Workplace automation: why some employees aren’t more afraid of losing their jobs…
In their article “Anxiety buffers and the threat of extreme automation: a terror management theory perspective”, Professors Frank Goethals and Jennifer Ziegelmayer studied how employees react to a potential or perceived threat of losing their jobs to new technologies such as artificial intelligence or robots.
02/02/2023
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Interviews were conducted with employees across a range of companies, sectors, and job functions who perceived a potential threat in terms of workplace automation. “Interestingly, we found that employees generally seemed to think, regardless of their role, that other roles were more at risk, or they themselves were less at risk than other people in the same role”, explains Professor Goethals.
Employees appear to engage in psychological reassurance mechanisms to protect themselves and minimize anxiety created by the potential of losing their job.
Terror Management Theory as an explanation for this paradox?
“We identified terror management theory as a possible explanation for this paradox in which people are seemingly unafraid of job automation despite jobs being extremely important to them,” explains Professor Goethals. This theory, developed in the 1980s, suggests that people’s awareness of death creates the potential for intense fear and explains how people can continue to function normally despite the threat of death thanks to three anxiety buffers: self-esteem, stable worldviews, and interpersonal connections (attachments). Just as people use these buffers to minimize their anxiety regarding death, they may also be used to reduce fear induced by potential job loss. Professors Goethals & Ziegelmayer found in the interviews that jobs contribute to self-esteem, they are part of our worldview as it is hard to imagine a world without work, and jobs come with social connections on which we rely.
Therefore, the researchers use this theory to study in more depth the cushioning mechanisms or buffers that employees use to control their fear of automation. “An experiment that we conducted shows that exposing people to the threat of job automation in the short-term decreases people’s self-esteem (as a computer is able to do what you thought you were good at), it lowers their faith in their worldview, and it decreases the trust that you can rely on others. This increases anxiety levels”, explains Professor Goethals. However, they also found these short-term effects disappear fast because people bolster these anxiety buffers by convincing themselves that their job cannot be automated.
Practical applications
The researchers stress that their study does not aim to contribute to the discussion of whether or not specific jobs can be automated or the value of doing so. Rather, it aims to shed light on how employees react to messages that make the potential for job loss due to automation relevant.
“While automation has not yet reached extreme levels in the workplace, it will nevertheless be important for companies and society to prepare themselves in the months and years to come,” explains Professor Ziegelmayer. By bolstering their anxiety buffers, employees may create a false feeling of safety and may take less initiative to learn new skills that are less susceptible to automation. Moreover, in the longer run, society may have to develop different bases for self-esteem and different worldviews that are less tied to their work.
More information is available in the article.: “Anxiety buffers and the threat of extreme automation: a terror management theory perspective”, Information Technology & People (January 2022).
