# Quitting Before Leaving: The Mediating Effects of Psychological Attachment and Detachment on Voice

*Burris · Voice & Silence, Team Learning · Journal of Applied Psychology · 2008 · Paywalled*

Showed that employees psychologically detach from the organisation before they physically exit — and that this detachment suppresses voice. The mechanism runs through attachment: those who care about the organisation speak up; those who have already mentally left do not. Directly relevant to the calculus of voice: the decision to stay silent is not always fear of consequences but sometimes prior disengagement from the stakes. Connects the PS/voice literature to turnover and withdrawal research, and has implications for how silence should be interpreted — it is not always a signal that people feel unsafe, sometimes it signals they have already given up.

- **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/burris-detert-chiaburu-2008/
- **View the source paper:** https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.4.912
- **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?mode=papers&node=burris-detert-chiaburu-2008

## Connected concepts (8)

- [Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/edmondson-1999.md) (paper)
- [Calculus of Voice](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-calculus-of-voice.md)
- [Helping and Voice Extra-Role Behaviors: Evidence of Construct and Predictive Validity](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/van-dyne-lepine-1998.md) (paper)
- [Leadership Behavior and Employee Voice: Is the Door Really Open?](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/detert-burris-2007.md) (paper)
- [Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/morrison-milliken-2000.md) (paper)
- [Barriers to PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/barriers-to-psychological-safety.md)
- [Open Secrets & Half-Baked Ideas](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-63-open-secrets-half-baked-ideas.md)
- [Types of Silence](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/types-of-silence.md)