In the most recent iteration of the European Working Conditions Survey, 16% of EU workers reported being exposed to adverse social behavior in the workplace, such as bullying and harassment, over the past month [1]. This demonstrates that workplace mistreatment remains a pervasive work environment issue in the European Union, affecting a large amount of workers every year. Being exposed to mistreatment at work is a well known occupational hazard with clear documented negative outcomes [1]. For instance, the consequences of being subjected to workplace bullying include depression, anxiety and stress-related complaints [2], post traumatic stress [3], suicidal ideation [4, 5], cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes [6, 7], sickness absence [8, 9], and many other health and work-related outcomes [10].
Workplace bullying is commonly defined as harassing, offending, or socially excluding someone repeatedly over time, where the target is in an inferior position, and systematically targeted by negative social acts [11]. Bullying can therefore be considered a severe form of mistreatment. However, over the past decades, research has begun to focus on whether workplace mistreatment with a lower intensity also could be an occupational hazard for employees. About two decades ago, Andersson and Pearson [12] published a seminal paper on workplace incivility, which they defined as “low intensity deviant behavior, with ambiguous intent to harm the target” [12, p. 457]. Overall, workplace incivility was described as a subtle form of interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace, consisting of rude behaviors such as derogatory or condescending comments, interrupting others, not listening, or having a dismissive body language [13]. As for incivility, it is however not clear whether the behavior is intentional (hence the ambiguity), and it can concern single incidents rather than systematic abuse toward a specific target in an inferior power position.
Since 1999, extensive research has been conducted on the outcomes of workplace incivility demonstrating clear detrimental outcomes for both targets and witnesses [14]. This indicates that even low intensity mistreatment with unclear intentionality can be harmful to employees’ occupational health, and thus worthy of further attention. Moreover, workplace incivility was also described to, despite its low intensity, be at risk of developing into increasingly intense and aggressive behaviors if left unaddressed [12]. This suggests that workplace incivility can be a precursor to workplace bullying, although this has not yet been explored empirically. Specifically, incivility may run the risk of developing into bullying over time, when rude and condescending behavior from coworkers or supervisors in the workplace become systematic, repetitive, and intentional.
In addition to this, Hershcovis [15] has criticized that these factors, despite being central distinguishing features between incivility and bullying, often have been unmeasured in studies on each construct. Instead, it has been argued that the constructs generally have been indistinguishable from oneanother in research studies, which complicates inferences relating to each type of mistreatment [15]. This can be especially problematic as occurences of workplace incivility and bullying are likely to covary. There is therefore a gap in knowledge about the actual unique consequences of workplace incivility, when taking into account that individuals that report incivility also may have been exposed to other unmeasured types of more severe mistreatment.
To address these knowledge gaps, the aim of the present study is to explore whether (experienced and witnessed) workplace incivility is a risk factor for (experienced and witnessed) workplace bullying. An additional aim is to explore whether experienced workplace incivility is associated with psychological well-being above and beyond the influence of (experienced and witnessed) workplace bullying on well-being.
Workplace incivility as a risk factor for workplace bullying
Workplace mistreatment has often been described as an escalating process in organizations, which may start with mistreatment of a lower intensity, that gradually and over time evolves into more severe forms of mistreatment [11, 16]. This is particularly evident when considering how workplace incivility and workplace bullying typically have been defined. For instance, workplace incivility has been defined as low intensity aggression where the perpetrators’ intentions are ambiguous to interpret [12]. Workplace bullying, on the other hand, consists of persistent negative acts [11]. The high intensity of overt harassment also makes bullying behaviors unambiguous to interpret [17]. However, by following these definitions, incivility that is repeated over time, and that results in a power imbalance, would theoretically escalate into bullying [18].
Consistent with this line of reasoning, Andersson and Pearson [12] described that workplace incivility can escalate through a negative spiral of reciprocal ‘tit-for-tat’ exchanges. In such cases, two parties may initially exchange adverse behaviors of low intensity, that subsequently become increasingly more intentional and intense in a downward spiraling pattern, as the stakes and frustration rises on both sides. Andersson and Pearson [12] argued that adverse social behavior eventually reaches a tipping point, where it no longer is seen as unintentional or ambiguous, and instead perceived as intentional aggression. Ultimately, it has been suggested that workplace incivility can contribute to eroding norms for respect in the workplace, and result in a culture of incivility where interpersonal rudeness spreads throughout the organization [12, 17, 19]. It is possible that the spread of workplace incivility in an organization also could result in the occurrence of mistreatment with an increased intensity.
Likewise, workplace bullying has been described as an escalating process, which gradually worsens over time [20]. The bullying process has been described to start with an initial work-related conflict which results in tension. In a second step, the conflict shifts from work-oriented to person-oriented, and more overt hostility is introduced. In the third, and final step, targets are increasingly dehumanized, perceived as deserving of mistreatment, and subjected to severe negative treatment [11]. Empirically, such an escalating pattern has been supported based on qualitative interviews with victims of bullying [16]. In more recent work, it has also been demonstrated that individuals currently exposed to incivility, individuals at risk of bullying, and individuals exposed to severe bullying, can be differentiated based on the frequency and amount of negative acts they report [21, 22]. Consistent with theoretical escalation models, work-related bullying acts were most commonly observed in the initial phases, whereas person-oriented bullying acts to a higher extent characterized severe bullying cases [21]. However, it has also been noted that bullying can occur in the form of ‘predatory bullying’ [23]. In such cases, there is no prior conflict between the target and perpetrator that escalates into bullying. Instead, bullying could emerge as a consequence of prejudice, being a scapegoat, or as a demonstration of power by the perpetrator [23]. Even though predatory expressions of workplace bullying also have been discussed in the literature, the focus of the present study is on the escalation process of bullying.
Although theoretical models of workplace mistreatment suggest that it can be an escalating process, few studies have examined this more specifically. Zapf and Gross [16] analyzed interview data from 20 individuals, and the studies by Rosander and Blomberg [21] as well as Nixon et al. [22] explored cross-sectional between-subject differences in mistreatment exposure, rather than within-individual change over time. A knowledge gap therefore remains about whether workplace mistreatment of a lower intensity over time can develop into more severe harassment. One prerequisite for escalation is that there is a relationship between low and high intensity mistreatment over time. In the present study, we explore whether individuals that have experienced incivility are at higher risk of being exposed to bullying over time. Additionally, we explore whether witnesses to incivility are more prone to witness workplace bullying over time, to explore whether incivility can be a precursor to more severe harassment. By studying both targets and bystanders, we comprehensively investigate whether incivility is a risk factor for the future presence of bullying in the workplace. We hypothesize:
H1
Experienced workplace incivility is significantly positively related to self-reports of bullying exposure over time (from t1 to t2, and from t2 to t3).
H2
Witnessed workplace incivility is significantly positively related to self-reports of witnessed bullying over time (from t1 to t2, and from t2 to t3).
The relationship between workplace incivility and psychological well-being
Experienced workplace incivility has been related to lower levels of health and well-being in several studies [24,25,26]. There is therefore substantial support for the notion that workplace incivility has negative health effects. Although it is a stressor of low intensity, it has previously been argued that frequent exposure to minor stressful events can be stressful, and cause strain over time [27]. In this way, workplace incivility has been conceptualized as a ‘daily hassle’ [28], that is frustrating to employees and detrimental to their health and well-being as the stress results in allostatic load.
Unsurprisingly, high intensity mistreatment such as workplace bullying has also been shown to have a clear negative relationship with health and well-being in several studies (see Mikkelsen et al. [29]; or Nielsen and Einarsen [10] for two recent reviews). Nevertheless, workplace incivility and workplace bullying have in most studies been assessed separately. Consequently, it is possible that instruments that have been designed to measure workplace incivility also inadvertently may tap into other, more severe mistreatment constructs, such as workplace bullying. It has been pointed out that the items of scales frequently used to measure each construct (i.e. the workplace incivility scale, (WIS) [28]; and the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised, (NAQ-R), [30]), have a large degree of content overlap [15]. In part, this creates a credibility problem, as it is difficult to assess whether studies that have found a significant relationship between experienced incivility and well-being have discovered such a relationship due to the unique impact of incivility on well-being, or due to inadvertently measuring exposure to more severe mistreatment. In other words, it is possible that the relationship between incivility and well-being may be confounded by an underlying unobserved variable in these studies, namely workplace bullying. Conversely, the opposite may also be true. The association between workplace bullying and well-being that has been found in several studies, where the NAQ-R has been used, could be confounded by workplace incivility, as the scale may tap into that construct as well. It is therefore important to include workplace incivility and bullying in the same model in order to test the specific influence of each factor on well-being. Unless the possible negative effect that bullying may have on well-being is accounted for, it will be difficult to draw inferences about a relationship between workplace incivility and well-being.
In a recent meta-analysis, incivility was found to incrementally predict several negative outcomes when controlling for constructs such as aggressive behavior, ostracism, undermining, sexual harassment, and abusive supervision [31]. However, they found that incivility had no incremental contribution in the prediction of well-being after controlling for sexual harassment, undermining, ostracism, and abusive supervision [31]. But in a supplementary sample collected by the researchers, incivility did show an incremental prediction of well-being (and several other constructs) beyond the impact of all the aforementioned factors [31]. Nevertheless, the study did not explicitly control for the impact of workplace bullying, a construct that most frequently has been compared to incivility [32]. Thus, a knowledge gap still remains in regard to whether incivility incrementally predicts well-being over workplace bullying. We therefore intend to build on the findings of Yao et al. [31], and test if there is a significant relationship between experienced workplace incivility and well-being, when having controlled for the impact that workplace bullying has on well-being. We also extend the findings by exploring this prediction over time, as a central component in the allostatic load hypothesis is that strain accumulates over time.
In this case, we intend to explore the impact on psychological well-being specifically. Low intensity mistreatment has been shown to be a less pronounced predictor of physical well-being [15]. Conversely, incivility was equally strongly related to psychological well-being as bullying was in a meta-analysis [15]. This is consistent with Lim et al. [25], who found that experienced workplace incivility was directly negatively related to mental health, and only indirectly related to physical health via mental health. This makes psychological well-being a particularly interesting factor when attempting to examine the unique contribution of incivility, above and beyond bullying. Taken together, testing whether incivility contributes unique variance over bullying is a key tenet for the construct validity of workplace incivility, and necessary in order to understand true ramifications of low intensity mistreatment in the workplace. Based on Cortina et al.’s [28] reasoning about workplace incivility as a daily hassle, we hypothesize that:
H3
Experienced workplace incivility is significantly negatively related to psychological well-being over time, above and beyond the contribution of workplace bullying in the same model (from t1 to t2, and t2 to t3).
In this case, we do not present any hypothesis about witnessed incivility, as previous research based on the same panel of participants has demonstrated that there is no significant relationship between witnessed incivility and well-being over time [33]. We do however include witnessed incivility in the models testing H3, as experienced incivility and witnessed incivility have been shown to be highly correlated [24, 26]. In this way we obtain more precise parameter estimates and conduct a more stringent test of the present hypothesis.