Supplemental Materials

“Observing Workplace Incivility”

by Tara C. Reich and M. Sandy Hershcovis, 2014, Journal of Applied Psychology

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036464

Preliminary Study Using Public Allocation of Spicy Sauce

Method

Participants. We recruited participants for two ostensibly unrelated studies by posting advertisements at a large Canadian university. Participation was open to both students and staff. Advertisements stated that participants would be paid $15.00 CAD (approximately $14.50 USD) for completing the combined 60 minute studies. Fifty-six individuals participated in the study; however, four were excluded from our analysis due to suspicion about the study’s purpose. The final sample consisted of 52 participants (32 women, 20 men; Mage = 23.08, SD = 5.59; age range: 17–51).

Materials and procedure. We followed a nearly identical procedure as that described in Study 2 with the exception of the following changes. First, the instigator and target were seated in the same room during the spicy sauce allocation, such that participants were aware that both the instigator and the target could see how much sauce had been allocated to the other. Second, we included three additional semantic differential pairs to assess attitudes (i.e., “honest–dishonest”, “strong–weak”, “valuable–worthless”; Cronbach’s alphas = .82 and.79 for the instigator and the target, respectively. Finally, we omitted the Research Assistant Evaluation Form. All other procedures were identical to those described in Study 2 (uncivil: n = 25, civil: n = 25).

Results

Manipulation checks. To ensure that participants perceived the incivility manipulation correctly, we checked it with a separate group of undergraduate students (62 women, 65 men) in exchange for partial course credit. We asked participants to watch a video of the actors generating the scripted ideas, either in a neutral tone (civil condition) or with one actor behaving uncivilly the other (uncivil condition). We counterbalanced the identity of the instigator and the target in the uncivil condition (i.e., the actors took turns playing each role); as such, each participant watched one of three possible videos (civil; uncivil: Actor A as the instigator; uncivil: Actor B as the instigator). We matched participants by gender to each video such that female participants watched the female actors interacting and male participants watched the male actors interacting. Participants rated their perception of the hostility of each actor on a seven-point scale (1 = very aggressive/hostile to 7 = not aggressive/hostile at all).

We conducted a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare observers’ perceptions of the hostility of the actors in each of the three video conditions. We found a significant main effect of condition for participants’ perceptions of both actors; F(2, 121) = 8.99, p < .001, η2 = .13, and F(2, 121) = 7.25, p = .001, η2 = .11, respectively. Post hoc comparisons revealed that participants perceived the actor portraying the “instigator” in the uncivil condition to be significantly more hostile than the same actor in either the “target” role in the uncivil condition or in the civil condition (see Table S1). As such, we concluded that the manipulation was successful.

Tests of hypotheses. Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among study variables are presented in Table S2. To investigate the direct effect of witnessed incivility, we conducted a MANOVA using incivility condition as the independent variable and observer attitudes toward and amount of spicy sauce allocated to the instigator and the target as the dependent variables. The overall test was significant, F(4, 45) = 4.98, p = .002, η2 = 0.31; therefore, we proceeded to examine the between-subjects effects. In contrast to Study 2, we found a significant effect of condition for observers’ spicy sauce allocation to both the instigator and the target; F(1, 48) = 8.18, p = .006, η2 = 0.15, and F(1, 48) = 4.68, p = .035, η2 = 0.09, respectively. Compared with participants in the civil condition, participants in the uncivil condition allocated significantly more spicy sauce to both the instigator and the target (see Figure S1). Therefore, H1c was supported, whereas H3c was not.

We also found a significant effect of condition for observers’ attitudes toward the instigator but not for their attitudes toward the target; F(1, 48) = 11.66, p = .001, η2 = 0.20, and F(1, 48) = 1.21, p = .277, η2 = 0.02, respectively. Compared with participants in the civil condition, participants in the uncivil condition reported significantly less positive attitudes toward the instigator (see Figure S2).

Discussion

Results from our preliminary study suggest that observing incivility influences observer attitudes toward the instigator, as well as their aggressive behavior toward both the instigator and the target. Interestingly, although observers’ attitudes toward the target were not influenced by witnessing incivility, observers of an uncivil interaction engaged in an equally high level of aggression toward the target compared with the instigator. This pattern of findings is perplexing because it implies an inconsistency between observers’ attitudes and their behavior toward a target of incivility. On one hand, observers of incivility developed less positive attitudes toward the instigator than toward the target; however, they engaged in an equal level of aggression toward the target compared with the instigator. In addition, the positive correlation between observers’ sauce allocation to the instigator and the target was strong.

We identified two possible explanations for these findings. The first possibility is that our methodology may have biased participants to allocate a similar amount of spicy sauce to the instigator and the target. That is, although observers were able to report their attitudes toward the instigator and target privately, their aggressive behavior toward each actor was public (i.e., the true participant was aware that the confederates would see how much spicy sauce was allocated to the other). Therefore, observers may have attempted to conceal their aggression toward one actor (i.e., the instigator) by being aggressive to both.

A second possible explanation is that the instigator’s uncivil behavior influenced observers such that higher levels of aggression became normative. This explanation is consistent with social learning theory (Bandura, 1978). That is, observers may have modeled the instigator’s behavior in their subsequent interaction with the actors.

Given the potential confound between observer sauce allocation and the publicity of the allocation, we opted to separate the instigator and target in our subsequent study (i.e., Study 2) to ensure that participants’ sauce allocation decisions would not be influenced by their presentation concerns.

References

Bandura, A. (1978). Social learning theory of aggression. Journal of Communication, 28, 12–29.

Table S1

Preliminary Study: Manipulation Check of Pretest Participants’ Perception of the Hostility of Each Actor Across Conditions

Condition / Actor A / Actor B
Civil / 4.43a (0.25) / 4.66a (0.27)
Uncivil: Actor A as the instigator / 3.28b (0.26) / 4.97a (0.28)
Uncivil: Actor B as the instigator / 4.78a (0.26) / 3.56b (0.27)

Note. M (SD). Values within the same column with the same superscript are not significantly different. Higher scores indicate less hostility.

Table S2

Preliminary Study: Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations

Condition / M (SD) / 1 / 2 / 3
1. Attitude toward the instigator / 5.60 (1.11) / (.82)
2. Attitude toward the target / 5.94 (0.73) / .66*** / (.79)
3. Spicy sauce allocation to the instigator / 27.10 (15.30) / -.19 / -.01 / —
4. Spicy sauce allocation to the target / 27.22 (17.01) / -.16 / -.01 / .85***

Note: Cronbach’s alphas along the diagonal where applicable.

***p < .001.

Figure S1. Preliminary study: Amount of spicy sauce participants allocated to the instigator and target in the civil versus uncivil condition. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Figure S2. Preliminary study: Attitude toward the instigator and target in the civil versus uncivil condition. **p < .01