Avoiding harm, benefits of interpersonal listening, and social equilibrium adjustment: An applied psychology approach to side effects of organizational interventions

Fostering a culture of companionate love in the workplace offers numerous benefits for employees, yet the methods for achieving this remain unclear. We propose that high-quality listening, characterized by undivided attention, understanding, and a positive and nonjudgmental intention toward the speaker, could be a key facilitator. We hypothesized that such listening could enhance employees' perceptions of companionate love. Additionally, we hypothesized that an enhanced perception of companionate love would increase employees' subjective well-being, resilience, affective commitment, and willingness to cooperate at work. To examine these hypotheses, we conducted four studies. Study 1 was a preregistered and highly-powered field study (N = 752) involving employees from various organizations. Study 2 (N = 37), was a longitudinal research that included a listening training of 16 hours for teachers in a single school. Study 3 was a quasi-field experiment within a risk-management company, with employees receiving 12 hours of listening education while a waitlist served as a control group (N = 67). Study 4 was a quasi-experiment that served as a conceptual replication and extension of Studies 2 and 3. The study involved listening training for employees in a global communications company, providing 14 hours of online listening training. An active control group (N = 60) was included. Across all studies, we found that feeling listened to by colleagues led to increased perceptions of companionate love in the organization, which, in turn, increased employees' subjective well-being, resilience, affective organizational commitment, and willingness to collaborate. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Drawing on results from 32 published and 20 unpublished laboratory and field experiments, we conducted an enumerative review of the primed goal effects on outcomes of organizational relevance including performance and the need for achievement. The enumerative review suggests that goal-setting theory is as applicable for subconscious goals as it is for consciously set goals. A meta-analysis of 23 studies revealed that priming an achievement goal, relative to a no-prime control condition, significantly improves task/job performance (d = 0.44, k = 34) and the need for achievement (d = 0.69, k = 6). Three moderators of the primed goal effects on the observed outcomes were identified: (1) context-specific vs. a general prime, (2) prime modality (i.e., visual vs. linguistic), and (3) experimental setting (i.e., field vs. laboratory). Significantly stronger primed goal effects were obtained for context-specific primes, visual stimuli, and field experiments. Theoretical and managerial implications of and future directions for goal priming are discussed.