In some cheer for employees in the holiday season,
researchers say that workplace flirtation that does not cross the line makes
the co-worker feel attractive, socially connected and powerful, thus reducing
the job stress levels in the office environment.
In three different studies, the team led by Leah Sheppard,
assistant professor of management at Washington State University, found that
non-harassing social sexual behavior (call it flirting) in the workplace, if
enjoyed, can provide psychosocial resources (such as feeling powerful, socially
connected and physically attractive) that protect recipients from stress and
its negative outcomes.
“We use time-lagged data to demonstrate that the
frequency of receiving flirtation at work is more positively related to
psychosocial resource accumulation to the extent that it is enjoyed, and the
resulting resources predict lower levels of stress,” Sheppard said in a
paper published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes.
The reach this conclusion, Sheppard and her co-authors
analyzed surveys from several hundred workers in the US, Canada and the
Philippines about their experience of receiving “social sexual behavior”.
“Importantly, these behaviors are not always driven by
romantic interest and tend to be instinctive behaviors even among those in
platonic opposite-sex relationships,” the authors wrote.
In the first study, the researchers developed and validated
a measure of non-harassing social sexual behavior that is conceptually and
empirically distinct from sexual harassment.
“We also uncover two distinct forms of social sexual behavior
— flirtation and sexual storytelling (a worker sharing a personal story about
a past sexual experience or an erotic joke, etc.),” the study said.
Participants were largely neutral on “sexual
storytelling”.
The findings showed that “participants who experienced
higher levels of enjoyed flirtation were more protected from the negative
effects of workplace injustice on insomnia and job tension”.
However, workers tended to dislike social sexual behavior
when it came from someone with authority over them, like bosses.
In the second study, the researchers use time-lagged data to
demonstrate that the frequency of receiving flirtation at work is more
positively related to psychosocial resource accumulation to the extent that it
is enjoyed, and the resulting resources predict lower levels of stress.
“Though we fully recognize the dangers of certain forms
of sexual behavior in organizations, our work suggests that there is an entire
repertoire of social sexual behavior’ occurring in organizations that resides
in a space that is distinct from sexual harassment,” wrote the authors.
“Our research serves as a foundation for future theory
that situates social sexual behaviour as a potential mechanism by which
employees might obtain validation, feel a sense of inclusion, and relieve
stress,” they added.
Researchers hoped that the current work would inspire future
investigations into what we regard as a neglected area of research.
“To ignore the effects of enjoyed ‘social sexual
behaviour’ is to miss the opportunity to gain a richer understanding of the
full expression of human behaviour in organizations.