When satisfied workers lose faith: Perceived coworker dissatisfaction and organizational attachment

Personal job satisfaction is a key driver of organizational attachment, but to what extent do workers' perceptions of their coworkers' job satisfaction also matter? We measure perceived coworker dissatisfaction in a national quota sample of Canadian employees (n = 996) and argue that perceptions of discontent may function as a broader reading of the organization's health and trajectory that matters for attachment over and above workers' own job experiences. Prior to testing whether these perceptions matter, we document a substantial gap between perception and report. On average, study participants estimate that 41% of their coworkers are dissatisfied with their jobs, well above the 24% rate of personal dissatisfaction in the sample. Because workers are themselves coworkers, an accurate average estimate should match the actual rate of coworker dissatisfaction in the Canadian working population; the gap we observe instead indicates that perceptions are systematically inflated in the aggregate. While we cannot gauge the accuracy of these perceptions for any individual participant, multivariate analyses reveal that they are associated with lower organizational commitment and higher turnover intentions, particularly among satisfied workers. These findings suggest that satisfied workers—those for whom collective discontent is most discrepant from personal experience—are most attuned to cues about coworker discontent. Moreover, because such overestimation is common, this dynamic may operate even in workplaces where few workers are dissatisfied. We discuss implications for how organizations communicate employee sentiment back to their workforce.