EXPLORING THE SOCIAL LEDGER:
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN ORGANIZATIONS:
THE CASE FOR NEGATIVE ASYMMETRY IN SOCIAL NETWORKS
Giuseppe Labianca
A.B. Freeman School of Business
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118-5669
and
Daniel J. Brass
Department of Management & Organization
The Smeal College of Business Administration
The Pennsylvania State University
403 Beam BAB
University Park, PA 16802
May 18July 30August 16, 1999
Revisinge and resubmit:tingto the
Academy of Management Review
EXPLORING THE SOCIAL LEDGER:
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN ORGANIZATIONS
ABSTRACT
We explore the role of negative relationships in social networks at work. Network researchers have mainly focused on the benefits and opportunities derived from positive relationships. We, instead, emphasize that some interpersonal relationships can be social liabilities. We further argue that, under certain circumstances, these negative relationships will have greater power in explaining organizational attitudes, behaviors and outcomes than will positive relationships. This argument is rooted in theory and research on a general negative asymmetry bias. We offer a processual description of how negative relationships occur in the workplace, and a conceptual model to guide future research.
“A man’s stature is determined by his enemies, not his friends.” -- Al Pacino, City Hall
People are embedded within networks of interrelationships with other people. network These networks can provide opportunities and benefits such as job attainment, job satisfaction, power, and promotions in organizations (e.g., Brass, 1984; Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973). Although early social exchange theorists and network researchers considered both the positive and negative aspects of relationships (e.g. Homans, 1961; Tagiuri, 1958; Thibault & Kelley, 1959), research over the past two decades has focused almost exclusively on the positive aspects of network relationships to the point that social network research has become equated with research on social capital. Social capital refers to the idea that one’s social contacts convey benefits that create opportunities for competitive success for individuals and for the groups in which they are members (i.e., Bourdieu, 1972; Burt, 1992, 1997; Coleman, 1988, 1990; Fukuyama, 1995; Gabbay, 1997; Putnam, 1995)1. The overemphasis on researching the positive aspects of networks comes at the expense of fleshing out what we term the “social ledger” – both the potential benefits, as well as the potential liabilities of social relationships. Just as a financial ledger records financial assets and liabilities, the social ledger is an accounting of social assets (social capital derived from positive relationships) and social liabilities derived from negative relationships.
To understand the complete social ledger, we address the role of negative relationships in organizations – on-going relationships in which at least one person has a negative affective judgment (dislike) of the other. For example, just as an employee’s friends and acquaintances may help the employee get promoted by providing such things as critical information, mentoring, and good references, negative relationships with others may prevent promotion if these people withhold critical information or provide bad references. Thus, it is important to consider the negative side of the social ledger: social liabilities as well as the frequenctlyfrequently researched social capital.
Social liabilities become particularly important when we consider the possibility of negative asymmetry: negative relationships may have greater explanatory power than positive relationships in certain circumstances. Negative stimuli have been found to have greater explanatory power than positive or neutral stimuli in a diverse range of situations, including person perception and social judgment (see Taylor, 1991 for a review). Extending this negative asymmetry argument to social relationships in organizations, we propose that, under certain circumstances, negative relationships may have a greater effect on organizational attitudes (e.g., affective attachment to the job and organization), behaviors (e.g., withdrawal behaviors, job performance), and outcomes (e.g., job stress, and promotion and income attainment) than positivethan positive relationships.
We begin by defining negative relationships and presenting research and theoretical explanations for a generalized negative asymmetry in humans, and then present specific evidence of negative asymmetry in social relationships, including those in work organizations. We then present a model of the formation of negative relationships in the workplace. We conclude by developing a research framework for investigating the antecedents, moderators and consequences of negative relationships in organizations.
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
We define negative relationships as on-going relationships in which at least one person has a negative affective judgment of another person1person2. We distinguish negative relationships from brief negative encounters, cognitions, affect, or behaviors which may happen on occasion in any relationship, even a strong, positive relationship2. Although negative relationships likely involve negative cognitions and behaviors, we focus on affect because it is a more enduring component of the relationship and thus better suited to describe an on-going relationship rather than just an encounter323.
Negative relationships can characterized by at least four dimensions that may affect the extent to which they results in liabilities for the employees and the organization. First, the relationship’s strength refers to intensity of the negative affect (disliking). Although social network researchers have often investigated the strength of positive relationships (e.g., strong ties are friends, weak ties are acquaintances), we extend strength of ties to include negative relationships. Strong disliking should exacerbate the social liabilities of negative ties. Directionality refers to whether an individual is the object or source of negative affect, or if it is reciprocated. A negative affective judgment does not have to be reciprocated in order for it to be a liability. For example, even if you like a person who dislikes you, that person may make it more difficult for you to accomplish your tasks by withholding important information, by failing to provide a reference for you when needed, or by proving spreading negative gossip about you. However, we expect that a reciprocated tie will be most disruptive. The third characteristic, awareness, refers to whether each person knows that the other person dislikes him or her. For example, a lack of awareness that another person dislikes you may result in little discomfort or dissatisfaction, but it may result in high h vulerabilityvulnerability to harmful covert actions by the other person. On the other hand, awareness may lead to attempts to improve the relationship or, conversely, reciprocal feelings of dislike and negative behavior toward the other person . Finally, we go beyond the dyad to add a network characteristic – proximity. Proximity refers to whether the negative tie is direct (you are part of the dyad with a negative relationship) or indirect (you are connected to a person who has a negative relationship with another person). We expect that direct involvement in a negative relationship will result in increased social liabilities, but we do not ignore the possibility that indirect relationships may also produce social liabilities. For example, being a friend of a person who is disliked may be a liability because you are associated with the disliked person and treated similarly. .
Throughout the paper, we assume that negative affective relationships are detrimental both to the individuals involved in the relationships, as well as to the organization as a whole; hence the label “social liability.” We propose that negative relationships adversely affect individual outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, stress, promotions, etc.), but they also adversleyadversely affect the ability of individuals to coordinate actives activities and cooperate to achieve group and organizational goals. For example, recent research has shown that affective conflict (as contrasted with task conflict) is detrimental to the overall performance of a group (Jehn, 1995, 1997; see also Wall & Callister, 1995 for a review). Although we do not equate negative relationship with conflict, negative affect can lead to both covert and overt behavior that is disruptive to the effective fundctioning of an organization. Negative relationships are the opposite of social capital because of their potential liabilities or hindrances to individuals and organizations3organizations4 .
NEGATIVE ASYMMETRY
We focus on negative relationships not only because they have been ignored in research on organizations, but also because negative relationships may have greater power in explaining some attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in organizations than positive relationships. In this section, we briefly present evidence for negative asymmetry and summarize the theoretical arguments that have been offered to explain this phenonenonphenomenon.
Negative event asymmetry
Taylor (1991) summarizes evidence that indicates that negative events elicit greater physiological, affective, cognitive, and behavioral activity and lead to more cognitive analysis than neutral or positive events. For example, studies have found that subjects experience stronger physiological arousal when presented with opinions that disagree with their own as compared to opinions that agree or are neutral, or when they are interacting with persons they dislike as compared to those they like or are neutral toward (e.g., Burdick & Burnes, 1958; Clore & Gormly, 1974; Dickson & McGinnies, 1966; Gormly, 1971, 1974; Steiner, 1966). Taylor (1991) also argued that negative events are stronger determinants of mood and affect than positive events. For example, research indicates that negative events are more strongly associated with distress and predict depression better than do positive events (e.g., Myers, Lindenthal, Pepper, & Ostrander, 1972; Paykel, 1974; Vinokur & Selzer, 1975).
Additional research has found that negative affective states lead people to narrow and focus their attention (e.g., Broadbent, 1971; Easterbrook, 1959; Eysenck, 1976), particularly on the negative information that may have been seen as causing that negative affective state (Schwarz, 1990). Positive events and information do not seem to have the same effect on cognitive processing (see Kanouse & Hanson, 1972; Peeters & Czapinski, 1990; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972). Negative stimuli also lead to more cognitive work and produce more complex cognitive representations than do positive stimuli (Peeters & Czapinski, 1990). Research also has shown that people assign relatively more importance to negative information, including social information, than to positive information (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; see Czapinski & Peeters, 1990; Peeters & Czapinski, 1990; Skowronski & Carlston, 1989, for reviews). Likewise, studies in impression formation, person perception, and morality judgments have found that negative information is weighted more heavily than positive information in social judgments (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984, 1991; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972, for reviews).
Negative asymmetry in social relationships
In addition to negative events, negative interactions have been found to have a disproportionately greater effect on such variables as life satisfaction, mood, illness, and stress than do positive interactions (e.g., Finch, Okun, Barrera, Zautra, & Reich, 1989; Hirsch & Rapkin, 1986; Rook, 1984, 1990; Stephens, Kinney, Norris & Ritchie, 1987). For example, Rook (1984) found that negative aspects of social relationships are more strongly related to psychological well-being than are the positive aspects. In a longitudinal study of spouses caring for Alzheimer’s patients, Pagel, Erdly, and Becker (1987) found that negative aspects of the caretaker’s network were strongly associated with increased depression over a ten-month period. However, positive aspects of the network were not associated with lower depression.
In a network study of social relationships at work, Burt and Knez (1995, 1996) found that if an individual was already inclined to trust another party, positive third party gossip amplified that trust. However, this amplification effect was much more pronounced for negative gossip than it was for positive gossip. Labianca, Brass and Gray (1998) found that negative interpersonal relationships between members of different organizational groups were related to perceptions of intergroup conflict, but strong friendship ties had no relationship to perceptions of intergroup conflict. Strong positive relationships did not dampen or counterbalance the effects of negative relationships.
Theoretical explanations of negative asymmetry
Why do negative events and relationships have more impact than positive events and relationships? Evolutionary psychologists explain the negative asymmetry by noting that it is adaptive to respond quickly to negative events in order to enhance survivability (e.g., Cannon, 1932; see LeDoux, 1996, for a more recent neurobiological perspective). Developmental psychologists suggest that negative events are discriminated and evaluated earlier by children than are positive events because negative events are more likely to interrupt action. Children learn the rules governing negative behavior before those governing positive behavior and, thus, become punishment-oriented (cf., Piaget, 1932). Nature and nurture combine to make humans risk-averse (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984).
In seeking to theoretically explain negative asymmetry, Skowronski and Carlston (1989) summarize a number of theories that fall into two broad categories: discrepancy and ambiguity. Discrepancy theorists (e.g., Fiske, 1980; Helson, 1964; Jones & Davis, 1965; Jones & McGillis, 1976; Sherif & Sherif, 1967) argue that negative events dominate social judgment because of the contrast effects with positive events that people typically experience and expect. Positive or neutral responses are subject to strong social desirability norms. These positive expectations have been found consistently and are referred to as “The Pollyanna Principle” (e.g., Matlin & Stang, 1978), and they are an example of a broader positivity bias in expectations (e.g., Blanz, Mummendey, & Otten, 1995; see Markus & Zajonc, 1985, for a discussion of positivity biases). Interactions tend to be polite and continued interaction tends to breed friendship (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950).People rarely intend to make enemies. Since people expect positive information, negative information stands out against the background and is weighted more heavily in impression formation. Recent research (Baldwin, Bedell, & Johnson, 1997; Labianca, et al., 1998; Labianca, 1998) found that negative affective relationships are indeed rare and unexpected, involving only 1-7% of the possible relationships in a network. Thus, the relative rarity of negative events and relationships may be the very force behind the greater relative impact of that negativity on individuals.
Ambiguity theorists (e.g., Birnbaum, 1972; Skowronski & Carlston, 1989; Wyer, 1973, 1974) argue that negative information is more closely attended to because it is less ambiguous than positive information. Because negative information cannot be discounted as a socially desirable response, it allows people to make social judgments more easily. Several studies have shown that negative behavioral cues are perceived as less ambiguous than positive behaviors (e.g., Birnbaum, 1972; Reeder, Henderson, & Sullivan, 1982; Reeder & Spores, 1983; Wyer, 1974).
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK
While a great deal of research has been conducted on friendship formation, interpersonal attraction, and the evolution of friendships (see Berscheid & Walster, 1978, and Hays, 1988 for reviews), little has been conducted on the formation and development of negative relationships (Wiseman & Duck, 1995). The evolution of negative relationships may be very different than positive relationships. Friendship development is viewed as a gradual process. According to social penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973), friendship development proceeds from superficial interaction in narrow areas of exchange to increasingly deeper interaction in broader areas. Perceptions of the rewards and costs of interacting with a potential friend drive this progression – if you feel that the rewards from a relationship outweigh the costs, you will continue to progress towards closer friendship. However, Wiseman and Duck’s (1995) qualitative work on negative relationships indicates that negative relationship development is a much faster process that tends to lead to the other person being included in an all-or-nothing negative category such as “enemy.” By contrast, fine-grained ranking distinctions are created for friends as they move through a relationship progression from casual acquaintances to close friends.
Based on the available empirical evidence and theoretical explanations for negative asymmetry, we offer the following processual description of how negative relationships occur in the workplace. We use the language of symbolic interactionism (e.g., Brown & Levinson, 1978; Earley, 1997; Goffman, 1959; Brown & Levinson, 1978; Earley, 1997)) and combine it with research on person perception and interpersonal expectations to describe how encounters can lead to positive and negative relationships.
When two employees interact on the job, each is projecting a public self-image (or face) to the other. The employees are driven by two particular wants (Brown & Levinson, 1978) – the want to be unimpeded (negative face) and the want to be approved of in certain respects (positive face). Everyone has these wants, and every other person they interact with knows that they have these wants. Brown and Levinson argued that it’s in everyone’s mutual interest to maintain each other’s face. Thus, people come to expect that this equilibrium will be maintained and that their interactions with others will likely be neutral or pleasant (Goffman, 1959).
However, there are sometimes face-threatening acts that send the system into a disequilibrium. One employee’s opinions or actions may appear to another employee to be either threatening his or her self-image or threatening to interrupt or block that person’s actions. The threatened employee experiences heightened physiological arousal (e.g., Clore & Gormly, 1974), which generates a preliminary negative affective judgment of the threatening employee. Because this negative event is relatively rare and unexpected, the threatened employee increases his or her cognitive scanning of the threatening employee. Attention is narrowed to focus on the negative information because it is viewed as unambiguous and more diagnostic in determining whether the face-threatening act is intentional or unintentional, and therefore whether the threatening person is someone to be disliked (e.g., Skowronski & Carlston, 1989). As Earley (1997: 70) noted: “People are often concerned more with the avoidance of losing face than with gaining it, and a loss of face has a stronger impact on people’s perceptions of a person.” If the threatening person undertakes corrective actions to repair any damage to face after it has occurred (Goffman, 1959), the incident may be ignored. The threatened party may also discount a particular negative episode by attributing the behavior to external causes. Likewise, the threatened individual may go out of his way to overcome the negative affect caused by any one encounter. However, if corrective actions are not undertaken, the threatened person will create a negative affective judgment of the threatening person, ultimately resulting in a negative relationship.