Are Unselfish Employees Really Resented?
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology recently published an interesting study, The Desire to Expel Unselfish Members From the Group. It is getting picked up in the blogsphere. For example, PsychCentral writes:
“Four separate studies led by a Washington State University social psychologist have found that unselfish workers who are the first to throw their hat in the ring are also among those that coworkers most want to, in effect, vote off the island.”
Some of the motivations for wanting to expel the unselfish include the complaints that they raise the bar for everyone, make you look bad and break the social rules of the group. The research claims this is true even if the unselfish behavior is good for the group.
I agree with other commentators that this research may have important implications for management and leadership. It has distinct cognitive design implications. But we need to be careful in how we try and apply it. There could be strong psychographic or group profile effects.
It is interesting to note that study participants were introductory psychology students. I am not sure you would find the same behavior in 20-year workplace veterans with considerable career success, a small team intensely focused on a new product launch or many other types of high-performance groups. In such groups stepping up (especially to do unpopular but necessary work) would be appreciated perhaps even respected not fuel for resentment.
What do you think? Are unselfish employees really resented?
