Moderating effects of emotion regulation and responsibility attributions in the relationships between workplace incivility and work-related outcomes

The present study aimed to investigate the positive effects of experienced workplace incivility on counterproductive work behaviors, depressive symptoms and silencing-the-self behaviors and the negative effects of experienced workplace incivility on co-worker satisfaction, satisfaction with the supervisor, and psychological well-being. In addition, the moderating effects of emotion regulation strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and of responsibility attributions for negative behaviors performed by different agents (i.e., self, supervisor, and co-workers) in the links of experienced workplace incivility with the psychological and behavioral outcome variables were examined. Data were collected from 409 workers who volunteered to complete the survey packages. The model was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and provided a good fit to the data. The results revealed that, as hypothesized, both supervisor and co-worker incivility were directly related to counterproductive work behaviors. Furthermore, while supervisor incivility was associated with employees'satisfaction with the supervisor and depression symptoms; coworker incivility was associated with co-worker satisfaction. Responsibility attributions for negative co-worker behaviors moderated the association of co-worker incivility and counterproductive behaviors. In addition, cognitive reappraisal moderated the relationships of both supervisor and co-worker incivility with CWBs as well as the relationship between co-worker incivility and co-worker satisfaction. The findings are discussed regarding their theoretical contributions and implications for practice along with suggestions for future research. Keywords: Incivility, responsibility attributions, emotion regulation, counterproductive work behaviors, silencing-the-self behaviors, depressive symptoms.