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Bob Sinclair

Professor of Psychology, Clemson University

Background

I can trace my initial interest in work and psychology back to my time in the United States Marine Corps. I joined the USMC in 1983 as a rather naive 17 year old from small New England town (Auburn, ME). Throughout much of my time in the USMC, I remember thinking “there has to be a better way” to handle many of the organizational issues we encountered as junior enlisted personnel. Many of the issues we faced back then continue to dominate my scholarly work including supportive/destructive leadership, resilience, work schedules, job stress, incivility, fairness, and work-life conflict.

After leaving the USMC in 1986, I obtained my BA in psychology from the University of Maine at Farmington (in 1990). I knew that I wanted to be a college professor, almost from the first day I set foot on campus. Throughout my education, however, I had never heard of IO psychology, much less taken a course in it. As a senior, I had an exit-interview conversation with my department chair in which I indicated that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but that I wanted it to be something to do with psychology and the workplace. He replied “that’s industrial-organizational psychology” and I immediately went looking for graduate programs in IO.

I was fortunate to be admitted to the IO psychology doctoral program at Wayne State University and completed my Ph.D. in 1995. Lois Tetrick was my mentor and she and I worked on several studies of labor union members’ attitudes toward their union. I was fortunate to have authored/co-authored a few papers in that area that are reasonably frequently cited among union researchers. I also began a long-time collaboration with Jim Martin, a management professor at Wayne State with whom I have conducted several studies on unionized retail workers through the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

In reflecting on both collaborations, I came to the realization that what interested me about labor unions was their essential role in creating better working conditions for workers rather than the labor movement per se. Fortunately, Lois was heavily involved in creating the field of occupational health psychology around this time, and through her mentorship, I gained exposure to the emerging area of occupational health psychology and started my professional journey toward being an occupational health scholar.

My first academic position was in the IO psychology program at the University of Tulsa. During my second year as a faculty member, I helped transform that program from what was essentially a few student folders in two boxes on a colleague’s office floor into a program with a full student handbook, well-defined curriculum, and systematic procedures for admitting and evaluating IO students.

In 2000, I joined Portland State University, where I worked until 2008 (I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2005). Portland State was a great experience with incredible IO colleagues such as Leslie Hammer, Donald Truxillo, and Mo Wang, all of whom I still work with today. Almost immediately after joining Portland State, I begin working more actively to further develop the field of occupational health psychology. I played a central role in creating the Society for Occupational Health Psychology for which I was a founding member, and served as SOHP's third President from 2007-2008. I was proud to receive a Distinguished Contributions to Occupational Health Psychology award from APA/NIOSH for this work. At the same time, Leslie Hammer and I obtained some of the first federal funding for graduate education in Occupational Health Psychology with grants and contracts totaling roughly $600,000 by the time I left Portland State.

In 2008, I accepted a faculty position at Clemson University. Shortly after arriving at Clemson, I was asked to serve as the graduate program director, and I was promoted to Professor of Psychology in 2013. I was hired at Clemson to build on the University’s reputation in occupational health psychology and my colleagues and I have helped develop Clemson's reputation as one of the leading IO PhD programs specializing in OHP. I am proud to have helped elevate our IO program’s stature in this area and I believe that our reputation will only continue to grow in the future.

Research

To date, I have published over 70 book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals/proceedings, including many in leading IO and OHP Journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. I also have published four edited books including Research Methods in Occupational Health Psychology: Measurement, Design, and Data Analysis (Routledge Press in 2012 with Wang and Tetrick) and Building Psychological Resilience in Military Personnel: Theory and Practice (APA Books in 2013 with Britt), as well as Wiley-Blackwell’s Contemporary Occupational Health Psychology: Global Perspectives on Research and Practice: Volume 2 (2012 with Leka and Houdmont) and Volume 3 (2014 with Leka). I have also authored over 30 book chapters, completed several dozen research-based technical reports for grants/contracts and consulting clients, and given over 200 conference presentations including several invited/keynote addresses, invited discussant, and expert panelist presentations. The main themes in my current work include (1) implications of economic stress for occupational health, (2) creating workplace climates that promote worker safety, health, and well-being, and (3) the changing employment relationship. My "Current Research" page describes each of these themes in a bit more detail.

Teaching/Mentoring

I come from a family of teachers. My mother, sister, two of my nephews, and several of my other relatives and close friends have been involved in the education system, working in positions ranging from professors, principals, and educational consultants to elementary school teachers, substitute teachers, private tutors, and teacher’s assistants. These people have helped me appreciate the many ways societal well-being fundamentally depends on a high quality education system and I feel a strong ethical and professional responsibility to do my part to help produce well-educated citizens.

I have advised over 20 of my own doctoral students through completion of the PhD, all of whom have gone on to successful careers. I have also served on the committees of 30+ doctoral students and 20+ master’s students, mostly in IO/Applied Psychology. As an instructor, I have taught many graduate students over the years on a wide range of topics ranging from multivariate statistics and job analysis to occupational health and organizational theory. Presently, my primary teaching responsibilities include two graduate courses: PSYC 8620 - Organizational Psychology and PSYC 8820 - Occupational Health Psychology. I also typically teach two undergraduate courses: PSYC 4710 - Psychological Testing and PSYC 3100 Advanced Experimental Design. I also currently serve as the graduate program director at Clemson and in that role I have been responsible for ensuring that many future IO professionals receive a high quality education. Finally, I have taken these efforts “on the road” to help educators at other institutions to introduce and/or improve their occupational health training. These efforts include numerous presentations, technical reports, workshops, and panel discussions focused on occupational health psychology training where in most cases, the target audience was IO psychologists or related constituencies.

Professional Service

I have an extensive record of professional service to the IO and OHP communities, both directly to SIOP and SOHP and to IO Psychology as a constituency in other professional organizations and settings. I also have made several other important service-related contributions to the broader IO community. I currently serve as an editorial board member for the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology Journal of Business and Psychology, and Group and Organization Managmeent and I currently serve as Founding Editor-in-Chief of Occupational Health Science. I also have served as a NIOSH study section member as well as a committee member for the last several APA/NIOSH Work Stress and Health conferences. However, my most important professional service contribution has been to serve as president of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP). I am proud of my record of leadership and professional service and definitely believe I have had an impact on the science and practice of occupational health through this work.