Interaction strategies of newly graduated nurses with senior colleagues under asymmetrical power relations: A...

High attrition among newly graduated nurses is a persistent global problem. Conventional research attributes this to "transition shock," often framing newly graduated nurses as passive subjects requiring remediation through individual-focused training. This perspective overlooks a critical reality: professional socialization occurs not through formal programs, but through daily interactions with senior colleagues who wield power via knowledge, experience, and evaluative authority.

Drawing on Goffman's dramaturgical theory, this study explores how newly graduated nurses use impression management to navigate asymmetrical power relations with senior colleagues and ultimately shape their professional role transition.

A descriptive qualitative study was conducted using one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with newly graduated nurses.

We employed purposive sampling to recruit newly graduated nurses from two tertiary hospitals in Shandong Province, China, between April and July 2025, analyzing the qualitative data using deductive content analysis.

From our analysis of interviews with 21 newly graduated nurses, four themes emerged: (1) Performing as knowledge seekers: Scripting the frontstage quest for competence; (2) Performing as social intruders: Gaining access to the backstage "team"; (3) Performing as emotional laborers: Managing audience perceptions and reactions; and (4) The enduring impact of performance: The internalization of roles.

While impression management serves as a critical professional survival strategy for newly graduated nurses, it is a performance enacted at the steep price of burnout and self-alienation. This defensive posture risks becoming an internalized, intergenerationally transmitted harmful culture where today's survivors become tomorrow's gatekeepers, perpetuating a vicious cycle of workforce attrition and cultural toxicity. Breaking this cycle requires interventions that move beyond the individual. Organizations must foster psychologically safe environments with a zero-tolerance policy for incivility. Nursing education must make the hidden curriculum of workplace survival explicit, thereby empowering the next generation of nurses.