Ashlyn Patterson
Degree: Bachelor of Science with Honours in Psychology
Supervisor: Dr. Michael Leiter
Abstract: Workplace incivility is a problem for both employees and employers, as it can lead to declines in job satisfaction, quality of work, and psychological well-being (Blau & Andersson, 2005; Pearson & Porath, 2005). The current longitudinal study focused on the development of instigated incivility, which is the extent to which participants acknowledge engaging in uncivil actions towards others. More specifically, this study examined the role supervisor incivility and coworker incivility had on the development of instigated incivility. Nurses from five Canadian hospitals (N=290) completed surveys on two occasions measuring instances of both incivility and civility. Correlational analyses showed supervisor incivility, coworker incivility, and instigated incivility were all highly related. Results from a hierarchical multiple regression showed supervisor incivility at Time 1 was the only significant predictor of instigated incivility at Time 2, over and above the effects of instigated incivility at Time 1. Implications for human resource departments, and future research, are discussed.