Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Political polarization increasingly shows up at work not only as disagreement, but as a trust problem that undermines collaboration, psychological safety, and everyday coordination. In this talk, I describe my own experiences in Braver Angels (a nationwide depolarization group) inspired my development of a conceptual model of trust repair in politically polarized workplaces. I also present new empirical evidence on how political differences shape perceptions of co-worker trustworthiness, and I outline a measurement agenda to support practical interventions. In my 2025 Human Resource Management Review article, I argued that trust repair in politically charged contexts is often a mutual process between interlocutors, rather than a one-sided response to an unambiguous violation. Building from this framework, my more recent research examines how political differences affect specific trustworthiness dimensions, with particular attention to which components are most vulnerable when coworkers perceive one another as political outgroup members. I then turn to constructive engagement as a focal mechanism for rebuilding trust across divides. Constructive engagement is conceptualized not as a generic synonym for cooperation, but as an actionable set of behaviors (e.g., active listening, civility, intellectual humility, and identifying common ground) that can help reduce attributions of malevolence and support trust repair. I will preview an ongoing scale-development effort designed to measure constructive engagement reliably, enabling stronger theory tests and more targeted organizational interventions. Attendees will leave with a clear map of trustworthiness “damage patterns,” a practical behavioral repertoire for cross-partisan interactions, and a research-to-practice agenda for improving work relationships in an age of division.
Date
November 2026
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
presentations
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons
From Polarization to Partnership: Developing a Trust-Repair Model for Cross-Partisan Work Relationships
Political polarization increasingly shows up at work not only as disagreement, but as a trust problem that undermines collaboration, psychological safety, and everyday coordination. In this talk, I describe my own experiences in Braver Angels (a nationwide depolarization group) inspired my development of a conceptual model of trust repair in politically polarized workplaces. I also present new empirical evidence on how political differences shape perceptions of co-worker trustworthiness, and I outline a measurement agenda to support practical interventions. In my 2025 Human Resource Management Review article, I argued that trust repair in politically charged contexts is often a mutual process between interlocutors, rather than a one-sided response to an unambiguous violation. Building from this framework, my more recent research examines how political differences affect specific trustworthiness dimensions, with particular attention to which components are most vulnerable when coworkers perceive one another as political outgroup members. I then turn to constructive engagement as a focal mechanism for rebuilding trust across divides. Constructive engagement is conceptualized not as a generic synonym for cooperation, but as an actionable set of behaviors (e.g., active listening, civility, intellectual humility, and identifying common ground) that can help reduce attributions of malevolence and support trust repair. I will preview an ongoing scale-development effort designed to measure constructive engagement reliably, enabling stronger theory tests and more targeted organizational interventions. Attendees will leave with a clear map of trustworthiness “damage patterns,” a practical behavioral repertoire for cross-partisan interactions, and a research-to-practice agenda for improving work relationships in an age of division.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology