ByJanice Gassam Asare, Ph.D.,
Senior Contributor.
A fascinating 2024 study from the Journal of Business and Psychology explores of how Black employees are silenced in the workplace. Researchers wanted to examine workplace incivility, which is conceptualized as, “low-intensity—often ambiguous—workplace deviance that harms others.” This can be thought of as more subtle forms of exclusion and mistreatment in the workplace, including actions like talking over a colleague, ignoring or excluding a coworker or showcasing hostile body language towards colleagues. The researchers predicted that Black employees would encounter more incivility than white employees, which their research found evidence of.
The researchers also examined the effects of incivility on social pain minimization and defensive silence of Black employees. Social pain minimization was explained as, “feelings of invalidation when employees seek support and coworkers devalue their hurts.” Defensive silence was explained to be, “active, conscious, and motivated withholding of information driven by feelings of resignation, fear, and self-protection.” Defensive silence could be thought of as not speaking your mind at work or intentionally withholding feedback from your coworkers. Silence can have a devastating impact on an organization, the researchers note, citing corporate crises like the financial collapse of Enron, the surge of sexual harassment in the military and the Columbia space shuttle crash, resulting from employee silence. The research revealed that because Black employees experienced more incivility than white employees, social pain minimization and defensive silence were employed more often as a result.
