Should We Talk About the News? Coworker Discussion and Affective Well-Being in a Polarized Society

In a sharply polarized society many business leaders discourage workplace discussion of current events for fear of disruptive disagreement. Yet authenticity and openness are widely believed to foster friendly relationships which benefit employees and organizations. We explore this tension by investigating when and why employees discuss politicized news events—news which liberals and conservatives tend to perceive, process, and react to differently—and the proximate effects of their doing so across three studies using different methods and measures. In contrast to past research characterizing workplace political conversation as harmful, we find coworker discussion of breaking politicized news is associated with reduced end-of-day emotional exhaustion (Study 1), improved mood and bonding (Study 2), and greater receipt of person-focused support (Study 3). While affective events are known to prompt social sharing, our findings suggest most employees are unlikely to choose to discuss emotionally charged politicized news when they believe their coworkers do not share their political identity, which could help explain our discovery that any discussion that does occur tends to be associated with mostly beneficial outcomes. In light of rising polarization in many countries, these findings have implications for management practice and offer insight into theory development around interpersonal relations and employee well-being.