The indirect relations of workplace incivility with emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self-blame: The moderating roles of observed incivility and trait emotional control

Drawing from the social cognitive theory of self-regulation, we develop a model linking experienced incivility to emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self-blame, with observed incivility experienced by coworkers as a first-stage moderator and trait emotional control as a second-stage moderator. We contend that employees will experience self-blame if they perceive themselves to be distinct targets of incivility (i.e., observed incivility experienced by others is low). Self-blame can potentially trigger prosocial responses for improving the situation, but self-blaming targets rarely respond in a prosocial manner because rational attempts to do so are thwarted by deleterious negative emotions accompanying self-blame. We argue that trait emotional control provides resources for managing these negative emotions to unleash a bright side of self-blame, such that the relation of self-blame with prosocial responses (i.e., being supportive to coworkers) will be more positive and the relation of self-blame with emotional exhaustion will be less positive for individuals with high (vs. low) trait emotional control. Multiwave data collected from a sample of 220 police officers largely support our hypotheses, indicating that the indirect relation of experienced incivility with supportive behaviors via self-blame is strongest at lower levels of observed incivility and higher levels of emotional control.