Workplace Relationships, Stress, and Verbal Rumination in Organizations

ABSTRACT

Marked by repetitive and negatively valenced disclosures, verbal rumination is a common strategy used to cope with challenges or manage complex situations that often have detrimental consequences for individuals and the organizations to which they belong. To investigate factors that might encourage or inhibit verbal rumination in organizations, the present study examined the quality of coworker and supervisor communication and perceived stress in workplace settings. Results revealed the interconnected nature of workplace relationships in terms of encouraging or inhibiting verbal rumination. These findings also emphasized the importance of relationships with supervisors as a deterrent to verbal rumination and reinforced the strong connection between stress and rumination, offering important implications for theoretical work related to interpersonal communication in organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Verbal rumination
• leader-member exchanges
• coworker exchanges
• perceived stress