The effects of linguistic ostracism on job performance: A replication and an extension

We examined the phenomenon of linguistic ostracism—instances where a focal workgroup member perceives other members of their workgroup have rejected and/or excluded them by using a language they cannot comprehend. In a 2021 article, Fiset and Bhave observed that linguistic ostracism was related to two dimensions of job performance (interpersonal citizenship and deviance) and that disidentification served as an explanatory mechanism for the linguistic ostracism–job performance relationship. We constructively replicate and extend their work in several ways. First, we replicate prior effects on interpersonal citizenship and deviance and extend their work to focus on a third dimension of job performance: task performance. Across two studies, we find that linguistic ostracism was associated with lower task performance. Second, we identify an additional mechanism for the linguistic ostracism–job performance relationship: belongingness need satisfaction. Third, we observe that sinister attributional tendencies moderated the indirect effect of linguistic ostracism on performance via belongingness need satisfaction and disidentification. The pattern of this moderated-mediation effect indicated that employees with high (vs. low) sinister attributional tendencies tend to exhibit decreased performance. Our findings thus offer three extensions to Fiset and Bhave’s work and highlight the need for organizations to recognize linguistic ostracism and proactively manage language diversity at work.