Social psychology in Organizations specialization at Leiden University

Lecture 3: Working together

Why is it important for employees to trust their supervisor?

Subordinates who trust their leaders are:

-more satisfied

-more committed

-wanting to leave the workspace less

-show more altruism at work

The repair of trust

Theories of trust repair:

1. Attributions: you did a bad thing, therefore you are a bad person

2. Social Equilibrium

3. Negotiation of trustworthiness

Attributions

What to do?

Apology

-how effective is it?

4 conditions (van Leeuwen, van den Bosch, Castano, & Hopman, 2010):

• deviant exclusion: seems most effective, but team looks very disloyal
• deviant apology: the team is regarded most positively in this condition
• group apology: team is seen as most loyal
• downplay “don’t take it so seriously”

-does apologizing always work?

Not if it’s insincere, not if it insufficient (e.g.: verbal apology but no repair)

Apology implies admitting guilt (e.g.: “saying oh no, I’m sorry, are you ok?” If it isn’t your fault might mean your insurance still has to pay because you said sorry)

Integrity violation: e.g. journalist copies work of someone else --> internal attribution

Competence violation: e.g.: journalist writes with spelling mistakes and clearly done in a rush --> external attribution

Denying: not only violator but also liar, damage to reputation

Social equilibrium

Social equilibrium:dynamic working balence bwteeen its interdependent parts. If one changes, the other has to adjust to maintain equilibrium.

Situation: person loses client due to sharing information about them.

-To restore trust with company: get client back and accept demotion because overcompensation promotes trust more than exact compensation

Negotiations of trustworthiness

Bilateral Model of Trust Repair: Transgressors want to be trusted and consider themselves trustworthy. The other person does not trust the transgressor right away.

Innocent or guilty

-If guilty: situational (external) or dispositional (internal) attribution?

-If internal: fixable shortcoming or fixed shortcoming?

-Fixed shortcoming: trust is NOT repaired

Is trust always positive?

The more people trust eachother the less they monitor eachother’s behavior

Team autonomy:

 Low autonomy

Trust -------------------+--------------------------àteam performance

                        High autonomy

Trust----------------_---------------------------à team performance

The psychological side of helping:

Instrumental gain: seeking help improves your life

Psychological side: receiving help is associated with incompetence and dependency

Help seekers underestimate the likelihood of  being given help because:

-they do not take into account the social and psychological costs of refusing a request

-they overestimate the instrumental costs that help givers incur

Costs and benefits

Associated with being warm and caring, but it can simultaneously show competence

Group status and helping (Tauber & van Leeuwen, 2012):

-Low group status condition:

-High status condition:

-Help seeking condition: answer now or ask for help

-Spying condition: answer now or spy from other team

Who spied most? Members of the high status group

-you feel you have to deliver higher performance

Dependency oriented help: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day…

Autonomy oriented help: Teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime

-People who receive autonomy oriented help report more positive feelings, they feel more respected and competent

Conflict and seeking help

Options:

1 not seek help (preferred option with relationship conflict, still preferred but less strong for task conflict)

2. seek autonomy help

3. seek dependency help (least favorite option)