When and how does social curiosity trait lead to interpersonal citizenship behaviors?

In this study, we draw upon current knowledge on social curiosity and integrate it with trait activation theory to propose when and how social curiosity trait influences an employee's organizational citizenship behavior directed at individual coworkers (OCBI). Specifically, we suggest that overt social curiosity positively affects an employee's OCBI through heightened employee social acceptance whereas covert social curiosity negatively affects OCBI through reduced employee social acceptance within the workgroup. We further contextualize these effects by focusing on the workgroup and suggesting that group task interdependence moderates the relationship between social curiosity trait and employee social acceptance as well as the indirect effect of social curiosity trait on OCBI. Multi-level analyses of time-lagged multi-source data from 567 employees and 116 supervisors nested in 116 workgroups supported our predictions. Our work increases the understanding of how a social curiosity disposition may ultimately build a sense of community at work.