10963: A Looming Vulnerability Perspective on Work-Related Imagined Interactions (session 25715)

Work-related imagined interactions, or mental simulations regarding future interactions with work-related others, are presumed to be beneficial to employees. Departing from research which has predominantly focused on antecedents of work-related imagined interactions, we adopt the looming vulnerability perspective to delineate their benefits and drawbacks to employees and under what conditions they occur. We suggest that because work-related imagined interactions can intensify looming vulnerability—the sense of impending discomfort and threat—associated with upcoming interactions, they can produce mixed consequences. On the one hand, because work-related imagined interactions can exacerbate uncertainties of upcoming interactions and illuminate the array of potential outcomes and related implications, these imaginations can increase employees’ social anxiety, which undermines their interpersonal proficiency and engenders depletion. On the other hand, because work-related imagined interactions make the future interactions seem more imminent and motivate the need to cope with the approaching situation, these imaginations can also increase perspective taking, thereby enhancing employees’ interpersonal proficiency but heightening their depletion. We examine these relationships, as well as how power influences these relationships, in an experience sampling field study of 89 employee-coworker dyads. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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