Our aim was to investigate the social perception of employees who tend to work excessively. We considered that exhibiting busyness and working extra hours might be a tactic used by employees to display specific motivations and abilities. We assumed that such behavior is like how people display their resources through conspicuous consumption or how a peacock displays its tail. In a set of three vignette studies (total N = 383), we tested how the information about the level of work investments of three actors: standard = 38-40 hours per week as in contract vs. medium = 8-10 extra hours per week vs. high = 18-20 extra work hours per week influenced the perception of competence, warmth, morality,  and work ethic. Then, we examined the willingness to cooperate with the actors and how much they deserved to be paid per hour. In the Prolific samples from the United States, we controlled for socio-economic status and conscientiousness. Our findings reveal interesting patterns, for instance, a high-work-investment actor was perceived as more moral than a medium-work-investment actor, but the latter was evaluated as more competent. In our presentation, we want to present more findings, discuss our research plans, and initiate a discussion related to our research problem.

Dr. Jacek Buczny is an Assistant Professor in the Work and Organizational Psychology Department at the VU Amsterdam.