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Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes

The experience of social exclusion in the workplace adversely impacts employees’ well-being, job satisfaction, and productivity, and no one quite knows what to do about it. In this report, we describe the development and testing of three ostracism interventions, designed to help people cope with the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Reece, Andrew, Carr, Evan W., Baumeister, Roy F., Kellerman, Gabriella Rosen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8101916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33956814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249851
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author Reece, Andrew
Carr, Evan W.
Baumeister, Roy F.
Kellerman, Gabriella Rosen
author_facet Reece, Andrew
Carr, Evan W.
Baumeister, Roy F.
Kellerman, Gabriella Rosen
author_sort Reece, Andrew
collection PubMed
description The experience of social exclusion in the workplace adversely impacts employees’ well-being, job satisfaction, and productivity, and no one quite knows what to do about it. In this report, we describe the development and testing of three ostracism interventions, designed to help people cope with the negative effects of being excluded by one’s team. Across five studies, participants were assigned to a virtual ball toss game where they were either included or excluded by their teammates. Afterwards, they were given a task where they could earn money for themselves, for their entire team, or for an unrelated group (charity). Excluded participants worked less hard for their teams (even when this meant sacrificing their own earnings). This sabotage effect was specific, meaning that excluded individuals worked less hard on behalf of their teams, but not when they worked for themselves or for charity. We devised three intervention strategies—perspective, mentorship, and empowerment—to combat the negative effects of ostracism on people’s willingness to work for their teams. These interventions were successful; each increased people’s persistence in a team-based reward task, and in some cases, even raised the outcomes of excluded teammates to levels observed in included teammates. The effectiveness of these interventions also replicated successfully, using preregistered hypotheses, methods, and analyses. These studies add novel insights to a variety of fields that have examined the consequences of social exclusion, including social psychology, organizational behavior, and management science.
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spelling pubmed-81019162021-05-17 Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes Reece, Andrew Carr, Evan W. Baumeister, Roy F. Kellerman, Gabriella Rosen PLoS One Research Article The experience of social exclusion in the workplace adversely impacts employees’ well-being, job satisfaction, and productivity, and no one quite knows what to do about it. In this report, we describe the development and testing of three ostracism interventions, designed to help people cope with the negative effects of being excluded by one’s team. Across five studies, participants were assigned to a virtual ball toss game where they were either included or excluded by their teammates. Afterwards, they were given a task where they could earn money for themselves, for their entire team, or for an unrelated group (charity). Excluded participants worked less hard for their teams (even when this meant sacrificing their own earnings). This sabotage effect was specific, meaning that excluded individuals worked less hard on behalf of their teams, but not when they worked for themselves or for charity. We devised three intervention strategies—perspective, mentorship, and empowerment—to combat the negative effects of ostracism on people’s willingness to work for their teams. These interventions were successful; each increased people’s persistence in a team-based reward task, and in some cases, even raised the outcomes of excluded teammates to levels observed in included teammates. The effectiveness of these interventions also replicated successfully, using preregistered hypotheses, methods, and analyses. These studies add novel insights to a variety of fields that have examined the consequences of social exclusion, including social psychology, organizational behavior, and management science. Public Library of Science 2021-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8101916/ /pubmed/33956814 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249851 Text en © 2021 Reece et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Reece, Andrew
Carr, Evan W.
Baumeister, Roy F.
Kellerman, Gabriella Rosen
Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title_full Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title_fullStr Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title_full_unstemmed Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title_short Outcasts and saboteurs: Intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
title_sort outcasts and saboteurs: intervention strategies to reduce the negative effects of social exclusion on team outcomes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8101916/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33956814
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249851
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