The Rise of Robots Increases Job Insecurity and Maladaptive Workplace Behaviors: Multimethod Evidence

Abstract

Robots are transforming the nature of human work. Although human–robot collaborations can create new jobs and increase productivity, pundits often warn about how robots might replace humans at work and create mass unemployment. Despite these warnings, relatively little research has directly assessed how laypeople react to robots in the workplace. Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we suggest that employees exposed to robots (either physically or psychologically) would report greater job insecurity. Six studies—including two pilot studies, an archival study across 185 U.S. metropolitan areas (Study 1), a preregistered experiment conducted in Singapore (Study 2), an experience-sampling study among engineers conducted in India (Study 3), and an online experiment (Study 4)—find that increased exposure to robots leads to increased job insecurity. Study 3 also reveals that this robot-related job insecurity is in turn positively associated with burnout and workplace incivility. Study 4 reveals that self-affirmation is a psychological intervention that might buffer the negative effects of robot-related job insecurity. Our findings hold across different cultures and industries, including industries not threatened by robots