March 24, 2026
Stone Center Junior Scholar Paisley Shultz is a third-year doctoral student in industrial-organizational psychology [IO], where she focuses on questions related to socio-economic inequality, such as the impact of technological change on employees, equitable hiring practices, and pay disclosure among coworkers. A native New Yorker from the Bronx, she earned undergraduate degrees with honors at CUNY’s Baruch College and Macaulay Honors College before coming to the Graduate Center. For the last three years, she has also taught at Baruch, training psychology students in her old department. Shultz recently discussed her research with the Stone Center. This interview had been edited for length and clarity.
How did you become interested in industrial-organizational psychology and in socio-economic equality in the workplace?
Shultz: Industrial-organizational psychology focuses on workers’ experiences and on using psychology to understand how individual workers, teams, and organizations as a whole function. I stumbled upon IO in high school and set my sights on it. I was looking up different fields in psychology, found IO, and thought it was really important that psychology could be applied to work experiences, because we spend so much of our lives at work. Then, I applied to undergraduate universities that offered it as a major, which led me to Baruch. I’m inspired by CUNY, particularly its mission of being an engine for social mobility, which I think also helped me develop my interests in socio-economic status before attending graduate school.
For instance, Baruch is one of the most socio-economically diverse colleges in the U.S. Our professors and staff cater to students no matter their background. They don’t make assumptions about what students do and don’t know or what students do and don’t have access to.
I was also a student at Macaulay Honors College, which offered programming focused on equipping low socio-economic status students with high socio-economic status skills and knowledge. It was formative to see the ways that these two parts of our larger CUNY institution were so mindful about differences in socio-economic status and helped students achieve upward mobility.
Socio-economic status at work is an area that’s under-researched in my field. The Stone Center is a really exciting place for me to explore that interest further with other scholars who are also interested in socio-economic status. And I think that IO can be a space in which we can help workers achieve upward mobility, no matter their socio-economic background.
Why has there been a lack of research on socio-economic inequality within industrial-organizational psychology?
Shultz: In my field, the study of differences between folks, in my opinion, has largely been driven by legal demands. If we think about employee rights, for instance, this often only concerns protected classes, like race, gender, religion, etc. Socio-economic status is not one of them. Another factor is that socio-economic status is more difficult to measure. We can more easily get information about a person’s race and gender, but we don’t have data on their parents’ salary or education. Access to that kind of data is quite limited in real organizational settings. But I think there’s a considerable space of opportunity to focus on socio-economic status within industrial-organizational psychology, because socio-economic status, of course, varies across racial, gender, and other demographic categories and can inform workers’ experiences.
Your master’s thesis focuses on the motives and deterrents of pay disclosure among coworkers. There’s been a trend in recent years of people announcing on social media how much money they make, even in fields where traditionally there’s been a lot of secrecy about salaries. Have you seen a change in attitudes toward pay disclosure?
Shultz: Essentially, my thesis is about why people have discussions about their pay with coworkers, which, like you said, has long been a taboo but there seems to be more openness now. To date, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with full-time workers. It’s a qualitative study, so it’s very resource intensive in terms of meeting with a lot of folks and having conversations. It’s been fun to hear about people’s experiences because there’s such variation. Some people feel that discussing pay is essential for protecting themselves and their colleagues from exploitation, whereas others have expressed to me that they would never discuss pay and find it completely inappropriate in a professional setting.
As pay transparency increases in the U.S., especially with many organizations in different states now required to post salary ranges in job postings, it’s changing the way that people are talking about work and their comfort discussing specific numbers around pay. Right now, it’s too early for me to share the themes that are emerging from this research, but I’m hoping to publish it in the next year or so.
How have you found teaching undergraduates who hope to pursue this field?
Shultz: I’ve consistently taught the psychology of motivation and learning, and I’ve found that I enjoy speaking to students about research in a way that is digestible for them. As a doctoral student, sometimes you forget how advanced you are in your learning, and you need to take a step back and rephrase things to appeal to a different audience.
I have the students choose a theory from the course and then enact a behavioral intervention on themselves. So, they set a goal, and they spend a few months trying to change their behavior. Some students change their diet, aiming to eat less sugar. Others train for a marathon. Others just want to be more productive with their schoolwork. It’s been rewarding to see them change for the better — not only in terms of their knowledge of psychology, but also in their personal aspirations.
What do you hope to do with your remaining time at the Graduate Center?
Shultz: More research, of course, but I’m also passionate about my consulting work and my leadership and service involvement. I’m trying my best to make an impact on junior folks in my field, like mentoring research assistants, and to make an impact on the communities that I’m researching. I want to work on helping economically disadvantaged workers find gainful employment. That’s really important to me. So I’m thinking about opportunities where I could work with a nonprofit to connect with those folks and make sure that they’re equipped with the tools they need.
I currently work with a range of organizations as a consultant. I do pro bono work for nonprofits and animal shelters, helping them with their engagement surveys for volunteers. I collect data on volunteers’ experiences and then advise those organizations on improving volunteers’ experiences. I also work with private organizations to help administer tests that can determine whether or not a candidate is suitable for a role and then recommend whom they should select for employment.
I’m aiming to be a practitioner, whether that’s as a consultant or working internally for a company. I have a couple of years to decide, but I do want to work with real workers and organizations in some kind of generalist role where I can make a more direct impact on folks in a decision-making capacity. But I do love research, so I always want to have a hand in research that could contribute to my science. I definitely want to still inform people about findings from my research on a much larger scale than just within an organization.
