Long-term consequences of supervisor hostility

主管通常控制对员工重要和有价值的结果(例如，薪酬、晋升机会)的分配。由于这些权力动态，对员工怀有敌意的主管会引发强烈的负面反应，最终伤害员工，并使美国组织因生产率下降而损失数十亿美元。到目前为止，研究人员只关注主管敌意的短期后果，而忽视了这样一种观点，即经常伴随着人际虐待而来的心理创伤可能会在未来几年里一直伴随着受害者。在更长的时间范围内研究这一现象也增加了这样一种可能性，即一些员工最终会从这种经历中成长，就像一些创伤受害者在巨大破坏后经历成长一样。这个项目探索了过去成为主管敌意目标的员工表现出的认知、情感、生理和行为上的差异。项目结果可能会为有兴趣帮助受虐员工从长期伤害中恢复的从业者提供指导。此外，通过证明一个对最初的虐待行为没有直接责任的组织仍然承担部分成本，我们希望激发一种集体责任感，以改变导致主管敌视的文化、气候和工作结构。此外，基于少数族裔和那些没有结构性权力的人经常成为敌对监管者的目标的想法，我们希望我们的研究将有助于减少这种情况，并最终在少数族裔就业机会方面帮助创造公平的竞争环境。最后，我们的研究可能有助于制定关于社会所希望和容忍的工作环境类型的公共政策。我们希望这些结果将有助于为员工的福祉而改变管理实践的对话。我们使用多方法方法，使用调查(包括自我和他人报告)、一系列实验室任务(例如泰勒攻击范式、信任游戏、情绪Stroop)、生理测量和功能磁共振成像(FMRI)任务，以100名过去接触过主管敌意的员工和100名没有接触过主管敌意的员工为匹配样本，检验我们的想法和总体概念模型。该项目旨在通过以下方式为研究做出贡献：(1)提供基于社会心理学、人类认知和神经科学理论和研究的主管敌意的长期后果模型，(2)将对主管敌意的研究从短期扩展到长期，为该现象提供重要的第一次检查，并为未来关于该主题的研究提供多种途径，以及(3)阐明主管敌意的潜在积极后果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Supervisors often control the allocation of outcomes (e.g., compensation, promotion opportunities) that are important and valuable to employees. Because of these power dynamics, supervisors who are hostile toward their employees elicit strong negative reactions that ultimately harm employees and cost U.S. organizations billions of dollars in reduced productivity. To date, researchers have focused only on the short-term consequences of supervisor hostility and have neglected to consider the idea that psychological trauma that often comes along with interpersonal mistreatment can remain with its victims for years into the future. Studying this phenomenon over a longer time horizon also raises the possibility that some employees ultimately grow from this experience, just as some trauma victims experience growth after great devastation. This project explores the cognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral differences exhibited by employees who have been the target of supervisor hostility in the past. Project results may provide guidance to practitioners interested in helping abused employees recover from long-term harm. Further, by demonstrating that an organization that bears no direct responsibility for the original abuse nonetheless bears some of the costs, we hope to inspire a collective sense of responsibility for changing the cultures, climates, and structures of work that enable supervisor hostility. Moreover, based on the idea that minorities and those without structural power are often targeted by hostile supervisors, we hope that our research will contribute to its reduction and ultimately help level the playing field in terms of minority employment opportunities. Finally, our research may contribute to public policy regarding the type of work environments desired and tolerated by society. We hope the results will contribute to conversations that change management practice for the benefit of employees’ well-being.Using a multi-method approach, employing surveys (both self- and other-reports), a battery of laboratory tasks (e.g., Taylor Aggression Paradigm, trust games, emotional Stroop), physiological measures, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks, we test our ideas and overall conceptual model with matched samples of 100 employees who have been exposed to supervisor hostility in the past and 100 employees who have not. The project aims to contribute to research by: (1) providing a model of the long-term consequences of supervisor hostility, grounded in social psychology, human cognition, and neuroscience theory and research, (2) extending research on supervisor hostility from the short-term to the long-term, providing an important first examination of the phenomenon and fostering multiple avenues for future research on this topic, and (3) illuminating potential positive consequences of supervisor hostility.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.