Antecedents of verbal rumination in organizations

Abstract

Organizations are riddled with complex interpersonal relationships in which many types of communication strategies are employed. Verbal rumination is one such communicative pattern, often used by organizational members as an attempt to talk through an ongoing problem or issue. Though verbal rumination has been a popular topic among interpersonal communication scholars, most organizational communication research has focused on the prevalence and ensuing harms of co-rumination in organizations, a distinctively different form of dyadic communication. The present study sought to examine what, if any, organizational, relational, and individual factors might encourage or inhibit verbal rumination in workplace settings. Results indicated that the prevalence of verbal rumination among coworkers is strongly influenced by relational factors such as perceived level of social support from coworkers and quality of exchanges in the workplace. Analysis of individual factors revealed that stress level and demographic differences proved influential on these behaviors as well.