Question for Sameer Srivastava's Talk on "Consonance Versus Dissonance: How Exposure to Unfamiliar Colleagues Within and Across Network Communities Affects Social Belonging and Network Change"

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Question for Sameer Srivastava's Talk on "Consonance Versus Dissonance: How Exposure to Unfamiliar Colleagues Within and Across Network Communities Affects Social Belonging and Network Change"

Consonance Versus Dissonance: How Exposure to Unfamiliar Colleagues Within and Across Network Communities Affects Social Belonging and Network Change. Organizations vary in the degree to which their members experience social belonging. Interventions designed to boost belonging have typically focused on changing individuals’ mindsets. We instead develop a structural intervention that seeks to foster belonging by exposing people to unfamiliar colleagues—ones they are not in regular contact with. We consider two forms of such exposure: consonant, to colleagues from the same network community as the focal actor; and dissonant, to colleagues from different network communities. We hypothesize that consonant exposure engenders more group solidarity, more persistent relationships, and enhanced social belonging. We test these expectations in a pre-registered field experiment at a non-profit organization. Participants (N=213) engaged in a facilitated professional development experience with unfamiliar colleagues and were randomly assigned to either consonant or dissonant groups. Although the anticipated solidarity advantage of consonant exposure was only marginally significant when assessed immediately following the intervention, consonant-condition participants maintained more intervention-group ties and reported greater social belonging three months after the intervention. Yet, pointing to the potential tradeoffs of consonant versus dissonant exposure, dissonant-condition participants experienced steeper declines in network constraint and greater increases in betweenness and closeness centrality. We discuss implications for research on social networks, workplace belonging, and organizational intervention.

Reading List

• Consonance Versus Dissonance: How Exposure to Unfamiliar Colleagues Within and Across Network Communities Affects Social Belonging and Network Change

[yifan-lyf]

Did the study measure baseline levels of social belonging or network structure before the intervention? If so, did these pre-existing differences influence the outcomes of consonant versus dissonant exposure?

[Kevin2330]

Thanks for sharing.
Could alternating between consonant and dissonant exposures over time optimize both belonging and network adaptability?

[XiaotongCui]

Thanks for sharing the paper! In the data collected three months after the intervention, did you consider the impact of job changes or participant attrition on the changes in network structure?

[Jessieliao2001]

Thanks so much for sharing! How might organizational interventions that enhance social belonging—by strategically exposing employees to unfamiliar colleagues within (consonant) versus across (dissonant) network communities—affect overall labor productivity and innovation, and what are the potential implications for macroeconomic growth?

[Lezy01]

Thanks for sharing! How do the mechanisms underlying consonant versus dissonant exposure differentially affect the persistence of workplace ties and employees' perceptions of social belonging, and what implications does this have for designing effective organizational interventions?

[yifand1023]

Thanks for sharing! This is my question: How does the strength of pre-existing in-group identity influence the long-term effects of consonant versus dissonant network exposure on social belonging and network centrality in professional settings?

[mikezheng2001]

In your study, you observe that exposure to unfamiliar colleagues from within the same network community (“consonant”) versus across different network communities (“dissonant”) produces different short-term and long-term impacts on social belonging and network structure. In designing structural interventions, how should managers strike a balance between short-term benefits (like enhanced in-group cohesion) and longer-term benefits (such as expanding cross-group connections) in order to maximize both organizational effectiveness and employees’ sense of belonging?

[Adrianne-Li]

Thank you for sharing this inspiring study!
Your study shows that consonant and dissonant exposures generate different patterns in social belonging and network centrality. In practice, however, organizations often operate under time and resource constraints that prevent long-term monitoring of social network outcomes. Given this, how might we design early diagnostic indicators—perhaps using digital trace data or linguistic analysis—to predict whether a particular intervention is likely to yield sustained network integration or fragmentation over time?

[PENGRUISU]

Thank you for presenting this thought - provoking research! Your findings highlight that consonant and dissonant exposures lead to distinct patterns in social belonging and network centrality. However, in real - world organizational settings, time and resource limitations often make long - term monitoring of social network outcomes impractical. Considering this challenge, how can we develop early diagnostic indicators, potentially leveraging digital trace data or linguistic analysis, to forecast whether a specific intervention is likely to result in sustained network integration or fragmentation over time?

[PaulaTepkham]

Thank you so much for sharing your study. According to the paper, in hypothesis 2, the authors mention that the intervention leads to significant changes in both social belonging and tie persistence 90 days after the intervention, suggesting that the effects of the intervention do not merely transiently decay after a few days or weeks. It is might be interesting if there any more social interactions that have to be more frequent than the pre-intervention period, since the intervention might help to improve the deeper level of social connections.

[AnnieZzz01]

Thank you for sharing. Your study found that dissonant exposure improves network centrality but not social belonging. How might future interventions be designed to achieve both structural advantages (e.g., brokerage) and psychological belonging? Could phased approaches (e.g., trust-building first) or supplemental support (e.g., mentorship) help bridge this gap?

[Mengyang-Cao]

Thank you for sharing. Have you considered whether personality traits or individual differences moderate these effects?

[ralphluo11]

Given the tradeoff between fostering belonging (through consonant exposure) and enhancing network position (through dissonant exposure), how might organizations strike a balance between the two—especially in contexts where both inclusion and innovation are critical goals?

[yilinx-10]

Thank you for sharing. To what extent do you think varying contexts (company industry, type, and size, organizational structure type, competitiveness) could impact your findings?

[saniazeb8]

Thank you for sharing, the study highlights tradeoffs between consonant and dissonant exposure in fostering social belonging and network change. Given the findings that consonant exposure enhances social belonging while dissonant exposure increases structural network advantages, how should organizations balance these approaches to optimize both inclusion and innovation?