Shared Disengagement, Different Expressions: Quiet Quitting In Collectivist And Individualist Workplace
This study finds that while overall levels of quiet quitting are similar between employees in Pakistan and the United States, the specific behavioral expressions of this disengagement and the influence of gender vary significantly across these collectivist and individualist cultural contexts.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
In the modern workplace, a quiet revolution has been taking place, not with loud protests or walkouts, but with a subtle shift in how people show up for their jobs. This phenomenon, often called "quiet quitting," describes a situation where an employee does exactly what their job description requires—no more, no less. They clock in, complete their assigned tasks, and clock out, but they stop volunteering for extra projects, stop offering creative ideas, and stop putting in the emotional energy that once defined their role. They are physically present but psychologically withdrawn. To understand why this happens, researchers often look at two main ideas. The first is the concept of a social exchange, which is simply the unspoken agreement that if an employee gives effort and loyalty, the organization should give back support, fairness, and recognition. When that balance feels off, people adjust their contribution to match what they feel they are receiving. The second idea is about protecting one's own resources, such as time, energy, and emotional stability. When work demands become too heavy or the rewards feel too small, people instinctively pull back to conserve what they have left. These dynamics play out differently depending on where a person lives, because cultures shape how people express dissatisfaction. In some places, open confrontation is common, while in others, maintaining harmony and avoiding direct conflict is the priority. Understanding how these cultural differences change the way people disengage is crucial for anyone trying to make sense of the modern workforce.
A team of researchers set out to explore these dynamics by comparing employees in two very different cultural settings: Pakistan, a society often characterized by collectivist values where group harmony and relational obligations are central, and the United States, a society often characterized by individualist values where personal autonomy and self-direction are emphasized. The researchers wanted to see if the overall level of this quiet disengagement was the same in both countries, or if the way it showed up was different. They also wanted to know if gender played a role, specifically whether women and men experienced this withdrawal differently within each country. To find out, they asked 601 working adults—321 from Pakistan and 280 from the United States—to fill out an online survey. The survey asked people to rate how often they felt detached from their work, how often they lacked the drive to take initiative, and how often they felt unmotivated to go beyond their basic duties.
When the researchers looked at the big picture, they found a surprising similarity. The overall level of quiet quitting was essentially the same in both countries. Employees in Pakistan and employees in the United States reported similar total scores for disengagement. This suggests that the feeling of pulling back from work is a widespread response to modern workplace pressures, regardless of whether a person lives in a collectivist or individualist culture. However, when the researchers looked closer at the specific ways people pulled back, the story changed. While the overall feeling of being disconnected was similar, the specific behaviors were not. Employees in Pakistan reported significantly higher levels of lacking initiative and lacking motivation compared to their American counterparts. In other words, Pakistani workers were more likely to say they were not willing to take the lead on new tasks or put in extra emotional energy. Interestingly, the feeling of being emotionally detached from the work itself did not differ between the two groups; people in both countries felt similarly distant from their jobs.
The study also uncovered a distinct pattern regarding gender, but this pattern was only visible in Pakistan. In the Pakistani sample, women reported higher levels of overall quiet quitting and higher levels of lacking motivation than men did. In the United States, however, there was no significant difference between men and women; both genders reported similar levels of disengagement. This suggests that in the Pakistani context, women may be facing a unique set of pressures, perhaps related to the combined weight of professional duties and domestic responsibilities, which leads them to conserve their energy by reducing their motivational investment. In the American context, these gendered pressures did not appear to create a measurable difference in how people disengaged.
The researchers are careful to note that these findings are preliminary and the differences observed were small. They did not prove that culture causes these specific behaviors, but rather that the patterns align with what we might expect from different cultural environments. In a culture that values social harmony, like Pakistan, it might be more socially acceptable to quietly reduce one's extra effort than to openly confront a manager or withdraw visibly. The act of staying in the role but stopping the extra work allows an employee to maintain the appearance of compliance while protecting their own resources. In contrast, the American context, with its focus on individual boundaries, might allow for a different kind of expression, though the study found the overall levels of withdrawal were the same. The key takeaway is that looking only at the total amount of disengagement can hide important details. Two groups of people can feel equally disengaged on a broad scale, yet express that feeling in completely different ways depending on their cultural and social surroundings. This study suggests that to truly understand why employees are pulling back, organizations need to look beyond the surface and consider how local norms and gender roles shape the specific behaviors of disengagement.
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