PhD Defence: Susan Reh
In her dissertation ‘A Temporal Perspective on Social Comparisons in Organizations’ Susan Reh aims to advance our knowledge of the effects of social comparisons by taking a temporal perspective on the social comparison process.
Susan Reh defended her dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Friday, 18 January 2019 at 09:30. Her supervisors were Prof. Steffen Giessner (RSM), Prof. Niels Van Quaquebeke (KLU) and Dr. Christian Tröster (KLU). Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Dr. Niro Sivanathan(LBS), Dr. Anne Nederveen Pieterse(RSM) and Prof. Daan Stam(RSM).
About Susan Reh
Susan Reh received her Master of Science in Management from the Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany in 2013 and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Hamburg in 2011. She started her PhD at the Kühne Logistics University in 2013 and joined the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands as an external PhD student in 2015. Since November 2017, she is a post-doctoral researcher in organizational psychology at the University of Groningen.
Thesis Abstract
Individuals evaluate their social standing through comparisons with others. These social comparisons affect individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior at the workplace. This dissertation aims to advance our knowledge of the effects of these comparisons by taking a temporal perspective on the social comparison process. Contrary to previous research that looked at social comparisons as a single snapshot in time, this dissertation acknowledges the dynamic nature of social comparisons, in particular, that individuals’ standing may change over time. In three chapters, this dissertation examines how considerations of future status are derived from past relative trajectories and lead to positive and negative interpersonal as well the role of individuals’ goal orientation in their preferences for different temporal and static comparisons.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
