Why Don't I Help You? The Relationship between Role Stressors and Helping Behavior from a Cognitive Dissonance Perspective.

Li Zhang,Lu Han,Ying Xia,Baowei Liu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02220

Abstract

This paper proposes that role stressors decrease helping behavior by undermining employees’ normative commitment from a cognitive dissonance perspective and social exchange theory. We also propose two competitive assumptions of the moderating effect of perceived organizational support (POS). In this paper, we first examine these hypotheses in Study 1 and then verify the cognitive dissonance perspective in Study 2. In Study 1, we collected data from 350 employees of two enterprises in China. The results indicated that role stressors had a negative link with helping behavior via the mediating role of normative commitment. The results also showed that POS strengthened the negative relationship between role stressors and normative commitment. In Study 2, we invited 104 employees to participate in a scenario experiment. The results found that role stressors had an impact on normative commitment via dissonance. Our studies verified the combination of cognitive dissonance perspective and social exchange theory to explain the impact of role stressors on helping behavior.

Highlights

The association between role stressors and employees’ performance has been demonstrated in numerous studies over the past 40 years (Jackson and Schuler, 1985)
We propose the following: Hypothesis 4a: perceived organizational support (POS) moderates the relationship between role ambiguity and normative commitment, such that the negative relationship is weaker when employees are higher in POS
Consistent with our arguments, role ambiguity was negatively associated with normative commitment (r = −0.51, p < 0.01) and helping behavior (r = −0.40, p < 0.01); role conflict was negatively associated with normative commitment (r = −0.14, p < 0.01) and helping behavior (r = −0.01, p > 0.1); normative commitment was positively associated with helping behavior (r = 0.63, p < 0.01)

Summary

Introduction

The association between role stressors and employees’ performance has been demonstrated in numerous studies over the past 40 years (Jackson and Schuler, 1985). More and more researchers have investigated its influence on extra-role performance such as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Eatough et al, 2011). Owning to its discretionary nature, OCB is suspected to be more greatly affected by role stressors than in-role behaviors. Following this logic, the present study focuses on helping behavior, defined as “actions that one person takes to assist colleagues or benefit the organization as a whole” From an emotional perspective, Jackson and Schuler (1985) find that role stressors give rise to experiences of negative emotions such as anxiety and

Methods

Results

Conclusion