Valence-dependent functional connectivity during vicarious observation of hostile and affiliative social interactions

Social environment profoundly influences well-being, yet the neural correlates of vicariously observing workplace interactions across the emotional spectrum remain underexplored. This study investigated valence-dependent patterns of functional connectivity (FC) during observation of hostile and affiliative customer-employee encounters in thirty-four healthy adults. Seed-based FC analysis examined the connectivity of key regions associated with empathy and relational social cognitive processing, and region-of-interest (ROI)-to-ROI analysis evaluated the configuration of three core brain networks. Results revealed that witnessing hostility, compared to affiliation, was associated with greater connectivity within the salience network, a system typically involved in vigilance, and increased coupling between core empathy regions and sensory areas. Conversely, relative to hostile conditions, observing affiliation was associated with greater integration within the default mode and frontoparietal networks. Furthermore, exploratory analysis revealed that emotion regulation strategies were associated with these pathways, in which cognitive reappraisal was linked to reduced empathy-sensory coupling during hostility, while expressive suppression was associated with broadly reduced empathy-related connectivity particularly during positive observation. These findings indicate that functional brain organization differs depending on the valence of observed social interactions, with potential relevance for understanding how workplace social dynamics may influence neural processing. This work bridges social neuroscience with organizational behavior, highlighting directions for future research on vicarious stress and well-being.