To Work Happily or Unhappily? Be Mindful of Negative Work Relationships.
By Dr Liu-Qin Yang, Assistant Professor Portland State University Presented at NTU on 24 October 2014.
Three learning points
Interactional injustice leads to increase in cortisol levels, which can impact cognitive processing, which increases deviant behaviour and risk-taking behaviour. This happens because the increase in cortisol reduces the resources to regulating behaviour, which leads to lack of resources to control impulses.
Previous research has shown that the emotional route is separate from physiological route.
Procedural injustice leads to chronic increase in cortisol, which affects how quickly the cortisol levels resumes to normal level. This leads to withdrawal, avoidance-related behaviours. On the other hand, distributive and interactional justice often leads to acute increase in cortisol, which increases approach-related behaviour.
After-thought
What can managers do to reduce interactional injustice in a company (especially those done by middle level managers), as well as help employees resume normal cortisol levels?