When the medium massages perceptions: Personal (vs. public) displays of information reduce crowding perceptions and outsider mistreatment of frontline staff.

Abstract

Crowded waiting areas are volatile environments, where seemingly ordinary people often get frustrated and mistreat frontline staff. Given that crowding is an exogenous factor in many industries (e.g., retail, healthcare), we suggest an intervention that can “massage” outsiders’ perceptions of crowding and reduce the mistreatment of frontline staff. We theorize that providing information for outsiders to read while they wait on a personal medium (e.g., a leaflet, a smartphone) reduces their crowding perceptions and mistreatment of frontline staff, compared to providing the same information on a public medium (e.g., poster, wall sign). We report two studies that confirm our theory: A field experiment in Emergency Departments (n = 939) and an online experiment simulating a coffee shop (n = 246). Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

A call for preventing interpersonal stressors at work.

“…Another intervention approach looked at structural changes to reduce aggression in highly crowded places, perhaps timely during a viral pandemic where fears of crowding are high. Reyt et al (2022) assessed objective crowding in waiting rooms of health This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…Another intervention approach looked at structural changes to reduce aggression in highly crowded places, perhaps timely during a viral pandemic where fears of crowding are high. Reyt et al (2022) assessed objective crowding in waiting rooms of health care facilities in Study 1 and with manipulated stimuli in a coffee shop in Study 2, manipulating perceptions of crowding by how communication was conveyed. They found that modes that orient people to their personal space (i.e., a handheld pamphlet or cell phone) mitigates the aggressive response to objective crowding compared to modes that orient people to others around them (i.e., a public sign or poster).…”