Team Psychological Safety (De)Composition: Connecting Lower-Level Dyadic Perceptions to Higher-Level Beliefs

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Team psychological safety is an inherently multilevel interpersonal phenomenon, yet its relational microfoundations remain unexplored. Building on the social relations model, we propose a three-level model of psychological safety that originates in members’ lower-level dyadic psychological safety perceptions. Our findings demonstrate that team members’ higher-level (un)shared perceptions of team psychological safety are shaped by their consistent levels of dyadic safety (relational uniformity) and their perceptions of safety toward salient teammates, such as the leader and high task-dependent teammates (relational nonuniformity). In doing so, we both affirm and nuance the implicit uniformity assumptions underlying current research practices.