When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay Cognitive Costs

Journal of Applied Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association
2012, Vol. 97, No. 5, 931–950 0021-9010/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0028559
When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay

Cognitive Costs
Anat Rafaeli Amir Erez

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology University of Florida
Shy Ravid Rellie Derfler-Rozin

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology London Business School
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Dorit Efrat Treister Ravit Scheyer

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Haifa University
In 4 experimental studies, we show that customer verbal aggression impaired the cognitive performance
of the targets of this aggression. In Study 1, customers’ verbal aggression reduced recall of customers’
requests. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that customer verbal aggression impaired recog-
nition memory and working memory among employees of a cellular communication provider. In Study
3, the ability to take another’s perspective attenuated the negative effects of customer verbal aggression
on participants’ cognitive performance. Study 4 linked customer verbal aggression to quality of task
performance, showing a particularly negative influence of aggressive requests delivered by high-status
customers. Together, these studies suggest that the effects of even minor aggression from customers can
strongly affect the immediate cognitive performance of customer service employees and reduce their task
performance. The implications for research on aggression and for the practice of customer service are
discussed.
Keywords: verbal aggression, cognition, customer service performance
“The customer is always right” is a ubiquitous organizational targets of customer aggression (Boyd, 2002; Grandey, Dickter, &
mantra (Kern & Grandey, 2009), followed closely by “service with Sin, 2004; Grandey, Rafaeli, Ravid, Wirtz, & Steiner, 2010; Harris
a smile” (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Undeniably, in a consumer- & Reynolds, 2003; Ravid, Rafaeli, & Grandey, 2010; Ringstad,
centered economy it is impossible to ignore the effects of customer 2005). Such experiences have organizational as well as personal
satisfaction on organizational success. However, inherent in these costs. For example, customer aggression has been found to be a
formulas is the notion of a power imbalance between customers predictor of job burnout and employee emotional exhaustion (e.g.,
and employees, which may encourage customers to take advantage Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005; Deery, Iverson, & Walsh, 2002; Dormann
of employees. Indeed, more and more studies are showing the dark & Zapf, 2004; Grandey et al., 2004; Harris & Reynolds, 2003;
side of customer– employee transactions, where employees are Ringstad, 2005). In turn, emotional exhaustion has been found to
predict a reduction in job performance and an increase in employee
withdrawal (Deery et al., 2002; Grandey et al., 2004; Wright &
Bonett, 1997; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998). Thus, when custom-
This article was published Online First May 14, 2012. ers treat employees badly, firms pay at least part of the price.
Anat Rafaeli, Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion-Israel
An underlying assumption of research on customer aggression is
Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel; Amir Erez, Department of Manage-
ment, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Flor-
that a single hostile incident is not likely to be very harmful (Kern
ida; Shy Ravid, Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion-Israel & Grandey, 2009). Instead, small recurring incidents of customer
Institute of Technology; Rellie Derfler-Rozin, Organizational Behavior aggression are thought to act as “daily hassles” with long-term
Subject Area, London Business School, London, United Kingdom; Dorit emotional effects (e.g., Ben-Zur & Yagil, 2005; Deery et al., 2002;
Efrat Treister, Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion-Israel Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Grandey et al., 2004; Harris & Reynolds,
Institute of Technology; Ravit Scheyer, Department of Psychology, Haifa 2003; Ringstad, 2005). Consequently, investigations into a direct
University, Haifa, Israel. link between single incidents of customer aggression and cognitive
We thank Madan Pillutla for his help and support in collecting the data.
performance are sparse.
The research reported here was partially supported by the M. R. Saulson
Yet the few studies that have investigated the link between
Research Fund to Anat Rafaeli through the Technion VP for Research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amir verbal aggression and performance clearly indicate that even iso-
Erez, Department of Management, Warrington College of Business Ad- lated incidents of mild aggression can cause performance decre-
ministration, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7165. E-mail: ments. For example, Porath and Erez (2007, 2009) demonstrated
amir.erez@warrington.ufl.edu that a brief single hostile incident caused cognitive disruption and
931
932 RAFAELI ET AL.
negative arousal, which, in turn, led to an immediate reduction in praisal of interpersonal encounters; rumination about social en-
the task performance and creativity of both victims and witnesses. counters; and arousal following social encounters. We propose
Similarly, Miron-Spektor, Efrat-Treister, Rafaeli, and Schwartz- that being the target of customer aggression, specifically, customer
Cohen (2011) showed negative effects of brief anger on creativity verbal aggression, consumes resources through one or more of
and problem solving in the target person. Goldberg and Grandey these processes, reducing the employee’s ability to focus attention
(2007) found that customer hostility increased the number of errors on his or her work tasks.
participants made in processing customer requests. Skarlicki, van
Jaarsveld, and Walker (2008) demonstrated that perceptions of
customer injustice led to customer-directed sabotage by employ- Secondary Appraisal of Customer Verbal Aggression
ees, which in turn reduced aggregated performance; Wang, Liao, and Employee Cognitive Performance
Zhan, and Shi (2011) found that daily mistreatment by customers
was related to a daily increase in customer-directed employee People have a spontaneous need to evaluate the implications of
sabotage, implying that customer aggression has immediate neg- what happens to them and to assess how what happens might
ative consequences for performance. The present study builds on
influence their well-being. Lazarus (1991) proposed two evalua-

and extends these findings by showing that customer verbal ag- tion processes: an automatic, fast-track process that is unavailable
gression can have a negative impact on employee cognition. to consciousness (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977), which he labeled
An important foundation for the present study is the extensive “primary appraisal,” and a conscious process that he labeled “sec-
theoretical analysis by Beal, Weiss, Barros, and MacDermid ondary appraisal.” The effects of primary appraisal are automatic
(2005), which suggested multiple pathways by which affective and subconscious and therefore are presumed to not consume
events can lead to decrements in cognitive performance. Accord- cognitive capacity. In contrast, the secondary appraisal process is
ing to Beal et al., performance on a task is a function of the conscious and as such is likely to shift one’s focus of attention
resources available for performing the task. When resources are
away from other relevant tasks (Beal et al., 2005).
focused elsewhere (e.g., on emotions), performance is likely to
When an affective event is encountered (i.e., a customer is
suffer (see also Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). Beal et al. suggested
recognized as being hostile and verbally aggressive), Lazarus’s
a number of ways by which emotional events consume attentional
(1991) analysis suggests that the secondary appraisal process will
resources and are therefore likely to impair task performance.
Customer aggression can be construed as an affective event be- be activated. In this appraisal process, individuals assess their
cause it induces strong negative affective states (Grandey, Tam, & control of the event, develop expectations about what the event
Brauburger, 2002; Rupp, McCance, Spencer, & Sonntag, 2008; means (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985; Smith & Kirby, 2001), and plan
Rupp & Spencer, 2006). As such, and building on Beal et al., or develop their reactions to the event. For example, Folkins
events of customer aggression can be expected to consume atten- (1970) examined participants waiting for an electric shock for
tional resources and to reduce task performance. periods of time that varied from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
Beal et al.’s (2005) theoretical model has yet to be empirically Physiological stress reactions were most pronounced when
tested, and the path from customer aggression to task performance waiting times were brief and weakest when the wait was longer.
via cognitive disruption has not been empirically established. In Participants in the longer periods explicitly noted that while
this paper, we help fill this gap by examining disruption to em- waiting, they started appraising what was going on, and as
ployees’ cognition as a key mechanism behind the negative effect Lazarus’s idea of secondary appraisal would suggest, these
of customer verbal aggression on task performance. In four stud- thoughts seem to have helped them cope with the stress. For
ies, we test for disruptive effects of customers’ verbal aggression example, some participants reported thinking that academic
on employee cognitive processes, namely, free recall, recognition researchers would not truly injure participants, and others re-
memory, and working memory. Beyond this, we seek to identify ported thinking that electric shocks from a battery-operated
factors that qualify the effects of customer verbal aggression on device should not be a cause for alarm.
cognitive disruption. In particular, we test for individual characteris- More broadly, these descriptions illustrate how secondary ap-
tics of both the victim and the aggressor (in our experiments, the praisal can occupy the thought processes of people facing a threat,
employee and customer respectively) that moderate the effects of
while also relieving some of the stress caused by the threat. As
customer verbal aggression on employees’ cognitive functioning.
such, secondary appraisal clearly consumes cognitive resources
In the following section, we describe the rationale for our
and limits the cognitive resources available for other tasks (Clore,
overarching research hypothesis: namely, that customer verbal
1994). Assuming such dynamics occur with customer service
aggression results in cognitive disruption, which in turn leads to
decrements in employees’ task performance. We conclude that employees, encounters with verbally aggressive customers are
section with an overview of our hypotheses and the four studies in likely to reduce the employee’s attention to the task at hand.
which we test them. We then describe our methods and results for Instead of focusing on the work task, the employee will be thinking
the four studies. A general discussion concludes the paper. about the implications of the aggressive encounter. The employee
may weigh different possible reasons for the aggression (“Was I at
fault in some way? Is this customer justified in his anger, or is he
Customer Verbal Aggression and Employee Cognitive
being unfair?”). The employee may then consider how to react to
Performance
this aggression. It is easy to see how this appraisal process may
Beal et al. (2005) described three key dynamics by which shift the employee’s attention away from the focal task, leading
emotional events consume cognitive resources: secondary ap- potentially to slower work and more errors.
CUSTOMER AGGRESSION AND COGNITION 933
Rumination Following Customer Verbal Aggression Arousal is thought to affect cognitive functioning through two
and Task Performance key mechanisms. First, arousal is known to produce a narrowing of
perception and memory, improving memory of central features of
A second process through which encounters with verbal aggres- an event and diminishing memory of peripheral aspects (e.g.,
sion are likely to impair task performance is rumination. Rumina- Burke, Heuer, & Reisberg, 1992; Christianson & Loftus, 1987,
tion can include thoughts about why the aggression has occurred 1991; Christianson, Loftus, Hoffman, & Loftus, 1991; Safer,
and/or plans for how to behave vis-à-vis the aggression (Bies, Christianson, Autry, & Osterlund, 1998; Wessel & Merckelbach,
Tripp, & Kramer, 1997). Porath, Macinnis, and Folkes (2010) 1997). That is, more aroused people tend to focus their attention on
recently reported that merely witnessing hostile interactions pro- immediately relevant cues and to ignore more peripheral informa-
duced rumination about the event. Rumination, in turn, may be tion (Easterbrook, 1959). For this reason, high arousal is likely to
disruptive to cognitive functioning because it entails a persistent impair performance on complex tasks, where utilization of inci-
intrusion of negative thoughts into one’s regular and routine in- dental information may be essential to completing the task (East-
formation processing (Watkins, 2008). For example, following erbrook, 1959). Employees facing a hostile customer may perceive
aggression from customers, employees may ruminate about what their main task as handling the customer’s hostility (Beal et al.,
the encounter means for their future work in the organization. Will 2005), while the employee’s job tasks are relegated to the periph-
the customer file a complaint against them? Will management ery. Second, arousal may impair task performance because of the
support them or the aggressive customer? The employee may even tendency of highly aroused people to default to their dominant
get angrier thinking about how, in previous encounters with ag- response (Hull, 1943; Zajonc, 1965). An employee’s dominant
gressive customers, he or she did not receive appropriate support response to a verbally aggressive customer—possibly an urge to
from management. Again, it is easy to see how such thoughts retaliate or speak back—may not necessarily be the best way to
could consume cognitive resources needed for performing other solve the problem at hand.
tasks. In sum, customer verbal aggression may be predicted to deplete
Rumination may appear similar to secondary appraisal. The cognitive resources and impair cognitive processing by provoking
difference is that secondary appraisal is a limited process, wherein a search for coping strategies (secondary appraisal); by creating an
the problems occupying an individual’s thoughts are presumed to intrusion of negative thoughts into the work process (rumination);
be resolved (Lazarus, 1991) and thus cease to occupy the mind. and/or by narrowing the spectrum of utilized cues or increasing
Rumination can occur when the problem is not resolved through employee reliance on dominant responses (arousal). The overar-
secondary appraisal and therefore continues to intrude into the ching prediction of our study is that instances of customer verbal
person’s thought processes (Watkins, 2008). Repeated thoughts aggression may trigger any or all of these dynamics to impair
about a stressful event are not necessarily unconstructive (Watkins, employees’ cognitive performance. We test various aspects of this
2008), because such thoughts can help people make sense of and prediction in eight hypotheses over four separate studies, as shown
work through the stress caused by the event (Harber & Penne- in Table 1.
baker, 1992; Horowitz, 1986; Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Tait & Silver, As the table makes clear, we have organized our hypotheses
1989). Indeed, rumination has been shown to help individuals conceptually rather than in relation to the sequence of the studies.
invoke their core personal beliefs to reduce stress (Greenberg, The first four hypotheses (H1a–H1d) deal with main effects of
1995; Horowitz, 1985; McCann, Sakheim, & Abrahamson, 1988; customer verbal aggression on cognitive performance, looking
McIntosh, Silver, & Wortman, 1993). However, whether construc- specifically at free recall (H1a), recognition memory (H1b), work-
tive or not, rumination consumes cognitive resources, thus limiting ing memory (H1c), and overall performance on customer service
the resources available for task performance (Beal et al., 2005). tasks (H1d). These hypotheses are tested variously through the
four studies, as shown in the table. In Studies 3 and 4 we also test
Arousal Following Customer Verbal Aggression and potential moderating and mediating mechanisms that may help
Task Performance explain and qualify the first set of hypotheses. In Study 3, we test
whether individual characteristics of the person experiencing the
An aggressive encounter can also reduce the cognitive resources aggression (i.e., the employee in a real-world scenario) moderate
available to an employee by elevating arousal (Beal et al., 2005). the effects of customer verbal aggression on the employee’s cog-
Customer aggression has been shown to evoke in employees nitive functioning (H2 and H3). In Study 4, we investigate whether
high-arousal emotions, such as anger (Grandey et al., 2002; Rupp qualities of the aggressor, notably his or her value to the organi-
et al., 2008; Rupp & Spencer, 2006). Indeed, Porath and Erez zation, moderate the effects of customer aggression on employee
(2009) found that merely observing an aggressive exchange be- cognitive functioning (H4). Finally, in Study 4 we also test
tween parties induces high-arousal negative feelings. Aggression whether the relationship between customer verbal aggression and
elevates arousal because it is likely to be perceived as a sign of performance in a customer service task is mediated by disruption
danger, to which the body responds with increased muscle tension, to working memory (H5).
elevated heart rate, and other physiological changes that prepare it In all four studies, participants were asked to imagine them-
for “fight or flight” (LeDoux, 1996). High levels of arousal, in selves in the position of a customer service representative (CSR).
turn, are argued to consume cognitive resources and to reduce task Based on random assignments, some of the participants were
performance (e.g., Porath & Erez, 2009) and to more generally exposed to displays of customer aggression and some were not. In
impair cognitive processing (e.g., Easterbrook, 1959; Eysenck, three of the four studies, the participants were undergraduate
1982; Mandler, 1975) and problem solving (Beier, 1951; Maltz- students, and in the fourth (Study 2) they were real customer
man, Fox, & Morrisett, 1953; Pally, 1955). service employees.
934 RAFAELI ET AL.
Table 1
Hypotheses Tested in the Four Studies
Hypothesis Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 4
Main effects
H1a: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will interfere with free recall of information. X
H1b: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will interfere with recognition memory. X
H1c: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will interfere with processes of working
memory. X X X
H1d: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will lead to reduced performance of work
tasks. X
Victim level moderators
H2: Participants’ cognitive ability will moderate the relationship between exposure to
customer verbal aggression and cognitive functioning, such that verbal aggression will
have a weaker influence on participants with higher cognitive ability. X
H3: Perspective taking will moderate the relationship between exposure to customer
verbal aggression and participants’ cognitive functioning, such that this relationship will
be attenuated among participants who are better at perspective taking. X
Aggressor level moderator
H4: Customer status will moderate the relationship between exposure to customer verbal
aggression and participant task performance. The more important the verbally
aggressive customer appears to be, the weaker will be the participant’s task
performance. X
Mediator
H5: The relationship between customer verbal aggression and performance of customer
service tasks will be mediated by the functioning of participants’ working memory. X
Study 1: Customer Verbal Aggression and Employee memory because in this process the brain establishes connections
Free Recall between the new information and other information (knowledge
and experiences) already encoded (Ashcraft, 1989). Such rehearsal
A first test of our general contention that customer verbal requires comprehension of the meaning of a message and active
aggression affects cognition is whether it influences memory. In attention of the information receiver, who must realize the gist of
Study 1, we examine memory at its most basic by testing free the information and the necessity to store the information in
recall (the simplest form of memory task, in which participants are long-term memory (Ashcraft, 1989). In that it requires active
asked to remember items in any order). attention on the part of the encoder, elaborative rehearsal is vul-
Memory is composed of short-term (working) memory, where nerable to anything likely to distract this attention—including
information is typically retained for only a few minutes (Kandel, customer aggression. Both types of rehearsal then could be im-
2006), and long-term memory, which stores information on a fairly paired by customer aggression, and accordingly retention of infor-
permanent basis and is the ultimate destination for information that mation and recall of the message would likely be poor. Thus, we
individuals intend to remember (Ashcraft, 1989). In order to retain propose
information for future use (even only a few minutes into the
future), individuals must either transfer the information from Hypothesis 1a: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will
working memory to long-term memory or extend the life of the interfere with free recall of information.
working memory.
The main process by which information is retained is rehearsal.
Method
This can be of two types, maintenance rehearsal and elaborative or
comprehensive rehearsal (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), and both types Participants. Data were collected from engineering students
of rehearsals are performed in working memory. The first type, in a large university in Israel. Participation was on a voluntary
maintenance rehearsal, involves a low-level, repetitive process of basis, and those who participated received extra credit in one of
information recycling (e.g., mentally repeating the digits of a their social science courses. Thirty-six undergraduate students
telephone number) in which information is held in working mem- (39% female) with a mean age of 24 years (range ⫽ 20 –28) took
ory only during the repetition, or shortly after it is stopped. part in the study.
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) showed that maintenance rehearsal is Materials and procedure. Participants were randomly as-
impaired by the performance of other tasks that require cognitive signed to one of two conditions, customer verbal aggression and
resources. Thus, incidents of customer aggression are also likely to control. Laboratory sessions lasted about one hour. Upon arriving
interfere with maintenance rehearsal and limit the employee’s at the lab, participants were told that the study was designed to
ability to retain information. explore the link between customer service and problem solving.
The second rehearsal process, elaborative rehearsal, is a deeper Participants in both conditions listened to a short recorded con-
level of information processing, involving active attention to the versation between a customer and a customer service rep that
meaning of the information being processed. Elaborative rehearsal formed the manipulation in the study (see below), after which they
is a more effective means of encoding information in long-term were asked to describe the conversation in detail (free recall task).
They then performed a filler task for 25 minutes, following which interpersonal justice subscale of Colquitt, 2001). Participants were
they were again asked to describe in detail the conversation they asked to rate the degree to which each item described the custom-
had heard. Participants were then debriefed and thanked for their er’s behavior on a 7-point scale (1 ⫽ Very little and 7 ⫽ Very
participation. much; Cronbach’s ␣ ⫽ .92). A one-way analysis of variance
Manipulation of customer verbal aggression. Cellular pro- (ANOVA) with customer verbal aggression as the independent
viders routinely record customer calls to monitor quality of ser- variable and the combined item ratings as the dependent variable
vice. To create the manipulations for our first three studies, a confirmed that the manipulation significantly influenced partici-
manager and two employees of a large cellular provider in Israel pants’ ratings of customer aggression (Mcontrol ⫽ 2.03, SDcontrol ⫽
listened to a random sample of recordings and selected calls that 1.08, Ncontrol ⫽ 41; Maggression ⫽ 5.05, SDaggression ⫽ 1.03,
they identified as coming from verbally aggressive customers and Naggression ⫽ 34), F(1, 74) ⫽ 144.55, p ⬍ .01.2 Thus, the results
calls in which they did not see the customer as being aggressive. confirmed the expected manipulation effects.
These calls were transcribed, and all identifying information was Effects of customer verbal aggression on free recall.
deleted from the transcripts. Two other employees then read and Means, standard deviations, and correlations between the study
rated all transcripts on (a) the degree of customer verbal aggression variables are provided in Table 2. We tested the influence of
(1 ⫽ not at all aggressive to 5 ⫽ very aggressive) and (b) the

customer aggression on free recall using a repeated-measure

complexity of the customer’s request (1 ⫽ technically very easy to ANOVA, with customer aggression as the between-factor variable
5 ⫽ technically very difficult). Based on these transcripts and and the two recall measures as the within-factor variable. Overall,
ratings, two research assistants selected six aggressive and six participants’ free recall performance fell from Time 1 to Time 2,
nonaggressive calls that were comparable in their technical com- F(1, 33) ⫽ 13.41, p ⬍ .01, ␩2 ⫽ .29, suggesting that over time, all
plexity. These were edited to create, in each case, two separate participants forgot essential details of the conversation between the
transcripts of the same length (number of words), such that the customer and the employee. However, customer verbal aggression
customer requested help with the same problem but was verbally significantly influenced participants’ recall at both times, F(1,
aggressive in one and neutral (not aggressive) in the other. A 33) ⫽ 5.59, p ⬍ .05, ␩2 ⫽ .15, supporting H1a.
sample of undergraduate students (N ⫽ 47) then rated these Importantly, customer verbal aggression did not interact with
transcripts on the verbal aggression of the customer. Using these the time of the recall test (Time 1 or Time 2) to influence perfor-
ratings, we selected three sets of paired transcripts (an example can mance. In fact, the reduction in recall over time was almost
be found in the Appendix). identical between the neutral condition (Time 1: M ⫽ 5.97, SD ⫽
For Study 1 we created an audio version of one transcript, with 2.29; Time 2: M ⫽ 4.38, SD ⫽ 2.45; mean difference: M ⫽ 1.59,
a male customer and a female CSR. Participants listened to the t(19) ⫽ 2.79, p ⬍ .05) and the verbal aggression condition (Time
recorded interaction and were asked to imagine that they were the 1: M ⫽ 4.41, SD ⫽ 1.64; Time 2: M ⫽ 3.14, SD ⫽ 1.97; mean
employee in the call. Similar “imagining” techniques have been difference: M ⫽ 1.27, t(14) ⫽ 2.39, p ⬍ .05). This suggests that
successfully used by multiple researchers to induce negative affect the memory loss occurred in participants’ working memory.
(Bless et al., 1996) and anger (Berkowitz & Donnerstein, 1982)
and to manipulate procedural justice (De Cremer & Van Hiel, Discussion
2006) and rudeness (Porath & Erez, 2007).
Measures. Study 1 suggests that exposure to verbal aggression from cus-
Free recall. After they listened to the call, participants were tomers interferes with employees’ ability to remember the content
asked to write down the details of the conversation, providing the of a service call. In comparison to a control group, participants in
Time 1 Free Recall Test. They were again asked to describe the the customer verbal aggression condition showed significantly less
conversation following a filler task, for the Time 2 Free Recall recall of the content of a phone conversation. In addition, partic-
Test. In both memory tests, the instructions were to write down as ipants in both conditions saw their recall drop over time, with an
many details as they could recall about the customer’s problem, the identical decline from the immediate to the delayed recall test. The
CSR’s responses, and the customer’s reaction to the employee. A
graduate assistant counted the number of correct details recalled. 1
We tested the effectiveness of our customer aggression manipulation
The numbers of freely recalled details in Time 1 and Time 2 were with a different sample of participants to avoid potential confounds. Self-
taken as repeated measures of memory. report checks of manipulations intended to induce emotional outcomes can
significantly undermine the ecological validity of the study. Such reports
may induce experimental influences (response effects), focus participants’
Results attention on emotions and therefore interfere with the task, and make
Manipulation checks. To verify that the experimental ma- people self-conscious and suspicious (see Isen & Erez, 2007).
2
nipulations created the intended conditions, we recruited another An exploratory factor analysis showed that the five items loaded on a
sample of 75 undergraduate students from the same university one-factor model with an eigenvalue larger than 1. The items explained
(age: M ⫽ 23.80 years, SD ⫽ 2.52; 63.8% male).1 These partici- 60.77% of the variance, and all items loaded significantly on the factor,
with loadings exceeding .70. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that
pants listened to the phone interactions in the two manipulation
the fit indices of the one-factor model (df ⫽ 5) and the two-factor model
conditions and then rated customer behavior on five items: “be- (df ⫽ 4) were identical, ␹2 ⫽ 12 (ns); root-mean-square error of approx-
haved aggressively towards the CSR”; “behaved in a hostile man- imation ⫽ .16; nonnormed fit index ⫽ .90; incremental fit index ⫽ .97;
ner towards the CSR”; “treated the CSR with dignity” (reverse parsimonious nonnormed fit index ⫽ .29. These statistics indicate that the
coded); “treated the CSR in a polite manner” (reverse coded); and models fit the data adequately and that the more parsimonious one-factor
“made improper comments” (the last three items are from the model is preferable (Bollen, 1989).
936 RAFAELI ET AL.
Table 2 ory per se to general cognitive performance. In Study 2, we

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between specifically test whether customer verbal aggression interferes
Study 1 Variables with the analytical processes that occur in working memory.
Variable M SD 1 2 3 Hypothesis 1c: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will

interfere with processes of working memory.
1. Manipulated customer aggression 0.49 0.51 —
2. Time 1 recall of call content 5.21 2.45 ⫺.32 —
3. Time 2 recall of call content 3.78 1.89 ⫺.33 .47 — In addition, although evidence supports the generalizability of
research findings obtained in contrived settings (Locke, 1986),
Note. N ⫽ 36. Correlations greater than |.32| are significant at the p ⬍ .05 Study 2 meets the call to replicate findings using different subjects
level. Correlations greater than |.40| are significant at the p ⬍ .01 level. and settings (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Dipboye & Flanagan,
Customer verbal aggression was coded as neutral (0) or verbally aggressive
1979). In this second study, we report on data collected from
(1).
employees with actual customer service experience, rather than
student data.
decline over time that we measured can perhaps be attributed to the Method
natural process of forgetting that occurs even when the mecha-
Participants. Data were collected from 72 employees of a
nisms that encode information in long-term memory are activated
large cellular communications provider in Israel (age range ⫽ 20
(Ebbinghaus, 1913). Although natural forgetting may be exacer-
to 32 years, mean age ⫽ 25.18; 80.6% female). All data were
bated by various factors (including information acquired post-
collected during monthly team meetings that employees of this
event; Ashcraft, 1989), our results do not necessarily suggest that
organization are required to attend. Each meeting is typically
such interference occurred. However, our results do indicate that
attended by 10 to 15 employees. Corporate senior management
the memory loss caused by customers verbal aggression was in the
permitted the research team to attend these meetings, and employ-
first few minutes after people listened to the message, suggesting
ees were notified that participation in the study was voluntary,
that it is participants’ working memory, rather than long-term
anonymous, and confidential. All the employees approached
memory, that was hampered by customer aggression.
agreed to participate in the study.
Remembering the content of customers’ requests is important
Procedure and materials. Employees were randomly as-
for customer service work, making the ability of customer aggres-
signed to one of two experimental conditions, a customer verbal
sion to interfere with employees’ working memory a significant
aggression group and a control. As in Study 1, participants were
problem for employee and organizational effectiveness. However,
told that the purpose of the study was to investigate the link
because free recall is known to be fragile and sensitive to inter-
between customer service and problem solving. Participants first
ference (Eysenck & Keane, 2003), it is important to investigate
read three transcripts of service calls as described in Study 1; these
whether the findings of Study 1 will hold with less fragile memory
transcripts created the manipulation of customer verbal aggression
tasks. Study 2 was designed to challenge these findings in a more
(see below). Next, participants completed a working memory task
rigorous test of the effects of customer verbal aggression on
and answered multiple choice questions about the content of the
memory—namely, a recognition task. In addition, Study 2 also
transcripts that they had read. They were then thanked, debriefed,
investigated the effects of exposure to aggression on working
and released. All experimental sessions lasted about 30 minutes.
memory.
Manipulation of customer verbal aggression. Customer
verbal aggression was manipulated by the transcripts of service
Study 2: Customer Verbal Aggression and Employee calls that a participant was asked to read. All participants read
Recognition Memory and Working Memory three transcripts and were randomly assigned to a condition of
Recognition memory is typically less sensitive to interference either 0 or 2 aggressive calls. As in Study 1, all participants were
than free recall (Eysenck & Keane, 2003), because individuals are asked to imagine themselves as the employee receiving the calls
more easily able to recognize items from a list than to summon whose transcripts they were reading. Thus, participants imagined
them unaided from memory. Study 2 was designed, first, to extend that they were the targets of either three neutral calls or two
the previous study’s findings to the more robust case of recogni- aggressive calls and one neutral call. All transcripts were one page
tion memory. long (approximately 25 lines; see the Appendix). The order of
transcripts in the material packets was counterbalanced, so that in
Hypothesis 1b: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will the verbal aggression condition, participants saw the neutral tran-
interfere with recognition memory. script first, second, or third.
Measures.
Study 1 results imply that customer verbal aggression is likely to Recognition memory. Recognition memory was assessed by
interfere with working memory. Working memory is the “work- asking participants whether specific items were present in the
bench” of the memory system (Ashcraft, 1989)—the “place” transcripts they had read. Participants were asked three multiple-
where information is rehearsed and transferred to long-term mem- choice questions about each transcript, for a total of nine questions;
ory. But working memory has additional functions of planning, each question had four response options with one correct answer.
integrating information, and initiating decision processes (Eysenck A sample question: “In the first call, what problem did the caller
& Keane, 2003). Thus, if exposure to customer aggression inter- report?” (1) “The cell phone had no reception”; (2) “The cell
feres with working memory, its effects may extend beyond mem- phone shuts down during a conversation and does not turn on after
that”; (3) “You cannot hear anything when the cell phone is on Table 3
speaker”; (4) “The ring volume is too low.” There was no time Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between
limit for answering these questions, and the recognition memory Study 2 Variables
score was the number of correct responses.
Working memory. Working memory was tested with items Variable M SD 1 2 3
from the Raven test (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998). The Raven 1. Manipulated customer aggression 0.50 0.50 —
test is typically used as a measure of general fluid intelligence and 2. Memory of transcripts content 5.22 1.52 ⫺.52 —
is therefore useful here because studies have repeatedly shown 3. Performance on the Raven test 3.14 1.64 ⫺.43 .36 —
working memory to be an essential element of fluid intelligence
Note. N ⫽ 72. Correlations greater than |.30| are significant at the p ⬍ .01
(Carpenter, Just, & Shell, 1990; Conway, Cowan, Bunting, Ther-
level. Customer verbal aggression was coded as neutral (0) or verbally
riault, & Minkoff, 2002; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, aggressive (1).
1999; Kyllonen, 1996; Kyllonen & Christal, 1990). For example,
Conway et al. (2002) reported a correlation of r ⫽ .98 (p ⬍ .01)
between working memory and a general fluidity factor that in-
all model of the influence of verbal aggression on the two depen-

cluded the Raven test.

dent variables was significant, multivariate F(2, 72) ⫽ 17.24, p ⬍
The Raven test is a set of visual analogy problems, each com-
.01, ␩2 ⫽ .33. A means comparison verified that participants in the
prising a 3 ⫻ 3 matrix of figural elements, such as geometric
verbal aggression condition recognized significantly fewer, F(1,
figures, lines, or background textures. One entry in each matrix is
72) ⫽ 25.22, p ⬍ .01, ␩2 ⫽ .27, correct responses (M ⫽ 4.44,
missing, and the participant is asked to fill in this entry from eight
SD ⫽ 1.44, N ⫽ 36) than participants in the neutral condition
response alternatives presented below the matrix. Test takers are
(M ⫽ 6.00, SD ⫽ 1.17, N ⫽ 36), supporting H1b. A comparison
instructed to look across the rows and then look down the columns
of the means also showed that those in the neutral condition
to determine the rules that guide the construction of the figures and
performed significantly, F(1, 72) ⫽ 15.59, p ⬍ .01, ␩2 ⫽ .18,
to follow these rules in identifying the missing entry. The main
better on the Raven test (M ⫽ 3.83, SD ⫽ 1.82, N ⫽ 36) than those
difficulty in the Raven test is keeping track of all the figural
in the aggression condition (M ⫽ 2.44, SD ⫽ 1.05, N ⫽ 36). These
attributes and rules, which requires holding a lot of information in
results lend support to H1c, as success on the Raven test relies on
working memory (Carpenter et al., 1990).
working memory.
Because the data were collected in a work setting and the
organization strictly limited the time employees could spend on the
study, we chose a sample of 10 items from the 36 items that made Discussion
up the full Raven test. We intentionally did not include items from The findings of Study 2 add to Study 1 by showing that cus-
Level 1 of the Raven test, as these items are easy for most people tomer verbal aggression significantly interfered with the more
to solve (around a 90% success rate; Raven et al., 1998) and as robust (Ashcraft, 1989) recognition memory process and with
such should not require working memory capacity. Rather, we working memory processes. The major functions of working mem-
included items that represented moderate to high levels of diffi- ory are planning future actions, initiating retrieval and decision
culty—Levels 2 and 3 of the test (Forbes, 1964; Raven et al., processes, integrating information coming into the memory sys-
1998). All participants were given 8 minutes to solve all the tem, and transferring information to long-term memory (Baddeley
problems.3 & Hitch, 1974). Studies have repeatedly shown that cognitive
activities such as recall, learning, reasoning, and problem solving
Results are highly dependent on a functional working memory (Baddeley,
1976, 1992). Moreover, working memory is limited in capacity
Manipulation checks. As in Study 1, the manipulation check (Just & Carpenter, 1992), so factors that interfere with working
was conducted with a different sample of participants. A sample of memory also constrain other cognitive functions that depend on it.
43 undergraduate students in a large university in Israel (age: M ⫽ Customer service work requires simultaneous performance of mul-
25.54 years, SD ⫽ 2.20; 55.80% male) was asked to read the tiple cognitive tasks (e.g., understanding and dealing with cus-
transcripts and to evaluate the behavior of the customer in each tomer requests while operating computer software), so reductions
transcript with the same five-item scale described in Study 1 (␣ ⫽ in working memory following customer verbal aggression are
.93). A one-way ANOVA with the customer verbal aggression
manipulation as the independent variable and the ratings as the
3
dependent variable confirmed that the manipulation significantly We verified the validity of using a subset of Raven items in two ways.
influenced the ratings of customers’ aggression (Mcontrol ⫽ 1.40, First, the error rate of our participants in solving these problems ranged
SDcontrol ⫽ 0.35, Ncontrol ⫽ 24; Maggression ⫽ 3.68, SDaggression ⫽ from 48.6% to 87.1%, which is equivalent to the error rate that Forbes
0.57, Naggression ⫽ 19), F(1, 42) ⫽ 256.39, p ⬍ .001. Here again (1964) reported in a sample of 2,256 British adults with all the Raven
items. Second, a separate sample of 40 students in a large U.K. university
the manipulation worked as expected.
(age: M ⫽ 24 years, SD ⫽ 4.35; 62.5% female) answered all 36 items of
Effects of customer verbal aggression on CSR recall and
the Raven test in 30 min, following the instructions of Raven et al. (1998).
working memory. Means, standard deviations, and correlations The correlation between their scores for our 10-item subset and for the
between the study variables are provided in Table 3. We tested the remaining 26 items was r ⫽ .69 (p ⬍ .01). The correlation between scores
influence of customer verbal aggression on memory using multi- for our subset and for items at the same level of difficulty (Levels 2 and 3)
variate analysis of variance (MANOVA), with the two dependent was r ⫽ .73 (p ⬍ .01). Both correlations confirm the validity of the items
variables of recognition memory and working memory. The over- used in this study.
938 RAFAELI ET AL.
likely to be evident in employees’ task performance. In Study 4, Perspective taking can be expected to reduce the three paths by
we complete this link in our story by investigating H1d, which which exposure to verbal aggression leads to cognitive decrements
proposes that customer verbal aggression will have a direct effect in Beal et al.’s (2005) model—secondary appraisal, rumination,
on employees’ task performance. and arousal. Regarding the first two, two main lines of evidence
Our analysis thus far has not considered possible effects due to suggest that employees who are better at perspective taking will be
individual differences. However, it is unlikely that customer ag- less likely to be occupied by secondary appraisal processes and
gression affects all individuals in the same manner. Therefore, rumination. First, studies suggest that people who are good at
Study 3 brings into the picture the relationship between individual perspective taking are more able to detach themselves emotionally
differences and the influence of customer verbal aggression on from negative stimuli, with positive ramifications for cognitive
working memory. functioning. For example, Richards and Gross (2000) instructed
In addition, although Studies 1 and 2 support the generalizability participants to adopt the perspective of a medical professional
of our findings by using different subjects and settings, it is while observing emotionally disturbing photographs of injuries.
possible that our results thus far are unique to the Israeli context. Later, these participants were able to recall more details of the
It may be, for example, that Israelis’ constant sense of being under
photos than a control group who saw the photographs without such
threat from terrorists and neighboring states makes them more instructions. These results suggest that shifting to an emotionally
sensitive to expressions of aggression than people who live in detached perspective can reduce the disrupting effects of emotion-
more stable environments. Thus, to test the generalizability of our ally laden negative stimuli.
findings in other countries, in Study 3 we investigate the effects of Second, perspective taking can obviate the need for secondary
customer verbal aggression on working memory in a sample from appraisal and rumination by enhancing the individual’s social
the United Kingdom.
functioning. Perspective taking allows one to “get inside the mind”
of another. Seeing things from the aggressor’s perspective can help
Study 3: Moderators of the Effects of Customer the victim anticipate his or her behavior and reactions and thereby
Verbal Aggression on Employee Cognitive maintain a sense of control over the event, rendering secondary
Performance appraisal unnecessary. Further, taking another’s perspective pro-
motes understanding of the other’s needs and motivations, thereby
One factor that may moderate the relationship between exposure relieving the need to engage in both secondary processing and later
to customer aggression and an employee’s cognitive functioning is rumination. A long line of evidence backs up these arguments. For
the employee’s cognitive ability. This conjecture follows from our instance, Davis (1983), building on Piaget (1932) and Mead
theoretical premise—namely, the argument that exposure to ag- (1934), reported that perspective taking allowed individuals to
gression reduces cognitive functioning partly by depleting cogni- anticipate the behavior and reactions of others. Parker and Axtell
tive resources. If this is so, verbal aggression may be less cogni- (2001) found that perspective taking enhanced sensitivity to others,
tively taxing to “smarter” (i.e., more cognitively able) people, patience, and a tendency to make positive attributions about oth-
because they have more cognitive resources to spare (Chabris & ers’ behavior. Gross and John (2003) showed that individuals who
Simons, 2010; Côté & Miners, 2006). habitually reappraise their emotions with respect to the require-
Smarter individuals, being generally better at problem solving ments of a situation exhibit better interpersonal relationships than
than their counterparts with lower cognitive ability, are also likely those who do not. Other work has connected perspective taking to
to be more confident (Brockner, 1988). High confidence, in turn, more prosocial behavior and to higher levels of moral reasoning
makes performance less plastic to negative feedback (Brockner,
(Davis, 1996; Eisenberg, 1991; Kohlberg, 1969; Rupp et al., 2008;
1988), meaning that the cognitive performance of confident indi-
Stotland, 1969).
viduals will be less reactive to verbal aggression. We hypothesize,
It stands to reason that if perspective taking promotes patience
based on these lines of reasoning, that the cognitive functioning of
and understanding and enhances an individual’s sense of control
people with high cognitive ability will be less affected by customer
over a negative event, it can also be expected to reduce employees’
verbal aggression.
arousal following exposure to aggression. And indeed, perspective
Hypothesis 2: Participants’ cognitive ability will moderate the taking has been found to be negatively related to various high-
relationship between exposure to customer verbal aggression arousal reactions, including individual aggressiveness, anger, at-
and cognitive functioning, such that verbal aggression will tribution of blame, and efforts to retaliate (Batson, Early, & Sal-
have a weaker influence on participants with higher cognitive varani, 1997; Parker & Axtell, 2001; Takaku, 2001). In short,
ability. multiple reasons coalesce to suggest that employees’ perspective
taking is likely to attenuate all three mechanisms by which Beal et
Beyond cognitive ability, there is also reason to expect that the al.’s (2005) analysis suggests that aggression hinders cognitive
negative effects of customer aggression on cognitive functioning functioning.
will be reduced for employees who are naturally good at perspec- Perspective taking can therefore be predicted to reduce the
tive taking—that is, who have a tendency to spontaneously adopt negative effects of customer aggression on employees’ cognitive
the psychological viewpoint of others. Broadly speaking, more malfunctioning:
frequent perspective taking can help build greater cognitive com-
plexity (Harvey, Hunt, & Schroder, 1961). Greater cognitive com- Hypothesis 3: Perspective taking will moderate the relation-
plexity, in turn, can help employees cope with the cognitive ship between exposure to customer verbal aggression and
challenges of customer aggression. participants’ cognitive functioning, such that this relationship
will be attenuated among participants who are better at per- Results

spective taking.
Means, standard deviations, and correlations between the Study
3 variables are provided in Table 4. To test our predictions, we
Method used hierarchical linear regression. As Table 5 shows, in the first
step, we regressed performance in the working memory test (Ra-
Participants. Data were collected in the United Kingdom
ven test scores) on gender, cognitive ability, perspective taking,
from a sample of 86 undergraduate students in various universities
and the customer verbal aggression manipulation. This analysis
in London (mean age ⫽ 25.54 years, SD ⫽ 6.64; 69.8% female).
showed that cognitive ability predicted working memory perfor-
Participants came from highly diverse ethnic backgrounds (35.3%
mance (␤ ⫽ .35, p ⬍ .01) and that customer verbal aggression
British Caucasian; 24.7% from the Indian subcontinent, i.e., India, significantly reduced working memory performance (␤ ⫽ ⫺.25,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh; 10.6% Chinese; 9.4% non-British Cau- p ⬍ .05), replicating the results of Study 2 and again confirming
casian; 7.1% from Africa; and 12.9% from other countries). The H1c. The analysis also showed that the effects of gender and
study was advertised on an online system that recruits from a perspective taking were not significant (␤ ⫽ ⫺.19 and ␤ ⫽ .00
participant pool drawn from several London universities. Partici- respectively, p ⬎ .10).
pants were notified by e-mail that the study would include two To test for moderators of the relationship between customer ag-
stages and that they would be given a £5 Amazon voucher at the gression and working memory performance, we added to the regres-
end of the second stage. They were also told that upon completion sion interaction terms for each variable of the predicted moderators
of the first stage they would be entered into a lottery with a 1:10 (cognitive ability and perspective taking) with the independent vari-
chance to win a £10 Amazon voucher. able, customer aggression.4 We calculated the interaction terms by
Procedure and materials. Participants were e-mailed a link multiplying each predicted moderator with the customer aggression
for the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test (Dodrill, 1981; Lassiter, manipulation, after first centering the scores of the relevant vari-
Leverett, & Safa, 2000) on the Wonderlic organization website able (Aiken & West, 1991). As reported in Table 5, in a second
(http://www.wonderlic.com), which constituted the first part of the step we then regressed working memory (Raven test performance)
study. Upon completion, participants were directed to a second on gender, cognitive ability, and perspective taking, and the three
link, which took them to a page that was developed for this study. interaction terms.
Here, the study was described as investigating factors that influ- Because of the relatively small sample (n ⫽ 77), we used
ence customer service interactions. Participants were asked to bootstrapping in this analysis. In bootstrapping, a random sample
complete the perspective taking measure (see below). Then, par- is drawn from the data set multiple times, and in each random
ticipants were asked to read two of the transcripts used in Study 2 sample drawn, direct and indirect effects and their standard errors
and to imagine that they were the employee in the calls. Partici- are estimated (see Preacher & Hayes, 2004). We conducted the
pants received either two aggressive or two neutral transcripts. bootstrapping analysis with 10,000 iterations to calculate the 95%
Finally, participants completed the same 10 Raven test items used confidence intervals of the regression coefficients. As seen in
in Study 2. All participants who completed this final stage were Table 5, the interactions between cognitive ability and customer
then sent the promised £5 Amazon voucher. aggression and between gender and customer aggression were not
significant. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was not supported. However, the
Measures.
interaction between perspective taking and customer aggression
Working memory. Working memory was measured by par-
was significant (␤ ⫽ .34, p ⬍ .01). As Figure 1 shows, customer
ticipants’ scores on the 10-item Raven test used in Study 2. As in
verbal aggression significantly reduced performance on the work-
that study, participants were given 8 minutes to complete all 10
ing memory task of individuals who scored low (more than one SD
items.
below the mean) in perspective taking, but it had no effect on the
Cognitive ability. Cognitive ability was measured with the
working memory of individuals who scored high in perspective
Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test, which measures general cogni- taking (more than one SD above the mean). Thus, Hypothesis 3
tive ability (g) and comprises 50 questions administered within a was fully supported.
time limit of 12 minutes. The Wonderlic test has very high reli-
ability and shows strong correlations with other measures of cog-
nitive ability (Dodrill, 1981; Lassiter et al., 2000). Participant Discussion
scores on the test were provided to us by the Wonderlic organi-
zation. Study 3 replicated the results of Studies 1 and 2 with a com-
Perspective taking. Perspective taking was measured with a pletely new sample from a different country, showing that cus-
subscale of the Davis (1980) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), tomer verbal aggression reduced participants’ cognitive function-
ing, thus again confirming our overarching prediction. However,
which is a widely used measure of empathy (Pulos, Elison, &
the results for our hypotheses dealing with potential moderating
Lennon, 2004) that has been extensively validated (Bernstein &
factors were mixed. We found no confirmation for H2, which
Davis, 1982; Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006; Schutte
predicted that cognitive ability would moderate the relationship
et al., 2001). The perspective taking subscale includes seven items.
between customer aggression and cognitive functioning. The re-
Sample items include “I believe there are two sides to every
question and try to look at them both” and “I sometimes find it
difficult to see things from the ‘other guy’s’ point of view” 4
Although not specifically hypothesized, the interaction between gender
(reverse scored; Cronbach’s ␣ ⫽ .78). and customer verbal aggression was also tested.
940 RAFAELI ET AL.
Table 4
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between Study 3 Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Gender 0.69 0.47 —

2. Cognitive ability 25.76 4.46 ⫺.11 —
3. Perspective taking 3.55 0.57 .12 .30 —
4. Customer verbal aggression 0.50 0.50 .12 .10 ⫺.05 —
5. Raven test 2.93 1.94 ⫺.18 .39 .12 ⫺.16 —
Note. N ⫽ 77. Correlations greater than |.30| are significant at the p ⬍ .01 level. Manipulated customer verbal aggression was coded as neutral (0) or
verbally aggressive (1). Gender was coded as male (0) or female (1).
sults did support H3, showing that individual perspective taking With regard to perspective taking (H3), our results are in keep-
moderates this relationship. ing with research in other areas. For instance, Rupp et al. (2008)
Regarding the null result for H2, one explanation may be that found perspective taking to moderate the relationship between
interaction terms have high power constraints, which translate to a customer injustice and employees’ surface acting, such that em-
requirement for a very large sample size (Alexander & DeShon, ployees high in perspective taking engaged less in surface acting
1994; Judge, 2007). That is, it may be that an interaction exists, but (i.e., false smiles, pretending to have positive emotions) following
our sample was too small to detect it. However, several factors customer injustice. As surface acting is associated with increased
suggest that this technical issue was not responsible for the null stress (Grandey, 2003), Rupp et al.’s findings suggest that indi-
results. First, the confidence interval of the interaction effect viduals high in perspective taking are good at resisting the stress
around zero was quite large (⫺.56 to .28), suggesting that using a provoked by customer injustice. Our results add to this body of
larger or different sample would likely not narrow the confidence research by showing that perspective taking also reduces cognitive
interval to the extent that it would not include zero. Second, the impairment following encounters with aggression.
sample size was large enough to identify the perspective taking
interaction. Third, we conducted the analysis using the bootstrap- Study 4: Customer Verbal Aggression and
ping method, which provides robust estimates of standard errors Performance of Customer Service Tasks
and confidence intervals and typically helps identify significant
effects even with small samples (Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, Our first three studies have shown the influence of customer
2007). Thus, our results suggest that cognitive ability simply may verbal aggression on memory and, specifically, on working mem-
not influence the degree to which people devote their cognitive
resources to dealing with aggression. In other words, smarter
people are cognitively affected by exposure to aggression as much
as anybody else.
Table 5
Influence of Customer Verbal Aggression and Participants’
Gender, Cognitive Ability, and Perspective Taking on Working
Memory (Study 3)
Predictor ␤ ⌬R2 95% CI
First step
Gender (G) ⫺.19 [⫺1.75, 0.04]
Cognitive ability (g) .35ⴱⴱ [0.06, 0.25]
Perspective taking (PT) .00 [⫺0.76, 0.58]
Manipulated customer aggression (A) ⫺.25ⴱ .23ⴱⴱ [⫺1.61, ⫺0.10]
Second step
Gender (G) ⫺.19 [⫺1.73, 0.05]
Cognitive ability (g) .33ⴱⴱ [0.06, 0.25]
Perspective taking (PT) ⫺.03 [⫺0.77, 0.58]
Manipulated customer aggression (A) ⫺.22ⴱ [⫺1.64, ⫺0.16]
A⫻G .08 [⫺0.25, 0.58]
A⫻g ⫺.05 [⫺0.56, 0.28]
A ⫻ PT .34ⴱⴱ .12ⴱⴱ [0.30, 1.07]
Note. N ⫽ 77. Manipulated customer verbal aggression was coded as

neutral (0) or verbally aggressive (1). Gender was coded as male (0) or Figure 1. Moderating effect of participant perspective taking on the
female (1). Confidence intervals (CIs) are based on 10,000 bootstrapping relationship between customer verbal aggression and participant working
iterations. memory. “Low” indicates one standard deviation below the mean, and
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. “High” represents one standard deviation above the mean.
ory. However, we have not yet tested the logical corollary of this Finally, as discussed earlier, verbal aggression signals danger
phenomenon: that encountering aggression will reduce employees’ and so is likely to evoke arousal. However, this effect is likely to
performance on their work tasks. Rectifying this is the first goal of be more pronounced with a high-status customer, who can be
Study 4. assumed to have the potential to inflict more harm. Indeed, a
complaint made by a premium customer is likely to have more
Hypothesis 1d: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will severe implications for an employee than the same complaint
lead to reduced performance of work tasks. coming from an ordinary customer. Therefore, aggression from a
high-status customer is likely to cause even higher levels of
Study 4 has two additional goals. First, we continue the process employee arousal.
begun in Study 3 of searching for factors that moderate the In sum, the three processes that Beal et al. (2005) suggested as
relationship between customer aggression and employee out- potential mediators between affective events and a decrement in
comes. In this case, we aim to identify customer qualities that may task performance are likely to be stronger with aggressive behavior
exacerbate the relationship identified in H1d, between exposure to by a high-status (as compared to low-status) customer. Following
aggression and work performance. Second, we investigate whether this, verbal aggression from a higher status customer will require
working memory mediates the relationship between customer ver- more cognitive resources than aggression from a lower status
bal aggression and employee task performance, as suggested by customer and therefore is likely to have a greater effect on task
the findings of Studies 2 and 3. These two goals will now be performance.
explained.
The effects of customer verbal aggression on employee out- Hypothesis 4: Customer status will moderate the relationship
comes may differ based on characteristics not only of the em- between exposure to customer verbal aggression and partic-
ployee but also of the customer. We posit that customer status is a ipant task performance. The more important the verbally
critical factor that may intensify the effects of customer verbal aggressive customer appears to be, the weaker will be the
aggression, because it is likely to exacerbate the three dynamics participant’s task performance.
identified in Beal et al.’s (2005) model (secondary appraisal,
Study 4 will also test whether the diminution of working mem-
rumination, and arousal).
ory documented in the previous studies mediates the effect of
People are highly attuned to social status cues and differences
customer verbal aggression on task performance. Working mem-
(Anderson, Srivastava, Beer, Spataro, & Chatman, 2006), and ory is central to the mental work of planning, integrating informa-
studies have shown that individuals invest considerable energy and tion, and initiating decision processes (Eysenck & Keane, 2003)
cognitive resources in efforts to maintain and enhance their own and, as such, is clearly critical to the performance of customer
status (e.g., Groysberg, Polzer, & Elfenbein, 2011)— even to the service work. At the same time, working memory is limited in the
point where this effort ends up interfering with individual perfor- number of factors and parameters that it can process (Ashcraft,
mance (Bendersky & Shah, 2010). Even where individuals accept 1989), and is—as we have found—vulnerable to interference from
their low status (e.g., women or ethnic minorities in some tradi- other factors. Thus, we can continue to follow the logic of Beal et
tional societies; see Jost & Banaji, 1994; Overbeck, Jost, Mosso, & al. (2005) that affective events reduce episodic performance
Flizik, 2004; Tajfel & Turner, 1979), they may expend cognitive through a reduction in cognitive functioning, to posit.
resources trying to excuse their acquiescence (Porath, Overbeck, &
Pearson, 2008). Hypothesis 5: The relationship between customer verbal
We argue that the expenditure of resources identified in these aggression and performance of customer service tasks will
and other studies occurs because status concerns trigger a be mediated by the functioning of participants’ working
resource-draining process of secondary appraisal. It follows from memory.
this that when someone of high status exhibits aggressive behavior,
the victim can be expected to engage in secondary appraisal in an Method
attempt to understand what that aggression entails for his or her Participants. One hundred and one undergraduate engineer-
own status. Indeed, Porath et al. (2008) found that incivility was ing students in Israel participated in the study on a voluntary basis
perceived by targets as a challenge to their status. Thus, aggression for extra credit in one of their social science courses (age range ⫽
of high-status customers may be doubly threatening to individual 20 to 29 years, mean age ⫽ 24.04; 66% female).
cognitive processing— creating a secondary appraisal process with Procedure and materials. The study was presented to par-
regard to the aggressive act itself, as discussed earlier, and also ticipants as a test of a new training tool for customer service work.
with regard to the status implications of the aggressive act. Data were collected in laboratory sessions that lasted a total of
Rumination, too, is likely to be provoked by encounters with about 30 minutes and in which participants worked with software
aggression from high-status customers. Indeed, Rafaeli and Sut- that simulates the work of employees in a contact center. Partici-
ton’s (1987) participant observation work showed that customer pants read and processed routine and uncomplicated customer
service employees tend to ruminate on all interactions with high- requests that required clear-cut, straightforward handling, such as
status customers. Thus, the encounter with customer aggression updating an address or changing a last name. Requests were
may lead to rumination through parallel routes here as well, with presented in brief, written narratives that appeared on a computer
rumination provoked both by the mere interaction with a high- screen. To handle each request, participants had to locate the
status customer and by the danger that the aggressive encounter correct field on the screen, open a folder, and erase, edit, or add
represents. information that was mentioned in the request. To ensure motiva-
942 RAFAELI ET AL.
tion, participants were promised cash rewards for effective han- tion included only requests whose verbal tone was neutral, and the
dling of requests. customer verbal aggression condition included only requests
The experimental session started with 6 minutes of training, in whose verbal tone was aggressive. The presence of verbal aggres-
which participants were taught how to operate the computer sys- sion in the request was the only difference between the two
tem and were instructed about the policies and procedures neces- conditions.
sary for handling the customer requests. At this stage, participants Manipulation of customer status. Any of the requests could
were also informed that they would be rewarded for each request be randomly presented on the computer screen as coming from a
handled correctly in 30 s or less. The policies and procedures and regular or a high-status customer. As noted above, 30% of the
the reward criteria were based on typical policies in contact centers requests in each condition were presented as requests from pre-
and were intended to create ecological validity, as well as moti- mium customers; these were scattered randomly among the regular
vation to perform the tasks quickly and accurately. customers’ requests. Premium customers were identified with a
The training protocol also informed participants that they might bright yellow star clearly visible when the customer’s profile was
encounter requests from high-status customers (defined as similar opened. To motivate attention to the customer status manipulation,
to the Platinum or Gold status used in various service operations) participants were promised higher rewards for correct and timely
and that they should give priority to such requests. Following the (under 30 s) handling of requests from premium customers. The
training, participants were randomly assigned to a neutral or ag- rewards were set at 25 cents and $1 for requests from regular and
gressive experimental condition (see below). They then proceeded premium customers, respectively.
to the data collection phase, which lasted 15 minutes and could Measures.
include up to 35 requests. For all participants, 70% of the requests Task performance. The software assessed two performance
came from regular customers and 30% from premium customers; indices: (a) quantity of performance, or the total number of re-
the “premium” requests were presented randomly during the ses- quests that a participant handled, and (b) quality of performance,
sion. After the experimental session, participants completed the or the number of requests a participant handled correctly and in
working memory (Raven) task. under 30 seconds, as defined by the policies presented in the
Manipulation of customer verbal aggression. Half of the training stage. For example, if a customer asked to change his
participants handled requests whose wording was designed to address, the participant had to read the request and then open a
convey verbal aggression, and the other half handled requests certain field and edit the address. If the participant opened the field
designed to be identical in content but with no verbal aggression but did not change the address or changed it incorrectly, one point
(i.e., neutral requests). To create the requests, a graduate student was added to the quantity of performance measure but nothing was
who was a manager in a large contact center in Israel first devel- added to the quality of performance measure.
oped 50 standard customer requests based on her experience. Working memory. Working memory was measured, as in the
These requests were technical in content and had no specific previous studies, as the number of Raven test items (out of 10
affective tone. Additional graduate students, some of whom had possible items) solved correctly in 8 minutes. However, because of
also previously worked in customer service, edited these requests a shortage of physical space, this task was offered to only a random
to create a second set characterized by verbal aggression. The group of 40 of the participants.
result was 100 requests, comprising 50 pairs that were similar in
content but differed in whether they were phrased neutrally or
Results
aggressively.
A sample of 80 undergraduate students was then asked to read Manipulation checks. As in the previous studies, indepen-
these requests and to (a) summarize the content of each request and dent raters were recruited to confirm that the manipulation worked
(b) rate the aggression in the request using a scale of –3 ⫽ very as intended. A separate sample of 47 undergraduate students (mean
verbally aggressive to ⫹3 ⫽ very polite. Half of these participants age ⫽ 23.80 years, SD ⫽ 2.67; 59.60% male) was asked to read
saw requests designed to be aggressive and half saw the original, the 70 requests used as stimuli and rate the degree of customer
presumably neutral requests. Using these data, we eliminated aggression along the same five-item scale used in Study 1 (␣ ⫽
requests in which (a) the summarized content varied between the .96). A one-way ANOVA with customer verbal aggression (the
aggressive and neutral conditions and/or (b) the ratings of “aggres- experimental condition) as the independent variable and the five-
sive” or “neutral” did not match our intent. We defined a text as item scale as the dependent variable confirmed that ratings of
aggressive if the mean rating on the aggression scale was ⫺3 or customer aggression were significantly higher in the verbal ag-
⫺2 and as neutral if the mean rating was 0. These screening gression condition than in the neutral condition (Mcontrol ⫽ 1.79,
processes identified two sets of 35 requests that were used as SDcontrol ⫽ 0.51, Ncontrol ⫽ 23; Maggression ⫽ 4.11, SDaggression ⫽
stimuli in Study 4, where one set was deemed to include customer 0.72, Naggression ⫽ 24), F(1, 46) ⫽ 161.35, p ⬍ .001.
verbal aggression and one set was neutral. Effects of customer verbal aggression on task performance.
The aggressive and nonaggressive messages were similar in Means, standard deviations, and correlations between the Study 4
length (number of words). A typical request in the neutral condi- variables are provided in Table 6. A one-way ANOVA found no
tion was “My password is Shirley. I would like to cancel the significant differences in the number of requests processed (quan-
password service so I do not have to be identified with a password tity of performance) between the two conditions, F(1, 101) ⫽ 2.35,
each time. Thanks, Dan.” The same request in the verbal aggres- p ⬎ .10. Participants in the verbal aggression condition handled
sion condition was “My password is Shirley. Cancel already the the same number of requests (Maggression ⫽ 29.38, SDaggression ⫽
very annoying requirement for a password! I am sick and tired of 5.28, N ⫽ 49aggression) as those in the neutral condition (Mcontrol ⫽
being asked for a password each time. Dan.” The neutral condi- 30.92, SDcontrol ⫽ 4.89, Ncontrol ⫽ 51). In contrast, there was a
Table 6
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between Study 4 Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5
1. Manipulated customer verbal aggression 0.49 0.50 —

2. Quantity of employee performance 30.17 5.12 ⫺.15 —
3. Quality of employee performance 21.21 5.97 ⫺.25 .80 —
4. % correct responses to regular customers 0.70 0.13 ⫺.15 .39 .81 —
5. % correct responses to premium customers 0.70 0.17 ⫺.33 .16 .54 .44 —
Note. N ⫽ 102. Correlations greater than |.20| are significant at the p ⬍ .05 level. Correlations greater than |.25| are significant at the p ⬍ .01 level.
Manipulated customer verbal aggression was coded as neutral (0) or verbally aggressive (1).
significant difference between the conditions in the quality of in how premium versus regular customers were handled in the
performance. ANOVA results showed significantly better perfor- neutral and customer aggression conditions. With regard to regular
mance in the neutral condition, F(1, 101) ⫽ 6.41, p ⬍ .05, ␩2 ⫽ customers, there was no significant difference in the percentage of
.06 (Mcontrol ⫽ 22.63, SDcontrol ⫽ 5.90, N ⫽ 51control), than in the requests handled correctly between neutral and aggressive custom-
aggression condition (Maggression ⫽ 19.72, SDaggression ⫽ 5.72, ers. However, there was a significant difference between the
N ⫽ 49aggression), thus fully supporting H1d. These results suggest neutral and aggressive conditions with regard to premium custom-
that customer verbal aggression significantly impaired the quality ers. A smaller percentage of requests were handled correctly for
of employee performance of customer service tasks. premium aggressive customers than for premium neutral custom-
Moderating effects of customer status. To test if customer ers. In fact, the weakest level of performance was exhibited for
status moderated the relationship between customer aggression requests coming from high-status customers who were also ag-
and task performance, we conducted a repeated-measure ANOVA gressive. Thus, the results fully supported H4: Customer status
with customer verbal aggression as a between-factor variable. moderated the relationship between customer verbal aggression
Because only 30% of the requests came from high-status custom- and the quality of employee performance. With higher status
ers (to retain ecological validity), we could not simply compare the customers, customer verbal aggression more substantially inter-
number of requests handled correctly in each of the status condi- fered with employee performance.
tions. Rather, we calculated the percentage of high-status requests Mediation effects of working memory. To test Hypothesis
and the percentage of ordinary requests that were handled cor- 5, which built on Beal et al. (2005) to suggest that working
rectly, to produce two new indices: % premium quality and %
regular quality. We then performed a repeated-measures ANOVA
with the percentage of correctly handled requests in the two
populations (regular vs. premium customers) as a within-factor
variable and with aggression as a between-factor variable. The
within-factor variable was not significant, indicating no difference
in quality of performance when handling regular versus premium
customers, F(1, 100) ⫽ .00, p ⬎ .10. In contrast, the between-
factor variable was significant, indicating that customer verbal
aggression influenced the quality of performance, F(1, 100) ⫽
9.63, p ⬍ .01, ␩2 ⫽ .09.
However, in support of Hypothesis 4, this effect was qualified
by a significant interaction between the experimental condition
(neutral or customer verbal aggression) and the customer status
(regular vs. premium), F(1, 100) ⫽ 5.46, p ⬍ .05, ␩2 ⫽ .05. As
depicted in Table 7 and Figure 2, we found a significant difference
Table 7
Effects of Customer Verbal Aggression and Customer Status on
Quality of Performance in Customer Service Work (Study 4)
Variable Neutral Verbally aggressive
Regular customers .72a (.14) .68b (.12)

Premium customers .75bc (.15) .64ac (.17)
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. Subscripts indicate which

cells are significantly different from each other according to a Tukey Figure 2. Moderating effect of customer status on the relationship be-
honestly significant differences test. All values are significantly different at tween customer verbal aggression and accurate performance of customer
p ⬍ .05. service tasks.
944 RAFAELI ET AL.
memory mediates the effects of customer verbal aggression on that higher rewards impaired task performance, presumably by
the quality of employees’ work performance, we again used the engendering greater stress. This suggests that the effects we attri-
bootstrapping approach (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Based on bute to status could have been caused by the higher rewards we
3,000 random samples drawn from the data set, the direct and offered in those cases. However, Ariely et al. offered extremely
indirect effects of customer verbal aggression on quality of high rewards, in some cases equivalent to as much as several
performance through working memory were estimated. How- months’ salary. Even assuming that our participants had in mind
ever, as we found that status moderated the relationship be- the total they might be able to earn over the course of the exper-
tween customer verbal aggression and task performance and iment, it seems unlikely that the modestly higher reward we
that customer aggression affected quality of performance only offered for high-status customers ($1 vs. 25 cents) was high
for high-status customers, we conducted the mediation analysis enough to create stress that could interfere with task performance.
only for those customers. Nonetheless, this is an important empirical issue for future re-
The results showed that the direct effect from customer aggres- search to rule out.
sion to the mediating variable of working memory was significant
(B ⫽ ⫺1.36, p ⬍ .01). The effect from working memory to quality
General Discussion
of performance was also significant (B ⫽ 0.04, p ⬍ .05), as was
the indirect effect from customer verbal aggression through work- Customer service representatives are likely to occasionally en-
ing memory to performance (B ⫽ ⫺0.05, p ⬍ .05). Further, the counter verbally aggressive customers in the course of their daily
direct effect from customer aggression to quality of performance, work. Researchers often assume that such aggression is an accu-
controlling for working memory, was not significant (B ⫽ ⫺0.10, mulative, long-term, and emotionally oriented problem. Our four
p ⬎ .10), indicating full mediation. Thus, Hypothesis 5, which studies bolster the limited body of research suggesting that CSRs
stated that working memory mediates the relationship between are also vulnerable to episodic and short-term aggression (e.g.,
customer verbal aggression and quality of performance, was sup- Miron-Spektor et al., 2011) and highlight implications that are
ported with regard to high-status customers. cognitive rather than emotional in nature. Our results show that
even short-term encounters with verbal aggression from customers
impair recall, recognition memory, and the active engagement of
Discussion
working memory—all vital to customer service work. Further, we
Customer service employees must converse with a customer, show that aggressive encounters lead directly to poorer perfor-
pay attention to what is said and requested, and at the same time mance.
use advanced technology to operate a computer program. Each Our findings also show that aggression from high-status cus-
task may appear simple, but the combination of tasks requires a tomers can cause employees to make significantly more errors. In
significant level of attention.5 Factors that interfere with the a real customer service setting, these errors would likely result in
employee’s attention can thus have a real effect on perfor- even greater customer dissatisfaction, potentially setting off a
mance. vicious cycle of dysfunction.
Study 4 shows customer verbal aggression to be such a factor.
Participants in the customer aggression condition handled as many Summary of Results
customers as in the control condition, but they did so significantly
less well. The fact that the two groups processed the same number In four experimental studies, we support our overarching
of requests suggests that the aggressive encounters did not make proposition, that customer verbal aggression impairs employ-
participants put in less effort. Thus, it seems that motivation, or the ees’ performance in tasks involving cognitive performance. In
lack of it, is not a sufficient alternative explanation for our results. Study 1, customer verbal aggression reduced the ability of
Instead, as hypothesized and in keeping with the findings from students acting as customer service reps to recall information
Studies 1 through 3, our results suggest that customer aggression provided in customer requests. In Studies 2 and 3, customer
disrupts the cognitive processes required to perform complex verbal aggression directly affected participants’ recognition and
tasks. Put differently, verbal aggression on the part of customers working memory. Study 4, in turn, showed that customer verbal
robs employees of cognitive resources, impairs their attention and aggression influenced the overall quality of performance in
working memory, and reduces the quality of their task perfor- customer service tasks.
mance. Customer service tasks, like many others, require individuals to
The results of Study 4 further show that aggressive behavior hold information in their heads (Eysenck & Keane, 2003). This
affects performance more strongly when the aggression comes requirement has been shown by cognitive psychologists to be
from someone with high status. Building on the logic of Beal et al. particularly challenging when employees must simultaneously
(2005), we presume this to be because verbal aggression from a handle multiple tasks (Navon & Gopher, 1980). Our results bring
high-status individual triggers multiple secondary appraisal pro- emotion dynamics into this stream of research. In particular, our
cesses, more rumination, and higher arousal and as such diverts
more cognitive resources. 5
According to Chabris and Simons (2010), people consistently and
It should be noted that our two-tiered reward structure, where grossly underestimate the complexity of simultaneously handling multiple
participants were rewarded more liberally for correctly handling tasks. Even automatic tasks such as driving and talking on the phone cannot
premium than regular customers—a procedure designed to rein- be performed together efficiently, although separately they place little toll
force the status manipulation—may have created a confound. on the cognitive system. This underestimation, which Chabris and Simons
Ariely, Gneezy, Loewenstein, and Mazar (2009) recently found (2010) termed the “illusion of attention,” can be fatal.
findings show that verbal aggression from others creates cognitive that the arousal engendered by threatening encounters would also
interference in that it can be construed as an additional task that shift attention away from tasks not directly related to survival. If
employees must deal with. The idea that emotions can act as tasks this is so, arousal can help explain the reduction in cognitive
was initially suggested by Beal et al. (2005). Our results clearly functioning exhibited in our studies. Of course, this is only spec-
support their theory by showing that an affective event (verbal ulation at this point, and arousal should be tested—along with
aggression) impairs multiple forms of cognitive functioning, in- secondary appraisal and rumination—for its mediating effects in
cluding recall, recognition, working memory, and quality of work the relationship between customer verbal aggression and cognitive
performance. functioning.
Targets of aggressive acts commonly experience negative emo- Our results did not show an interaction between cognitive ability
tions such as anger and hostility (Pearson & Porath, 2005). How- and customer aggression in influencing individuals’ cognitive
ever, service organizations have high expectations that employees functioning, but they did identify two variables that moderate the
will maintain customer satisfaction and contain their own anger effects of customer verbal aggression on cognitive performance.
(Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). To prevent themselves from venting That is, a greater capacity for perspective taking appears to reduce
their anger on customers, employees have to consistently self- the negative effects of verbal aggression on cognitive functioning,
regulate their behavior (Grandey et al., 2004). Yet maintaining and experiencing aggression from someone of high status appears
self-control is effortful and distracting and therefore depletes en- to exacerbate these effects. The moderating effects of perspective
ergy and cognitive resources (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, taking complement Rupp et al.’s (2008) findings, which showed
1994). Indeed, Beal et al.’s (2005) model incorporates the role of that individuals high in perspective taking are uniquely qualified at
emotional regulation as a major cause of the disruption emotional handling difficult customers. Our studies showed that perspective
events may cause to cognitive processes. One may argue then, that taking not only helps individuals to better relate to difficult cus-
the mechanisms of secondary appraisal, rumination, and arousal tomers but also to perform their tasks better.
may be less relevant than emotional regulation to cognitive dis- The moderating effect of customer status means that verbal
ruption caused by customer aggression. However, in our four aggression from high-status customers may undermine perfor-
studies, cognitive disruption occurred even though our participants mance more than aggression from regular customers. Ironically,
did not directly interact with aggressive customers and therefore high-status customers may believe that they deserve special treat-
did not have to control their anger or regulate their emotions. Thus, ment and may engage in verbal aggression more often than regular
our findings suggest that even in the absence of emotional regu- customers. This finding is novel and disturbing because it means
lation, aggression from customers may lead to direct cognitive that employees likely make significantly more errors in dealing
disruption, giving credence to the other mechanisms suggested in with customers who typically carry more economic power.
Beal et al.’s model. Investigating these mechanisms is beyond the
scope of the current study and must be left for future research, but Implications
our findings lend support to the argument that these processes are
involved. Perhaps our most important result is that small, trivial, and
Protecting oneself from potential harm is a fundamental human purely verbal manifestations of aggression reduce the functioning
motive (Daly & Wilson, 1988; Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003). As a of employees’ working memory. Cognitively complex activities,
result, people are adept at identifying signs of danger in social including language comprehension and production, problem solv-
interactions and at deciding swiftly whether a particular event is ing, reasoning and deduction, creativity, and decision making,
likely to be good or bad for their well-being. When an event is inevitably rely on working memory (Ashcraft, 1989; Eysenck &
perceived as signifying social danger, the mind spontaneously Keane, 2003). Thus, although our results focus on the effects of
determines whether something needs to be done immediately to customer verbal aggression on the functioning of working mem-
ensure survival (the process of primary appraisal; Lazarus, 1991), ory, they suggest much broader implications for performance on a
even as it consciously shifts attention to the implications of the wide variety of tasks. Indeed, our results may explain the results of
event and how to react to it—the process Lazarus (1991) called Porath and Erez (2007), who reported that participants exposed to
secondary appraisal. Once the danger is past, the mind continues to mild verbal aggression performed less well than controls on a
reflect on the event and its potential significance or ramifica- variety of complex and creative tasks.
tions—the process known as rumination. Both secondary appraisal The service industry is the largest employer in the United States
and rumination thereby shift the focus of attention away from the and the fastest growing global source for career opportunities
task at hand, with deleterious consequences for performance. Our (Kern & Grandey, 2009). Today’s economy considers customer
four studies showed exactly that. Customer verbal aggression satisfaction as pivotal to organizational performance; service em-
reduced performance on all the tasks we tested, whether memo- ployers communicate the mantra “the customer is always right” to
rizing information, solving visual analogy problems, or responding employees as a core job requirement (Kern & Grandey, 2009).
accurately to customer requests. The prevalence of customer verbal aggression toward customer
Arousal is also likely to be a factor in this shifting of attention. service employees is well known (Glomb, 2002; Grandey et al.,
Neurophysiological studies suggest that the autonomic nervous 2004), and Grandey et al. (2010) showed that service employees
system reacts quickly to even remote signs of danger, raising the are the primary target of expressions of aggression in organi-
heart rate and blood pressure, tensing the muscles, and so on (e.g., zations. Yet attention is typically focused on deflecting the
LeDoux, 1996). This swift reaction is designed by evolution to long-term emotional harm caused by aggressive customers.
prepare the body for a defensive response (i.e., fight or flight; CSR training programs do not address the cognitive ramifica-
Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000). As such, it stands to reason tions of verbal aggression.
946 RAFAELI ET AL.
The real-time nature of customer service jobs means that test of the actual disruption likely to be caused by customer verbal
handling verbal aggression is typically performed simultane- aggression. Third, our findings converge with past research, some
ously with other tasks. However, customer service employees of it conducted in organizational settings (e.g., Goldberg &
are typically trained to handle customer aggression in a “hy- Grandey, 2007; Porath & Erez, 2007, 2009; Skarlicki et al., 2008;
gienic” way, where the aggression is detached from day-to-day Wang et al., 2011). Finally, evidence supports the generalizability
performance. The cognitive literature shows that training indi- of research findings obtained in contrived settings across many
viduals on multiple tasks separately can make the later integra- psychological domains (Anderson, Lindsay, & Bushman, 1999;
tion of these tasks difficult, and therefore training individuals Colquitt, 2008; Locke, 1986). In fact, Cohen-Charash and Spec-
on multiple tasks simultaneously is recommended (e.g., Go- tor’s (2001) meta-analysis of the justice literature, which is spe-
pher, Weil, & Siegel, 1989). By extension, a practical implica- cifically relevant to the topic of our study, found an impressive
tion of our findings may be that customer service training correlation of r ⫽ .97 between the effect sizes of lab and field
should integrate the handling of customer aggression with tech- studies. Notwithstanding, we call for future research to test our
nical training in service tasks. For instance, training should predictions with different participants, settings, and manipulations
simulate customer aggression while trainees at the same time of customer verbal aggression (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Dipboye
have to handle computer software, as performing the two to- & Flanagan, 1979).
gether is a particularly challenging task. The simulation used in Another limitation is that our studies used a between-persons
Study 4, in which customer aggression is integrated into routine design, in which participants in the experimental group encoun-
customer tasks, may provide a point of departure for the devel- tered aggressive customers and participants in the control group
opment of such training programs. did not. A within-person design would have been more ecologi-
Finally, because our results suggest a direct effect of customer cally valid, because CSRs handle multiple customers on a daily
verbal aggression on employees’ cognitive functioning, it is not basis, some of them verbally aggressive and some not. Such a
clear that employees can control the outcomes that we depict. design would also make it possible to test how long the effects of
Service organizations may therefore be well advised to seek ways customer aggression last or, more specifically, how many calls
to reduce customer aggression by managing the customer side of after the aggressive encounter reflect performance decrements.
things. Service firms can track aggressive customers and allow em- Answering this question may have important implications for
ployees to terminate calls from difficult customers or even altogether CSRs who work with many customers in quick succession.
terminate regularly offensive customers (cf. Skarlicki et al., 2008). Finally, in our studies we asked participants to take the perspec-
Such a “zero tolerance policy” for customer abuse of employees can tive of employees. This may have affected our results, as aggres-
reduce the critical cognitive and economic costs that we depict, while sion encountered while playing a role may have different effects
also creating added motivational value by signaling that the company from aggression encountered firsthand. However, this aspect of our
cares for its employees (Skarlicki et al., 2008). procedure may actually have rendered our results conservative. As
suggested by Richards and Gross (2000), reappraising situations from
Limitations and Conclusions the perspective of another may actually reduce the distracting effects
of negative emotions. Similarly, our results suggest that perspective
A notable and critical limitation of our study is that it cannot taking minimizes the effects of customer aggression. Thus, it is likely
explain the mechanisms by which customer verbal aggression that the negative effects of customer aggression we identified in our
disrupted cognitive functioning. Although we have suggested four studies are in fact smaller than the effects of customer aggression
some processes that should be examined in future research, nota- on real customer service representatives.6
bly, secondary appraisal, rumination, and arousal (Beal et al., In sum, we highlight the effects of minor events of workplace
2005), we could not measure these variables with our data. Sim- aggression, an issue that has received relatively little research
ilarly, we did not measure emotional reactions to customer aggres- attention (cf. Glomb, 2002). We identify and document some
sion; yet emotions such as anger, hostility, and even fear may all clear and harmful effects of relatively mild and purely verbal
mediate the relationship between customer aggression and disrup- customer aggression. Our findings obviously should be repli-
tion to cognition. Research must always seek a balance between cated and extended, but they send a clear signal about the
comprehensiveness and parsimony, and our mission here was to importance of systematic efforts to reduce the extent of hostility
establish the disruptive effects of customer verbal aggression on that employees routinely encounter.
multiple cognitive tasks. Thus, we must leave it to future work to
address the question of why.
Our findings are also limited in their generalizability to actual 6
We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this
customer service settings, given that our studies were laboratory
idea.
studies and that in three of the four the participants were students.
Additionally, our studies relied on “paper people” or vignettes,
meaning that participants were not the targets of actual aggressors. References
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Appendix
Example of Manipulation Transcripts
Participants in both conditions heard (in Study 1) or read (in Customer: Don’t you think that people work? Do I need to
Studies 2 and 3) the following exchange: stay home 3 hours because of your mistakes? This is really
going overboard! What kind of service is that?

Employee: Hello, you’ve reached PelCom. This is Adi

speaking. Employee: Would you like to talk to the delivery service so
you can set a delivery time that is best for you?
Customer: My name is Ron Weiss, and my cell phone number
is 0596851172. Customer: Do I have a choice? I’ll talk to them, and let’s hope
this is the last time the problem occurs.
Employee: How can I help you?
Neutral (No Verbal Aggression) Condition
Customer: Three months ago I had a problem with my cell
phone. People couldn’t hear me when I was using the car Customer: I also thought about this. But I think it happens all
speaker. the time, even when I’m in areas that usually do not suffer
from reception problems. Just anywhere I happen to be.
Employee: Perhaps the problem occurred in an area with no
reception? Employee: We can replace the phone for you. We have home
delivery service every day between 9:00 and 12:00 a.m. Will
From this point on the customer text differed between the someone be home at these times to meet the delivery man?
neutral and the verbal aggression conditions.
Customer: I am usually at work during these hours. But I can
check, maybe one of my children can stay at home and wait
Verbal Aggression Condition for the delivery man. When were the delivery times?
Customer: What?! Do you want me to research when exactly Employee: Would you like to talk to the delivery service so
it happens? Should I waste my time because of your bad you can set a delivery time that is best for you?
quality phones, your lousy technicians? Every time a new
problem pops up! Customer: Sure, I think it will solve the problem. Thanks.
Employee: We can replace the phone for you. We have home Received November 18, 2009
delivery service every day between 9:00 and 12:00 a.m. Will Revision received March 15, 2012
someone be home at these times to meet the delivery man? Accepted March 26, 2012 䡲

When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay Cognitive Costs

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Journal of Applied Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association

2012, Vol. 97, No. 5, 931–950 0021-9010/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0028559

When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay

Anat Rafaeli Amir Erez

Shy Ravid Rellie Derfler-Rozin

Dorit Efrat Treister Ravit Scheyer

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Haifa University

Keywords: verbal aggression, cognition, customer service performance

influence their well-being. Lazarus (1991) proposed two evalua-

Hypothesis Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 4

(1 ⫽ not at all aggressive to 5 ⫽ very aggressive) and (b) the

customer aggression on free recall using a repeated-measure

Table 2 ory per se to general cognitive performance. In Study 2, we

Variable M SD 1 2 3 Hypothesis 1c: Exposure to customer verbal aggression will

all model of the influence of verbal aggression on the two depen-

cluded the Raven test.

will be attenuated among participants who are better at per- Results

1. Gender 0.69 0.47 —

Predictor ␤ ⌬R2 95% CI

Note. N ⫽ 77. Manipulated customer verbal aggression was coded as

1. Manipulated customer verbal aggression 0.49 0.50 —

Variable Neutral Verbally aggressive

Regular customers .72a (.14) .68b (.12)

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. Subscripts indicate which

tal Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 17, 693–701. doi:

and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 4, 281–288. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.17.4.693

Example of Manipulation Transcripts

going overboard! What kind of service is that?

Employee: Hello, you’ve reached PelCom. This is Adi

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