Abstract
While much is known about the prevalence and impact of incivility in the workplace, relatively less is known about those who instigate workplace incivility. This research aims to investigate incivility instigation through a moral lens by examining the roles of other-condemning moral emotions (contempt, disgust, and anger) and appraisals of coworkers’ morality as predictors of this behavior at work. In Study 1, we used structural equation modeling to analyze two waves of self-report data collected from a sample of 447 full-time United States (U.S.) working adults. Findings from this study indicate that appraising coworkers as low in morality elicited feelings of contempt, disgust, and anger. However, only contempt predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. In Study 2, we collected self-report data from a sample of 309 full-time U.S. workers using a critical incident technique. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results from Study 2 replicated the association between low morality appraisals and contempt, anger, and disgust found in Study 1. However, anger predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. Additionally, contempt and perceived civility norms had an interactive effect on instigated incivility. These studies provide insight into the roles of contempt, disgust, and anger in predicting incivility instigation, suggesting that employees may engage in incivility to condemn others who engage in moral transgressions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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Notes
Goodwin et al. (2014) distinguish between high-warmth morality and low-warmth morality. Given the context of the study we considered the low-warmth morality items to be most appropriate, so we used only these items. Sample items of low-warmth morality items are fair, principled, responsible, trustworthy. Sample items of high-warmth morality items are humble, kind, forgiving, giving.
We thank our anonymous reviewers for suggesting this possibility.
An article using this dataset was previously published (Miranda et al., 2020). For the sake of length, we exclude in this article a detailed explanation of the process by which participants were removed from our sample. For a detailed explanation please see Miranda et al. (2020). Additionally, we note that the research questions, hypotheses, and main variables in this article are completely different from those examined in the previously published article. A detailed data transparency table is available from the first author.
While Study 2 follows Study 1 in the article, the data examined in Study 2 was collected prior to the data in Study 1. As such, the data collected earlier (Study 2) used the older measure of incivility, before we turned to the more recent measure in the data collected afterwards (Study 1).
We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting these implications.
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Miranda, G.A., Welbourne, J.L. Examining Incivility Through a Moral Lens: Coworker Morality Appraisals, Other-Condemning Emotions, and Instigated Incivility. J Bus Ethics 182, 501–519 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04955-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04955-5