Birds of a Feather Seek Help From Each Other: A Control-Motivated Account of Similarity Attraction

Abstract

Research on compensatory control theory (CCT) has found that people who lack personal control are especially likely to seek coherent and structured environments. Drawing on CCT, we propose that seeking help from coworkers who employees perceive to be more similar (vs. dissimilar) to themselves affords help-seekers a greater sense of structure and predictability. Thus, when employees’ sense of personal control is threatened, they would be more likely to seek help from similar others, and this behavioral pattern would be mediated by a higher need for structure. Given that the tendency to affiliate with similar others reduces the likelihood that employees would be exposed to diverse perspectives that are crucial for creativity, we also predicted that the increased similarity attraction (elicited by a lack of control) would be associated with reduced employee creativity. Six studies (N = 89, 273, four pre-registered), including field and experimental studies, support our predictions. Taken together, these findings have important implications for employees’ abilities to harness the power of diversity and differences at work.