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Research Topic - The Industrial and Organizational doctoral study aligns workplace psychology with the topic focus of communication strategies for reversing negativity bias in the workplace (Kaplan et al., 2018).

Communication is a leadership challenge. Lack of effective communication during critical organizational changes results in a negative, destructive, or toxic workplace culture. Open communication creates a workflow that leads to decision-making confidence, increased productivity, higher employee engagement, less turnover, higher job satisfaction, and a less toxic culture (Kodish, 2017). The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported turnover and toxic workplace culture cost U.S. employers $223 billion in five years. (Alonso, 2019). The broader study conducted by SHRM, Society of Human Resource Management, concludes 58% of employees leave their job because of poor people management. 

Interest in the Research

Research Theory and Design

The dissertation topic for the proposed qualitative study is an examination of leaders' descriptions of implementing communication strategies to reverse negativity bias in front-line workers. Literary sources reveal negativity bias and its impact on leaders, employees, and workplace culture (Kodish, 2017; Landolfi et al., 2021; Scharp et al., 2021). Research further aligns by identifying and defining how communication strategies are scaled throughout organizations to understand to impact of negativity bias in the workplace (Corns, 2018; Ruben & Gigliotti, 2021).

Perceptions and communication as an action have a particular phenomenology. Negativity bias theory has its roots in prospect theory focusing on a negative-positive asymmetry. Unlike positivity bias, popularized as a Pollyanna principle, negativity bias recognizes a range of domains: potency, steepness, dominance, and differentiation. Perceptive stimuli influence negative stressors through physiological arousal by force based on the dominance of negative and positive events (Rozin et al., 2001). They understand how the theories of Vygotsky and Bandura influence perception.

Vygotsky's seminal social learning theory integrates development, language, and perception (Vygotskiĭ & Cole, 1978). Similarly, Bandura suggests that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating. The Social Learning Theory states that learning can occur without changing behavior in response to observation, imitation, and modeling. The four steps of SLT are attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation (Bandura, 1965). In layperson's terms, learning is more caught than taught, implying that leadership style often mirrors or models sociably acceptable forms of communication.

Finally, the research will be based on the system theory of communication to examine leaders' descriptions of implementing communication strategies to reverse negativity bias in front-line workers. System theory captures a macro-level perspective of social influence and the interdependent relationship between leader and followers. Leaders and followers within an organization create a network of connection and interpretation based on exchanging messages (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2021). Agency in communication can limit or enhanced by the messages that create a predictive coding process toward the desired state (Gerrans, 2015). The combination of negativity bias, social learning, and communication system theories will be the foundation of the research. Further studies on implementing communication strategies for reverse negativity will contribute to these theories. These theories inform communication and negativity bias have reciprocal relationships that benefit theory and research. The research outcome may inform the proposal of new theories for future research. 

Reference

Alonso, A. (2019). Workplace Culture Matters. HR Magazine, 64(4), 89.

Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1(6), 589-595. https://10.1037/h0022070

Corns, J. (2018). Rethinking the negativity bias. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 9(3), 607-625. https://10.1007/s13164-018-0382-7

Gerrans, P. (2015). The feeling of thinking: Sense of agency in delusions of thought insertion. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2(3), 291-300. https://10.1037/cns0000060

Kaplan, S. E., Petersen, M. J., & Samuels, J. A. (2018). Further evidence on the negativity bias in performance evaluation: When does the evaluator's perspective matter? Journal of Management Accounting Research, 30(1), 169-184. https://10.2308/jmar-51698References

Kodish, S. (2017). Communicating organizational trust: An exploration of the link between discourse and action. ​International Journal of Business Communication​, ​54​(4), 347–368. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1177/2329488414525464

Landolfi, A., Barattucci, M., De Rosa, A., & Alessandro Lo Presti. (2021). The association of job and family resources and demands with life satisfaction through Work–Family balance: A longitudinal study among italian schoolteachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Behavioral Sciences, 11(10), 136. https://http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bs11100136

Rozin, P., Royzman, E. B., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion. L Erlbaum Associates. https://10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

Ruben, B. D., & Gigliotti, R. A. (2021). Explaining incongruities between leadership theory and practice: Integrating theories of resonance, communication and systems. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 42(6), 942-957. https://10.1108/LODJ-02-2021-0072

Scharp, Y. S., Breevaart, K., & Bakker, A. B. (2021). Using playful work design to deal with hindrance job demands: A quantitative diary study. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 26(3), 175-188. https://10.1037/ocp0000277

Vygotskiĭ, L. S., & Cole, M. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.