---
type: "synthesis"
tags: ["resistance", "sabotage", "performative-use", "behavior-spectrum"]
articles: ["a038", "a042", "a052"]
id: "cross-resistance-spectrum"
sources: ["adoption"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-adoption"
originDay: 9
articleStem: "hbr-seg-adoption"
sourceUrl: "(unified vault: 11 sources)"
sourceTitle: "HBR — People Ⅲ-A · Adoption / trust / literacy / psych-safety"
---
Worker resistance in the corpus is not one behavior but a *graded spectrum* of defensive responses to threat — and two articles even share a source for its darkest end.

1. **Performative use** (mild) — A038's [[concept-performative-ai-use]]: using AI to signal compliance, producing workslop.
2. **Withdrawal / avoidance** (moderate) — A052's [[concept-maladaptive-coping]]: task avoidance, 'dissociating,' disengagement.
3. **Active sabotage** (severe) — the sharp end, documented by *two* articles citing the same [[entity-writer|Writer]] 2025 survey: A042's [[claim-unempathetic-rollouts-sabotage]] (~1/3 of employees, 44% of Gen Z) and A052's [[claim-active-sabotage]] (31% of knowledge workers, 41% Gen Z). Reframed as intentional, not passive: [[contrarian-ai-sabotage]] and [[contrarian-active-sabotage]].

Synthesis: the corpus's distinctive contribution is showing that low adoption is often *not* passive hesitation but a rational, sometimes aggressive, self-protective response along a continuum. Both sabotage claims trace to a single vendor self-report, so the *magnitude* is shaky (see [[cross-evidence-quality-caution]]) and the definition of 'sabotage' likely conflates non-compliance with malice. The unresolved practical question — A042's [[question-sabotage-prevention]] — is how to detect/prevent sabotage *without* surveillance that further destroys the trust whose absence caused it. The whole spectrum is downstream of identity threat ([[cross-identity-threat-fobo]]).