Brenton Wirenik wins undergraduate student research award

Toni Falbo, of the University of Texas and chair of the 2012 awards committee, announced the winner of the 2012 undergraduate student research award:

"It is my pleasure to announce the first winner of Division 34's undergraduate student research award. He is Brenton Wiernik, who wrote a paper entitled 'Age Differences in Employee Green Behaviors and Their Generalizability Across 11 Countries.' He was nominated by Professor Deniz Ones of the University of Minnesota.

Six undergraduate students were nominated by professors from five universities. These research papers were evaluated by a three-person panel of judges: Dan Stokols (professor at UC Irvine), Bijan Kimiagar (chair, SEPCP Student Committee, and research associate at CUNY), and Toni Falbo (professor at University of Texas at Austin). Before the Brenton Wirenik Wins Undergraduate Student Research Award judges read the papers, the identity of the student and their college was deleted from the electronic copies sent to the judges. The judges were not affiliated with the institutions of higher education that produced the nominated students and papers. The choice of Wierniks paper as the best was unanimous."

The abstract for the winning paper follows:

"Organizations are seeking to understand how their employees' work behaviors affect the natural environment, and which personal characteristics lead to good and poor environmental performance. One personal characteristic that is often linked to environmentally relevant behavior is age. Applied psychologists routinely investigate age differences in other domains of performance because such differences have implications for human resources functions. Similarly, differences between older and younger individuals in terms of the frequency and kinds of employee green behaviors they engage in can have important organizational implications. Data were collected as part of an international benchmark study; 22 independent samples of professionals from 11 countries were assessed using the same procedures (total N = 4,767). Age differences were examined on a comprehensive measure of employee environmental performance encompassing 5 subdomains. Generalizability of results across samples was investigated using psychometric meta-analysis. Results indicate small but generalizable age differences on three subdomains of employee green behaviors. Older employees appeared to be slightly more likely to engage in conserving behaviors, to expend effort to avoid environmental harm in the workplace, and to encourage and promote environmental sustainability among other employees. The authors provide suggestions for how these findings can inform human resources interventions in support of environmental sustainability in organizations."