Social undermining and well-being: the role of communal orientation

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to test whether communal orientation is a moderator of the relationship between the experience of social undermining in project groups and both group member well-being and group-directed citizenship behaviours. Design/methodology/approach - A survey was carried out of 184 student nurses from a Canadian university working in 41 groups in the local community on projects designed to deliver care to specific populations. Student nurses worked in project groups for ten weeks. They completed two surveys: one approximately two weeks into group membership; and the other approximately six weeks later. Findings - As predicted, and controlling for survey one well-being, student nurses who experienced social undermining early in the life of their group reported poorer well-being at the end of their group membership than their counterparts. Furthermore, communal orientation moderated this relationship, in that this relationship only existed for those individuals high in communal orientation. Counter to this paper's prediction, there was no relationship between the experience of undermining early in the life of their group and student nurses' reports of group-directed citizenship behaviours later in the life of the group. Research limitations/implications - All study measures were self-report. Future researchers should attempt to collect information from other sources. Originality/value - This paper adds to the literature on workplace aggression by reinforcing how critical it is to consider not only the nature of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, but also how individual differences affect the way an aggressive act is perceived.