Potential Job Facilitation Benefits of “Water Cooler” Conversations: The Importance of Social Interactions in the Workplace

ABSTRACT

This study looked at the extent to which personality and cultural factors predicted participants’ perceptions of the importance private interactions played in the workplace. The 134 participants read a vignette (where a new employee socially interacted at low or high levels with co-workers) and completed the Big Five Inventory, Social Axioms Survey, and questions concerning expected workplace experiences. Results indicated employees who engaged in high levels of private interaction with co-workers were expected to be better liked, to receive better performance evaluations, were more likely to receive co-worker assistance, and were thought to be more likely chosen for future projects. However, the personality and social axiom variables studied did not significantly interact with social interaction to influence expectations of workplace outcomes.

Keywords:

• co-workers
• personality
• social axioms
• social interaction
• workplace

APPENDIX A

Scenario One: Please carefully read the scenario and answer the following questions.

Jamie, who has recently graduated from university, began working at Organization X three weeks ago. Due to the large size of this organization, employees primarily interact with co-workers who work in the same department. For example, other than collaborating with each other on team projects, the employees in the department where Jamie works also often engage in social interaction with each other such as sharing coffee and lunch breaks, chatting with co-workers, and participating in gatherings outside of work.

During the three weeks that Jamie has worked in Organization X, Jamie successfully completed a variety of individual assignments and participated in a team project. During the same time period, Jamie has also declined invitations to participate in social interaction with co-workers and has showed a preference for minimizing unnecessary interactions with co-workers whenever possible.

Based on this description of the time that Jamie has spent in Organization X, please answer the following questions…

Scenario Two: Please carefully read the scenario and answer the following questions.

Jamie, who has recently graduated from university, began working at Organization X three weeks ago. Due to the large size of this organization, employees primarily interact with co-workers who work in the same department. For example, other than collaborating with each other on team projects, the employees in the department where Jamie works also often engage in social interaction with each other such as sharing coffee and lunch breaks, chatting with co-workers, and participating in gatherings outside of work.

During the three weeks that Jamie has worked in Organization X, Jamie successfully completed a variety of individual assignments and participated in a team project. During the same time period, Jamie has also participated in as many social interactions with co-workers as possible. Jamie chatted with co-workers, shared coffee and lunch breaks, and attended social gatherings that were held outside of official working hours.

Based on this description of the time that Jamie has spent in Organization X, please answer the following questions…

APPENDIX B

Potential interaction effects were also analysed using multiple regression in order to determine whether the use of median splits in the GLM analyses may have resulted in misleading findings. The social interaction variable was dummy coded and used to create interaction terms with the extraversion, conscientiousness, and reward for application continuous variables. The results of the multiple regression analyses showed similar conclusions as the original GLM analyses.

More specifically, the multiple regression indicated that social interaction, reward for application, extraversion, and the interaction terms explained 32.7% of the variance in participants’ ratings for recommendations for future tasks or assignments (R² =.33, F(5,132) = 12.84, p <.001). It was found that reward for application (β = –.02, p =.84) and extraversion (β = –.04, p =.75) did not significantly predict recommendation ratings for future tasks or assignments. Similarly, the multiple regression indicated that social interaction, reward for application, conscientiousness, and the interaction terms explained 44.0% of the variance in participants’ ratings for helping behaviors (R² =.44, F(5,132) = 20.71, p <.001) but reward for application (β = –.11, p =.20) and conscientiousness (β =.00, p =.97) did not significantly predict ratings for helping behaviors.

In other words, even when extraversion, conscientiousness, and reward for application were analysed as continuous variables, the statistical results still only showed significant main effects and non-significant interaction effects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iris Y. Lin

Iris Y. Lin is working as a Research Associate on the Research and Development Team for the Performance Assessments Division of Multi-Health Systems Inc. (MHS) while completing her doctoral studies in Industrial/Organizational Psychology with the University of Windsor. Her research interests include studying the influence of culture on workplace interactions and the development of trust in business contexts.

Catherine T. Kwantes

Catherine T. Kwantes is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Windsor. Her current research interests are in the areas of social culture and work behavior, work motivation, work engagement, and organizational commitment.