Emotional Self-Disclosure and Workplace Loneliness: Can Encouraging Employees to Disclose Their Emotions Help to Combat the Workplace Loneliness Epidemic?

PhD Candidate Madison LaBella of the Management Department will be defending her dissertation titled, “Emotional Self-Disclosure and Workplace Loneliness: Can Encouraging Employees to Disclose Their Emotions Help to Combat the Workplace Loneliness Epidemic?”

Many thanks to Madison’s dissertation committee:

• Committee Chair: Mary Mawritz, Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Christian Resick, Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Lauren D’Innocenzo, Associate Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Liza Barnes, Assistant Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Dejun “Tony” Kong, Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder

Abstract:

As a prevalent and pernicious phenomenon, workplace loneliness affects 80% of employees surveyed across several countries (Twaronite, 2022) and causes a multitude of negative workplace outcomes (e.g., Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018). This dissertation responds to calls for identifying antecedents of and interventions for workplace loneliness (Firoz et al., 2021a; Ozcelik & Barsade, 2018) by offering a theoretical integration of the theory of the need to belong and the interpersonal process model of intimacy. To understand how, why, and when self-disclosure of emotions limits loneliness at work, the theory of the need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) points to bonds of caring with coworkers (which I capture as perceived responsiveness) as an antecedent of workplace loneliness, and the interpersonal process model of intimacy (Reis & Shaver, 1988) explains that self-disclosure of emotions can create caring bonds. Thus, I hypothesize that perceived responsiveness mediates the relationship between emotional self-disclosure and workplace loneliness. Following the interpersonal process model of intimacy, I also study the impact of interpretive filters as moderators. I hypothesize that social anxiety and perceptions of the organization’s task-focused bottom-line mentality climate will impair the beneficial effects of emotional self-disclosure due to negative cognitions about oneself and the social situation. Finally, I hypothesize that general life loneliness predicts social anxiety, which is studied as a moderator of the emotional self-disclosure process, to understand how loneliness outside of work can affect relational processes relevant to workplace loneliness. Using a sample of full-time, working adults, I found that perceived responsiveness was negatively associated with workplace loneliness, emotional self-disclosure was positively associated with perceived responsiveness, and perceived responsiveness mediated the relationship between emotional self-disclosure and workplace loneliness. Additionally, general life loneliness was positively associated with social anxiety as predicted. Although I did not find support for the moderation effects of social anxiety and task-focused bottom-line mentality climate, both variables showed direct positive associations with workplace loneliness. Finally, additional nuances regarding the valence and domain of emotional self-disclosure and the position of moderators were analyzed in post-hoc analyses and discussed. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the literature on workplace loneliness, self-disclosure at work, social anxiety at work, and bottom-line mentality climate.