Lauren E. Kuykendall

Lauren E. Kuykendall

Lauren E. Kuykendall

Associate Professor

Industrial/Organizational Psychology: Employee well-being; burnout; work-life balance; organizational work-life policies; leisure; meaningful work; career management and decision-making; gender and well-being.

Dr. Lauren Kuykendall (pronounced "KIRK-in-doll") is an Associate Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology. She joined Mason after receiving her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Purdue University in 2015. Her research focuses on employee well-being, burnout, and work-nonwork balance. Current research projects in her lab focus on:

  1. Work-rest rhythms and recovery from work stress, with an emphasis on understanding how organizational and interpersonal factors impact psychological detachment from work and burnout
  2. Flexible work arrangements and paid leave policies (e.g., parental leave, vacation), with an emphasis on understanding barriers to and consequences of policy utilization
  3. Work-nonwork decision-making, time allocation, and well-being, with an emphasis on understanding how nonwork roles and activities that are more voluntary in nature (e.g., friendships, leisure activities) impact well-being
  4. Ideal worker norms, with an emphasis on understanding the individual and societal costs of long work hours and continuous availability for work, the factors that perpetuate ideal worker norms, and whether (and how) ideal worker norms are shifting (or could shift)
  5. Meaningful work, with an emphasis on understanding how organizational attempts to manage perceptions of meaning impact burnout and well-being

Dr. Kuykendall teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Psychology Department. She received the 2021 University Teaching Excellence Award with special recognition for High Impact Teaching.

Courses Taught

  1. PSYC 333: I-O Psychology (Mason Core Course for the Social & Behavioral Sciences)
  2. PSYC 620: Motivation & Well-Being 
  3. PSYC 636: Survey of I-O Psychology  
  4. PSYC 703: Social Bases of Behavior
  5. PSYC 742: Careers 
     

Guest Lectures

Dr. Kuykendall occasionally provides guest lectures for undergraduate psychology students that do not have a faculty member with an Industrial-Organizational Psychology background in their department. Please send me an email if you're interested in me speaking to your students. 

Publications

Google Scholar profile

Consulting

Feel free to reach out to Dr. Kuykendall to inquire about consulting or a research partnership, particularly for initiatives focused on improving employee well-being. Dr. Kuykendall occasionally provides pro bono consulting to non-profit organizations. 

Dissertations Supervised

Melissa Hickin (Stiksma), Understanding the Antecedents of Supervisor Support for Recovery (2022)

Carol M. Wong, When Job Demands Undermine Recovery Experiences: Unpacking the Recovery Paradox (2022)

Lydia Craig, Understanding Men’s Utilization of Paid Parental Leave: A Competing Identities Perspective (2021)

Ze Zhu, Clarifying the Construct of Supervisor Support for Recovery and its Impacts on Employee Recovery Experiences (2021)

Ho Kwan Cheung, What She Expects When Expecting: Effects of Pregnancy Disclosure on Women's Meta-perecptions and Perceived Leader-member Exchange (2018)