VANCOUVER, Wash. - Workers who fear artificial intelligence is threatening their occupation are more likely to slack off on the job, swipe a co-worker's lunch or engage in other counterproductive workplace behavior, a new study finds.
This is especially true in occupations where AI is likely to have the greatest impact.
The study, led by Washington State University researchers and published in the journal Occupational Health Science, evaluated the effects of looming AI adoption on worker attitudes and behaviors across 18 industries.
The findings suggest that concerns over AI can harm workers and businesses, and employers should pay attention to how they discuss and implement the technology in order to keep employees engaged and supported.
"Counterproductive workplace behaviors are harmful to the interpersonal relationships within an organization," said Tahira M. Probst, a professor of psychology at WSU Vancouver and lead author of the study. "If you're not showing up, that puts more work on your co-workers. If you're doing things that impact your ability or your co-workers' ability to get their work done properly, or if you're wasting organizational resources, there's a lot of potential harm to an organization, not just to the bottom line, but to the effective functioning of the organization."
Research has shown that as the use of AI-based technologies such as intelligent robotics, automated systems and algorithmic management increases, workers may feel insecure about their jobs. The resulting stress can lead to burnout, reduced job satisfaction and engagement, and worse physical and mental health.
Probst and her co-authors wanted to examine a broader concern: what happens when AI-related concerns make workers worry that their entire occupation will become obsolete?
"If you're a bartender and the bar that you're working for goes under, you can get another job as a bartender somewhere else," Probst said. "That profession is not going away. That's not necessarily the case with occupations that are affected by AI. If you're in a profession like medical transcriptionists, for example, where a lot of that coding and transcription can now be fully automated, that's not something where if you are let go, you can just go find work in another organization."
The researchers examined the effects of that occupation insecurity and industry-level AI exposure - the potential that AI could displace tasks - on two outcomes: moral disengagement and counterproductive workplace behaviors. They used an existing, objective database of AI exposure, the AI Industry Exposure index, to identify which industries were facing the most potential disruption from AI, and surveyed workers across a variety of industries about their attitudes and behaviors. Workers in finance and insurance had some of the highest levels of exposure, while those in agriculture and forestry had the least.
Overall, workers who were worried about the future of their occupation were more likely to morally disengage at work, meaning they were more likely to justify behaviors they would normally consider inappropriate. In turn, those employees self-reported more counterproductive behaviors such as surfing the web or coming in late for a shift.
"Moral disengagement is basically a way of justifying bad behavior," Probst said. "We know what's right and wrong. We know what organizational policies say we can and can't do. Moral disengagement is a way of reframing that behavior as something that is acceptable."
Those effects, however, were less pronounced in industries expected to face fewer future AI changes, such as forestry and construction, but were magnified in industries such as insurance and finance that are more heavily exposed to AI disruption.
The study's authors argue that when employees feel their occupation is at risk, they may come to view workplace norms and expectations differently, rationalizing behaviors such as cutting corners or undermining others as necessary to protect themselves or to compensate for perceived injustice.
Probst's co-authors included Rebecca Lindgren, a graduate student in psychology at WSU Vancouver, as well as researchers in Italy and Belgium.
