Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
6-2020
Abstract
Although powerlessness is a pervasive experience for employees, prior social power research has predominantly focused on consequences of powerfulness. This has led to contradictory predictions for how experienced powerlessness influences employees’ social perceptions and behaviors. To resolve this theoretical tension, we build on Social Distance Theory (Magee & Smith, 2013) to develop a theoretical model suggesting that experienced powerlessness reduces social closeness and subsequently causes social disengagement behaviors both at work (reduced helping, increased interaction avoidance) and at home (increased withdrawal). Our model also elucidates the processes that cause powerlessness to reduce social closeness, demonstrating that employees’ affiliation motive and their expectation of others’ interest in affiliating explain this relationship. We further propose that the effect of powerlessness on social closeness will be stronger for employees high (vs. low) in political skill because these employees are more attuned to workplace power dynamics. We find support for our model in an experience‐sampling field experiment and two experimental scenario studies. Our research clarifies the effects of powerlessness on social closeness and organizationally‐relevant downstream consequences, qualifies dominant assumptions that the powerless always behave in ways opposite those of the powerful, and demonstrates the importance of political skill as a moderator of power's effects.
Keywords
disengagement, political skill, powerlessness, social distance
Discipline
Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Organizational Behavior and Theory
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
Personnel Psychology
Volume
73
Issue
2
First Page
363
Last Page
394
ISSN
0031-5826
Identifier
10.1111/peps.12358
Publisher
Wiley: 24 months
Citation
FOULK, Trevor A.; DE PATER, Irene E.; SCHAERER, Michael; DU PLESSIS, Christilene; LEE, Randy; and EREZ, Amir.
It's lonely at the bottom (too): The effects of experienced powerlessness on social closeness and disengagement. (2020). Personnel Psychology. 73, (2), 363-394.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6407
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12358
Included in
Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons