Ricerc@Sapienza

The sociometer theory of self-esteem (STS) argues that one’s self-esteem is affected by one’s perception of the quality of one’s relationships with significant others. Although the STS has been widely used in individual differences research there have been few investigations of its validity and value in organizational settings. Here we provide a systematic review of articles published in organizational journals that took STS as their main theoretical framework (N = 8).

Purpose: Individuals' ability to learn rules, acquire specific role behaviors, and ultimately to socialize into the new organizational environment has important consequences. However, few studies addressed the impact that socialization may exert on one’s individual differences. Consistent with the principles of sociometer theory (which emphasizes the interpersonal roots of people’s self-worth), in this contribution we investigated whether organizational socialization (OS) mediates the relationship between satisfaction with colleagues (SWC) and workers’ levels of global self-esteem (GSE).