Voice is considered a valuable asset to team performance. Social identification has been shown to boost voice behaviors in workgroups, but the underlying mechanism is rarely explored. Based on social discounting, we propose that felt social distance from one’s group or team might influence the perceived trade-off between (personal) costs and (group) benefits driving the expression of voice. Considering that personality affects the general tendency of social discounting, different personality compositions might discount the value of voice differently. We used a modified social discounting task to measure discounting rates of information sharing in a team setting and compare rates between different personality compositions. Results from a sample of 425 college students show that the value of engaging in voice decreases as a function of social identification, which has similar discounting properties as the discounting of money in previous studies. We also found that while those with a sociable personality were the most generous in sharing money, they shared the least information with the team under a voice-stimulating scenario. Looking at voice through the lens of social discounting, we quantify the value of sharing information with teams, thus, providing a possible explanation of how identification could boost voice behaviors. Future research on voice, social discounting, and personality can incorporate motives of engaging in voice to uncover determinants of voice.
