题　目：The Consequences of Saying "No" to Help Requests at Work

嘉　宾：Xiaofei HU, PhD Candidate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

主　持：范雪青, 助理教授, 上海交通大学

时　间：2025年10月17日（周五）13:30-15:00

地　点：上海交通大学 徐汇校区安泰楼A303室

内容简介:

Recognizing the personal costs associated with assisting others at work, researchers and executive coaches alike have advised employees to decline help requests at times, emphasizing the potential benefits of doing so. However, empirical examinations of the implications of rejecting coworkers’ help requests (i.e., help request rejection) at work remain rare. Drawing on identity threat theory, we question the prevailing notion that help request rejection benefits the request targets and examine whether, when, and for whom rejecting help requests might engender a psychological burden (i.e., prosocial identity threat), which predicts subsequent provision of different types of help. Across two studies, including a time-lagged field study and a preregistered scenario-based experiment, we find that rejecting coworkers’ help requests results in higher prosocial identity threat, which then leads to more public—but not more private—helping. These effects are stronger for individuals with a stronger prosocial identity or those who perceive higher citizenship pressure within their teams. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for helping decisions, prosocial identity, and identity threat management.

演讲人简介：

Dr. Xiaofei Hu is a postdoctoral researcher at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She obtained her PhD in Management from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and was previously a visiting researcher at the University of Washington. Her research explores citizenship behavior and emotion management in the workplace, with a particular focus on the challenges and paradoxes of achieving prosocial impact at work, as well as how leaders can effectively regulate subordinate emotions. Her work has been published in Human Relations and is under revision at Journal of Applied Psychology and Academy of Management Journal.

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