Positive Social Interactions and the Human Body at Work: Linking Organizations and Physiology

Abstract

Human physiological systems are highly responsive to positive social interactions, but the organizational importance of this finding largely has been unexplored. After reviewing extant research, we illustrate how consideration of the physiology of positive social interactions at work opens new research questions about how positive social interactions affect human capacity and how organizational contexts affect employee health and physiological resourcefulness. We also address the practical implications of integrating physiological data into organizational research. Our paper invites a fuller consideration of how employees' bodies are affected by everyday work interactions and, in so doing, encourages a stronger tie between human physiology and organizational research.