How Mega-threats Influence Workplace Cooperation: Effect of #BlackLivesMatter Salience on Cooperation among and between Black and White Coworkers

Abstract

Mega-threats—public, shocking, and identity-relevant events involving violence or injustice—can disrupt organizational life. Yet, research has largely overlooked the fact that such events may create asymmetric identity-based threats for employees who share identities with victims versus those who share identities with perceived perpetrators, leading to divergent psychological responses and workplace cooperation within and between groups. We examine how the salience of a race-based mega-threat shapes cooperation between Black and White employees. Drawing on self-categorization theory and intergroup interaction research, we propose that mega-threat salience more strongly increases intra-racial cooperation among Black versus White employees, due to heightened in-group identification among the former. Conversely, we hypothesize that mega-threat salience more strongly reduces White employees’ willingness to initiate cooperation with Black colleagues, driven by perceptions of a morally tainted social identity and concerns about social rejection. We argue that this negative effect is attenuated when White employees hold relatively lower (vs. higher) professional status than their Black interaction partners. We find support for these predictions in over 124,000 dyadic interactions between Black and White players in the National Basketball Association during periods of heightened Black Lives Matter salience. Two experimental studies replicate these findings and provide evidence for the envisioned mechanisms.