Schulte Niklas, Götz Friedrich M, Partsch Fabienne, Goldmann Tim, Smidt Lea, Meyer Bertolt
Department of Psychology and Education, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 30;11:1245. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01245. eCollection 2020.
Diversity and psychological health issues at the workplace are pressing issues in today's organizations. However, research linking two fields is scant. To bridge this gap, drawing from team faultline research, social categorization theory, and the job-demands resources model, we propose that perceiving one's team as fragmented into subgroups increases strain. We further argue that this relationship is mediated by task conflict and relationship conflict and that it is moderated by psychological empowerment and task interdependence. Multilevel structural equation models on a two-wave sample consisting of 536 participants from 107 work teams across various industries and work contexts partially supported the hypotheses: task conflict did indeed mediate the positive relationships between perceived subgroups and emotional exhaustion while relationship conflict did not; effects on stress symptoms were absent. Moreover, contrary to our expectations, neither empowerment, nor task interdependence moderated the mediation. Results indicate that team diversity can constitute a job demand that can affect psychological health. Focusing on the mediating role of task conflict, we offer a preliminary process model to guide future research at the crossroads of diversity and psychological health at work.
工作场所的多样性和心理健康问题是当今组织中亟待解决的问题。然而，将这两个领域联系起来的研究却很少。为了弥补这一差距，我们借鉴团队断层线研究、社会分类理论和工作需求-资源模型，提出将团队视为分裂成子群体的认知会增加压力。我们进一步认为，这种关系由任务冲突和关系冲突介导，并且受到心理授权和任务相互依赖的调节。对来自不同行业和工作背景的107个工作团队的536名参与者进行的两波样本的多层次结构方程模型部分支持了这些假设：任务冲突确实介导了感知到的子群体与情绪衰竭之间的正向关系，而关系冲突则没有；对压力症状没有影响。此外，与我们的预期相反，授权和任务相互依赖都没有调节这种中介作用。结果表明，团队多样性可能构成一种工作需求，会影响心理健康。我们关注任务冲突的中介作用，提供了一个初步的过程模型，以指导未来在工作场所多样性和心理健康交叉领域的研究。
