THE RELATIONS OF DAILY COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR WITH EMOTIONS, SITUATIONAL ANTECEDENTS, AND PERSONALITY MODERATORS: A DIARY STUDY IN HONG KONG

In this diary study conducted in Hong Kong, we examined a theoretical model in which negative emotions serve as an explanatory mechanism through which daily stressors impact daily counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We further theorized that personality variables (negative affectivity, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness) would exert cross-level effects on the within-person relationships. Hierarchical linear modeling results based on a sample of 231 individuals and 5,583 observations across 25 days provide partial support for the mediating role of negative emotions in the within-person stressor–CWB relationships. Specifically, we found that negative emotions (a) partially mediated the within-person relation of perceived ambiguity with CWB directed at the organization, (b) fully mediated the relation of supervisor interpersonal injustice with CWB directed at individuals, and (c) fully mediated the relation of customer interpersonal injustice with CWB directed at the organization. High levels of trait negative affectivity were found to strengthen the within-person relation between daily supervisor interpersonal injustice and daily negative emotions. As expected, high levels of trait Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were found to weaken the within-person relations of daily negative emotions with daily CWB directed at the organization and individuals.     

Beauty,Personality, and Affect as Antecedents of Counterproductive Work Behavior Receipt

Over the years, much attention has been devoted to understanding counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and its related concepts. Less is known, however, about whether certain employees find themselves more than others to be the targets of CWB. To examine this issue, we tested a model that positioned CWB receipt as a function of employees' personality (neuroticism, agreeableness), their appearance (physical attractiveness), and the negative emotions felt toward those employees by their coworkers. Two studies using multiple sources of data revealed that disagreeable and physically unattractive employees received more CWB from their coworkers, coworker negative emotion felt toward employees was associated with CWB receipt, and the relationship between employee agreeableness and CWB receipt was due, in part, to coworker negative emotion.     

Opposing Affective and Cognitive Effects of Prevention Focus on Counterproductive Work Behavior

Purpose

Regulatory focus is a crucial self-regulation variable that influences employee workplace behavior. However, research findings to date have been equivocal with respect to the relation of prevention focus with counterproductive work behavior (CWB). On the one hand, prevention focus sensitizes people to experience high activation negative emotions. Such emotions prompt aggressive behavior, suggesting a positive relation of prevention focus with CWB through this affective route. On the other hand, prevention focus also sensitizes people to fulfill obligations and abide by rules. Such obligations align employee behavior with organizational norms, suggesting a negative relation of prevention focus with CWB through this cognitive route. To better understand the nature of this prevention focus–CWB relationship, we examined these underlying affective and cognitive mechanisms simultaneously in two multi-wave studies.

Methodology and Findings

In study 1, data were collected from 151 full-time employees across two time points, and the results showed that prevention focus was positively related to both deviant behavior and withdrawal. In study 2, data were collected from 199 full-time employees across four time points, and we found that prevention focus has a significant negative indirect effect on withdrawal via felt obligation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the regulatory focus and CWB literatures.

     

The Role of Personality and Job Stressors in Predicting Counterproductive Work Behavior: A three‐way interaction

The current study examined interactive effects among personality and job stressors in predicting employees' engagement in counterproductive work behavior (CWB) defined as behavior that harms organizations or people in organizations. Survey data were collected from 932 employees and results showed significant negative relationships of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability with CWB directed at organizations (CWB‐O) and people (CWB‐P), and significant positive relationships of interpersonal conflict and organizational constraints with CWB‐O and CWB‐P. Further, it was found that the positive relationships of interpersonal conflict with CWB‐O and CWB‐P were strongest for people of low emotional stability–low agreeableness among all emotional stability–agreeableness combinations, and that the positive relationships of organizational constraints with CWB‐O and CWB‐P were strongest for people of high emotional stability–low conscientiousness among all emotional stability–conscientiousness combinations.     

资质过剩感对个体绩效的作用效果及机制：基于情绪-认知加工系统与文化情境的元分析

近年来, 资质过剩作为一种特殊的个人-环境不匹配现象, 引发了较多学者的关注, 但相关研究结论尚有争议。对包含383项独立研究、945个效应值及575061个研究样本的321篇文献开展元分析：(1)直接效应检验表明, 资质过剩感与消极情绪(愤怒、无聊)显著正相关, 与积极自我概念(自尊、自我效能感)的相关性不显著; 在个体绩效方面, 资质过剩感与消极角色外行为(反生产行为、离职)显著正相关, 与积极角色外行为(创新、组织公民行为等)和任务绩效的相关性不显著。(2) 结构方程模型元分析表明, 资质过剩感能够通过增强消极情绪, 进而增加消极角色外行为、减少积极角色外行为和任务绩效; 能够通过增强积极自我概念, 进而增加积极角色外行为和任务绩效、减少消极角色外行为; (3)集体主义文化倾向在资质过剩感通过情绪-认知加工系统影响个体绩效的过程中发挥调节作用, 在高集体主义文化情境中, 资质过剩感对消极情绪的负向影响较弱, 且能对积极自我概念产生正向影响; 在低集体主义文化情境中, 资质过剩感对消极情绪的负向影响较强, 且能对积极自我概念产生负向影响。(4)资质过剩感与个人-工作匹配相关性较强, 与个人-组织匹配相关性较弱; 与二者相比, 资质过剩感对压力感、离职的预测效果最强。研究结果有助于理解资质过剩感对个体绩效的复杂作用机制和边界条件, 并为组织如何管理资质过剩员工提供参考。     

Moderating effect of situational strength on the relationship between personality traits and counterproductive work behaviour

The present study investigated the extent to which the strength of situations moderates the relations between personality traits and counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). It was hypothesized that the relations between personality traits and CWB would vary across strong and weak situations. In addition, there would be an interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness in predicting CWB. As predicted, the results showed that the effect of personality on CWB depended on the strength of situations. The results also indicated that, in a weak situation only, conscientiousness has a stronger, negative relation to CWB when agreeableness is low than when agreeableness is high.     

Emotional reactions to crime across cultures

Information about the emotions experienced by observers when they witness crimes would have important theoretical and practical implications, but to date no study has broadly assessed such emotional reactions. This study addressed this gap in the literature. Observers in seven countries viewed seven videos portraying actual crimes and rated their emotional reactions to each using 14 emotion scales. Observers reported significantly high levels of negative emotions including anger, contempt, disgust, fear and sadness‐related emotions, and anger, contempt and disgust were the most salient emotions experienced by viewers across all countries. Witnesses also reported significantly high levels of positive emotions as well (compared to not feeling the emotion at all), which was unexpected. Country moderated the emotion ratings; post‐hoc analyses indicated that masculine‐oriented cultures reported less nervousness, surprise, excitement, fear and embarrassment than feminine cultures.     

Psychological Contracts and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Employee Responses to Transactional and Relational Breach

Purpose  

This study extends the research on counterproductive work behavior (CWB) by examining the psychological contract breaches that trigger employee CWB. Specifically, we explored the relationship between transactional and relational contract breach and five forms of CWB (abuse, production deviance, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal). Further, we considered the role of situational and individual factors that mitigate CWB engagement and examined the moderating effects of organizational policies meant to deter CWB and personality (conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability).     

Predicting counterproductive work behaviors with sub-clinical psychopathy: Beyond the Five Factor Model of personality

Organizational psychologists examining personality’s relation to work behavior have focused largely on the “normal” traits comprising the Five Factor Model (FFM). However, given the aversive nature of sub-clinical psychopathy (e.g., callous affect, impulsivity), we posit that this toxic personality profile will enhance the prediction of negative work outcomes, namely forms of counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB). Study 1 (N = 193) examined the value of sub-clinical psychopathy and the FFM in predicting intentions to engage in CWB; results support prior research indicating that both agreeableness and conscientiousness significantly correlated with CWB. In addition, sub-clinical psychopathy predicted CWB above and beyond the FFM. Study 2 (N = 360) extended the findings of Study 1 by examining interpersonally deviant behavior in a team context. While agreeableness was significantly related to interpersonal deviance in Study 2, conscientiousness was not. Results from Study 2 replicate Study 1, suggesting that sub-clinical psychopathy accounted for the majority of the explained variance in interpersonal deviance. Overall, the results support the value of using sub-clinical psychopathy to predict CWB.     

Counterproductive Work Behavior and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) are two seemingly opposite types of active and volitional behaviors. However, previous research on the mutual relationships between these two types of behavior has yielded inconclusive results. Such relationships are of particular interest in countries such as Poland, which is still in the process of economic and social transformation from a communist to a capitalist system. Therefore, the current study sought to re-examine the relationships between OCB and CWB in a large sample of Polish employees. One thousand and fifty-one employees were recruited from small, medium, and large Polish enterprises to take part in the study, and they completed questionnaire measures of CWB and OCB. The results showed that the overall frequencies of CWB and OCB were statistically significantly correlated. However, while some dimensions of OCB were found to be significantly negatively correlated with certain categories of CWB, one dimension of OCB was significantly positively correlated with CWB. Cluster analysis allowed for distinguishing of four subgroups of participants with different profiles of CWB and OCB, including a subgroup that exhibited equal levels of OCB and CWB and a subgroup that exhibited high levels of CWB cooccurring with increased frequencies of some dimensions of OCB. These results demonstrate that, overall, CWB and OCB are relatively independent and unrelated constructs; however, their particular dimensions may show a more complex pattern of relationships.     

Role stressors and counterproductive work behavior: The role of negative affect and proactive personality

Based on the stressor‐emotion model, we propose that negative affect mediates the relationship between three role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB), while proactive personality moderates the relationships between negative affect, role stressors, and CWB. We tested our hypotheses using data from 332 employees in Mainland China. We found that negative affect mediated the relationships between the three dimensions of role stressors and CWB. Role ambiguity was most strongly associated with CWB, followed by role conflict and then role overload. Proactive personality moderated the role ambiguity‐negative affect, role conflict‐negative affect, and negative affect‐CWB relationships, but not the relationship between role overload and negative affect.     

Relations of Interpersonal Unfairness with Counterproductive Work Behavior: The Moderating Role of Employee Self-Identity

Purpose

Following the job demands–resources model, this study investigated the role of self-identity, or how employees define themselves in relation to others, in the relations between interpersonal unfairness and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Self-identity, an important self-regulatory and resource-related variable, was proposed to moderate the unfairness–CWB relations.

Methodology

A sample of 361 Chinese airline industry employees completed measures of identity, interpersonal unfairness, and CWB directed at people or the organization. We conducted a series of moderated regression analyses to test the hypotheses.

Findings

We found as expected relational identity (identity based on dyadic connection to another person) and collective identity (identity based on membership in a social group) buffered unfairness–CWB relations, such that positive relations were weaker when relational or collective identity was high (vs. low). Support was not found for the proposed moderation effect of individual identity (identity based on uniqueness from others) on unfairness–CWB relations. Supplementary relative weight analyses indicated that multiple identity levels and interactions between them accounted for considerable proportions of explained variance in CWB.

Implications

These findings suggest that different levels of employee identity seem to play different roles in the interpersonal unfairness–CWB relations, and it is important to continue studying employee identity profiles in the context of predicting CWB occurrences.

Originality/Value

This study not only advances our understanding of potential antecedents of CWB, but also underscores the importance of simultaneously studying all three levels of employee identity.     

Coping as a mediator of emotion

There is widespread conviction among health care professionals that coping affects emotion. Yet theory and research have traditionally emphasized the effects of emotion on coping. The present research addresses this imbalance by evaluating the extent to which coping mediated emotions during stressful encounters in two Caucasian, community-residing samples. Subjects' recently experienced stressful encounters, the ways they coped with the demands of those encounters, and the emotions they experienced during two stages of those encounters were assessed repeatedly. The extent to which eight forms of coping mediated each of four sets of emotions was evaluated with a series of hierarchical regression analyses (of residuals). Coping was associated with changes in all four sets of emotions, with some forms of coping associated with increases in positive emotions and other forms associated with increases in negative emotions.     

中学生的道德情绪内隐观研究

以974名14-18岁的中学生为被试,通过道德情绪的词汇评定和情境评定,考察中学生对典型道德情绪种类和道德情绪典型属性的认识。结果表明,中学生对典型道德情绪的认识涉及情境性、导向性、批评性、赞誉性等多种情绪类别,并在总体上更容易把正性情绪词汇认同为道德情绪。在判断与评价具体情境中的道德情绪过程中,中学生更倾向把无私和有私因素诱发的情绪显著地聚类区分,从而将无私诱因视为其认同道德情绪的典型标准,这种内隐观不受其学段、性别的影响和情绪效价效应的干扰。     

Beliefs about emotion’s malleability influence state emotion regulation

The current study examined how manipulating information about whether emotions are fixed or malleable influences the extent to which individuals engage in different emotion regulation strategies. We hypothesized that fixed, compared to malleable, emotion beliefs would produce less effort invested in emotion regulation. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions emphasizing that emotions are malleable or fixed, and then completed an autobiographical negative emotion induction. Participants reported seven different emotion regulation strategies they used during the recall task. Participants in the fixed emotion condition, compared to those in the malleable emotion condition, reported engaging significantly less in self-blame and perspective-taking. They engaged somewhat, but not significantly, less in all of the other strategies, except acceptance. These results suggest that emotion malleability beliefs can be experimentally manipulated and systematically influence subsequent emotion regulatory behavior. Implications for affective science and mental health are discussed.     

Dimensions of Filipino Negative Social Emotions

The interpretation of emotions as cultural categories is possible by investigating emotional experience within the social situations which were expected to produce them. This is afforded by a componential framework of analysis. In this study, 15 Filipino social negative emotion words are clustered and subjected to a componential analysis in focus group discussions. The emotion components that were used to differentiate each cluster were appraisal processes, focal events, emotion regulation, action tendencies and relationships with the other. Three emotion clusters were identified varying in terms of degree of intensity. The highest intensity was associated with emotions that invoke a moral dimension to the actions of the other. The other two clusters are lesser in intensity and involve putting responsibility on the self for experiencing the emotions. The emotions in all clusters are associated with varying forms of changes in the relationships with the other.     

Smiles when lying

Subtle differences among forms of smiling distinguished when subjects were truthful and when they lied about experiencing pleasant feelings. Expressions that included muscular activity around the eyes in addition to the smiling lips occurred more often when people were actually enjoying themselves as compared with when enjoyment was feigned to conceal negative emotions. Smiles that included traces of muscular actions associated with disgust, fear, contempt, or sadness occurred more often when subjects were trying to mask negative emotions with a happy mask. When these differences among types of smiling were ignored and smiling was treated as a unitary phenomenon, there was no difference between truthful and deceptive behavior.     

情绪对延迟折扣的影响：现状、机制与展望

延迟折扣研究领域日益重视情绪的影响作用。本文基于三类研究取向对情绪与延迟折扣关系研究进行了回顾。情绪效价和唤醒度均影响延迟折扣,但是研究结果并不一致;具体情绪类型不同,其对延迟折扣影响也存在差异。除此之外,本文就情绪信息理论、情绪动机维度理论和评估倾向理论如何解释延迟折扣进行了详细阐述。未来的研究需要进一步深入考察情绪影响延迟折扣的认知神经机制,从而为延迟折扣的负性情绪效应的干预提供可靠的科学依据。     

Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emotions and Parents’ Emotion-Related Conversations with Their Children

The goals of the current study were to describe parents’ emotion socialization patterns and to assess relations between parents’ emotion-related beliefs and socialization behaviors during conversations with their children. Participants were 125 parents and their 9- and 10-year-old children from three ethnic groups in the southeastern United States. Parents reported beliefs about children’s emotions. Parents and children were videotaped playing a board game to evoke emotion-related conversations, which were then coded for parents’ labeling, teaching, and encouragement of emotion. Parents used less labeling and teaching for positive than negative emotions, and greater encouragement for positive than negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of positive emotions engaged in less labeling of positive emotions, less teaching of all emotions, and less encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of negative emotions engaged in more encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs that all emotions are dangerous engaged in less labeling of negative emotions. The results of this study have potential clinical implications in helping clients to understand the foundational structures of their behaviors and how both beliefs and behaviors are distinct, yet interrelated constructs.     

PERCEPTION AND JUDGMENT OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AMONG THE CHINESE

Perceived relationships among nine facial expressions were structurally represented in a two-space configuration by multidimensional scaling procedure. The two dimensions operative for Chinese judges were interpreted as positive versus negative emotions and open versus controlled styles of expressions. While there was some consensus in identifying seven of the nine intended emotions, interest-excitement and disgust-revulsion were often not recognized. Implications of cross-cultural comparisons in identification rates were discussed.