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As Seen on Social Media: The Daily Effects of Social Media Content on Employee Emotions and Behaviors
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

As Seen on Social Media: The Daily Effects of Social Media Content on Employee Emotions and Behaviors

Rebecca L Greenbaum, Marcus M Butts, Mary B Mawritz, Matthew J Quade and Hoda Vaziri
Journal of organizational behavior, v 47(4), pp 627-647
May 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.70011
url
https://doi.org/10.1002/job.70011View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open CC BY V4.0

Abstract

digital platforms goal progress social media trait competitiveness withdrawal Emotions Technology
Employees regularly use social media during work hours and thus are exposed to a wide variety of vibrant, fluid social information that they would likely not have access to through other channels. We contribute to the literature by suggesting that the social information available on social media is infused with meaning that can affect employees' social motivation and subsequent workplace behaviors. We specifically examine employees' perceptions of social media content (i.e., their interpretations of the substance of social media posts) by first creating a multi-dimensional measure that includes attractive, family, contentious, and accomplished social media content. We then rely on the theory of approach and avoidance social motivation to propose that social media posts that are perceived as having attractive, family, and accomplished content activate employees' emotional states of self-assurance (as an approach emotion), which then fosters the approach behavior of work-goal progress. We also predict that perceptions of contentious and accomplished content trigger employees' anxiety (as an avoidance emotion), which then prompts social withdrawal as an avoidance behavior. Additionally, we explore the moderating role of trait competitiveness in relation to the dual effects of perceptions of accomplished social media content on both approach and avoidance social motivation. We developed our measure using a multi-grounded theory approach, and we employed two 10-day, multi-wave experience sampling method (ESM) studies to test our hypotheses, for which we found general support.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Business
Management
Psychology, Applied
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