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NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN ORGANIZATIONS:
THE CASE FOR NEGATIVE ASYMMETRY IN SOCIAL NETWORKS
Giuseppe Labianca
A.B. Freeman School of Business
Tulane University
New Orleans, LA 70118-5669
and
Daniel J. Brass
Department of Management & Organization
Smeal College of Business Administration
The Pennsylvania State University
403 Beam BAB
University Park, PA 16802
August 16, 1999
Revise and resubmit:
Academy of Management Review
EXPLORING THE SOCIAL LEDGER:
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS IN ORGANIZATIONS
ABSTRACT
We explore the role of negative relationships in social networks at work. Network
researchers have mainly focused on the benefits and opportunities derived from positive
relationships. We, instead, emphasize that some interpersonal relationships can be social liabilities.
We further argue that, under certain circumstances, these negative relationships will have greater
power in explaining organizational attitudes, behaviors and outcomes than will positive
relationships. This argument is rooted in theory and research on a general negative asymmetry bias.
We offer a processual description of how negative relationships occur in the workplace, and a
conceptual model to guide future research.
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“A man’s stature is determined by his enemies, not his friends.” -- Al Pacino, City Hall
People are embedded within networks of interrelationships with other people. These
networks can provide opportunities and benefits such as job attainment, job satisfaction, power, and
promotions in organizations (e.g., Brass, 1984; Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973). Although early
social exchange theorists and network researchers considered both the positive and negative aspects
of relationships (e.g. Homans, 1961; Tagiuri, 1958; Thibault & Kelley, 1959), research over the
past two decades has focused almost exclusively on the positive aspects of network relationships to
the point that social network research has become equated with research on social capital. Social
capital refers to the idea that one’s social contacts convey benefits that create opportunities for
competitive success for individuals and for the groups in which they are members (i.e., Burt, 1992,
1997; Coleman, 1988, 1990)1. The overemphasis on researching the positive aspects of networks
comes at the expense of fleshing out what we term the “social ledger” – both the potential benefits,
as well as the potential liabilities of social relationships. Just as a financial ledger records financial
assets and liabilities, the social ledger is an accounting of social assets (social capital derived from
positive relationships) and social liabilities derived from negative relationships.
To understand the complete social ledger, we address the role of negative relationships in
organizations – on-going relationships in which at least one person has a negative affective
judgment (dislike) of the other. For example, just as an employee’s friends and acquaintances may
help the employee get promoted by providing such things as critical information, mentoring, and
good references, negative relationships with others may prevent promotion if these people withhold
critical information or provide bad references. Thus, it is important to consider the negative side of
the social ledger: social liabilities as well as the frequently researched social capital.
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Social liabilities become particularly important when we consider the possibility of negative
asymmetry: negative relationships may have greater explanatory power than positive relationships
in certain circumstances. Negative stimuli have been found to have greater explanatory power than
positive or neutral stimuli in a diverse range of situations, including person perception and social
judgment (see Taylor, 1991 for a review). Extending this negative asymmetry argument to social
relationships in organizations, we propose that, under certain circumstances, negative relationships
may have a greater effect on organizational attitudes (e.g., affective attachment to the job and
organization), behaviors (e.g., withdrawal behaviors, job performance), and outcomes (e.g., job
stress, and promotion and income attainment) than positive relationships.
We begin by defining negative relationships and presenting research and theoretical
explanations for a generalized negative asymmetry in humans, and then present specific evidence of
negative asymmetry in social relationships, including those in work organizations. We then present
a model of the formation of negative relationships in the workplace. We conclude by developing a
research framework for investigating the antecedents, moderators and consequences of negative
relationships in organizations.
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
We define negative relationships as on-going relationships in which at least one person has
a negative affective judgment of another person2. We distinguish negative relationships from brief
negative encounters, cognitions, affect, or behaviors which may happen on occasion in any
relationship, even a strong, positive relationship. Although negative relationships likely involve
negative cognitions and behaviors, we focus on affect because it is a more enduring component of
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the relationship and thus better suited to describe an on-going relationship rather than just an
encounter3.
Negative relationships can characterized by at least four dimensions that may affect the
extent to which they result in liabilities for the employees and the organization. First, the
relationship’s strength refers to intensity of the negative affect (disliking). Although social network
researchers have often investigated the strength of positive relationships (e.g., strong ties are
friends, weak ties are acquaintances), we extend strength of ties to include negative relationships.
Strong disliking should exacerbate the social liabilities of negative ties. Directionality refers to
whether an individual is the object or source of negative affect, or if it is reciprocated. A negative
affective judgment does not have to be reciprocated in order for it to be a liability. For example,
even if you like a person who dislikes you, that person may make it more difficult for you to
accomplish your tasks by withholding important information, by failing to provide a reference for
you when needed, or by spreading negative gossip about you. However, we expect that a
reciprocated tie will be most disruptive. The third characteristic, awareness, refers to whether each
person knows that the other person dislikes him or her. For example, a lack of awareness that
another person dislikes you may result in little discomfort or dissatisfaction, but it may result in
high vulnerability to harmful covert actions by the other person. On the other hand, awareness may
lead to attempts to improve the relationship or, conversely, reciprocal feelings of dislike and
negative behavior toward the other person. Finally, we go beyond the dyad to add a network
characteristic – proximity. Proximity refers to whether the negative tie is direct (you are part of the
dyad with a negative relationship) or indirect (you are connected to a person who has a negative
relationship with another person). We expect that direct involvement in a negative relationship will
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result in increased social liabilities, but we do not ignore the possibility that indirect relationships
may also produce social liabilities. For example, being a friend of a person who is disliked may be
a liability because you are associated with the disliked person and treated similarly.
Throughout the paper, we assume that negative affective relationships are detrimental both
to the individuals involved in the relationships, as well as to the organization as a whole; hence the
label “social liability.” We propose that negative relationships adversely affect individual outcomes
(e.g., job satisfaction, stress, promotions, etc.), but they also adversely affect the ability of
individuals to coordinate activities and cooperate to achieve group and organizational goals. For
example, recent research has shown that affective conflict (as contrasted with task conflict) is
detrimental to the overall performance of a group (Jehn, 1995, 1997; see also Wall & Callister,
1995 for a review). Although we do not equate negative relationship with conflict, negative affect
can lead to both covert and overt behavior that is disruptive to the effective functioning of an
organization. Negative relationships are the opposite of social capital because of their potential
liabilities or hindrances to individuals and organizations4.
NEGATIVE ASYMMETRY
We focus on negative relationships not only because they have been ignored in research on
organizations, but also because negative relationships may have greater power in explaining some
attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in organizations than positive relationships. In this section, we
briefly present evidence for negative asymmetry and summarize the theoretical arguments that have
been offered to explain this phenomenon.
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Negative event asymmetry
Taylor (1991) summarizes evidence that indicates that negative events elicit greater
physiological, affective, cognitive, and behavioral activity and lead to more cognitive analysis than
neutral or positive events. For example, studies have found that subjects experience stronger
physiological arousal when presented with opinions that disagree with their own as compared to
opinions that agree or are neutral, or when they are interacting with persons they dislike as
compared to those they like or are neutral toward (e.g., Burdick & Burnes, 1958; Clore & Gormly,
1974; Dickson & McGinnies, 1966; Gormly, 1971, 1974; Steiner, 1966). Taylor (1991) also
argued that negative events are stronger determinants of mood and affect than positive events. For
example, research indicates that negative events are more strongly associated with distress and
predict depression better than do positive events (e.g., Myers, Lindenthal, Pepper, & Ostrander,
1972; Paykel, 1974; Vinokur & Selzer, 1975).
Additional research has found that negative affective states lead people to narrow and focus
their attention (e.g., Broadbent, 1971; Easterbrook, 1959; Eysenck, 1976), particularly on the
negative information that may have been seen as causing that negative affective state (Schwarz,
1990). Positive events and information do not seem to have the same effect on cognitive
processing (see Kanouse & Hanson, 1972; Peeters & Czapinski, 1990). Negative stimuli also lead
to more cognitive work and produce more complex cognitive representations than do positive
stimuli (Peeters & Czapinski, 1990). Research also has shown that people assign relatively more
importance to negative information, including social information, than to positive information
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; see Czapinski & Peeters, 1990; Peeters & Czapinski, 1990;
Skowronski & Carlston, 1989, for reviews). Likewise, studies in impression formation, person
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perception, and morality judgments have found that negative information is weighted more heavily
than positive information in social judgments (see Fiske & Taylor, 1984, 1991; Kanouse & Hanson,
1972, for reviews).
Negative asymmetry in social relationships
In addition to negative events, negative interactions have been found to have a
disproportionately greater effect on such variables as life satisfaction, mood, illness, and stress than
do positive interactions (e.g., Finch, Okun, Barrera, Zautra, & Reich, 1989; Hirsch & Rapkin, 1986;
Rook, 1984, 1990; Stephens, Kinney, Norris & Ritchie, 1987). For example, Rook (1984) found
that negative aspects of social relationships are more strongly related to psychological well-being
than are the positive aspects. In a longitudinal study of spouses caring for Alzheimer’s patients,
Pagel, Erdly, and Becker (1987) found that negative aspects of the caretaker’s network were
strongly associated with increased depression over a ten-month period. However, positive aspects
of the network were not associated with lower depression.
In a network study of social relationships at work, Burt and Knez (1995, 1996) found that if
an individual was already inclined to trust another party, positive third party gossip amplified that
trust. However, this amplification effect was much more pronounced for negative gossip than it
was for positive gossip. Labianca, Brass and Gray (1998) found that negative interpersonal
relationships between members of different organizational groups were related to perceptions of
intergroup conflict, but strong friendship ties had no relationship to perceptions of intergroup
conflict. Strong positive relationships did not dampen or counterbalance the effects of negative
relationships.
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Theoretical explanations of negative asymmetry
Why do negative events and relationships have more impact than positive events and
relationships? Evolutionary psychologists explain the negative asymmetry by noting that it is
adaptive to respond quickly to negative events in order to enhance survivability (e.g., Cannon,
1932; see LeDoux, 1996, for a more recent neurobiological perspective). Developmental
psychologists suggest that negative events are discriminated and evaluated earlier by children than
are positive events because negative events are more likely to interrupt action. Children learn the
rules governing negative behavior before those governing positive behavior and, thus, become
punishment-oriented (cf., Piaget, 1932). Nature and nurture combine to make humans risk-averse
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1984).
In seeking to theoretically explain negative asymmetry, Skowronski and Carlston (1989)
summarize a number of theories that fall into two broad categories: discrepancy and ambiguity.
Discrepancy theorists (e.g., Fiske, 1980; Helson, 1964; Jones & Davis, 1965; Jones & McGillis,
1976; Sherif & Sherif, 1967) argue that negative events dominate social judgment because of the
contrast effects with positive events that people typically experience and expect. Positive or neutral
responses are subject to strong social desirability norms. These positive expectations have been
found consistently and are referred to as “The Pollyanna Principle” (e.g., Matlin & Stang, 1978),
and they are an example of a broader positivity bias in expectations (e.g., Blanz, Mummendey, &
Otten, 1995; see Markus & Zajonc, 1985, for a discussion of positivity biases). Interactions tend to
be polite and continued interaction tends to breed friendship (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950).
People rarely intend to make enemies. Since people expect positive information, negative
information stands out against the background and is weighted more heavily in impression
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formation. Recent research (Baldwin, Bedell, & Johnson, 1997; Labianca, et al., 1998; Labianca,
1998) found that negative affective relationships are indeed rare and unexpected, involving only 17% of the possible relationships in a network. Thus, the relative rarity of negative events and
relationships may be the very force behind the greater relative impact of that negativity on
individuals.
Ambiguity theorists (e.g., Birnbaum, 1972; Skowronski & Carlston, 1989; Wyer, 1973,
1974) argue that negative information is more closely attended to because it is less ambiguous than
positive information. Because negative information cannot be discounted as a socially desirable
response, it allows people to make social judgments more easily. Several studies have shown that
negative behavioral cues are perceived as less ambiguous than positive behaviors (e.g., Birnbaum,
1972; Reeder, Henderson, & Sullivan, 1982; Reeder & Spores, 1983; Wyer, 1974).
NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK
While a great deal of research has been conducted on friendship formation, interpersonal
attraction, and the evolution of friendships (see Berscheid & Walster, 1978, and Hays, 1988 for
reviews), little has been conducted on the formation and development of negative relationships
(Wiseman & Duck, 1995). The evolution of negative relationships may be very different than
positive relationships. Friendship development is viewed as a gradual process. According to social
penetration theory (Altman & Taylor, 1973), friendship development proceeds from superficial
interaction in narrow areas of exchange to increasingly deeper interaction in broader areas.
Perceptions of the rewards and costs of interacting with a potential friend drive this progression – if
you feel that the rewards from a relationship outweigh the costs, you will continue to progress
towards closer friendship. However, Wiseman and Duck’s (1995) qualitative work on negative
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relationships indicates that negative relationship development is a much faster process that tends to
lead to the other person being included in an all-or-nothing negative category such as “enemy.” By
contrast, fine-grained ranking distinctions are created for friends as they move through a
relationship progression from casual acquaintances to close friends.
Based on the available empirical evidence and theoretical explanations for negative
asymmetry, we offer the following processual description of how negative relationships occur in the
workplace. We use the language of symbolic interactionism (e.g., Brown & Levinson, 1978;
Earley, 1997; Goffman, 1959) and combine it with research on person perception and interpersonal
expectations to describe how encounters can lead to positive and negative relationships.
When two employees interact on the job, each is projecting a public self-image (or face) to
the other. The employees are driven by two particular wants (Brown & Levinson, 1978) – the
want to be unimpeded (negative face) and the want to be approved of in certain respects (positive
face). Everyone has these wants, and every other person they interact with knows that they have
these wants. Brown and Levinson argued that it’s in everyone’s mutual interest to maintain each
other’s face. Thus, people come to expect that this equilibrium will be maintained and that their
interactions with others will likely be neutral or pleasant (Goffman, 1959).
However, there are sometimes face-threatening acts that send the system into a
disequilibrium. One employee’s opinions or actions may appear to another employee to be either
threatening his or her self-image or threatening to interrupt or block that person’s actions. The
threatened employee experiences heightened physiological arousal (e.g., Clore & Gormly, 1974),
which generates a preliminary negative affective judgment of the threatening employee. Because
this negative event is relatively rare and unexpected, the threatened employee increases his or her
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cognitive scanning of the threatening employee. Attention is narrowed to focus on the negative
information because it is viewed as unambiguous and more diagnostic in determining whether the
face-threatening act is intentional or unintentional, and therefore whether the threatening person is
someone to be disliked (e.g., Skowronski & Carlston, 1989). As Earley (1997: 70) noted: “People
are often concerned more with the avoidance of losing face than with gaining it, and a loss of
face has a stronger impact on people’s perceptions of a person.” If the threatening person
undertakes corrective actions to repair any damage to face after it has occurred (Goffman, 1959),
the incident may be ignored. The threatened party may also discount a particular negative
episode by attributing the behavior to external causes. Likewise, the threatened individual may
go out of his way to overcome the negative affect caused by any one encounter. However, if
corrective actions are not undertaken, the threatened person will create a negative affective
judgment of the threatening person, ultimately resulting in a negative relationship.
The strong physiological, affective, and cognitive response to the threatening person creates
negative expectations for their future interactions (see Fiske & Taylor, 1991, for a review). This
cognitive bias makes it more likely that future interactions will be viewed negatively, thus
confirming and maintaining the negative view or dislike (e.g., Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978). Even a
relatively neutral or potentially positive interaction may be interpreted negatively, reinforcing the
dislike judgment. In anticipation of negative actions by the threatening person, the employee may
strengthen and confirm the expectations by acting negatively toward that person, thereby eliciting
further negative actions by the other person (e.g., Curtis & Miller, 1986).
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Beyond the dyadic relationship
Dyadic encounters do not occur in isolation; they occur within a network of relationships.
For example, information about the threatening person can be transmitted to the employee via
others (third-parties). We expect that when a negative interaction occurs, the threatened employee
will perceive and even seek out more negative information about the threatening person from third
parties. This is done to confirm his or her negative expectations and to seek social support in
dealing with the threatening person. Reciprocally, third parties who know about the employee’s
dislike of the threatening person are more likely to confirm that social judgment by passing on
negative gossip about the threatening person to the employee (Burt & Knez, 1995, 1996).
Friendships grow stronger when there is an increase in the feeling that two people share a
common frame of reference (Hays, 1988). Identification of common negative feelings toward the
same person helps solidify that common frame of reference and strengthen the relationship
between those gossiping. Even in the situation where the employee does not know or directly
interact with the threatening employee, negative social judgments may occur based on negative
gossip from a third party. Information from negative gossip is more closely attended to because it
is more diagnostic than positive information in determining interpersonal judgments (e.g.,
Birnbaum, 1974; Fiske, 1980).
Once the employee has a negative affective judgment about another person, the employee
may also form negative judgments about that person’s friends. Kilduff and Krackhardt (1994)
showed that public association with a highly reputable person could enhance an individual’s
reputation (“basking in the reflected glory”). Conversely, association with a disreputable person
may lead to “guilt by association.” One possible mechanism behind such an effect is the stress
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toward balance. If you dislike another person, your judgment of that person’s friends should tend
to be negative (e.g., Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1961). Although Kilduff and Krackhardt were
studying reputation, we expect similar results in the study of interpersonal affect.
Dislike may spread to others in an organization in a manner similar to the spread of
conflict. For example, Smith (1989) found the conflict between two persons spread as each
solicited support for his or her point of view from others in the organization. Similarly, negative
dyadic relationships may become negative intergroup relationships, amplified by typical ingroup/out-group biases as more people become involved. For example, Labianca, et al. (1998)
found that negative dyadic relationships and third parties increase perceptions of intergroup
conflict. If left unchecked, the result can be two large opposing camps of employees who dislike
each other. Such a situation will likely interfere with task accomplishment and organizational
performance.
We do not mean to suggest that all negative relationships develop in the above manner or
that every negative relationship escalates into intergroup hostility. We can think of people that we
disliked at first, but who eventually developed into friends. However, the process outlined above is
not atypical of what occurs in many relationships, especially those within the workplace. The
workplace offers an environment where the degree of threat to an individual from a negative
relationship can be greater than in other settings. Negative relationships in the work setting can be
a major threat to one’s financial livelihood and emotional well-being. Unlike non-work situations,
required workflow and hierarchical responsibilities may make it particularly difficult to avoid
interacting with disliked others.
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ANTECEDENTS
In this section, we turn our focus to describing factors that affect the formation of
negative relationships in organizations. The initial formation of a friendship occurs when various
personal factors (e.g., loneliness, martial status, social skills, competence), dyadic factors
(physical attractiveness, similarity in attitudes, behavioral preferences, and/or demographics), and
situational factors (e.g., physical proximity, job and workplace design, time schedules) converge
(see Hays, 1988 for a review). Although negative relationships may involve similar factors, we
do not assume that the formation of negative relationships is merely the opposite of friendship
formation. Rather, different factors may be differentially weighted in making a negative
interpersonal judgment, as opposed to a positive one. For example, whereas physical
attractiveness may play a larger role in explaining interpersonal attraction, it may play a relatively
minor role in explaining the formation of negative relationships. Below we present some
individual (personality), dyadic (similarity in demographic characteristics and status differences,
multiplexity), and situational factors (network and organizational context) that may affect the
development of negative relationships in an organization. These factors are not meant to be
comprehensive, but are intended to illustrate how a variety of levels of analyses must be studied
in order to understand negative relationships at work.
Individual level
Personality. Although the structural perspective in most social network analyses ignores
individual characteristics, personality traits may affect the composition of one’s social network (cf.,
Kilduff, 1992). Recent theoretical work on the structure of personality has converged around a
five-factor model (Digman, 1990; John, 1989; McCrae & Costa, 1989). Of those five factors, we
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focus on negative affectivity (neuroticism) because it is the most theoretically relevant negative
affect-based personality factor.
Negative affectivity (NA) is defined as a mood-dispositional dimension that reflects
pervasive individual differences in negative emotionality and self-concept (Watson and Clark,
1984). High-NA individuals tend to be distressed, upset, have a negative view of self and are
generally dissatisfied with life, whereas Low-NA individuals are content, secure, and generally
satisfied with themselves and their lives. High-NA individuals tend to focus on the negative side of
others and the world in general.
Negative affectivity may affect attitudes and emotions (and negative relationships) in two
ways (McCrae & Costa, 1991; Brief, Butcher, & Roberson, 1995). First, because high NA
employees tend to dwell on failures and shortcomings, they “may act in ways that alienate their
co-workers, resulting in more negative interpersonal interactions,” (Brief, Butcher, and Roberson,
1995: 56). Second, high NA individuals may be more sensitive to negative stimuli, and may react
with more extreme emotion when experiencing a negative event (McCrae and Costa, 1991; Brief et
al, 1995), thus precipitating negative relationships.
Proposition 1: High NA individuals will have more negative relationships than low NA
individuals.
Dyadic level
Similarity in demographic characteristics. The effects of demographic diversity in
organizations are likely to be more intense when an attribute or social category is underrepresented
in a given group or organization (Kanter, 1977), and when those characteristics are more visible and
salient under most circumstances (e.g., Pelled, 1996; Tsui, Egan, & O’Reilly, 1992). Attributes that
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are readily visible, such as race and gender, are more likely to be used for categorization, and we
expect them to have an impact on the frequency of negative relationships.
Although negative relationships have not been addressed directly in these studies, social
network researchers have found that women and minorities have fewer work-related friendships
than white males (Lincoln & Miller, 1979), that they are forced to rely on a greater number of
different people in order to satisfy their instrumental and socioemotional needs (e.g., Ibarra, 1995),
and that they have fewer connections to those in powerful positions within the organization (Brass,
1985; McPherson & Smith-Lovin, 1987). While blatant discrimination may no longer be tolerated
in modern organizations, subtler forms of discrimination and intergroup conflict still take place
(Brief, 1998; Brief & Hayes, 1997), and may result in women and minorities having a higher
number of negative relationships in organizations.
Proposition 2: Women and minority employees will have a larger number of negative relationships
than white or male employees.
Status differences. Job-related characteristics such as organizational level may also be very
salient and are likely to be positively related to negative ties. For example, we expect that a
disproportionate number of negative ties will be from lower-level employees to higher-level
employees because the higher level employees often have the authority to thwart the lower
employees’ goals (e.g., Dollard, Miller, Doob, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939) or create some other type of
face threatening act.
Proposition 3: A disproportionate number of negative relationships will be from lower-level
employees to higher-level employees.
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Organizational and network context
Density and interdependence. In a high-density network (e.g., where most actors know and
interact with most other actors), it may be difficult for an employee to engage in self-serving, normdefying, or face-threatening behavior that might be detrimental or threatening to the other members
of the group because that person’s actions are monitored and sanctioned by the other network
members. The network’s high density allows for greater monitoring. Similarily, Coleman (1988,
1990) argued that high density networks (high “closure” networks) encourage three forms of social
capital: mutual obligations, trustworthiness, and the existence of norms and sanctions. In addition,
we suggest that networks with high task interdependence will produce similar effects. Because of
the greater potential disruptions to the network as a whole, members of highly interdependent
networks will exercise greater pressure to prevent negative relationships and to resolve them
quickly if they do occur. We, therefore, expect that density and task interdependence will be
negatively associated with the frequency of negative relationships.
Proposition 4: Negative relationships will be less frequent when the overall network is relatively
dense and there is a high level of task interdependence.
Organizational context. Other organizational-level variables may also affect the frequency
of negative relationships. For example, an organizational climate or culture that focuses on
competition rather than cooperation (either between individuals or between groups) may encourage
the formation of negative relationships, particularly between peers in competition for the same
resources. This is especially true if the reward systems are set up in a win-lose fashion, because it
will make the potential threat to one’s goals more salient to the organizational members (see
Thomas, 1992, for a discussion). Also, cultures that are stability and direction-oriented, such as
19
mission and consistency cultures (Denison & Mishra, 1995), may produce fewer negative
relationships because of greater normative integration.
The lack of strong, positive ties across departments may exacerbate ingroup/outgroup biases
that may encourage the formation of negative relationships at the dyadic level. For example,
Nelson (1989) found that high-conflict organizations had fewer cross-departmental friendships.
The combination of these two factors – an organizational culture or climate that promotes
competition and the lack of strong, positive ties across groups – may lead to a high frequency of
negative relationships.
Proposition 5: Negative relationships will be more frequent where the organizational culture
encourages competition between individuals or groups and when there are few strong,
positive intergroup relationships.
CONSEQUENCES OF NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIPS
In this section we consider the consequences of negative relationships by illustrating how
the negative asymmetry hypothesis can be applied to commonly studied work attitudes (job
satisfaction and organizational commitment), behaviors (absenteeism and turnover), and workplace
outcomes (stress, power, and promotion and income attainment). We argue that negative
relationships will be more strongly related to these attitudes, behaviors and outcomes than will
positive relationships. In the next section, we will qualify this general negative asymmetry
argument by looking at moderating variables that might determine when the negative asymmetry
between workplace relationships and these workplace attitudes, behaviors and outcomes is likely to
occur.
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Job attitudes
Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is one of the most-researched attitudes in organizations
(Brief, 1998) and is considered a main attitudinal component of organizational attachment (Lee &
Mitchell, 1994). The quality of one’s interpersonal relationships at work is an important factor in
job satisfaction (e.g., Crosby, 1982) and is considered one of the basic needs that is fulfilled through
work (e.g., Maslow, 1943). Self-report assessments of job satisfaction such as the Job Descriptive
Index (Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969) ask respondents to assess their overall satisfaction with their
social relationships (e.g., co-workers and supervisors) often without separating out the effects of
negative and positive relationships on this evaluation. This approach may obscure a finer-grained
understanding of the relationship between social relationships and job satisfaction. Negative
relationships may have a disproportionately greater effect on job satisfaction than do positive
relationships in much the same way that they’ve been found to have a greater effect on overall life
satisfaction (e.g., Rook, 1984; Brenner, Norvell, & Limacher, 1989). Particularly in the workplace,
where interactions often cannot be avoided and where the stakes can be very high, negative
relationships can be so threatening, create so much physiological and cognitive activity, and can be
so stressful (Taylor, 1991), that they may have a more profound effect on job satisfaction than
positive relationships.
The failure to investigate negative relationships in addition to positive or neutral
relationships may explain the equivocal findings of social network researchers who have attempted
to relate one’s network position in an organization with job satisfaction. Early laboratory studies of
small groups found that central actors were more satisfied than peripheral actors (see Shaw, 1964,
for a review). However, Brass (1981) found no relationship between being central to an
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organization’s workflow network and job satisfaction, and Kilduff and Krackhardt (1993) found
that high betweenness centrality in a friendship network was negatively related to job satisfaction.
Investigating negative relationships in addition to positive relationships might help to resolve these
equivocal findings. For example, if being highly central in a network also increases the number of
negative affective relationships an employee accumulates, including negative relationships may
explain some of the inconsistent findings, particularly if negative asymmetry holds true.
Proposition 6: An employee’s negative ties will be more strongly related to job satisfaction than
that employee’s positive relationships.
Organizational commitment. Organizational commitment refers to employees’
internalization of the company’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on
behalf of the firm, and a desire to remain a member, and has often been conceptualized as having
three components: affective, continuance, and normative commitment (see Mathieu & Zajac, 1990,
for a review; Meyer & Allen, 1984; Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982; Mowday, Steers & Porter,
1979). Social relationships are considered most strongly related to affective (or “cohesion”)
commitment (e.g., Kanter, 1968).
We propose that constructs as diffuse as the company’s goals and values are embedded in
the actions of its members (Schneider, 1983, 1987), and one’s relationships with those members
will affect one’s acceptance of those goals and values. This follows from Reichers’ (1985)
conceptualization of organizational commitment as commitment to the multiple constituencies
(e.g., co-workers, top managers) that constitute the organization in the employee’s mind. Thus, for
example, researchers have found that new members join religious groups because of positive ties
with current members, and then adopt the goals and values of that group, rather than vice versa
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(e.g., Williams, 1994). Yoon, Baker, and Ko (1994) found that interpersonal attachment to those in
different hierarchical levels is positively related to organizational commitment. While little social
network research has looked at organizational commitment, Roberts and O’Reilly (1979) found that
persons who were relatively isolated in the organization’s communication network were less
committed than those with two or more links.
Similarly, the development of negative relationships with others in the organization,
particularly those above them in the hierarchy, may reduce the employee’s desire to remain a
member and exert considerable effort on behalf of the firm. Because those in higher levels of an
organization may be viewed as exemplars of what the organization values (Schneider, 1983, 1987),
a disliked person in a high level position may be reason to reject the company’s goals and values.
The disliked high level employee may be viewed as a symbol of what the organization and its
members value, or his or her promotion may be viewed as an unfair distributive outcome, thereby
decreasing employees’ commitment to the organization (cf., Mansour-Cole & Scott, 1998).
Because these negative actions and outcomes will tend to dominate what employees perceive and
think about (Taylor, 1991), and what they gossip about with others (Burt & Knez, 1995, 1996), we
expect that a negative asymmetry will apply to organizational commitment5.
Proposition 7: An employee’s negative relationships (especially with hierarchical superiors) will
be more strongly related to affective organizational commitment than an employee’s
positive relationships.
Job-related behaviors
Social psychological research has generally established that there is a weak relationship
between attitudes and their subsequent behaviors (see Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, for a review).
23
However, various attitude qualities, such as attitude strength, certainty, clarity and extremity, as
well as the degree of threat to the individual’s outcomes and self-interest have been show to
increase the magnitude of the attitude-behavior relationship significantly (Boninger, Krosnick, &
Berent, 1995; Petty & Krosnick, 1993; Raden, 1985). Thus, we expect that negative interpersonal
attitudes and relationships, because they are more extreme, unambiguous, and threatening to the
individual, will be more strongly related to job behaviors than positive ones. In the extreme case,
negative affect may result in physical harm. However, we focus on more typical behaviors, such as
turnover and absenteeism because they are considered the behavioral manifestations of affective
organizational attachment (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) (Lee & Mitchell,
1994).
According to the Mobley framework, job satisfaction and the probability of finding
acceptable job alternatives lead to thoughts of quitting, which in turn lead to the intention to search
for a new job and then the intention to quit (Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979; Mobley,
Horner, & Hollingsworth, 1978; Hom, Caranikas-Walder, Prussia, & Griffeth, 1992). Ultimately,
this leads to the employee’s volitional departure from the organization. We argue that negative
relationships lead to job dissatisfaction, which in turn leads to withdrawal cognitions, and
eventually to turnover and absenteeism. Negative relationships with those higher in the hierarchy
may be more likely to lead to job dissatisfaction and withdrawal, and will be more difficult to
resolve because of status differences. The negative job attitudes generated by negative relationships
will be stronger than the counterbalancing positive job attitudes generated by positive relationships.
Ultimately, we expect to see a stronger attitude-behavior relationship where negative ties are
24
present, resulting in greater explanation of turnover and absenteeism than we would see from only
studying positive relationships.
Proposition 8: An employee’s negative relationships (especially with hierarchical superiors) will
be more strongly related to turnover and absenteeism than that employee’s positive
relationships.
Career and job consequences
In this section, we turn to a discussion of the consequences of negative ties for individuals.
We illustrate how the negative asymmetry hypothesis can be applied at the physiological and
cognitive level (e.g, stress), at the individual level (e.g, performance, promotion and income
attainment), and at the relational level (e.g., power).
Stress. Negative social relationships in organizations can be considered chronic strains
because of their recurring nature. Because the organizations’ hierarchy and workflow requirements
often make it difficult to minimize these relationships, they place persistent demands on an
individual to readjust behavior patterns and to deal with the associated emotional arousal, i.e., they
create a great deal of stress (Holmes & Rahe, 1967; Thoits, 1995). Many of the physiological
reactions to negative relationships are similar to those typically classified as stress (Taylor, 1991).
While social support researchers have found that, in general, positive social relationships reduce
stress (see Thoits, 1995, for a review), there has been little research on the nature of one’s network
at work and work-related stress. Although we expect that large networks full of friends may be
beneficial in avoiding or reducing stress (cf., Lin & Westcott, 1991), we propose that the number of
negative relationships one has within the organization will be positively related to both
25
physiological and cognitive manifestations of stress. Based on the negative asymmetry argument
we propose the following:
Proposition 9: An employee’s negative ties will be more strongly related to workplace stress than
the employee’s positive relationships.
Performance, Promotion and Income Attainment. Numerous sociological studies have
noted the importance of social resources in job seeking and status and income attainment in one’s
career (Boxman, DeGraaf, & Flap, 1991; Bridges & Villemez, 1986; Campbell, Marsden &
Hurlbert, 1988; DeGraaf & Flap, 1988; Granovetter, 1973, 1974; Lin & Dumin, 1986; Lin, Ensel,
& Vaughn, 1981; Lin, Vaughn, & Ensel, 1981; Marsden & Hurlbert, 1988; Requena, 1991;
Wegener, 1991). Despite some contradictory findings, overall it appears that high-prestige persons
gain benefits from both close, frequent, emotionally-involving relationships (strong ties) as well as
weaker, more transient and less emotionally-involving relationships (weak ties), but low-prestige
persons gain benefits mainly from weak ties.
This research has only considered strong and weak positive relationships, which are
assumed to provide critical information, mentorship, and good references that both enhance
performance and eventually lead to promotion. However, one’s negative relationships within the
organization may be a stronger predictor of one’s performance and eventual promotion, particularly
if those negative relationships are with influential people. The people may withhold critical
information or resources that worsens one’s performance in the short-term and may prevent
promotion in the long-term. Negative relationships, particularly those with your supervisor (the
rater) or with a close friend of the supervisor, will most likely affect subjective performance ratings
26
most directly. But we also expect that negative relationships, including those outside your
department or with peers, will negatively affect objective performance as well.
Proposition 10: An employee’s negative ties will be more strongly related to performance,
promotion, and income attainment than an employee’s positive relationships.
Power. Power is often conceived of as the ability of a person to overcome social resistance
to achieve a desired result (e.g., House, 1988; Pfeffer, 1981). Social network researchers have found
that centrality in friendship and communication networks is related to power in organizations (see
Brass, 1995, for a review). Connections to friends and indirect connections to friends of friends is
related to one’s power because of the possible assistance and information that these connections
may provide. However, it is likely that one’s enemies and friends of those enemies may also
determine the amount of power one holds in an organization. Enemies might actively attempt to
thwart one’s efforts in the organization, or withhold important information in the hope of
diminishing one’s power. This is especially true if the negative tie is to a hierarchical superior who
has more power to potentially thwart an employee and actively keep an employee out of an
important information “loop” because of a negative affective relationship.
Proposition 10: An employee’s negative ties (especially to hierarchical superiors) will be more
strongly related to power than that employee’s positive relationships.
MODERATORS
In this section, we develop a contingency argument that recognizes that there will be
circumstances where positive relationships may have a greater impact than negative relationships,
and vice versa. This section focuses on situational (network-level variables) and dyadic
27
(demographics and relative hierarchical status) factors that may affect the impact of negative
relationships in networks.
Network moderators
We argued that when the overall network is relatively dense and there is a high level of
task interdependence, there are likely to be fewer negative relationships because it is easier to
monitor and sanction someone who is breaking norms or acting in a threatening manner. But this
same situation can magnify the effects of negative relationships if the social pressures against the
negative tie break down. If a negative affective relationship develops between two employees in a
dense network, several third parties may be quickly drawn into the negative experience and
conflicting sub-groups may form (Smith, 1989). Thus, the reverberations from the negative
relationship will be felt through a dense network more quickly and to a greater degree than a sparse
network with fewer connections.
By contrast, where these conditions do not exist, negative relationships may have little
impact. For example, the literature on job seeking has focused exclusively on positive and neutral
relationships and their utility in obtaining a job (e.g., Granovetter, 1973; Lin & Dumin, 1986).
Because most of the job hunting studied by researchers occurs in relatively sparse networks,
negative relationships developed in one organization will often have little impact on being hired by
another organization. This is an example of a research arena where we expect negative ties to play
only a minor role.
Proposition 12: Negative relationships will have a greater negative impact when the overall
network is relatively dense and/or there is a high level of task interdependence.
28
Dyadic moderators
Demographics and career and socioemotional outcomes. Researchers have increasingly
noted that women’s and minorities’ formal and informal networks in the workplace are related to
differential career and socioemotional outcomes (e.g., Brass, 1985; Burt, 1992; Ibarra, 1993;
Jackson, Stone, & Alvarez, 1993). For example, Burt (1992) found that white males were
promoted more rapidly when their networks contained bridging ties to diverse groups in the
organization. However, females were promoted more rapidly when their networks contained strong
ties to influential others, typical of mentor relationships. In another example, the tendency for
people to have relationships with similar others (homophily) has been found to have detrimental
effects on women’s promotions because of a lack of connections to influential members of the
organization, who generally tend to be male (Brass, 1985).
Negative relationships may also have a differential impact on females or racial minorities.
For example, Kanter (1977) argued that any negative information about minorities is weighted
more heavily against them because it is seen as confirming pre-existing negative stereotypes. In the
same manner, we expect that negative relationships and negative gossip will be more detrimental to
women and minorities than to white males in terms of performance appraisal and eventual
promotion.
Proposition 13: Negative relationships will have a greater negative impact on women and
minorities than on males and whites.
Relative status. We propose that the relative hierarchical position of those to whom one is
negatively tied will moderate the relationship between negative ties and the dependent variables.
We have noted several examples in the previous hypotheses. We expect that negative relationships
29
with those higher in the hierarchy will intensify stress, job dissatisfaction, lack of organizational
commitment, turnover, and absence. For example, supervisor support has been found to be more
strongly associated with job satisfaction than has coworker support (e.g., Repetti & Cosmas, 1991).
Likewise, contacts with supervisors have been found to be a major determinant of power and
promotion in organizations (Brass, 1984). Higher-level individuals have more power to potentially
thwart a promotion or substantially reduce an individual’s influence in the organization. We also
expect that the previously proposed indirect effects may be more predictive when they involve
high-status positions. For example, career success may be hampered when your immediate
supervisor has a negative relationship with a higher-level manager. Outside of the formal
hierarchy, people might find that direct and indirect negative ties with individuals who are in
central positions in the informal social hierarchy to be a major threat, because these individuals
could potentially mobilize greater social resources against a person they dislike.
Proposition 14: The relative formal and informal status of those to whom one is negatively tied will
moderate the relationship between negative ties and their consequences.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Although our hypotheses refer to the number of negative relationships in one’s network, this
may not be as important as the presence or absence of a single negative relationship. In other
words, negative relationships may exhibit a category boundary effect. Range theories predict that
one piece of information biases impression formation, but additional pieces of negative information
may have no additive effect (Birnbaum, 1972; Wyer, 1973, 1974). For example, the major
negative effect on job satisfaction may be determined by whether a single negative relationship is
present at work, rather the total number of negative relationships. Brenner, et al.’s (1989) study of
30
supportive and problematic interactions among second-year medical students found that the
presence of at least one individual who consistently provoked negative feelings among the
respondents was most predictive of lower life satisfaction. It is also possible that the total number
of negative relationships may not be as important as the ratio of negative relationships to the
overall size of one’s network. This ratio type variable may be more predictive of outcomes if
positive relationships are able to counteract the effects of a negative relationship.
In addition, it is important to note that measuring negative relationships in work
organizations may be difficult. As noted by White: “Managers in [Company A] were loath
explicitly to indicate various kinds of clearly negative feelings for a colleague (1961: 194).” This
reticence has led some researchers to ask about negative relationships using related terminology
like “who do you prefer to avoid” (e.g., Labianca, et al, 1998) or “with whom do you have an
adversarial or difficult” relationship (e.g., Baldwin, et al, 1997). But the validity of these
measures is open to interpretation. For example, you may prefer to avoid co-workers that you
like because you can’t get any work done they are present. We urge the use of measures with
greater face validity.
Measuring negative relationships also requires attention to prior debates on continuum
(bipolar) and bivariate (orthogonal) approaches to measuring positive and negative attitudes and
emotions (see Barrett & Russell, 1998; Cacioppo, Gardner, & Bernston, 1997, for a discussion).
Underlying the orthogonal approach is the assumption that every relationship contains both
positive and negative aspects, that these aspects are independent, and should therefore be
measured independently (e.g., Rook, 1984). The continuum approach (e.g., Berscheid &
Walster, 1969; Newcomb, 1961; Tagiuri, 1958) acknowledges that all personal relationships
31
have both positive and negative aspects, but adds the assumption that people form a global
bipolar judgment of others that can be captured by such terms as “like” and “dislike” that are on
opposite ends of a continuum. The most recent work on attitudes and emotions (Barrett &
Russell, 1998; Cacioppo, et al., 1997) has sought to create a rapprochement between the two
sides by recognizing that there are aspects of affect that should be conceptualized and measured
in an orthogonal fashion, while there are other aspects that are on a continuum. When one is
describing the underlying physical and motivational “paths” of affect, an orthogonal (bivariate)
approach is more appropriate. Thus, we expect that negative aspects of persons we meet will be
captured differently in our minds than positive aspects of persons. But when it comes to
conceptually organizing our thoughts about a person, we tend to default towards a continuum
(bipolar) approach. Thus, dichotomies such as “like” and “dislike” are meaningful and
appropriate. This continuum/orthogonal debate is an area that needs more research, specifically
as it relates to interpersonal affect and judgments in organizations.
It is also likely that the history of the relationship will affect the impact of negative ties.
For example, there may be a “spurned lover” effect – that is, a relationship where one person
really wanted to forge a friendship but was spurned by the other may create a highly negative
relationship with a great deal of social liability. Another possibility may come from investigating
relationships that were previously positive, but that have subsequently turned negative. Positive
relationships often involve a great degree of trust and vulnerability which, when violated, may
create an extremely negative affective response (cf., Jones & Burdette, 1994; Mayer, Davis, &
Schoorman, 1995).
32
CONCLUSIONS
This paper attempts to move beyond the exclusive consideration of positive relationships to
a more general consideration of individuals’ social ledgers -- the effects of both positive and
negative affective relationships in organizations. The relative lack of research on negative
relationships leaves a great deal of work to be done in this area. To date, the practical implications
of social network research on individuals’ career management have focused only on positive or
neutral ties in building larger and more diverse networks (e.g., Baker, 1994). For example, Burt
(1992) argued that persons who were able to bridge diverse groups that had little or no
interaction would gain large benefits by virtue of their ability to bring information from one
group to the other. These persons can act as entrepreneurs, exploiting what he labeled “structural
holes” and bringing together disparate information from the two groups to create a new synergy.
The structural holes argument is limited to thinking about holes in a structure arising from the
lack of connections between two groups. By expanding the social ledger we consider the
possibility of structural holes that arise due to negative ties between members of two groups -ties that limit the interaction and information flow between the groups. Individuals attempting to
broker this negative-tie structural hole may find more conflict than synergy; mediation skills may
be more useful than brokering or entrepreneurial skills. Awareness of negative relationships
between individuals or groups may also prove to be a source of power in organizations, just as
awareness of positive relationships has been found to be related to power (Krackhardt, 1990).
Knowing one’s enemies may be as important, or more important, than knowing one’s friends.
Although we have emphasized the role of negative relationships, we do not mean to imply
that positive relationships are not beneficial or important. Indeed, much of social network research
33
suggests that they are important. However, our review of theory and research suggests that negative
relationships may be more important than positive relationships in explaining various outcomes of
interest to organizational researchers, especially in dense social structures with high work
interdependence -- conditions that characterize many organizations.
34
ENDNOTES
1. Social capital is a broad, multi-level term. It has been described as an attribute of nations and
geographic regions (Fukuyama, 1995), communities (Putnam, 1995), and organizations (Leana
& Buren, 1999). Our definition focuses on individuals’ positions within a social network and
their potential ability to improve their own outcomes, as well as those of their group, because of
their social contacts (Burt, 1992, 1997; Coleman, 1988, 1990).
2. Social exchange theorists (e.g., Emerson, 1972) define negative ties differently. They view a
negative tie from a resource dependence perspective -- if you occupy a position that person B
can easily bypass to get a needed resource, then you have a negative tie with person B. Our
definition of negative ties, however, is an affective judgment of another person, without regard
to the relative dependence of that person on you for resources.
3. Attitudes towards others have historically been a broad construct used to denote cognitive,
affective, and behavioral aspects of a relationship (Staw & Barsade, 1993). Using this
definition, one’s attitudes toward his or her co-workers could include a set of beliefs about
them, affective reactions to them, and behavioral intentions towards them. However, it is
difficult to know where the attitudinal construct leaves off and behavior begins (Staw &
Barsade, 1993). As a result, many researchers have followed Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975)
recommendation that cognition, affect, and behavior be separated as much as possible and
that attitudes primarily reflect the affective component of the person-object relationship.
Thus, we focus on affect in our definition of a negative relationship.
4. Other researchers have described the “dark side” of social capital as opportunity costs (e.g.,
Gargiulo & Benassi, 1999; Leana & Van Buren, 1999). It is important to note that we focus on
35
the social liabilities created by negative relationships rather than the opportunity costs of
building positive relationships or social capital. As Granovetter (1985) noted, the obligations
and expectations of strong, positive, long-lasting relationships may prevent a person from
realizing greater economic opportunities by constraining the search for, and development of
new trading partners. Thus, there may be “opportunity costs” and tradeoffs associated with
building positive relationships and social capital. We have chosen to focus on recurring
negative affective relationships. These do not represent lost opportunities, or the indirect cost of
accruing social capital by having some positive relationships rather than other positive
relationships, or pursuing weak ties rather than strong ties. Rather, they are the potential
liabilities or hindrances that result from negative relationships.
5. Because continuance commitment is mainly an evaluative judgment of whether the employee
has enough “side bets” in place outside the organization in order to risk leaving the
organization, we do not expect to see a negative asymmetry effect on continuance commitment
that is based on social relationships within the organization. However, if research is being
conducted on a small community (e.g., a small professional community of researchers), it may
be possible that a negative asymmetry may exist with continuance commitment as well. If a
researcher has a number of negative ties in the small community, this may limit his or her side
bets in that community.
36
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