Curious colleagues provoke stress - scientists

Almost everyone has encountered them - intrusive colleagues who read from a screen over their shoulder, ask inappropriate questions, or unexpectedly turn up during private conversations. These behaviours aren't just annoying - they can undermine employees' psychological well-being.

A study conducted by Richard A. Curry, associate professor of organisational psychology at Boston University, has for the first time offered a clear definition of "office curiosity" and developed a tool to measure it. According to the scientist, until now there was no clear way in science to determine where the line between friendly engagement and violation of personal boundaries lies.

"We've all been in situations where someone feels entitled to interfere with our feelings and personal circumstances," Curry notes.

The study is based on a survey of 350 young adults and a series of four research papers published in the Journal of Business and Psychology co-authored by Mark G. Ehrhart of the University of Central Florida. The scientists identified recurring traits of annoying behaviour ranging from intrusive questioning to gossip and invasion of privacy.

The result was a scale of office curiosity, dividing it into two types: professional (asking questions about workflow) and personal (trying to find out what's going on outside the office).

"It is important to understand that curiosity is not only a behaviour, but also a perception. Different people have different sensitivities to invasion of personal space," Curry explains.

For the first time, a rigorous definition of the phenomenon was proposed: "office curiosity is employees' obsessive attempts to obtain personal information about others in the workplace."

The results of phases three and four of the study showed that excessive curiosity leads to increased stress, reduced productivity and impaired knowledge sharing between colleagues. People, when faced with curiosity, are more likely to start withholding information, closing themselves off from the team.

It was also found that in companies with high competition between employees, the level of curiosity was noticeably higher. Interestingly, younger employees were more likely to exhibit curious behaviour than their more mature colleagues.

Curry has already applied his curiosity scale to the restaurant industry, examining how a manager's interest in personal life affects perceptions of fairness and employee motivation.

"We found that perceived supervisor curiosity reduces feelings of fair treatment, and thus willingness to share knowledge," says the researcher. Meanwhile, sincerity and trust from superiors may have mitigated this effect.

The study does not yet offer specific strategies to protect against "office spies," but it makes it clear: the problem is real, and it's dangerous to ignore it.

"We are all inherently curious. I myself sometimes catch myself wanting to know more about people than I need to. But now I'm more attentive to my own impulses," Currie admits.

Read more: Richard A. Currie et al, Mind Your Own Business: Developing and Validating the Workplace Nosiness Scale, Journal of Business and Psychology (2025).DOI: [10.1007/s10869-025-10018-7]