Shared Reality

couple, hug, together

I research the effects of aligning on one’s view of the world with another person, like their romantic partner or coworker. My research shows that this experience, called shared reality, has relational benefits, such as increased relationship satisfaction, and epistemic benefits, such as increased certainty and meaningfulness in life and work.

  • Enestrom, M. C., Rossignac-Milon M., Forest, A., & Lydon, J. E. (in press). Meaning-making with romantic partners: Shared reality promotes meaning in life by reducing uncertainty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Enestrom, M. C., & Lydon, J. E. (2021). Relationship satisfaction in the time of COVID-19: The role of shared reality in perceiving partner support for frontline health-care workers. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(8), 2330-2349.
  • Enestrom, M. C., Lee, B., Impett, E., Bar-Kalifa E., Bar-Shachar, Y., Lydon, J. E. (under review). Shared reality and stress reduction in romantic couples. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
  • Enestrom, M.C., Rossignac-Milon, M., & Raes, A. (in prep).  Shared reality about non-work topics: The power of coworkers’ sharing a reality outside of work in promoting work meaningfulness.
  • Rossignac-Milon, M., Vogel, R., Enestrom, M.C., & Wu, W. (in prep).  Daily shared reality between colleagues predicts prosocial behavior, work meaningfulness, and job performance.
  • Enestrom, M. C., & Rossignac-Milon, M., (in press). Shared reality in Interpersonal Relationships. In C. Stern (Ed.), The Handbook of Experimental Psychology: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Meaning-Making

A woman engaging in a video conference using a laptop at home, taking notes.

My research examines how people come to understand their work through interactions with their coworkers. The modern workplace is rapidly evolving, including the shift to hybrid work models, the adoption of AI technologies, and recent economic disruptions. These changes add to the difficulty employees face in establishing a coherent interpretation of their work, such as their role, tasks, and expectations, which in turn has detrimental effects for employee well-being and productivity.

  • Enestrom, M. C., & Raes, A. (under review). Meaning as making sense: Introducing a novel model of work meaning in the context of hybrid work. Academy of Management Journal.
  • Moreno Bechara, F., Enestrom, M. C., Raes, A., & Rothman, N. (data collection for one of two studies completed). A blessing or a curse? The paradoxical effects of work meaning ambivalence on well-being.

Unshared Experiences

A mother multitasking with a laptop while her children enjoy breakfast at home.

My research also examines how unshared experiences between two people, at home, at work, and on a societal level, create barriers to successful interpersonal connection and employee productivity. For instance, how the unequal division of household labor is an unshared experience that threatens worklife balance for working women. In this area, I also examine what can be done to overcome the barriers that unshared experiences may cause.

  • Francioli, S. P., Enestrom, M. C., & Zee, K. S. (under review). Increasing information transparency reduces gender inequalities at home in Covid-19 lockdown experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology.
  • Enestrom, M. C., Bar-Kalifa, E., Bar-Shachar, Y., & Lydon, J. E. (2022). Spatial proximity in relationships research methods: The effect of partner’s presence during survey completion on shared reality in romantic couples’ daily lives. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships40(6), 1943-1960.
  • Enestrom, M. C., McKee, T., Pilat, D., & Krastev, S. (2024, April 25). Proposing a practical taxonomy of misinformation for intervention design. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/scwxv