Events

Ms. Zixu Zhang
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Management and Organizations
Eller College of Management
The University of Arizona

In today’s increasingly polarized socio-political landscape, individuals are constantly exposed to political information. Although emerging research has examined how static political factors influence recruitment and hiring processes, less attention has been paid to the dynamic nature of the broader socio-political environment and how job seekers actively navigate political volatility on an ongoing basis. Integrating cognitive appraisal theory with research on uncertainty reduction and intergroup threat, we propose a dual-path model that explains how job seekers cognitively process and behaviorally respond to political news. To test our theory, we conducted an experience-sampling study with 170 new labor market entrants (1,250 weekly observations) during the 2024 election cycle in the United States. Results revealed that consumption of positive political news reduced perceived job market uncertainty, subsequently decreasing next week’s haphazard job search effort. Conversely, consumption of negative political news heightened not only perceived uncertainty, but also social identity threats, which increased next week’s haphazard search effort and decreased dream job search effort, respectively. Furthermore, we identified an important boundary condition—perspective taking—that strengthened the uncertainty-reducing effect of positive political news and buffered against the identity-threatening effects of negative political news. Our findings contribute to emerging research on how politics shape workplace dynamics and have important implications for job search interventions and career counseling in today’s politically charged environment.