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Emotional Mechanisms Linking Incivility at Work to

Aggression and Withdrawal at Home: An Experience-
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JOMXXX10.1177/0149206316654544Journal of ManagementLim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors

Journal of Management
Vol. 44 No. 7, September 2018 2888­–2908
DOI: 10.1177/0149206316654544
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Emotional Mechanisms Linking Incivility at

Work to Aggression and Withdrawal at Home:
An Experience-Sampling Study
Sandy Lim
Remus Ilies
National University of Singapore
Joel Koopman
University of Cincinnati
Paraskevi Christoforou
Limassol, Cyprus
Richard D. Arvey
National University of Singapore

We report an experience-sampling study examining the spillover of workplace incivility on

employees’ home lives. Specifically, we test a moderated mediation model whereby discrete
emotions transmit the effects of workplace incivility to specific family behaviors at home. Fifty
full-time employees from southeast Asia provided 363 observations over a 10-day period on
workplace incivility and various emotional states. Daily reports of employees’ marital behav-
iors were provided by the spouses each evening. Results showed that state hostility mediated
the link from workplace incivility to increased angry and withdrawn marital behaviors at
home. Also, trait hostility served as a moderator such that the relationship between workplace
incivility and hostile emotions was stronger for employees with high trait hostility.

Keywords: deviant/counterproductive behavior; affect/emotions; work family conflict/man-

agement; hierarchical linear modeling (HLM)/multilevel

Acknowledgments: This article was accepted under the editorship of Patrick M. Wright. This research was sup-
ported in part by the Singapore Ministry of Education Grant R317-000-100-112. We thank Daniel J. Beal and the
two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of our article.

Corresponding author: Sandy Lim, NUS Business School, 15 Kent Ridge Drive, 119245, Singapore.

E-mail: sandylim@nus.edu.sg

2888
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2889

Past research has demonstrated that the effects of what employees do and experience at
work are not limited to the physical and psychological confines of the workplace but have
rather important effects on employees’ feelings and behaviors experienced and enacted in the
family domain (e.g., Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005). However, some
important questions remain. What specific types of discrete or daily work demands and expe-
riences have effects that spill over onto employees’ family lives? And how do such spillover
processes operate on a day to day basis?
There is research showing that quantitative task demands (i.e., workload, work hours,
time pressure) have stressful effects on workers that spill over the work-family boundary
(e.g., Ilies, Schwind, Wagner, et al., 2007). However, less work has examined the spillover
effects of interpersonal stressors from work to family. Among the various forms of harmful
interpersonal behaviors that can occur at work, workplace incivility, defined as low-intensity
interpersonal mistreatment enacted with ambiguous intent to harm the target (Andersson &
Pearson, 1999), has received increased attention over the past decade (Hershcovis, 2011).
Research has revealed that the experience of incivility is associated with decreased job satis-
faction, psychological well-being, physical well-being, and affective commitment, as well as
increased turnover intent (e.g., Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001; Lim & Cortina,
2005). What is not known is whether workplace incivility affects employees’ functioning in
their family roles, which—we argue—should be included in any comprehensive treatment of
employee well-being (see Ilies, Schwind, & Heller, 2007).
Conceptually, the influence of workplace incivility on employee well-being is thought to
occur via a stress-response mechanism by eliciting negative emotional reactions, which in turn
affect both psychological and physical aspects of well-being (Bunk & Magley, 2013; Lim,
Cortina, & Magley, 2008). In this article, we extend this theory by proposing a dynamic model
of displaced responses to workplace incivility that considers employees’ emotional responses
to day-to-day fluctuation in experiences of incivility and the consequences for employees’
behavior at home. Following previous theorizing and research on the topic (Repetti, 1989;
Schulz, Cowan, Cowan, & Brennan, 2004), we focus on angry and withdrawn behaviors
because of the importance of these behaviors for individuals’ functioning in their family roles.
Such behaviors have been shown to reflect an individual’s inability to regulate negative emo-
tions in marital interactions, which are warning signs of couples who are likely to become dis-
satisfied with their marriage and separate in future years (Gottman & Levenson, 1992).
Drawing on theory and research on differential emotions (Frijda, 1986; Izard 1991;
Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994), the appraisal tendency framework (Lerner & Keltner,
2000), and spillover theory (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000), we hypothesize that employees
will experience heightened feelings of hostility on days when they experience high levels of
incivility at work, and these hostile emotions will have spillover effects on what employees
do at home. We also consider the role of personality dispositions by proposing that trait hos-
tility (Watson, 2000; Watson & Clark, 1994) will exacerbate the hostile emotional reactions
to experiences of incivility.

Intended Contribution
In sum, this article seeks to make four key contributions to the existing literature. First,
existing research on incivility has neglected the potential impact of incivility on the family
2890   Journal of Management / September 2018

domain, and we attempt to address this gap by examining the spillover process of incivility
outcomes across the work-family boundary. Second, past studies have relied primarily on
cross-sectional surveys to capture summary perceptions of incivility experiences and out-
comes at a single point in time. By utilizing an intraindividual design, we were able to assess
employees’ reactions during the same day when incivility was experienced, thus allowing us
to examine the links between incivility and its outcomes on a day-to-day basis. Third, we
respond to calls for considering discrete emotions in organizational behavior research, as
opposed to only examining broad affective states such a positive and negative affect (Brief &
Weiss, 2002; Gooty, Gavin, & Ashkanasy, 2009) by examining discrete emotional reactions
as potential mediating mechanisms that link interpersonal stressors at work to actual behav-
iors in the family context. This allows us to examine specific underlying affective mecha-
nisms that drive the behavioral outcomes of incivility across the work-family boundary.
Finally, we build on personality theories that highlight the need to examine person-situation
interactions (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995) by studying the role of individual dispositional
traits in affecting the incivility-outcome relationships. Specifically, we examine trait hostility
as a potential moderator that can affect both immediate and displaced reactions to incivility
experienced at work.
In the following sections, we begin by providing a brief overview of the definitions of
workplace incivility and existing research that examined outcomes of incivility. Next, we
discuss the rationale for studying hostile emotions as an outcome to incivility, followed by
the need to examine individuals’ dispositional emotionality (trait hostility) as a potential
moderator of such emotional responses to incivility. We then propose the mechanisms that
link hostile emotions to the behavioral outcomes of incivility.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesized Relationships

Workplace incivility is a subtle form of interpersonal mistreatment. Uncivil behaviors are
typically rude or discourteous behaviors that violate workplace norms of respect (Andersson
& Pearson, 1999), for example, insulting remarks, addressing others in unprofessional terms,
and the use of a condescending tone. While uncivil behaviors display a lack of regard for
others, they are differentiated from other forms of mistreatment such as social undermining
(Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002) or workplace aggression (Baron, 2004) due to the ambigu-
ity of intent. In other words, it is not always clear to the target, observers, or the instigator that
the uncivil behavior carries a malicious intent to harm the target. Another characteristic of
workplace incivility is its low intensity and generalized nature. It is thus distinct from sexual
aggression or workplace violence (Baron, 2004), because it does not involve sexual or physi-
cal forms of assault.
Despite its low intensity, an increasing number of studies have shown that workplace inci-
vility is prevalent in organizations across different industries and cultures (e.g., Cortina et al.,
2001; Cortina & Magley, 2009; Lim & Lee, 2011). These studies revealed that employees who
experienced workplace incivility tend to experience adverse effects such as lower job satisfac-
tion, higher intent to quit, as well as poorer psychological and physical well-being (e.g.,
Cortina et al., 2001; Lim et al., 2008). Andersson and Pearson (1999) also argued that uncivil
behaviors should not be ignored as they could potentially spiral into increasingly intense
aggressive behaviors. In addition, Lim et al. (2008) found that workplace incivility could
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2891

permeate the workgroup climate and indirectly affect other members in the same workgroup.
Such research suggests that workplace incivility can have serious consequences for the indi-
vidual and is also potentially harmful to others who are in close proximity to the targets.

Hostile Emotions as an Outcome of Workplace Incivility

Theories of chronic stress (Gottlieb, 1997; Hepburn, Loughlin, & Barling, 1997; Wheaton,
1997) and daily hassles (DeLongis, Folkman, & Lazarus, 1988; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984)
have been used by researchers to explain the adverse effects of incivility. These theories
argue that persistent stressors over an extended period of time can accumulate to create “wear
and tear” on the mind and body, ultimately resulting in mental and physical health problems.
Thus experiences of incivility are similar to daily hassles that build up over time to exert a
negative impact on the well-being of the affected individuals. This also implies that the out-
comes might only be evident after repeated exposure to incivility over a period of time.
While such theories are useful in explaining the long term impact of incivility, we believe
that the negative effects of incivility can be immediate and become evident during the day the
incivility was experienced. In particular, employees who encounter uncivil behaviors at work
are likely to experience negative emotional reactions that affect how they feel throughout the
day after the incident. Weiss and Cropanzano’s (1996) Affective Events Theory postulated
that employees experience discrete emotional states in response to specific events in the
work environment. These emotional reactions in turn influence their attitudes and behaviors
in the workplace. Similarly, we argue that exposure to incivility in the workplace is likely to
trigger negative emotions, and such reactions are important determinants of more distal
behavioral outcomes.
In particular, we propose that state hostility (a subcomponent of negative affect) is a key
emotional reaction to incivility at work. State hostility refers to a physiological state of
arousal that involves feelings of anger and irritation in response to others’ actions (Averill,
1982; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Common factors that contribute to such emotions in
the workplace include interpersonal conflicts (Glomb, 2002); not being able to proceed with
one’s goal attainment (Fox & Spector, 1999; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O’Connor, 1987);
and experiencing situational frustrations, insults, and unfair treatment (Fitness, 2000; Folger
& Cropanzano, 1998; Neuman & Baron, 2005; Rupp & Spencer, 2006). Researchers have
suggested that feelings of anger or hostility have an evolutionary basis as they are triggered
automatically when one faces acts that violate moral codes or human values (Goldman,
Slaughter, Schmit, Wiley, & Brooks, 2008). In line with this argument, we believe that the
experience of incivility is likely to evoke feelings of hostility among the targets because
uncivil behaviors violate basic human norms of respect. This is consistent with Lim and
Cortina’s (2005) conceptualization of incivility as a generalized form of interpersonal mis-
treatment that shows a lack of regard for the welfare of others. Supporting this argument,
findings from a recent cross-sectional survey suggest that angry emotions might be one of the
most common responses to the experience of incivility at work (Bunk & Magley, 2013). In
our study, we sought to establish the immediacy of such hostile emotional reactions by
assessing experiences of incivility and emotions on a daily basis. We predict:

Hypothesis 1: There will be a positive within-individual day-to-day relationship between workplace

incivility and hostile emotions.
2892   Journal of Management / September 2018

The first hypothesis concerns employees’ specific emotional states of hostility, follow-
ing the experience of incivility at work. Although for most individuals, workplace incivil-
ity, as a negative work experience, should induce negative emotions such as hostility, there
is theory and research suggesting that individuals’ dispositions influence their general
emotional sensitivity to the experience of incivility (Bunk & Magley, 2011). Therefore, we
consider the role of individuals’ dispositional emotionality in influencing responses to
experienced incivility at work. The focus here is on trait hostility, which represents indi-
viduals’ dispositional tendency to experience feelings of anger, scorn, and annoyance
(Watson, 2000).
Bunk and Magley (2011) suggest that certain individuals are likely to be more sensitive to
interpersonal interactions and, thus, react more strongly to mistreatment in the workplace
than others. We extend these arguments to propose that trait hostility is an important disposi-
tional factor that influence individuals’ sensitivity to workplace incivility. Individuals with
high trait hostility have a tendency to appraise others as untrustworthy and likely sources of
provocation (T. W. Smith, 1992). Thus, they are more likely to search the environment for
social threat cues, perceive such cues more quickly, and devote more attention to them (Guyll
& Madon, 2003). As a result of this hostile cognitive schema, they are more likely to experi-
ence angry reactions to ambiguous social situations (e.g., Allred & Smith, 1991; Dill,
Anderson, Anderson, & Deuser, 1997; Pope, Smith, & Rhodewalt, 1990). Building on this
research, we argue that employees with high trait hostility are likely to be more sensitive to
uncivil workplace encounters and experience stronger hostile feelings than those with low
trait hostility. Specifically, we predict:

Hypothesis 2: Trait hostility will moderate the within-individual relationship between workplace
incivility and daily hostility, such that the relationship will be stronger for employees with high
trait hostility than those with low trait hostility.

Linking Hostile Emotions to Family Behaviors

It is our contention that experiencing the specific emotions of hostility has important con-
sequences for employees’ behaviors in their family role. Differential emotions theory speci-
fies that basic emotions such as joy or anger are discrete and differentiated from each other
qualitatively (Izard, 1991). A situation triggers a discrete emotion that functions as a neuro-
biological system that organizes and motivates specific behaviors or “modes of action readi-
ness” (Frijda, 1986; Izard, 2009). For example, when one experiences anger in reaction to a
threat, a “fight” (rather than “flight”) response ensues. Consistent with theory, Roseman et al.
(1994) found that individuals who recalled anger experiences tended to think about how
unfair things were and felt like yelling, hitting, and getting back at someone.
Extending such theories, the appraisal tendency framework (Lerner & Keltner, 2000) sug-
gests that responses to such specific emotions are likely to persist beyond the situation that
initially caused the emotions. Specifically, each emotion triggers a tendency to process future
situations in a way that is consistent with the appraisal theme that elicited that particular emo-
tion (Lerner & Keltner, 2001). For example, upon experiencing anger, which is associated
with the appraisal that others are accountable for negative events (C. A. Smith & Lazarus,
1993), one is likely to appraise subsequent events as being the fault of others and respond
with aggressive behavior.
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2893

In line with such theory and research, we propose that when employees experience hostile
feelings at work, they are likely to bring home the associated appraisal and action tendencies
and be inclined to blame events on their spouses and become aggressive as a result.
Researchers have long argued that work and family are not independent domains as they
contain permeable boundaries that allow the spillover of experiences between work and fam-
ily (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Pleck, 1977). Indeed, spillover theory suggests that
work and family experiences are positively related (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000), and
researchers have argued that the transfer of emotions (in particular, negative emotions) across
the work-family boundaries is largely responsible for such an association (Williams &
Alliger, 1994). For example, Ilies, Schwind, Wagner, and colleagues (2007) showed that
workload was associated with increased negative affect at work, which predicted negative
affect at home. However, studies investigating work-family spillover effects have tended to
focus on general emotions such as positive or negative affect (e.g., Ilies, Schwind, Wagner,
et al., 2007; Rothbard, 2001) and did not examine whether specific marital behaviors (such
as aggression) are linked to specific emotions (such as hostility) experienced at work. Our
current study helps address this gap by testing whether hostile emotions experienced at work
can have a spillover effect on specific behaviors in the family domain.
Since hostile emotions tend to be associated with “fight” or aggressive responses, we do
not expect that they will be associated with other marital behaviors such as “flight” or with-
drawal responses. Consistent with this rationale, Roseman et al. (1994) found that individu-
als who recalled experiences of anger were not more likely to report withdrawal tendencies
such as feeling like running away and withdrawing to a safe place, compared to those who
did not recall such experiences. Thus, drawing on research on differential emotions (Frijda,
1986; Izard, 1991; Roseman et al., 1994), the appraisal tendency framework (Lerner &
Keltner, 2000), and work-family spillover (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000), we predict:

Hypothesis 3: There will be a positive within-individual day-to-day relationship (a) between hostile
emotions and angry family behaviors (b) but not between hostile emotions and withdrawn family
behaviors.

Linking Workplace Incivility to Family Behaviors

Studies on high-risk occupations (e.g., police officers) and aggression in intimate relation-
ships have shown that general stress at work (or other nonfamily domains) were associated
with partner abuse (Gershon, Barocas, Canton, Li, & Vlahov, 2009; Langer, Lawrence, &
Barry, 2008). Other research has also revealed that task-related stressors such as workload,
work hours, and time pressure have been associated with negative affect at home (e.g., Ilies,
Schwind, Wagner, et al., 2007; Williams & Alliger, 1994), burnout and emotional exhaustion
(e.g., Leiter & Durup, 1996; Thompson, Kirk, & Brown, 2005), and marital aggression and
withdrawal (e.g., Repetti, 1989; Schultz et al., 2004). However, the mechanism through
which such effects operate is unclear. While factors such as emotional exhaustion and gen-
eral affect have been postulated to mediate the links between task-related stressors and fam-
ily outcomes, the evidence has been inconsistent (Ilies, Schwind, Wagner, et al., 2007;
Rothbard, 2001; Thompson, Kirk, & Brown, 2005). Compared to task-related stressors,
fewer studies have examined the potential spillover effects of interpersonal stressors from
work to family. Repetti (1993) reported that both workload and negative social interactions
2894   Journal of Management / September 2018

at work were associated with negative mood, and Story and Repetti (2006) found that nega-
tive mood mediated the effect of task and interpersonal work stressors on marital behaviors
for wives, but not for husbands. Overall, these studies suggest that affect might play a role in
mediating the link between work stressors and family behaviors, but it is unclear which spe-
cific emotion (beyond general affect or mood) drives the spillover process, particularly when
it pertains to interpersonal stressors such as workplace incivility.
Following the conceptual and empirical evidence reviewed above, we argue that workplace
incivility is likely to be associated with behaviors in the family domain due to the hostile emotions
that develop in reaction to incivility at work. Building on Hypotheses 1 and 3, we propose:

Hypothesis 4: The within-individual day-to-day relationship between incivility and angry family
behaviors will be mediated by hostile emotions.

In other words, we hypothesized that days when employees experience more workplace
incivility will be characterized by an increased level of hostile emotions compared to days
when employees experience less incivility. We also hypothesized that employees higher in
trait hostility will be more sensitive to the experience of workplace incivility and, thus, will
show stronger links between incivility and the experience of hostile emotions (a cross-level
moderating effect). Furthermore, following theory and research on the differential effects of
emotions, we expected hostile emotions to predict angry family behaviors but not withdrawn
behaviors. Accordingly, we expected the relationship between incivility and angry family
behavior to be mediated by hostile emotions and predict:

Hypothesis 5: Trait hostility will moderate the mediated relationship between workplace incivility
and angry family behaviors via hostile emotions.

In what follows, we describe an experience-sampling study designed to test these

hypotheses.

Method
Sample and Procedure
We sent a recruitment email to full-time employees of a large public institution in southeast
Asia, inviting the employees and their spouses to participate in our study. Initially, 71 employees
responded to our recruitment and completed a sign-up survey. Eight of these employees were
excluded from the final sample for insufficient data (i.e., not participating in the daily survey,
completing the surveys while not at work, or responding to the daily surveys out of order). Of
the remaining 63 employees, 56 also had their spouses agree to participate (89%). The average
age of the employees was 39.1 years (SD = 8.3), and 38 of the employees were women (72%).
The data from employees was collected through online surveys hosted by Qualtrics.com.
For a period of 10 working days (two work weeks; Reis & Wheeler, 1991), employees com-
pleted a survey upon arriving at work as well as another in midafternoon. The first daily
survey (Time 1) contained a measure assessing the extent to which the employee was feeling
hostile at that point in the day (to be used as a control in the analysis). The midafternoon
survey (Time 2), sent several hours later, contained a measure of the extent to which the
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2895

employee had experienced incivility while at work that day, as well as the same measure of
hostility. Each evening (Time 3), the employee’s spouse completed a measure of the extent
to which, that evening, the employee had engaged in withdrawn and angry family behaviors
at home. The spouse responses were provided on paper-and-pencil surveys that were placed
in individual envelopes, marked with day and time stamps by the spouses, and mailed directly
to the researchers. After listwise deletion of cases for which we did not have a morning,
afternoon, and evening spousal response, our final sample was 50 employees and their
spouses (out of 56 possible; 89%) who provided 363 participant-day observations over 10
days (out of 560 possible; 65%).

Measures
Workplace incivility.  We measured the extent to which participants experienced incivility
at work in the afternoon survey using the 7-item scale developed by Cortina et al. (2001),
adapted for daily experience. Participants were instructed to answer the items based on their
experiences with superiors or coworkers at work today (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly
agree). An example item is “put you down or act condescending to you.” Coefficient alpha
for the scale, averaged over each day of the data collection, was .97.

Daily hostility.  This emotional state was measured twice each day: once in the morning
survey and once in the afternoon survey. We measured this emotional state as to how the par-
ticipants felt “right now” using the items “hostile” and “irritable” (1 = very slightly or not at
all to 5 = extremely much) drawn from the PANAS-X1 (Watson & Clark, 1994; Watson et al.,
1988). These items were chosen following recent research on emotion that suggests that not all
negative emotional states are synonymous with the behavioral inhibition system (Gray, 1990;
Watson, 2009); instead, these items reflect emotional states characteristic of the approach sys-
tem (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009). Coefficient alpha for these scales, averaged over each
day of the data collection, was .79 for both the morning and afternoon measurements.

Angry and withdrawn marital behaviors.  The employee’s spouse reported the extent to
which the employee engaged in angry and withdrawn marital behaviors at home each eve-
ning using the 12- and 9-item scales provided by Schulz et al. (2004) in their daily study (1 =
strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Example items for angry marital behaviors include
“my spouse/partner complained about things I did or things I did not do” and “my spouse/
partner took out his/her frustrations on me.” Example items for withdrawn marital behav-
iors include “my spouse avoided talking about problems he/she and I were having” and “my
spouse/partner wanted to be alone.” Coefficient alpha for the scales, averaged over each day of
the data collection, was .97 for angry marital behavior and .84 for withdrawn marital behavior.

Trait hostility.  We measured the employee’s trait level of hostility in the one-time survey
that was completed upon signing up for the study. Participants were asked to rate how they
tend to feel, in general (1 = very slightly or not at all to 5 = extremely much) using the same
two items as in the daily portion of the study. Coefficient alpha for this scale was .68.

Control variables.  In addition to hostile emotions reported in the morning survey, we con-
trolled for three additional emotional states so as to rule them out as potential explanations
2896   Journal of Management / September 2018

for the relationship between hostility and marital behaviors. Specifically, using the PANAS-X
(Watson & Clark, 1994), we created measures for general distress (using the items “upset”
and “distressed”; alpha = .78), guilt (using the items “guilty” and “ashamed”; alpha = .81),
and fear (using the items “scared,” “nervous,” “jittery,” and “afraid”; alpha = .89). Participants
received the same instructions and scale anchors as they did when completing the measure
of daily hostility. To rule out task stressors as an alternative explanation for our hypothesized
effects of incivility, we also included a measure of job demands (alpha = .84; Ilies, Schwind,
Wagner, et al., 2007) that was collected concurrently with incivility. Participants received
similar instructions as they did for the incivility measure and used the same scale anchors. A
sample item is “I have too much work to do.”

Results
Analysis
Due to the multilevel, nested nature of our data (i.e., daily observations nested within
individuals), we utilized random coefficient modeling (estimation of random intercepts and
slopes) with a multilevel path analysis with Mplus 7.11 to test the within-individual relation-
ships we hypothesized, as well as our cross-level interaction. All Level 1 predictors were
centered around each person’s mean (i.e., group-mean centering; Enders & Tofighi, 2007;
Hofmann & Gavin, 1998), and the Level 2 cross-level moderator was grand-mean centered
(Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). This approach eliminates all interindividual variance
from the predictor scores (i.e., each individual’s deviations have a mean of zero and there is
no between-individual variance among null scores). Therefore, the resulting estimates pro-
vided by these analyses reflect strictly intraindividual variation (e.g., Ilies, Schwind, Wagner,
et al., 2007). Random effects were estimated for all Level 1 relationships, and we allowed the
disturbances between angry and withdrawn marital behaviors to covary (Kline, 2005). As
expected, this term was significant (.05, p < .05).
The use of a multilevel path analysis was ideal as it allowed us to implement a simultane-
ous test of our study hypotheses while also modeling the covariance between the random
slopes of the paths comprising the indirect effect when testing for mediation and moderated
mediation (Bauer, Preacher, & Gil, 2006). However, scholars recently suggested that this
covariance not be modeled if it is not significant, as its inclusion can have implications for
parameter estimation and the interpretation of the indirect effect (Tofighi, West, & Mackinnon,
2013). We calculated confidence intervals for our mediation and moderation hypotheses with
and without this covariance, and our conclusions were unchanged. Because the covariance
for both indirect effects was not significant, we followed the recommendation to exclude
them in the final model and we report results accordingly. To test these hypotheses, we fol-
lowed recent recommendations from Preacher, Zyphur, and Zhang (2010) to conduct a para-
metric bootstrap utilizing the estimated coefficients from the analysis (see Lanaj, Johnson, &
Barnes, 2014; Wang et al., 2013). This approach involves estimating the sampling distribu-
tion for both the first- and second-stage coefficients using a Monte Carlo simulation with
20,000 replications. The magnitude of the indirect effect was calculated for each replication,
and these values were sorted to create the empirical sampling distribution for the magnitude
of the indirect effect. A bias-corrected confidence interval was calculated for the indirect
effect by locating endpoints that corresponded to the boundary of a 95% confidence interval
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2897

(see also Preacher & Hayes, 2004). To test for moderated mediation, we followed the above
approach; however, the magnitude of the first stage of the indirect effect was calculated as
conditional on the effect of trait hostility on the relationship between incivility and daily
hostility (Edwards & Lambert, 2007; Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, 2007).

Model Controls
We utilized several control variables in our analysis. First, as discussed above, we controlled
for a morning report of the employees’ hostile emotions as a predictor of each endogenous vari-
able. The use of this variable as a control is ideal for this analysis as it allows us to rule out prior
affective states as a potential confound for the relationship between incivility and hostile emo-
tions (e.g., Spector & Brannick, 2011), and this modeling technique also permits interpretation
of this relationship as representing a change in the employee’s emotional state as a result of
experiencing incivility (Glomb, Bhave, Miner, & Wall, 2011; Scott & Barnes, 2011; Scott,
Barnes, & Wagner, 2012). By examining the relationships in this manner, we are able to partially
alleviate concerns over the causal direction of our hypotheses (Scott & Barnes, 2011).
Second, we controlled for three additional emotional states: general distress, guilt, and
fear. Because these were assessed concurrently with our measure of daily hostility, we
allowed these emotions to covary with the disturbance term for daily hostility (results
were unchanged if these emotions were instead modeled as predictors of hostility), and
each was modeled with random effects as predictors of both withdrawn and angry marital
behaviors.
Third, we controlled for job demands and modeled this construct using random effects as
a predictor of both daily hostilty as well as marital behavior.
Finally, recent within-individual investigations of affective fluctuation have noted that indi-
viduals may be likely to experience linear and cyclical trends in emotions and behavior (Beal,
Trougakos, Weiss, & Dalal, 2013; Trougakos, Beal, Green, & Weiss, 2008). Accounting for
these patterns can be important because seemingly random fluctuations in an individual’s affec-
tive state could potentially be explained by these predictable ebbs and flows (Beal & Ghandour,
2011). We therefore implemented a recommended strategy in our model of controlling for
periodic ebbs and flows according to a linear trend and a cyclical trend. Specifically, following
Beal and Ghandour (2011), we included an extra variable in our model to account for the day
of the week (to control for a linear growth trend in our responses), as well as the sine and cosine
of the day to account for cyclical variation in the emotional and behavior responses (specifi-
cally modeling a period of one week; see also Trougakos, Hideg, Cheng, & Beal, 2014). As
recommended by Beal and Ghandour (2011), these terms were specified to have random coef-
ficient effects as well, to allow for unique individual variation. Ultimately, the results of our
model were unchanged whether these terms were included or excluded. However, one of these
terms was significant, and so, to present a conservative test of our hypotheses, we report results
with these factors included as predictors of each endogenous variable.

Tests of Hypotheses
In Table 1, we present the proportion of variance in our Level 1 constructs that is present
at the within-individual level (Bliese, 2000). As can be seen, the within-individual variance
in our Level 1 constructs ranged between 18% and 50%. Table 2 presents the means, standard
2898   Journal of Management / September 2018

Table 1
Percentage of Within-Individual Variance Among Daily Variables
Within-Individual Between-Individual Percentage of Within-
Construct Variance (e2) Variance (r2) Individual Variance

Incivility .11 .50 18%

Hostility (morning) .16 .26 38%
Hostility (afternoon) .17 .29 37%
General distress .26 .32 45%
Guilt .08 .14 37%
Fear .14 .22 39%
Job demands .14 .14 50%
Withdrawn marital behavior .21 .26 45%
Angry marital behavior .14 .26 35%

Note: The percentage of variance within-individuals was calculated as e2/(e2 + r2).

Table 2
Descriptive Statistics of and Correlations Between Study Variables
Variable M SD-w SD-b 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Level 1
   1. Incivility (T2) 1.99 .34 .72 –.04 .25* .16* .21* .16* –.03 .11* .10
   2. Daily hostility (T1) 1.44 .41 .54 .29* .38* .28* .08 .09 .07 .08 .10
   3. Daily hostility (T2) 1.49 .43 .57 .30* .96* .58* .24* .48* .19* .13* .11*
   4. General distress (T2) 1.59 .51 .59 .43* .86* .87* .34* .56* .34* .06 .04
   5. Guilt (T2) 1.17 .28 .38 .42* .67* .66* .59* .44* –.01 .12* .10
   6. Fear (T2) 1.36 .37 .48 .35* .87* .83 .83* .79* .19* –.02 –.05
   7. Job demands (T2) 3.11 .37 .40 .04 .22 .25 .21 .18 .19 –.05 .01
   8. Withdrawn marital behaviors (T3) 2.37 .45 .54 .30* .25 .31* .32* .33* .33* .38* .31*
   9. Angry marital behaviors (T3) 1.62 .38 .53 .28* .25 .23 .32* .41* .37* .05 .58*  
Level 2
  10. Trait hostility 1.73 — .76 .23 .48* .50* .58* .32* .44* .47* .45* .31*

Note: Level 1 N = 363; Level 2 N = 50. T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2; T3 = Time 3. Means and standard deviations (within- and
between-individuals) are provided. Correlations above the diagonal represent group-mean centered relationships between the daily
variables at the within-individual level of analysis. Correlations below the diagonal are person-level aggregations of the daily
variables and represent relationships at the between-individual level of analysis. Correlations with trait hostility similarly reflect
between-individual relationships. General distress, guilt, fear, and job demands were included as controls in our model and were
measured in the afternoon.
*p < .05.

deviations, and correlations between the study variables. Before testing our hypotheses, we
evaluated the overall fit of our model. However, while our hypotheses were tested using
random effects, fit statistics for multilevel models can only be obtained with fixed effects
models, thus necessitating the exclusion of the cross-level relationships for this analysis
(Muthen & Muthen, 1998-2012). Accordingly, we modeled our within-individual relation-
ships, including all control variables, as discussed above. This model exhibited acceptable fit
to the data (χ2 = 6.73, df = 4, comparative fit index [CFI] = 1.00, root mean square error of
approximation [RMSEA] = .04, standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = .01), and
this conclusion does not change if all control variables are excluded from the analysis.
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2899

Table 3
Results from Multilevel Path Analysis
Daily Hostility Angry Marital Behavior Withdrawn Marital Behavior
(Time 2) (Time 3) (Time 3)

  γ SE t γ SE t γ SE t

Between Level
 Intercept 1.45* .07 20.19 1.40* .10 14.12 2.06* .11 18.60
  Trait Hostility .38* .09 4.00 — — — — — —
  Interaction .21* .08 2.73 — — — — — —
Within Level
 Day .03 .06 0.56 .13 .09 1.53 –.07 .09 –0.73
 Sine .08 .10 0.74 .20 .14 1.41 –.07 .15 –0.49
 Cosine .04 .05 0.76 .18* .08 2.44 –.01 .07 –0.14
  Daily Hostility (T1) .28* .08 3.53 .06 .04 1.66 .00 .06 0.03
  Job Demands (T2) .00 .06 0.08 .01 .08 0.13 –.07 .08 –0.91
  General Distress (T2) .06* .03 2.46 .01 .07 0.11 .01 .06 0.14
  Guilt (T2) .00 .01 0.44 .02 .07 0.24 .21* .05 4.23
  Fear (T2) .04* .02 2.22 –.12 .07 –1.63 –.21 .11 –1.88
  Incivility (T2) .17* .06 3.02 — — — — — —
  Daily Hostility (T2) — — — .14* .06 2.27 .20* .07 2.80

Note: Level 1 N = 363; Level 2 N = 50. T1 = Time 1; T2 = Time 2; T3 = Time 3. Variables in italics represent our focal study
variables; nonitalicized variables are controls. Estimates reflect unstandardized coefficients. “Interaction” reflects the parameter
for the cross-level moderation hypothesis. Although we followed common procedures and modeled all parameters with random
slopes, results revealed that these slopes did not exhibit significant variance across clusters. However, scholars have noted that this
is a relatively low power test (e.g., Mathieu, Aguinis, Culpepper, & Chen, 2012), and so we retained the random slopes for our final
analysis. Results were consistent when all slopes were modeled as fixed. Day represents a linear trend variable representing the day
of the week. Sine and cosine reflect the trigonometric function of the day of the week, with a period length of one week. We also
examined whether including the direct effects of incivility on marital behavior influenced our results; it did not, and so we omitted
these paths in our final model. Because they were measured simultaneously, distress, guilt, and fear were allowed to covary with the
disturbance of the daily hostility variable.
*p < .05.

Table 3 provides the results for all variables included in our multilevel path analytic
model. A depiction of our multilevel path analysis is provided in Figure 1 with effect sizes.
Hypothesis 1 predicted that, within individuals, daily incivility would be positively associ-
ated with feelings of hostility. This hypothesis was supported; γ = .17, p < .05. Moreover, as
we discussed, by controlling for morning hostility, this relationship can be interpreted as
representing a change in the employee’s emotional state as a result of experiencing incivility.
Hypothesis 1 was thus fully supported.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that trait hostility would moderate the relationship between inci-
vility and daily hostility, such that this relationship would be stronger for those individuals
higher in trait hostility (i.e. a cross-level moderation). First, although not formally hypothe-
sized, we modeled the direct effect of trait hostility on daily hostility (Cohen et al., 2003);
this path was significant (γ = .38, p < .05). In support of Hypothesis 2, the coefficient for the
interaction hypothesis was also significant, indicating that the incivility-hostility relationship
was stronger for individuals higher in trait hostility; γ = .21, p < .05. The plot of this interac-
tion is shown in Figure 2. In a supplemental analysis, we examined whether trait hostility
also moderated the relationships between daily hostility and marital behaviors, however the
interaction was not significant on either path.
2900   Journal of Management / September 2018

Figure 1
Results of Multilevel Model

Note: Incivility and daily hostility were assessed by employees each day. Withdrawn and angry marital behaviors
were assessed by the employee’s spouse each evening. We do not expect a relationship between daily hostility
and withdrawn marital behavior in our hypothesized model. To account for potential unmeasured influences on
withdrawn and angry marital behavior, we allow for the disturbance term on these two constructs to covary (Kline,
2005). For clarity, we do not depict control variables (job demands, general distress, guilt, and anxiety) in this figure.
*p < .05.

Figure 2
Cross-Level Moderating Effect of Trait Hostility on the Within-Individual
Relationship Between Workplace Incivility and Daily Hostility

Note: Level 1 N = 363; Level 2 N = 50. Simple slope tests confirm that the relationship between incivility and daily
hostility is significant for employees high in trait hostility (γ = .33, p < .05) and not significant for employees low
in trait hostility (γ = .01, p > .05).
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2901

Hypothesis 3a predicted that, within-individuals, daily hostility would be significantly

associated with angry behaviors at home. In support of this hypothesis, the path from daily
hostility to angry marital behaviors was positive and significant (γ = .14, p < .05). However,
contrary to our expectations, the path from daily hostility to withdrawn marital behaviors was
also significant (γ = .20, p < .05). Although the magnitude of the coefficient for withdrawn
marital behaviors is larger than the coefficient for angry marital behaviors, the difference is
not significant. Hypothesis 4 predicted that hostility would mediate the relationship between
experiencing incivility and angry marital behaviors at home that evening. Following the
procedure recommended by Preacher et al. (2010) and recently implemented by Lanaj et al.
(2014) and Wang et al. (2013), our results provided support for the hypothesis. The indirect
effect for the relationship between incivility and angry marital behaviors was significant at
.025 (95% confidence interval: .005, .059). In addition, we also found that the indirect effect
for the relationship between incivility and withdrawn marital behaviors was significant at
.033 (95% confidence interval: .008, .080).
Finally, we conducted analyses examining whether trait hostility moderates the effects of
workplace incivility on family behaviors through hostile emotions (Hypothesis 5). Given that
we hypothesized moderating effects of trait hostility on the link between incivility and daily
hostility, and daily hostility was hypothesized to mediate the effects of incivility on family
behaviors, we examined the moderating role of trait hostility in our mediation model, with
the expectation that trait hostility would strengthen the link from workplace incivility to fam-
ily behaviors. We tested this hypothesis again following the method recommended by
Preacher et al. (2010) and recently implemented by Lanaj et al. (2014). Results showed that
indirect effects from workplace incivility to both angry and withdrawn marital behaviors
were significantly stronger for those individuals high in trait hostility. Specifically, for the
relationship between incivility and angry marital behavior, the indirect effect was positive
and significant for individuals high in trait hostility (.047; 95% confidence interval: .008,
.110) and not significant for individuals low in trait hostility (.002; 95% confidence interval:
–.023, .027). Similarly, for the relationship between incivility and withdrawn marital behav-
ior, the indirect effect was positive and significant for individuals high in trait hostility (.064;
95% confidence interval: .014, .149) and was not significant for individuals low in trait hos-
tility (.003; 95% confidence interval: –.032, .035).

Discussion
Our research extends the current literature on workplace incivility by examining its rela-
tionships with outcomes in the family domain, as well as potential mediating and moderating
variables that affect the spillover process. Departing from the traditional cross-sectional sur-
vey methodology, we were able to assess incivility experiences and their outcomes on a day-
to-day basis, thus allowing us to study the immediate influences of uncivil work experiences
on employees and their families. We also contribute to the current theoretical frameworks
(e.g., Lim et al., 2008) by examining potential behavioral outcomes of incivility (withdrawal
and angry behaviors) and the specific affective state (hostile emotions) that drive such behav-
ioral outcomes. In addition, this research provided insights into the role of individual disposi-
tions (trait hostility) in influencing both emotional and behavioral outcomes of workplace
incivility.
2902   Journal of Management / September 2018

Supporting our predictions, our findings show that the experience of incivility was posi-
tively related to feelings of hostility, which was in turn associated with increased angry fam-
ily behaviors, as rated by spouses. This suggests that individual emotions do fluctuate on a
day-to-day basis in response to incivility at work, and these emotional responses can have
consequences even in the home environment. These results are consistent with theories on
emotions and work stress that highlight the important role of emotions as more immediate
outcomes of work stressors or events (e.g., Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Importantly, we
found that the relationships between workplace incivility, hostile emotions, and marital
behaviors persist, even after controlling for other emotions (general distress, guilt, and fear)
and task-related stressors (job demands). This suggests that hostile emotions play a central
role in mediating the relationship between workplace incivility and marital behaviors. It also
refines the predictions of the appraisal tendency framework and spillover theory, in that hos-
tility (in contrast to general negative affect or other specific emotions) appears to be the key
emotional response to workplace incivility in our study that persists and crosses the work-
family boundary to affect family behaviors on a daily basis. It addition, such findings provide
support for the incivility spiral discussed by Andersson and Pearson (1999) and suggest that
such spirals are not limited to the work context as they can spill over to the family domain.
Interestingly, our results showed that hostility predicted not just angry behaviors but also
withdrawn family behaviors. While some past research findings showed no support for an
association between withdrawal behaviors and hostile emotions (e.g., Roseman et al., 1994),
our results revealed that such behaviors were positively related to feelings of hostility. This
is interesting as it suggests that participants might be withdrawing from social interactions at
home as an attempt to refrain from venting their anger on the family and hurting them. In
fact, it has been argued that individuals may cope with anger using either an “anger-out” or
an “anger-in” approach by expressing the emotion through aggression or inhibiting it through
withdrawal respectively (e.g., Smits & Kuppens, 2005). Our results appear to support such
arguments and suggest that in addition to the anger-out approach, individuals might also rely
on the “anger-in” approach, especially when it pertains to one’s loved ones. Furthermore, it
is likely that participants might vary in their motivation to regulate their behaviors due to the
display rules at home. When individuals are highly motivated to avoid aggressive behaviors
at home, they might adopt an anger-in approach, even though their natural tendency is to
aggress when they are feeling hostile (as predicted by the appraisal tendency framework).
This suggests that it would be useful to take into account the behavioral norms in the family
when researchers are investigating the effects of angry work experiences on family
behaviors.
In addition, the data supported the moderating role of trait hostility, showing that employ-
ees with heightened dispositional hostility reacted more strongly, emotionally, to workplace
incivility and also showed a stronger link between experiencing incivility at work and exhib-
iting negative behaviors at home. Although one could speculate that trait hostility could also
potentially moderate the second stage of our mediation model (from hostile emotions to
marital behaviors), we believe that this is unlikely to happen as the effect of trait hostility
would already have manifested in the first stage (in exacerbating the hostile emotional reac-
tion from experiencing incivility). Indeed, we tested this assumption in our current data, and
found that trait hostility did not moderate the link between hostile emotions and marital
behaviors. Overall, our findings show that dispositional emotionality is related
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2903

to individuals’ fluctuations in emotion and behavior (see Watson, 2000) and also predicts
individuals’ characteristic patterns of emotional and behavioral responses to incivility, which
is consistent with dynamic personality theories (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995).
In sum, our study reveals that the impact of workplace incivility is not restricted to the
work context. Given its potential spillover effects on the family domain, there is a need to
understand the process by which such negative work experiences affect how employees feel
and behave at home. Our research represents the first step towards achieving this aim.

Limitations
This research has several limitations that we believe are important to discuss. This study
was conducted with primarily administrative and clerical office workers from southeast
Asia, which may limit the generalizability of our findings. Although the experience of
incivility, the enactment of angry or withdrawn marital behaviors, and the intervening
emotional pathways are likely to operate in a similar manner across individuals regardless
of occupation or national origin, we are unable to empirically confirm this assumption with
our current data.
Second, experience-sampling studies such as this are often forced to rely on shorter scales
to avoid overburdening participants (Uy, Foo, & Aguinis, 2010). While the reliabilities of
almost all of our daily measures exceeded the .70 cutoff, the coefficient alpha of trait hostility
(.68) did not quite reach that standard. However, reliability is an assessment of the measure’s
“freedom from random error” (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994: 213). While the relatively lower
reliability reflects the presence of more random error than is ideal in our measurement, ran-
dom error biases relationships downwards (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Thus, as we find
significant relationships for all predictions involving trait hostility, this suggests that our
results here are conservative.
Finally, unlike the relationships concerning marital behaviors, several other relationships
we evaluate (the links between incivility and hostility) stem from self-report measures, intro-
ducing the possibility of same-source effects as an explanation for our findings. Although we
cannot definitively rule this out as a potential explanation, our research design allowed us to
separate measurements in time with a timing consistent with the temporal precedence neces-
sary for our hypothesized relationships, to evaluate responses over a series of days, and to use
an alternate rating source for our proposed behavioral outcomes. Our study was conducted
over a series of 10 days, and although the daily measures of incivility and hostility were
indeed provided by the same source, we controlled for a prior measure of hostile emotions in
all our analyses. This helps to partially alleviate concerns over the causal direction of our
hypotheses. Furthermore, as noted, we used spousal ratings for the marital behaviors in a
further attempt to alleviate same-source concerns.

Implications and Future Research

We have argued in this research that the effects of incivility in the workplace extend beyond
the experiential level for employees, such that they manifest in both measurable emotional
states of hostility and observable behaviors enacted in the family environment. This finding
contributes to a body of research (e.g., Ilies, Schwind, & Heller, 2007, Ilies, Wilson, & Wagner,
2904   Journal of Management / September 2018

2009) demonstrating that stressors and affective events experienced in the workplace have
persistent effects on an employee’s feeling states and important (and often negative) behav-
ioral outcomes at home. We further demonstrated that employees on the receiving end of
workplace incivility can enact their emotional and behavioral responses in the home environ-
ment, arguing in the process that this occurs in part because of the appraisal tendencies associ-
ated with the hostile emotions triggered at work. However, we are unable to explicitly test
whether the resulting behavioral enactment is or is not also occurring in the workplace with
our data. It is also possible that those who are responding to workplace incivility, behaviorally,
in the work environment may have attenuated or muted behavioral responses at home. We
recommend that future research examines these alternatives and possibilities by examining
employees’ behavioral responses to incivility both at work and at home.
Additionally, this research contributes to the literature on work–family spillover effects
and suggests that the experience of incivility (in contrast to more commonly studied task
stressors) may have important emotional and behavioral consequences for employees both at
work and at home (e.g., Lim & Tai, 2014). There is evidence that such negative effects can
be buffered by social support (e.g., Ilies, Johnson, Judge, & Keeney, 2011), which suggests
that one way for employees to reduce the displaced negative effects of incivility on the fam-
ily would be to seek social support from spouses or other family members. Paradoxically,
though, our results suggest that when they experience workplace incivility, employees would
be less likely to seek social support at home because incivility experiences were associated
with withdrawal from one’s family. This suggests that negative experiences at work may not
only have direct negative effects on employees’ lives but also decrease the likelihood that
employees would engage in successful coping at home. Nonetheless, obtaining support from
others at work (e.g., advice on dealing with the situation) may help reduce the emotional
consequences of incivility (e.g., Cortina & Magley, 2009) and potentially buffer its spillover
effects to the family context.
One factor that may contribute to incivility in the workplace may be the increasingly
interdependent nature of work (Grant & Parker, 2009). As work becomes more interdepen-
dent, the number of interactions with coworkers increases, and so does the potential for
incivility to occur in interpersonal interactions. Future research should investigate whether
incivility may indeed be more prevalent in more interdependent jobs, as this would suggest a
location for potential organizational intervention to either reduce the prevalence of incivility
or increase the emphasis on mutual respect in coworker interactions.

Conclusion
Our research demonstrated that incivility experienced in the workplace is likely to elicit
hostile emotions, which in turn influence the enactment of negative behaviors in the family
domain. We further demonstrated that some individuals may be more susceptible to experi-
encing hostile emotions and engaging in negative behaviors as a result of experiencing inci-
vility. Our findings highlight the importance of recent theoretical work that has demonstrated
that the experiences employees have at work can spill over to the home environment. This
research shows the importance of taking a dynamic approach to the measurement of these
relationships, as studying daily intraindividual fluctuations can help to elucidate the psycho-
logical mechanisms responsible for the existence of such effects. In a more general sense, our
 Lim et al. / Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Behaviors   2905

study responds to calls to consider the role of discrete emotions in explaining the behavior of
individuals both inside and outside of organizations.

Note
1. It is common for researchers to use shorter scales in experience-sampling studies (e.g., Gabriel, Diefendorff,
& Erickson, 2011) to avoid overburdening participants (Uy et al., 2010).

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