My name is Rui Zhong (钟锐). I am an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Management and Organization Department at Penn State University. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Organizational Behavior at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia.

I identify myself as a positive scholar on negative phenomena. In terms of topics, I study a variety of negative phenomena, or phenomena that people generally have a negative connotation with. Specifically, I study negative behaviors (e.g., gossip, abusive supervision, and ostracism), emotions (e.g., shame and anxiety), and cognitions (e.g., death awareness). My research sheds a positive light on those negative phenomena, with a particular focus on 1) the benefits of negative phenomena and 2) mitigators that reduce the harm of negative phenomena.

Most of my research projects examine the positive sides of negative phenomena in the contexts of leadership and teams, using a variety of methods, such as experience sampling methods, meta-analyses, and experiments. 

For more information about my research, please click the following links:

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