Immersed in negativity: Introducing collective rumination in teams

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that collective rumination may affect organizational outcomes; however, how it manifests in teams and impacts their effectiveness remains unknown. Building on the rumination and team literature, we introduce collective rumination in teams (CRIT) as a dysfunctional team process triggered by a shared problem affecting multiple team members. In three studies (Studies 1 and 2: N = 720 team members; Study 3: N = 208 team members nested in 58 teams), we found that it occurs collectively and at the team level. We showed that it consists of five dimensions (recursive discussions of the problem, speculation about causes, speculation about consequences, sharing negative thoughts and feelings, and mutual reinforcement of problem talk) that are reliably and validly captured with our newly developed 15-item measure. Our work sets the stage for understanding and measuring CRIT, paving the way for future research on dysfunctional team processes in adverse work conditions.