Employees on the receiving end tend to ‘pay forward’ the incivility to others, write Christopher C. Rosen, Joel Koopman, Allison S. Gabriel and Russell E. Johnso

Gabriel, Allison S.

Johnson, Russell E.

Koopman, Joel

Rosen, Christopher C.

LSE Research Online

4/11/2017Uncivil behaviour in the workplace causes mental fatigueand is contagiousblogs.lse.ac.uk /businessreview/2017/04/11/uncivil-behaviour-in-the-workplace-causes-mental-fatigue-and-is-contagious/It is a common maxim that you should treat others the way you personally would want to be treated. This sentimentspills into the work environment when interacting with colleagues, in that we often are encouraged to treat others atwork with respect and dignity. Sometimes, this notion is conveyed directly to employees during training programs,on company retreats, or in the actual mantras that are espoused as part of an organisation’s mission statement orcore values. Or, it could be the case that these ideas are just part of typical social norms in society that do not needto be explicitly stated. After all, it makes sense that treating others well would be not only beneficial to employees,but also beneficial to the company, as a means to improve the quality of work life and levels of morale.At the same time, however, there has been an increasing realisation that, on a day-to-day basis, rude and uncivilbehaviours towards others in organisations are on the rise. Unlike outright abuse or harassment, these behavioursare not extreme or overt. Instead, it’s the insulting coworker ignoring your question during the Monday morningmeeting when everyone is gathered. Or, it’s your colleague using a condescending tone as you are discussing theproject you are collaborating on together. These less extreme behaviours, albeit minor when considered individually,can add up for employees — estimates suggest that incivility costs organisations thousands of dollars each year asthis experience contributes to employee ill-being, absenteeism, and even turnover over time. However, if employeesknow that being uncivil is problematic, and they dislike being treated in this manner, the question arises as to whythese types of behaviours continue to persist.The goal of our research was to understand not only why incivility continues to be prevalent, but also how it mightspiral through organisations. More explicitly, we considered whether it is possible for an employee who was once thevictim of incivility in the workplace to become an instigator of incivility towards his or her own coworkers. We alsoinvestigated factors that might explain why these cycles of incivility perpetuate, and what organisations can do, ifanything, to stop its spread.1/4In our study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology , we found evidence that incivility in the workplace iscontagious because employees may “strike back” towards their coworkers after being treated poorly themselvesbecause of the mental fatigue they personally feel after negative social interactions. We tracked 70 full-timeemployees for 10 consecutive workdays and asked them about their own personal experience of incivility at work,as well as their own instigation of incivility towards others. To quantify employee deficits in self-control associatedwith mental fatigue, we also asked them to complete a Stroop task at each survey administration. This is a commontask used by psychologists that captures a person’s reaction time to a prompt. Longer reactions times are indicativeof increased mental fatigue.Our results showed that incivility is, in fact, contagious — employees who reported being treated poorly earlier in theday were more likely to subsequently engage in uncivil acts directed towards other employees. In part, this was dueto employees feeling mentally fatigued after having expended personal resources dealing with the same type ofnegative treatment themselves. When employees are exposed to incivility, they often spend time and energy tryingto figure out why this mistreatment happened. Did they do something to cause their coworker to lash out at them?Or, was the coworker just acting out? As employees try to process this information, this increases what is already amentally fatiguing experience. Regrettably, when employees are mentally fatigued, they lack sufficient self-control torestrain their own uncivil and impatient behaviours, causing them to ‘pay forward’ this rude behaviour to others.Given the ambiguity surrounding incivility, there are certain contexts that make incivility contagion more likely. In ourwork, employees who also reported working in highly political environments — environments characterised by co-workers who frequently engage in self-serving acts that are not sanctioned by their employer (e.g., taking credit forthe work of others, blaming co-workers for mistakes) — experienced even greater deficits in self-control in responseto uncivil treatment.When employees are in a political environment, the ambiguity surrounding incivility places even greater demands onalready limited self-control resources because being treated poorly may now be due to an employee trying tosabotage another employee in order to get ahead, or to gain more resources in the organisation. Given the potentialthreats to the self, and one’s livelihood, this means that employees working in highly political contexts will expendeven more resources attempting to figure out not only why they were treated uncivilly, but how their experience ofbeing targeted by incivility fits within the broader political environment that they are working in.Although our work highlighted that employees will strike back against others, we were able to shed light on certainemployees who are able to “resist” lashing out. This particular group of employees in our study had higher levels ofconstrual, which reflects the extent to which employees think broadly about the implications and meaning of theirbehaviour in context in terms of its impact on how they will be seen by others. Employees with higher levels ofconstrual likely realise that treating others poorly at work will hurt their image in the organisation and, moreimportantly, hurt their own personal ego. This presents an optimistic take for managers: by encouraging employeesto think about how their actions affect themselves and others, incivility may be curtailed, even when employees feelexhausted.So, what can individuals do to stop incivility from spiralling out of control in the workplace? Given the central role thatmental fatigue and a lack of self-control play in the process through which incivility is transferred from one employeeto another, our research suggests that it would behoove employees to take short breaks, perhaps for a walkoutdoors or an off-site lunch, after experiencing incivility from a coworker. This would allow for the replenishment ofdepleted mental resources, which should enhance the ability of those who are targets of incivility to regulatesubsequent behaviour and, essentially, nip incivility spirals in the bud.♣♣♣Notes:This blog post is based on the authors’ paper Who strikes back? A daily investigation of when and why2/4incivility begets incivility, Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 1620-1634. doi: 10.1037/apl0000140The post gives the views of its author, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School ofEconomics.Featured image credit: don’t look now, by Kelvyn Skee, under a CC-BY-2.0 licenceBefore commenting, please read our Comment Policy.Christopher C. Rosen is a professor of management in the Sam M. Walton College of Businessat the University of Arkansas. Dr. Rosen received B.A. degrees in Psychology and Economics fromWashington and Lee University, his M.A. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology andHuman Resource Management from Appalachian State University, and his Ph.D. inIndustrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Akron. His research covers a broadrange of topics, including workplace politics, motivation, and employee well-being. His research onthese topics has appeared in a number of top-tier management and psychology journals, as wellas numerous media outlets. Email: crosen@walton.uark.eduJoel Koopman is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Carl H. Lindner College ofBusiness at the University of Cincinnati. He earned his Ph.D. in 2014 from Michigan StateUniversity. His research interests include organisational justice, daily studies of employee well-being, and research methodology. His research has been published in a number of top-tierjournals. He was the winner of the inaugural Research Excellence Emerging Scholar Award in theCollege of Business at the University of Cincinnati, and he serves on the editorial boards of Journalof Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational behavior, Organizational Behavior and HumanDecision Processes, and Journal of Business and Psychology . Email: koopmajo@ucmail.uc.eduAllison S. Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations in the EllerCollege of Management at the University of Arizona. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from The University of Akron. Her research spans topics related toemotions, motivation, job demands and worker resources, and employee well-being, and she isparticularly interested in understanding these phenomena from a within-person perspective withan emphasis on event-level processes. Dr. Gabriel’s research has been published in leadingjournals, and has been featured by numerous media outlets such as The Boston Globe, TheChicago Tribune, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Forbes. She currently serves on the editorialboards for Journal of Applied Psychology , Journal of Business and Psychology , and Journal of Occupational andOrganizational Psychology. Email: asgabriel@email.arizona.eduRussell E. Johnson is an associate professor of management in the Eli Broad College ofBusiness at Michigan State University. He received his PhD in Industrial and OrganizationalPsychology from the University of Akron. His research examines the roles of motivation-, justice-,and leadership-based processes that underlie work attitudes and behaviors. His research hasbeen published in top academic journals, and it has been cited in numerous media outlets. He iscurrently an associate editor at Academy of Management Review, and serves on the editorialboards at a dozen other journals. In 2013, Dr. Johnson received the Distinguished Early CareerContributions Award for Science from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.Originally from Canada, he still dreams of one day playing in the National Hockey League.Email: johnsonr@broad.msu.edu Copyright © 2015 London School of Economics3/44/4

Uncivil behaviour in the workplace causes mental fatigue and is contagious

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