Coping style and gender effects on attitudinal responses to incivility

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether emotion- and problem-focussed employee coping styles affect the relationship between workplace incivility and job attitudes (job satisfaction, sense of community), and whether these effects vary by gender. Design/methodology/approach – Survey methodology was used to obtain self-report data from a sample of 314 working adults (90 percent Hispanic, 62 percent female) enrolled in courses at a public university. Findings – Targets of workplace incivility experienced lower job satisfaction and sense of community at work. Employees who typically used problem-focussed coping (PFC) to respond to work stressors experienced greater negative outcomes associated with incivility. Mixed results were found for employees who typically engaged in emotion-focussed coping (EFC) at work: frequent use of avoidant coping and religious coping buffered against the impact of incivility, however, support seeking coping styles strengthened the negative outcomes associated with incivility. These effects varied by gender. Practical implications – The results highlight the benefits of two EFC styles (religious coping, avoidance coping) in the context of workplace incivility. The findings also indicate limitations of PFC and support seeking coping in the context of incivility. Accordingly, the authors make suggestions for managers to facilitate employees to overcome problems of incivility. Originality/value – Few studies have investigated qualities that enable employees to effectively manage incivility. Further, the role of coping styles in relation to incivility is relatively unexplored. To address these gaps, the authors examined the extent to which PFC and EFC styles impact the relationship between incivility and work attitudes.