This chapter aims to review and summarize research that uses experimental designs to study psychological contracts. Experimental designs can help in gaining a more thorough understanding about the concept of psychological contracts, mainly owing to the opportunity to isolate specific influences and dynamics that are difficult to study in the field. In this chapter the authors show how content and breach of the psychological contract are manipulated, and provide an overview of the results of these experiments. They introduce a tentative research agenda with topics in psychological contract research that could benefit from experimental research designs. They argue that different experimental designs, including between-subject, within-subject, and field or quasi-experiments, can provide opportunities to further unravel the concept of psychological contracts, the role of time in the development and impact of psychological contracts, and the aftermath of psychological contract evaluations.
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