Discussions of politics have become increasingly common in the workplace, likely due to increasing political polarization around the world. Because of this, political conversations have the potential to be emotionally charged and disruptive, creating tension in the workplace and negatively affecting employee productivity and well-being. In light of this possibility, the goal of the current investigation was to examine the costs of ambient political conversations in the workplace, assuming that simply overhearing such discussions-without being a participant in them-may have unintended consequences for employees. Across three studies, our findings indicated that employees experience negative affect after overhearing political conversations at work, with these effects being attenuated (amplified) in contexts where employees perceive that their coworkers are more (less) similar to them. In addition to unpacking the mechanisms through which ambient workplace political conversations might impact employee outcomes, our findings from Studies 3A-B provide evidence that under certain circumstances (i.e., when employees agree with the content of ambient workplace political conversations), employees may experience a boost in positive affect after overhearing such conversations at work. Altogether, our findings provide insight into the costs and potential benefits associated with overhearing coworkers discussing politics in the workplace, particularly for those employees who perceive themselves to be dissimilar from their coworkers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

工作中政治话语的隐藏后果：周围的政治对话如何以及为何影响员工的成果。


政治讨论在工作场所变得越来越普遍，这可能是由于世界各地政治两极分化加剧。因此，政治对话有可能充满情绪和破坏性，在工作场所制造紧张气氛，并对员工的生产力和福祉产生负面影响。鉴于这种可能性，当前调查的目标是检查工作场所政治对话的成本，假设只是无意中听到此类讨论（而不参与其中）可能会给员工带来意想不到的后果。在三项研究中，我们的研究结果表明，员工在工作中无意中听到政治对话后会受到负面影响，而当员工认为同事与自己更加（不太）相似时，这些影响就会减弱（放大）。除了揭示工作场所环境政治对话可能影响员工结果的机制之外，我们的研究 3A-B 的发现还提供了证据，表明在某些情况下（即，当员工同意工作场所环境政治对话的内容时），员工可能会经历在工作中无意中听到此类对话后，会增强积极影响。总而言之，我们的研究结果提供了对在工作场所无意中听到同事讨论政治的成本和潜在收益的深入了解，特别是对于那些认为自己与同事不同的员工。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。