From workplace silence to quiet quitting: the roles of psychological reactance and autonomy-threatening work conditions in service organizations

The proposed study aims to explore the determinants and psychological processes that lead to quiet quitting of employees working in Indian service sector firms, by bringing together the concepts of workplace silence, autonomy-threatening conditions, psychological reactance, and self-esteem. Basing the research on the Psychological Reactance Theory and Withdrawal progression perspective, the study hypothesizes quiet quitting behavior as a behavioral withdrawal consequence, which is revealed by previously existing cognitive and motivational reactions. In particular, the study examines the direct impact of silence in the workplace on quiet quitting, the role played by work/leisure conflict, abusive supervision, and quiet firing on psychological reactance, the mediating effects of psychological reactance, and the moderating effects of self-esteem. A quantitative research design was deployed using survey data collected from 281 employees working in Indian service sector organizations. Established multi-item scales were used to assess workplace silence, work-leisure conflict, abusive supervision, quiet firing, quiet quitting, psychological reactance, self-esteem and quiet quitting. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to test the structural relations among the constructs and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Data from 281 respondents were subjected to structural equational modeling analysis. The findings reveal that workplace silence positively and significantly predicts quiet quitting, suggesting that silence operates as an early stage of cognitive withdrawal that precedes behavioral disengagement. Furthermore, work-leisure conflict and abusive supervision significantly predict psychological reactance, exhibiting that autonomy-threatening workplace conditions encourage motivational resistance among employees. Psychological reactance consequently predicts quiet quitting, ratifying that disengagement behaviors may operate as autonomy restoring responses to perceived managerial control. Mediation analysis results indicate that psychological reactance partially mediates the relationship between autonomy-threatening conditions and quiet quitting. The results showed that self-esteem negatively moderated the positive link between autonomy-threatening work conditions and reactance, suggesting that individuals with higher self-esteem experience less motivational arousal in response to negative work conditions. The results indicate that organizations may want to create voice-supportive climates where workers feel free to speak up. Leadership training programs that focus on respectful supervision and train supervisors to create psychologically safe and autonomy-supportive climates may also help decrease worker disengagement. Companies may also want to implement strategies that target employees’ psychological resources (self-esteem and resilience) to decrease withdrawal behavior. This study supplements the existing scholarship on quiet quitting by integrating organizational climate factors, supervisory behaviors, psychological mechanisms, and individual differences within a unified theoretical framework. By augmenting Psychological Reactance Theory and Withdrawal progression perspective, the study offers a novel explanation of how employees transition from cognitive withdrawal to behavioral disengagement. The study also provides context specific evidence from the Indian service sector, where integrated theoretical models of quiet quitting remain limited.