How Abusive Supervision Affects Workplace Deviance: The Impact of Negative Affect and Aggression

Coping With Perceived Abusive Supervision: The Role of Paranoia

“…Our experiment showed that past and current experiences of abusive supervision contribute to workers' intentions to engage in deviant behaviors, extending previous research (Shoss et al, 2013). Abusive supervision is associated with workers' intentions to engage in deviant behaviors such as verbal aggression and hostility, which is consistent with previous research (Bowling & Mitchel, 2011;Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007;Tepper et al, 2009) that suggests that negative emotions in the workplace (e.g., anger) are related to workplace deviance such as stealing, sabotaging organizational goals, and so on (Mayer, Kuezin & Greenbaum, 2010;Michel et al, 2015). Our research builds on these previous findings by demonstrating that the intention to engage in workplace deviance is connected with both abusive supervision and paranoia, thus suggesting that workplace deviance may be a direct response to the perceived malevolence of the supervisor (that is, as a way of getting back at him/her) through the lens of paranoid thinking.…”

“…Consistent with a recent study by Michel et al (2015) suggesting an association between workplace negative emotions such as anger and workplace deviance and abusive supervision, the results showed that the intention to engage in workplace deviance is highly and positively correlated with perceived abusive supervision (r=.49, p=.000) and with intentions of aggressive affect and behavior (r=.49, p=.000 with intention of hostility; r=.50, p=.000 with intention of anger; r=.45, p=.000 with intention of verbal aggression and r=.51, p=.000 with intention of physical aggression). Moreover as expected, the intention to engage in workplace deviance was also positively and significantly associated with paranoid cognitions (r=.39, p=.000 with the frequency of paranoid thoughts about the supervisor and r=.41, p=.000 with state social paranoid thoughts about the supervisor, respectively).…”

“…Having an abusive supervisor makes workers more likely to drink more alcohol (Bamberger & Bacharach, 2006); feel powerless (Bies & Tripp, 1998); have lower self-esteem (Burton, James & Hoobler, 2006); feel paranoid (Chan & McAllister, 2014;Kramer, 2002); feel emotionally exhausted (Grandey, Kern & Frone 2007); have lower job satisfaction and wellbeing (Mathieu et al, 2014;Thoroughgood, Tate, Sawyer & Jacobs, 2012) and other negative outcomes (e.g., Brees et al, 2014;Harvey et al, 2014;Kerman et al, 2016;Martinko et al, 2013) such as behaving unethically or deviantly by stealing workplace items or sabotaging organizational goals (e.g., Mawritz et al, 2012;Mayer et al, 2010;Michel et al, 2015). A compelling idea in the literature is that abusive supervision has negative effects on employees' thinking and mental health because abusive supervisors make workers more paranoid (Chan & McAllister, 2014;Kramer, 2002).…”