| Literature DB >> 28658299 |
Erik Bijleveld1, Joost Baalbergen2.
Abstract
Prohibitive voice behaviors are employees' expressions of concern about practices, incidents, or behaviors that may potentially harm the organization. In this study, we examined a potential biological correlate of prohibitive voice: prenatal exposure to testosterone. In a sample of bankers, we used 2D:4D (i.e., the ratio of the length of the index finger to the length of the ring finger) as a marker for prenatal exposure to testosterone (lower 2D:4D suggests higher prenatal exposure to testosterone). We used a self-report scale to measure prohibitive voice. For low-ranked employees, lower 2D:4D was related to using less voice. No such relation was found for high-ranked employees. Conclusions should be drawn with caution, because the findings only applied to voice regarding the organization as a whole (and not to voice regarding the own team), and because of methodological limitations. However, the findings are consistent with the ideas that (a) people low in 2D:4D tend to strive to attain and maintain social status and that (b) remaining silent about perceived problems in the organization is-at least for low-ranked employees-a means to achieve this goal.Entities:
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Year: 2017 PMID: 28658299 PMCID: PMC5489198 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180008
Source DB: PubMed Journal: PLoS One ISSN: 1932-6203 Impact factor: 3.240
Correlations between the main variables of interest.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| 1. Place in the hierarchy | 1 | |||
| 2. 2D:4D | -.10 | 1 | ||
| 3. Voice (team) | .02 | .01 | 1 | |
| 4. Voice (organization | .28 | .00 | .42 | 1 |
*p < .05;
**p < .01.
Fig 1Estimated means of people’s tendency to use voice, as a function of 2D:4D and rank within the organizational hierarchy.
Please note that these estimates were computed based on the general linear model described in the main text (so, not by splitting the dataset into two groups). Left panel: voice within team. Right panel: voice within organization. Error bars represent standard errors around the estimate.