Workplace incivility has significant adverse consequences for targets. However, we know remarkably little about how targets of incivility cope and even less about which coping strategies are effective. Drawing on the coping process of the transactional model of stress, we examine confrontation as a form of problem-focused coping and avoidance as a form of emotion-focused coping in response to incivility. We examine the effects of these coping strategies on reoccurrence of incivility, incivility enacted by targets, psychological forgiveness, and emotional exhaustion. Focusing on the target's perspective of a series of uncivil interactions between a target and perpetrator, we conducted a 3-wave study of employees from various occupations. Employing the critical incident technique, participants reported on an incident of workplace incivility, and then answered a series of questions over 3 waves of data collection regarding their interactions with this perpetrator. Our findings suggest that confrontation and avoidance are ineffective in preventing reoccurrence of incivility. Avoidance can additionally lead to increased emotional exhaustion, target-enacted incivility, and lower psychological forgiveness. However, confrontation coping has promise with regards to eliciting positive outcomes such as psychological forgiveness that are beneficial to interpersonal workplace relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Summary To understand the relationship between employee performance and abusive reactions from supervisors, we examine the role of supervisors' attributions about employees' performance. Drawing on the fundamental attribution error, we argue that supervisors over‐attribute lower levels of performance to employees' internal factors (i.e., conscientiousness), which then triggers higher levels of abusive supervision. In Study 1, we collected data from 189 supervisor–employee dyads. The results indicated that lower levels of supervisor‐rated employee performance related to supervisor biased attributions to employee conscientiousness, which in turn resulted in employee‐rated abusive supervision. In Study 2, we combined a recall task with a vignette design to replicate and extend our findings. We demonstrated that after adjusting for the baseline level of employee conscientiousness, supervisors over‐attributed poor performance to employee conscientiousness and then engaged in higher levels of abusive behaviors. Further, consistent with premises of fundamental attribution error, we found that in the absence of information about who was at fault for poor performance, supervisors over‐attributed poor performance to internal factors (employee) as compared to external factors (software malfunction). Taken together, our findings demonstrate that biased attributions about employee conscientiousness help explain the relationship between employee performance and abusive supervision.

This article outlines an active learning exercise that gives students the opportunity to learn and apply the behaviors of transformational leadership theory. Students watch a brief, prerecorded “before” video depicting transactional manager–employee interactions. Students then revise the script so that the manager exhibits the four I’s of transformational leadership—inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, idealized influence, and intellectual stimulation—and act out the new script in a student-produced “after” video. Our experience demonstrates higher student engagement and better learning outcomes when compared with more passive teaching methods.

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