ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
When mission meets isolation: a five-wave longitudinal study of how workplace loneliness erodes job embeddedness through role stress and organizational identification among railway police.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Introduction: Workplace loneliness is increasingly recognized as a critical concern in occupational health psychology. However, the sequential mechanisms through which it translates into organizational detachment remain poorly understood, particularly in high-loneliness occupations such as railway policing. Objectives: Drawing on Social Identity Theory and Equity Theory, this study proposed and tested a moderated serial mediation model. The model examined two research questions: (a) whether workplace loneliness predicts lower job embeddedness through the serial mediation of role stress and organizational identification, and (b) whether public service motivation (PSM) moderates this process. Methods: A five-wave longitudinal design with one-month intervals was employed. Data were collected from 736 active-duty railway police officers in China, a population characterized by prolonged solitary patrols and fragmented peer interaction. Workplace loneliness (T1), role stress (T2), organizational identification (T3), PSM (T4), and job embeddedness (T5) were measured across five time points. Results: Results showed that workplace loneliness indirectly predicted lower job embeddedness through the serial mediation of role stress and organizational identification. The total indirect effect accounted for 59.1% of the total effect. Notably, PSM amplified rather than buffered the negative association between workplace loneliness and job embeddedness. Specifically, this negative association was stronger among officers with higher levels of PSM. Discussion: These findings advance the workplace loneliness literature in two ways. First, they provide longitudinal evidence for a sequential erosion pathway-from role cognition disruption to identity weakening to organizational detachment. Second, they reveal a paradoxical dark side of PSM in resource-depleted organizational contexts. The results also carry practical implications for designing targeted psychological interventions and organizational support systems for isolated occupational groups. More broadly, they highlight the value of longitudinal designs in public safety populations.
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