I get by with a little help from my friends: the influence of coworker trust on employee level outcomes
Open Access
- Author:
- Deckert, Paige Janelle
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 13, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Rick R Jacobs, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Rick R Jacobs, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James Marshall Lebreton, Committee Member
Samuel Todd Hunter, Committee Member
Lance Ferris, Outside Member - Keywords:
- trust
coworker trust
supervisor trust
attachment style
hostile attribution bias
job satisfaction
organizational citizenship behavior
social support - Abstract:
- Although the topic of trust has received attention across a variety of disciplines, it has been somewhat narrow in its focus on hierarchical relationships between the individual and their supervisor, or the degree of trust employees have in the upper management of the organization. This study expands the trust literature by examining what dispositional characteristics predict coworker and supervisor trust, and how coworker and supervisor trust influence employee level outcomes. It also expands our understanding of coworker trust by differentiating between targets: trust in coworkers overall, least trusted coworker, and most trusted coworker. Results from the study indicate that the tendency to attribute ambiguous behavior to a hostile intention does predict trust in others, and propensity to trust others was only moderately related to trust in the workplace; displaying anxious or avoidant attachment was a significant predictor of coworker trust across all three measurement methods. Avoidant attachment is the only variable that was a significant predictor of supervisor trust. This shows some indication that parts of our personality may differentially predict how we trust people in different roles. Looking at the employee level outcomes, there were mixed results. While coworker trust significantly predicted perceived social support, supervisor trust does not. Further, perceived social support was not related to stress. Individuals who trust their coworkers or supervisor were more likely to perform organizational citizenship behaviors and experience higher job satisfaction. Neither coworker nor supervisor trust predict employee stress, though this is likely due to a mismatch in specificity of scales. Research and practical implications are discussed.