have explored some individual-level strategies to manage work-related stress effectively. An overlooked employee-driven strategy is informal learning within the workplace. While existing research has focused on learning outside work hours for stress recovery, the current study examined whether informal learning at work is a beneficial proactive behavior for employees to help alleviate stress in real-time, and thus, potentially reducing burnout. Specifically, the current research was interested in whether employees’ psychological needs at work would be satisfied when they engage in informal learning, which could subsequently prevent burnout. Additionally, we were interested in how psychological needs satisfaction from informal learning could buffer the stressor-strain relationship to prevent burnout. Participants were recruited through Prolific, and data was collected using a 10-day daily diary design with a noon and afternoon survey. Overall, the results provide a more nuanced understanding of how to leverage the proactive behavior of informal learning and motivation from psychological needs satisfaction to combat employee burnout. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of daily informal learning’s role in coping with job stressors and reducing burnout, and the role that psychological needs satisfaction plays in this relationship.

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