Political identity dissimilarity, workplace incivility, and declines in well‐being: A prospective investigation

Abstract

The workplace is an environment where individuals have little choice about with whom they interact. As such, employees may find themselves engaged in conversations with coworkers whose political opinions and perspectives are divergent from their own. In the present study, we examined how coworkers' (dis)similarity in political identity is related to the quality of their interpersonal interactions and subsequent well‐being. We predicted that political identity dissimilarity is associated with experiences of workplace incivility and, in turn, declines in psychological and occupational well‐being. We tested our hypotheses in a four‐wave survey study conducted during the 2012 U.S. presidential election using structural equation modeling. Consistent with our expectations, results indicated that political identity dissimilarity was associated with increased reports of incivility experiences instigated by coworkers, which, in turn, was associated with increased burnout and turnover intentions and diminished job satisfaction. The relationship between incivility and well‐being was mediated by psychological distress. Overall, the findings demonstrate that political identity dissimilarity is detrimentally related to job attitudes and well‐being via triggering workplace incivility, which provides meaningful implications for organizations on how to mitigate the negative influences of identity dissimilarity.

Workplace incivility and knowledge hiding: a research agenda

“…If one fails to acquire information, it may lead him/her to attacking behaviours, where one may subconsciously want others to forgo their knowledge as well. In today's world, where one expresses oneself freely and frequently, differences in opinions may lead to polarized content, which then builds an environment of negative reciprocity, culminating in uncivil behaviours (He et al, 2019).…”

Working While Liberal/Conservative: A Review of Political Ideology in Organizations

“…Individuals who perceived political ideology fit with their supervisors (i.e., P-S fit) experienced less job-related stress and higher job satisfaction than those with lower perceptions of fit (Foley, Offerman, & Lanzo, 2018). Similarly, the greater perceived political ideology dissimilarity among coworkers (i.e., P-G fit), the more distress, with implications for job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intentions (He, Costa, Walker, Miner, & Wooderson, 2019).…”

“…In fact, a recent study found that during the weeks prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2016, there was an increase in identity fusion—where the self and political group identity merge as one (Misch, Fergusson, & Dunham, 2018), which then predicted prosocial ingroup behavior (e.g., donations to the party). This might also suggest more negative outgroup behavior would occur: Elections increase perceived political differences and incivility (He et al, 2019) and make it likely that teams have ideological ambivalence (e.g., some feel very positive about an election outcome, while others feel very negative; Ashforth, Rogers, Pratt, & Pradies, 2014; Pradies & Pratt, 2010), which can be destabilizing for group affect and outcomes (Pratt & Pradies, 2011).…”

“…Political identity or party affiliation can also act as a surface-level characteristic if it is known or simply perceived through social information (Deichert, 2019), quickly triggering social categorization and activating stereotypes and negative emotions that affect team processes immediately (He et al, 2019; Iyengar et al, 2012). Scholars should test whether employees use identity management in similar or unique ways to other types of identities, where they disclose, conceal, or subtly signal their political ideology at work (Jones & King, 2014).…”

Political affiliation dissimilarity: Exploring lone affiliate employees' work attitudes and experiences

“…tween results may have been due to the fact thatHe et al (2019) collected data during the 2012 election, while we collected data during the year preceding the 2020 election. The increasing taboo in discussing politics (Society for Human Resource Management, 2016) may have made lone affiliates less likely to expose their lone affiliate status to others, or may have made coworkers less likely to say controversial things around or mistreat lone affiliates.…”