| 其他摘要 | In high-risk organizations, due to the more frequent interactions between frontline supervisors and employees, and the greater freedom of the supervisor in their interactional process, unfair treatment of subordinates by supervisors is widespread in organizations. Interactional injustice not only impacts employees’ health and general performance, but also increases risks of organizational safety. So far, the research on interactional injustice and safety performance is still in its infancy. To our knowledge, most of the research focused on the correlation between interactional injustice and safety performance, as well as its psychological mechanism. It is believed that interactional injustice would damage the social exchange relationship between supervisors and subordinates, reduce subordinates' identity towards supervisors, and result in negative emotions of subordinates. We proposes that, as a social threatening stressor, interactional injustice not only causes negative psychological states such as negative attitudes and emotions of employees, but also inevitably triggers spontaneous changes in the function of the autonomic nervous system(ANS), and the vagus nerve activity changes of ANS is an important psychophysiological self-regulation mechanism in coping with social threatening stressors.
Research showed that safety performance highly depends on self-regulatory processes of employees. Therefore, impaired vagus nerve function, that is, reduced vagal tone due to unfair treatment from supervisors, would impair employees' self-regulatory capacity, and in turn, decrease employees' safety performance. In order to reveal the neurophysiological mechanism behind the reduction of safety performance caused by interactional injustice, this study introduces the vagal tone, which is the strength of the vagus nerve. Drawing from the main theories of the vagus nerve in coping with environmental changes and behavioral regulation, named the polyvagal theory and neurovisceral integration model, we revealed that how individuals transfer their behavioral patterns via activation and inactivation of the vagus nerve in changing environment from the perspective of psychophysiological self-regulation. When treated fairly, the vagus nerve and its social engagement system are activated, promoting individual's self-regulatory behaviors. However, when treated unfairly, their vagal tone decreased, transfer their behavioral pattern to "fight or flight" system, which would weaken psychophysiological self-regulation and reduce safety performance.
Current study expected that the reduction of vagal tone induced by interactional injustice was the psychophysiological mechanism that leads to the reduced safety performance. As a kind of environmental safety cue and resource, safety climate could alleviate the negative effects of impaired vagus nerve caused by interactional injustice on safety performance. In addition, there exists short-term dynamic fluctuations in interactional injustice, bringing about individual differences in the variability or stability of unfair treatment. Vagus nerve activity also exists dynamic changes at the day level and changes over time during the working period, which may dynamically influence daily safety performance. To test the research model, we conducted three studies to explore the psychophysiological self-regulation mechanism underlying the relationship among interactional injustice, vagal tone and safety performance, its boundary condition, as well as their dynamic fluctuations and variability at the person level, day level, and hour level, respectively.
Study 1 was an experimental design, with manipulation of interactional injustice and safety climate. Results provided strong evidence on causal effect of interactional injustice on safety performance. The mediating effect of vagal tone still exists when controlling possible mediation mechanisms. In addition, this detrimental effect was weaker when safety climate is high compared to low safety climate condition.
Study 2a was a cross-sectional design, combining questionnaires and physiological measurements, in order to further verify the mediating role of vagal tone and the moderating effect of safety climate in real organizational context. Results verified the psychophysiological self-regulation mechanism of vagal tone and the boundary condition of safety climate when controlling possible psychological mechanisms. Study 2b was a three-stage field study, we found the lagged effect of interactional injustice on vagal tone across time among frontline employees, as well as its impact on safety performance rated by employees’ direct supervisor. Safety climate could also buffer such effects.
Current study makes several contributions. From the perspective of vagal tone and psychophysiological self-regulation, we describe a novel psychophysiological mechanism responsible for negative effects of interactional injustice on safety performance. After controlling possible psychological mechanisms, we verified the regulatory mechanism of vagus nerve in both laboratory and real organizational contexts. This is conductive to understand the psychophysiological mechanism of reduced safety performance due to interactional injustice. Furthermore, we explored the possible dynamic relationship among organizational contexts, the psychophysiological states and organizational behaviors. This study contributes to practice in several ways. We suggest that front-line supervisors show respect, politeness, and propriety, as well as provide timely and accurate information to workers, maximizing their safety performance in workplace. It is also suggested that supervisors treat employees consistently in order to reduce the uncertainty of employees and subsequent negative effects. In addition, HRV could be used to monitor ANS changes for the assessment, early warning, improvement of organizational safety, as well as personnel selection and training. |
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