Gratitude within co-worker relations may explain varying levels and scope of help. Workplaces and co-worker relationships are evolving with increasing complexity. Exchanges between colleagues and perceived intentions are especially important for driving these interactions. Individuals rely upon emotional cues to guide their responses, which sometimes includes being helpful.
Particularly, relationship-specific gratitude – or gratitude feelings experienced with a specific referent target – can serve as an emotional cue thereby activating the degree to which an individual helps the other party of the relationship. In Harrison, Budworth, and Stone’s forthcoming article in Personnel Review, they examined how relationship-specific gratitude between co-workers can activate both level of help and the scope of help.
Drawing insights from social exchange theory and theory on emotion, Harrison et al. (2022) conducted a conceptual analysis of how relationship-specific gratitude plays out in co-worker relations. The authors argue that relationship-specific gratitude can prompt opportunity-oriented help (more help/broader scope of help), but also risk-oriented help (less help/narrow scope of help).
Relationship-specific gratitude is expected to lead to more help/broader scope of helping when co-workers demonstrate equal power relations and work face-to-face. The authors encourage empirical tests of the proposed model with specific attention to how gratitude can shape opportunity and risk-oriented helping.
