Publication Date

2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Katrina Burch, Reagan Brown, Kelly Madole

Degree Program

Department of Psychological Sciences

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

Workplace incivility is ubiquitous, regularly impacting working adults. Through the framework of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, I examined the relationship between workplace incivility and resource depletion using daily diary methodology. Workplace incivility negatively impacts employee outcomes at the organizational and individual level. As such, it was hypothesized that workplace incivility would have a positive correlation with increased resource depletion, measured as psychological fatigue. Under selective incivility theory, disenfranchised groups face increased instances of incivility. Following this theory, non-whites were hypothesized to experience a greater association between workplace incivility and resource depletion. Additionally, an individual’s personal tolerance of mistreatment for incivility was similarly examined and hypothesized to weaken the association with psychological fatigue. Daily diary data was collected across 10 workdays from 81 working adults with data analysis conducted through a multilevel regression model with two moderators. Findings supported the positive association between workplace incivility and resource depletion, but race was not found to significantly moderate the relationship, and personal tolerance was found to moderate in the opposing direction. This suggests that reliance on personal tolerance by employees to buffer psychological fatigue is not reliable and a zero-tolerance policy should be enforced by organizations to prevent workplace incivility incidents.

Disciplines

Business | Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Organizational Behavior and Theory | Organization Development | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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