Workplace Aggression: A Multi-Study Examination of Work and Nonwork Consequences

• Main Author: Demsky, Caitlin Ann
• Format: Others
• Published: PDXScholar 2015
• Subjects: Anger in the workplace > Longitudinal studies; Bullying in the workplace > Longitudinal studies; Work and family > Longitudinal studies; Applied Behavior Analysis; Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Online Access: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2338; https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3342&context=open_access_etds

Workplace aggression has been associated with a number of detrimental employee and organizational outcomes, both at work and away from work. This dissertation includes three studies that expand our knowledge of the implications of workplace aggression in the work and nonwork domains. Further, this research illuminates the processes through which this relationship occurs by utilizing various sources of data from employees in a variety of contexts including universities, long term health care, and the USDA Forest Service. In Study 1, which was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, multi-source data are utilized to identify the indirect effects of coworker-reported workplace aggression on self and significant-other reported work-family conflict via self-reported psychological detachment from work. Study 2 identifies an indirect effect of workplace aggression on parental warmth via increased perceived stress utilizing longitudinal data from the Work, Family, and Health Network. Finally, Study 3 utilizes data from the USDA Forest Service to examine associations between workplace aggression and safety outcomes. Workplace aggression was found to be associated with increased resource depletion (i.e., rumination, cognitive failure) and decreased workplace safety (i.e., increased workplace accidents, decreased safety compliance). Workplace aggression was indirectly associated with safety participation and workplace injuries via cognitive failure and rumination, respectively. Safety climate, an organizational resource, moderated the relationship between rumination and safety behaviors. Finally, the indirect effect of coworker aggression on safety compliance via rumination was found to be conditional on low levels of safety climate, while the indirect effect of supervisor aggression on safety participation via rumination was also found to be conditional on low levels of safety climate. The current body of work provides implications for developing workplace interventions to reduce negative outcomes of workplace aggression, such as general stress management and recovery from work interventions. Several avenues for future research are suggested as well, including examining objective health outcomes of workplace aggression, utilizing longitudinal designs, and identifying additional moderators of the association between workplace aggression and employee outcomes.