The causes and consequences of thinking there ’s an office conspiracy

By Alex Fradera We’re all familiar with gossip in the workplace, both the benign variety – did you know Tom is applying for X-Factor? – as well as more serious talk concerned with perceived injustices, such as the real reason for that recent promotion. When such speculations insinuate a group working together to achieve secret ends, we’re into the realm of conspiracy theory. New research in the British Journal of Psychology suggests that conspiracy theories about the workplace are a thermometer for an employee’s broader feelings about the organisation … including his or her ultimate commitment to it. It’s already known from past research that people with a conspiratorial mindset can pose problems for organisations because they tend to distrust authority and have a Machiavellian mindset. Building on this, Karen Douglas of the University of Kent and Ana Leite of the University of Roehampton wanted to know if belief specifically in workplace conspiracies has its own unique influence. They asked 209 working adults recruited online to report how wedded they were to their current organisation, and to rate their conspiracy beliefs: in general conspiracies such as September 11 being an inside job, and in what really goes on in their organisation, rating their agreement with items such as “a small group of people secretly manipulates events”. Just as prior work has found, participants with a generally conspiratorial mindset were more likely to intend leaving...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Occupational Teams Source Type: blogs