Psychological safety

Not to be confused with emotional safety or emotional security.

Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.[1][2] In teams, it refers to team members believing that they can take risks without being shamed by other team members.[3] In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected contributing to a better "experience in the workplace".[4][5][6] It is also the most studied enabling condition in group dynamics and team learning research.

Psychological safety benefits organizations and teams in many different ways. There are multiple empirically supported consequences of a team being psychologically safe.[7]

Most of the research on the effects of psychological safety has focused on benefits, but there are some drawbacks that have been studied.[8]

  1. ^ Cole, Deidra (2019-09-30). "Psychological safety". Stanford BeWell. Retrieved 2022-12-20.
  2. ^ Edmondson, Amy C.; Mortensen, Mark (2021-04-19). "What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012. Retrieved 2022-12-20.
  3. ^ Edmondson, Amy (1 June 1999). "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams" (PDF). Administrative Science Quarterly. 44 (2): 350–383. doi:10.2307/2666999. JSTOR 2666999. S2CID 32633178.
  4. ^ Leiter, M. P., and H. K. S. Laschinger. "Psychological safety, respect, and values: Foundations of a psychologically healthy workplace." Research Presentation in the Second World Congress on Positive Psychology Philadelphia, PA. 2011.
  5. ^ Pearsall, Matthew J.; Ellis, Aleksander P. J. (2011). "Thick as thieves: The effects of ethical orientation and psychological safety on unethical team behavior". Journal of Applied Psychology. 96 (2): 401–411. doi:10.1037/a0021503. ISSN 1939-1854. PMID 21142339.
  6. ^ Edmondson, Amy (1999-06-01). "Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams". Administrative Science Quarterly. 44 (2): 350–383. doi:10.2307/2666999. ISSN 0001-8392. JSTOR 2666999.
  7. ^ Newman, Alexander; Donohue, Ross; Eva, Nathan (September 2017). "Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature". Human Resource Management Review. 27 (3): 521–535. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001. ISSN 1053-4822.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).