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Theses and Dissertations

Spring 2020

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: Social Undermining as Social Influence

Jason Kautz

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Recommended Citation Kautz, J.(2020). Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: Social Undermining as Social Influence. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5839

This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES: SOCIAL UNDERMINING AS SOCIAL INFLUENCE

by

Jason Kautz

Bachelors of Science Canisius College, 2010

Masters of Business Administration Canisius College, 2013

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in

Business Administration

Darla Moore School of Business

University of South Carolina

2020

Accepted by:

M. Audrey Korsgaard, Major Professor

Robert E. Ployhart, Committee Member

Nichelle Carpenter, Committee Member

Timothy Fry, Committee Member

Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Jason Kautz, 2020 All Rights Reserved.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the help and support I received from the wonderful community at the University of South Carolina. Specifically, I thank Cori Jones and

Sandy Bringley for always making me smile; I thank my committee members Rob

Ployhart, Nichelle Carpenter, and Tim Fry for their immeasurable help and guidance; I thank Paul Bliese for teaching me the fun of stats and analysis; and I thank my fellow doctoral students for sharing in my accomplishments and commiserating in my frustrations. I also thank Ji-Hee Kim for encouraging me to grow. Most importantly, I wish to thank my advisor, Audrey Korsgaard, for always believing in me (especially as I so often fail to believe in myself).

iii ABSTRACT

The current social undermining literature suggests the important role of the witness in determining the negative impact on the victim. However, the literature has yet to explicitly explore the witness’ role in social undermining. In this dissertation, I integrate theory and research on social influence and emotions to develop a framework that suggests social undermining be considered a form of social influence. This framework allows for the exploration of the witness’ sense-making process following a social undermining event along with the accumulated effects of repeated exposure to a series of social undermining events. I propose that social undermining influences witness perceptions of underminer and/or victim trustworthiness as well as subsequent witness behaviors. Witness relational identification with the underminer will increase the likelihood of accepting social undermining, which will facilitate feelings of contempt, while witness relational identification with the victim will decrease the likelihood of accepting social undermining, which will facilitate feelings of anger and fear.

Additionally, underminer power will shape the expression of behavior such that high underminer power decreases retaliatory behaviors toward the underminer. I test these premises in two empirical studies. In study 1, I utilize a critical incident recall task to explore the social influence factors that shape the witness’ response to social undermining (n = 100). Results indicate that witness’ experience feelings of contempt, anger, and fear following a social undermining event. Feelings of contempt promote negative perceptions of victim trustworthiness and encourage behaviors designed to harm

iv the victim. Feelings of anger encourage retaliatory behaviors toward underminer.

Feelings of fear encourage behaviors designed to harm the victim. In study 2, I utilize a multi-round experiment to test the influence of relational identification and underminer power on response to a campaign of social undermining (n = 308 observations). Results indicate that witness perceive the victim as progressively less trustworthy and give increasingly fewer resources to the victim over time, regardless of relational identification and underminer power. Additionally, witness’ who identify with the underminer give increasingly more resources to the underminer over time than those who identify with the victim. The results of these studies provide evidence for the significant role that the witness plays in social undermining.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Abstract ...... iv

List of Tables ...... vii

List of Figures ...... viii

List of Abbreviations ...... ix

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 A Brief Literature Review and Integration ...... 4

Chapter 3 Study 1: Social Undermining as an Event ...... 34

Chapter 4 Study 2: Social Undermining as a Campaign...... 61

Chapter 5 Discussion ...... 96

References ...... 101

vi LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Study 1 Descriptive Statistics ...... 58

Table 3.2 Study 1 Model Fit Indices ...... 59

Table 3.3 Study 1 Power Moderation Test: Multigroup Path Analysis ...... 59

Table 4.1 Study 2 Descriptive Statistics ...... 82

Table 4.2 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Perceptions of Trustworthiness ...... 83

Table 4.3 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Behaviors ...... 84

Table 4.4 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Emotions ...... 85

Table 4.5 Study 2 Perceptions of Trustworthiness Growth Models ...... 86

Table 4.6 Study 2 Emotions Growth Models...... 87

Table 4.7 Study 2 Behavior Growth Models ...... 88

Table 4.8 Study 2 Influence of Discrete Emotions on Behavior ...... 89

vii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Social Influence Framework of Social Undermining ...... 33

Figure 3.1 Witness Model of Social Undermining ...... 60

Figure 4.1 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behaviors Per Round ...... 90

Figure 4.2 Study 2 Victim Aiding Behaviors Per Round ...... 90

Figure 4.3 Study 2 Self Aiding Behaviors Per Round ...... 91

Figure 4.4 Study 2 Perceptions of Underminer Trustworthiness Per Round ...... 91

Figure 4.5 Study 2 Perceptions of Victim Trustworthiness Per Round ...... 92

Figure 4.6 Study 2 Perceptions of Victim Trustworthiness Growth (Victim Trustworthiness Model 1, Table 4.5) ...... 92

Figure 4.7 Study 2 Growth of Victim Aiding Behavior (Victim Reward Model 1, Table 4.7) ...... 93

Figure 4.8 Study 2 Growth of Fear predicted by Relational Identification (Averaged across Power Condition; Fear Model 3, Table 4.6) ...... 93

Figure 4.9 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (Low Underminer Power) ...... 94

Figure 4.10 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (High Underminer Power) ...... 94

Figure 4.11 Study 2 Self Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (Low Underminer Power)…………………………………………………………………………………... 95

Figure 4.12 Study 2 Self Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (High Underminer Power) ...... 95

viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AET ...... Affective Events Theory

CIT ...... Critical Incident Technique

COR ...... Changing Others Relationship

CWB ...... Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors

ELM ...... Elaboration Likelihood Model

ICC ...... Intraclass Correlation

ix CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Social undermining is the enactment of “behavior intended to hinder, over time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, work-related success, and favorable reputation” (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002, p. 332). Unlike other forms of workplace aggression, social undermining constitutes insidious behaviors designed to weaken by degree, rather than overt behaviors. Social undermining may be conceptualized as a campaign of discrete events that encompass the intentional enactment of negative, but ambiguous, behaviors. Each discrete event is of such low impact that, in isolation, they do not call attention to the underminer’s true intent; but the cumulative effect of such events changes the way others perceive and interact with a targeted individual. The extant literature on social undermining has provided insights into the aggressor’s motivations (Duffy, Scott, Shaw, Tepper, & Aquino, 2012; Greenbaum,

Mawritz, & Eissa, 2012; Keeves, Westphal, & McDonald, 2017; K. Y. Lee, Kim, Bhave,

& Duffy, 2016; Reh, Tröster, & Van Quaquebeke, 2018; Yu, Duffy, & Tepper, 2018) and the psychological, physiological, and behavioral outcomes of the victim (Campbell,

Chuang, Liao, Zhou, & Dong, 2017; Crossley, 2009; Duffy et al., 2002; Duffy, Ganster,

Shaw, Johnson, & Pagon, 2006; Greenbaum, Mawritz, & Piccolo, 2015; K. Y. Lee et al.,

2016; Yoo, 2013).

While there has been almost 20 years of research on social undermining, the process connecting the underminer’s actions to the consequences for the victim has not

1 been explored. Research has proposed and tested reasons why social undermining occurs.

Research has proposed and tested what social undermining does. But research has not yet explored how social undermining works. The social undermining literature currently follows an implicit assumption that social undermining behaviors influence a third-party witness, negatively changing their opinion of the victim. Yet, while the importance of acknowledging and exploring this assumption was proposed 9 years ago by Hershcovis

(2011) – and reiterated two years later by Yoo (2013) – there has yet to be any movement toward opening the black box and exploring the underlying social mechanisms that enable social undermining to be a viable behavioral choice in the modern workplace.

By integrating the literature on social undermining, social influence, and emotions, I create a framework for understanding social undermining as a social influence process in which the witness of undermining plays a critical role. This framework links the social undermining act, the emotions of the witness, and the witness’ subsequent perceptions and behaviors toward the victim and the underminer.

Additionally, this framework allows for the development of several hypothesis regarding how social undermining influences those who witness it, shaping their attitudes and behaviors.

This dissertation is broken up into three sections. In Chapter 2, I provide a brief overview of the current state of the social undermining, social influence, and emotions literature with an emphasis on how these literatures are used within the field of management. After reviewing the literature, I integrate the theories and findings into a comprehensive framework which allows for understanding social undermining as a social influence process. In Chapter 3, I use this framework to test how the third-party witness

2 to social undermining (henceforth referred to as “the witness”) reacts to social undermining attempts using field data. Specifically, the social influence framework of social undermining allows for hypotheses development and tests which illuminate how social undermining unfolds within the workplace. Additionally, the social influence framework of social undermining outlines the consequences of social undermining

“backfiring” upon the person engaged in social undermining (henceforth referred to as

“the underminer”). In Chapter 4, I use the social influence framework of social undermining to test how social undermining unfolds overtime. Using a 2 (relational identification with the underminer versus relational identification with the victim) x 2

(high underminer power versus low underminer power), multi-round behavioral lab design, I test how the within-participant manipulation of exposure to social undermining influences witness emotional and behavioral responses. I conclude with a general review of the theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions of this dissertation.

3 CHAPTER 2

A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW AND INTERGRATION

Despite almost 20 years of research since the construct of social undermining has been brought into the field of management, there is a surprising lack of clarity surrounding the social processes of social undermining. Similar constructs – such as incivility, bullying, and gossip – have been widely studied, leading to the implementation of workplace practices and policies that have limited their damaging effects. Yet, while we know a lot about what leads the underminer to engage in social undermining and the physiological and psychological outcomes for the victim of social undermining, the actual mechanisms of social undermining remain a black box.

In this chapter, I first review and organize the social undermining literature to highlight what is known (e.g., motivations of the underminer and consequences for the victim) and what remains unknown (e.g., the witness role and the social undermining process). Next, I review two additional literatures: social influence and emotions. I propose that the theories, concepts, and empirical evidence contained in these literatures provide guidance and insight into understanding what is unknown about social undermining.

Following this review, I integrate the literature streams on social undermining, social influence and emotions, to create a social influence framework of social undermining. I propose that social undermining be understood as a social phenomenon involving three actors – the underminer, the victim, and the witness – and their respective

4 dyadic-relationships. This framework outlines how social undermining works through indirect social processes associated with the witness to ultimately harm the victim. The development of such a social influence framework of social undermining allows for the development of hypotheses surrounding the witness’ role in social undermining.

2.1 SOCIAL UNDERMINING

Social undermining is the enactment of “behaviors intended to hinder, over time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, work-related success, and favorable reputations” (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002, p. 332). Social undermining can be expressed as damaging comments (e.g., belittling the victim or their ideas), sabotage (e.g., withholding relevant information and resources), and negative gossip (e.g., spreading damaging rumors about the victim. As such, social undermining may be considered a form of interpersonal deviance. Some forms of undermining, such as sabotage, are behavioral and directed at the victim. These forms of undermining directly affect the victim’s performance. The consequences for performance are observed and, presumably, the witness is unaware of the role of the underminer. Thus, the witness attributes the poor performance to the victim and the victim’s reputation becomes damaged. Other forms of undermining, such as damaging comments and negative gossip, are verbal and directed at the witness. These forms of undermining are designed to influence the witness’ attributions of the victim through a process of social influence.

This review offers three important insights from the social undermining literature.

First, research suggests two, independent motivations (envy and bottom-line mentality) that promote enactment of social undermining. Second, research on the victim of social undermining finds results similar to what would be expected from related forms of

5 aggression (for a review of the victim role in the broad aggression literature, see Aquino

& Thau, 2009). Specifically, social undermining lowers a victim’s psychological well- being by removing their social support in the work place. Third, the extant research focuses solely on either the underminer or the victim. None of the studies published to this point have approached social undermining from the witness’ perspective. This dearth of theoretical or empirical examination of the witness’ role is surprising considering that, in her review of the workplace aggression literature, Hershcovis (2011) stated social undermining to be a unique form of aggression due to its reliance on third-party attributions of the target.

2.1.1 UNDERMINER’S MOTIVATION

Social undermining may be triggered by observations or expectations of a rivals superior performance (Duffy, Ganster, Shaw, Johnson, & Pagon, 2006; Lam, Van der

Vegt, Walter, & Huang, 2011; Reh, Tröster, & Van Quaquebeke, 2018). This prompts feelings of social comparisons that may engender feelings of envy (e.g., Campbell,

Chuang, Liao, Zhou, & Dong, 2017; Duffy et al., 2012; E. Kim & Glomb, 2014) and/or activate bottom-line mentality (Greenbaum et al., 2012; Wolfe, 1988). Feelings of envy create uncomfortable sensations within an individual, akin to pain (Lieberman &

Eisenberger, 2009). In seeking to alleviate this discomfort, individuals may engage in undermining behaviors as a means of bolstering one’s self-esteem at the expense of another (Wert & Salovey, 2004). Thus, envious underminers seek to preserve or enhance their social standing by undermining their perceived rivals (Cohen-Charash, 2009; Duffy et al., 2012; Dunn & Schweitzer, 2006; R. H. Smith & Kim, 2007; Tesser & Collins,

1988). Bottom-line mentality focuses an individual’s attention on a singular goal (Wolfe,

6 1988). Such focused attention promotes the oversimplification of information during decision making and encourages a zero-sum approach (Callahan, 2004). Approaching situations in such a manner engenders adversarial relationships as individuals place more emphasis on their own outcomes above all else (Levinson, 1970).

Recent research suggests that social undermining may be dependent on the relationship quality between the underminer and the victim. Yu, Duffy, and Tepper

(2018) surveyed supervisor-subordinate dyad pairs over three time periods and found that the likelihood that supervisors were to engage in undermining behaviors was influenced by perceptions of the subordinate’s warmth. Specifically, warm subordinates prompted supervisors to engage in self-improvement activities whereas cold subordinates prompted supervisors to engage in social undermining behaviors.

2.1.2 VICTIM’S OUTCOMES

From the victim’s perspective, social undermining is a norm-violating phenomenon that constitutes a breach of justice (Bies, 2005; Bies & Tripp, 2005; Duffy et al., 2006). Greenbaum, Mawritz, and Piccolo (2015) found that in situations where employees expect high levels of interpersonal justice, supervisor’s social undermining behaviors lead to higher perception of leader hypocrisy and greater intentions to turnover.

Victims of social undermining are more likely to experience somatic complaints, depression, and reduced self-efficacy (Duffy et al., 2002, 2006) as well as decreases in creativity and self-esteem (Eissa, Chinchanachokchai, & Wyland, 2017). Additionally, victimized employees strive to make sense of their experience (Crossley, 2009; Porath &

Erez, 2007). Such sense-making processes lead to an increase in mental effort as victims attempt to regulate ruminative thought and associated emotions (Denson, Pedersen,

7 Friese, Hahm, & Roberts, 2011), decreasing an individual’s ability to focus on other tasks and leading to decreases in performance (Porath & Erez, 2009).

While it is assumed that the primary behavioral outcome for the victim is turnover, empirical evidence suggests that social undermining may lead to a spiral of aggression. For example, during this sense making process victims may attribute specific motives to the underminer’s behavior (Bradfield & Aquino, 1999). Crossley (2009) found that attributions of greed and malice lead to retaliatory and/or avoidant behavior. Lee,

Kim, Bhave, and Duffy (2016) surveyed employees and found that, following experiences of undermining, victims engaged in moral disengagement which promoted their own enactment of social undermining.

2.1.3 WITNESS’ PERSPECTIVE

Hershcovis points out that the current conceptualization of social undermining implicitly assumes that social undermining influences the witness. Rather than assuming undermining behaviors influences the attitudes and behaviors of witnesses, Hershcovis

(2011) suggests that undermining behaviors “should be examined empirically using research methods appropriate to the question (i.e., investigating the third-party observer rather than the victim)” (p. 505). In the case of social undermining behaviors such as sabotage, the witness is influenced indirectly through observations of the victim’s performance. However, in cases of damaging comments and negative gossip, the witness becomes the direct target of the social undermining behavior. Thus, social undermining works not only through the direct antagonistic relationship between the underminer and the victim, but through the social fabric that these two actors work. Inherently, this social fabric consists of the witness. It is important, then, to focus in on these behaviors (i.e.,

8 damaging comments and negative gossip), as they emphasize the unique process of social influence that differentiates social undermining from other forms of aggression.

2.1.4 CRITICISMS

The current state of the social undermining literature is primarily due to lack of construct clarity. The initial definition of social undermining (Duffy et al., 2002, 2006) specified three defining features of undermining behavior. First, social undermining is an intentional behavior. When discussing antecedents, researchers interpret intentionality to suggest that the underminer knowingly engages in undermining behavior designed to achieve self-serving goals (e.g., Yu, Duffy, & Tepper, 2018). When discussing outcomes, researchers interpret intentionality to suggest that the victim must attribute the behavior to the underminer and not the circumstance (e.g., Crossley, 2009). These two streams have developed in parallel within the social undermining literature. Insights into the dynamic process of social undermining within the social context of the workplace have stagnated due to the separation between underminer-perceived and victim-perceived social undermining.

Second, social undermining is defined as a repeated, low-impact process that harms the victim gradually, over time. That is, social undermining is a campaign against the victim, rather than a single explicit event. Despite the longitudinal nature specified, social undermining is not studied as a dynamic process. Instead, research theorizes social undermining from a static perspective and measures social undermining as a frequency of behaviors. Such an approach ignores the accumulative effects of social undermining.

Research should clearly delineate between a single experience of social undermining and a campaign of social undermining.

9 Third, social undermining harms the victim’s reputation. This feature necessitates a third-party who experiences a change of opinion toward the target. However, to my knowledge, there is no research that considers this component of social undermining. If social undermining operates through the changing of opinions regarding the victim, then there needs to be consideration for the social influence processes occurring.

Using these basic premises have led to a literature that has been fragmented into underminer-focused motivation for social undermining and victim-focused outcomes of social undermining. And approaching social undermining with these unstated assumption overlooks the direct and cumulative influence on the witness.

2.2 SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Social influence theories began with (French, 1956) theory of social power, which proposed a model describing interpersonal influence opinion formation. Friedkin and

Johnsen (1999) built upon this theory, integrating psychological work on opinion formation with sociological work on network effects, to model the flows of interpersonal influence within a social network. This work developed into the social influence network theory (Friedkin, 1998), which outlines the process by which an actor’s established opinion may be changed by the opinions of others within their network. While social influence network theory popularized the idea that influence flows from one individual to another and that the strength of influence is based on individual and relationship factors, social influence network theory lacks explanatory power regarding the actual process of social influence.

Ferris, Anthony, Kolodinsky, Gilmore, and Harvey (2002) sought to address the black box of the social influence process by breaking social influence into three mutually

10 influential components: the actor, the behaviors, and the mechanism. Ferris et al. (2002) classified these categories as the “who,” “what,” and “how” of social influence. The social influence actor is most often conceptualized as a role within a social network

(Halevy, Halali, & Zlatev, 2019). Indeed, social influence theories assume that any individual can fulfil this role when their goals require the support of others. While in the role, an actor will utilize a broad array of behaviors (e.g., impression management, influence tactics, and political behavior) in an attempt to change another’s opinion or attitude and accomplish specific goals (Hogan & Blickle, 2013). Individual differences – such as personality (Caldwell & Burger, 1998), gender (Dubrin, 1991), age (Erber &

Prager, 2000), and motivation (Grams & Rogers, 1990) – shape the specific choice of behaviors employed by the actor. While the “who” and “what” are comparatively easy questions to answer, the “how” has proven to be difficult. Multiple theories have been developed to explore the social influence process, such as the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and, most recently, the Changing

Others’ Relationship (COR) framework (Halevy et al., 2019), to name a few.

2.2.1 ELM

Elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (ELM) examines the processes that drive attitude change (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). These processes occur through the two systems of cognition described as the central route and the peripheral route. The central route deals with critical thought processes regarding information germane to the message whereas the peripheral route deals with low-effort subjective evaluations of the message

(Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005). ELM suggests that elaboration occurs on a continuum, with the extent to which an individual engages in

11 elaboration determined by her or his ability and motivation to assess merits of the message (Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). Ability typically refers to an individual’s knowledge of the topic of the message (Bhattacherjee & Sanford, 2006) while motivation typically refers to personal relevance of the message, which may be influenced by peripheral cues (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). While ELM is predominantly used in the marketing literature, it has been widely applied in the management field as a means to help describe how entrepreneurs persuade backers (Li, Chen, Kotha, & Fisher, 2017), the information processing associated with justice cognitions (Takeuchi, Chen, & Cheung,

2012), and how individuals form opinions regarding HR practices such as affirmative action (White, Charles, & Nelson, 2008). Within the workplace aggression literature, specifically, Douglas et al. (2008) utilized ELM as a framework for understanding the cognitive, emotional, and evaluative processes associated with workplace aggression, which suggests that individuals will vary in the degree to which they engage in deliberate and mindful processing following an aggression-triggering event.

Unique to ELM is the concept that social factors – such as perceptions of an influencer’s prestige, confidence, and physical attraction – influence the expenditure of cognitive effort toward understanding social influence messages (Petty & Cacioppo,

1986). That is, there are social factors that encourage individuals to pay more or less attention to understanding social influence messaging, making them more or less likely to accept social influence. While ELM provides a broad theoretical framework for understanding social influence, it is not specific to understanding how individuals influence each other’s relationships.

12 2.2.2 COR FRAMEWORK

The changing others relationships (COR; Halevy et al., 2019)) framework integrates theory and research on the social role of the broker – an actor in a social structure who influences the relationship between a dyad (Gould & Fernandez, 1989;

Simmel, 1950) – and the social process of brokering – the social influence process

(Obstfeld, Borgatti, & Davis, 2014; Quintane & Carnabuci, 2016). The COR suggests that humans regulate not only their own social interactions, but also the social interactions between others. That is, an individual within a triad can act to either strengthen or weaken the social ties between the other two members of the triad through social influence. Social influence research demonstrates that brokers may help integrate knowledge across employees (Grigoriou & Rothaermel, 2014), facilitate interactions

(Lingo & O’Mahony, 2010), and motivate cooperative behavior (Nakashima, Halali, &

Halevy, 2017). However, social influence research also demonstrates that brokers can create work environments that undercut subordinate’s opportunities to communicate and cooperate with others (Case & Maner, 2014), spread negative gossip to promote ostracism of a target (Kniffin & Wilson, 2005), and promote fear and distrust between employees (Dundon, 2002).

Thus, the COR suggests that there are two aspects of brokering: (a) the ability to create or break the relationship between a dyad and (b) the ability to flip the sign of the relationship (positive-to-negative or negative-to-positive) between a dyad. That is, the basic role of the broker is to shape the relationship between others. The broker can create and/or support positive relationships (e.g., (Grigoriou & Rothaermel, 2014; Lingo &

O’Mahony, 2010; Nakashima et al., 2017), mediate negative relationships to create

13 neutral or positive relationships (e.g., Kaplan, Milde, & Cowan, 2017; Obstfeld, 2017), or undermine relationships (e.g., (Case & Maner, 2014; Dundon, 2002; Kniffin & Wilson,

2005; Posner, Spier, & Vermeule, 2010). Specifically, the COR proposes three forms of brokers: (a) the helpful broker, who strengthens the relationship between two others, (b) the reinforcer, who acts as a conduit to transfer information in the network, and (c) the harmful broker, who weakens the relationship between two others.

The broker creates these changes in the relationship of others through activities such as providing introductions or acting as a liaison (Soda, Tortoriello, & Iorio, 2018), acting as a mediator during conflict (Lewicki & Sheppard, 1985; Shapiro & Brett, 1993), incentivize cooperation through resource control (i.e., Halevy et al., 2019; Nakashima et al., 2017), or spreading gossip (Ellwardt, Labianca, & Wittek, 2012; Kniffin & Wilson,

2005), to name a few. The COR ultimately suggests that influence occurs through information control (e.g., advice, feedback, and gossip) or incentives (e.g., praise, rewards/punishments, and social inclusion/exclusion) and is used to achieve a specific goal.

Unlike other theories on social influence, the COR is explicitly designed to explain how an individual shapes the relationship between two others. It integrates many current theories to illuminate the underlying psychological and sociological mechanisms that allow this shaping to occur, and helps to explain why individuals are relatively conducive to this form of social influence operating within their network. Therefore, the

COR provides the primary social influence framework for understanding social undermining. The social underminer is a harmful broker who engages in behavioral actions designed to damage the relationship between the witness and the victim. While

14 the underminer may be motivated by either envy (Duffy et al., 2012; Dunn & Schweitzer,

2006; Reh et al., 2018) or bottom-line mentality (Greenbaum et al., 2012; Reh et al.,

2018), the goal of the underminer is to remove a potential competitor. Thus, the underminer engages in behavior designed to negatively modify the relationship between the witness and the victim. While social influence helps to clarify social undermining as a phenomelogical event, determining the ultimate witness response will require the integration of theory regarding how individuals understand events.

2.3 EMOTIONS

Emotions, especially negative emotions, provide a guiding mechanism through which individuals understand and respond to events (Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994) and come to understand their workplace. Specifically, emotions help an individual to understand their experiences at work. Therefore, research on emotions will provide insight into how the witness comes to make sense of a social undermining event. Through the integration of social influence (ELM and COR) into social undermining, it becomes apparent that the witness may accept or reject attempts at social undermining. Either option creates a discrete workplace event that will elicit unique emotional response.

Below I provide an overview of the research on emotions in order to provide insight into the likely emotions experienced by the witness following the experience of social influence. I start with a brief summary of the use of emotions research within the management field. I then provide a brief overview of affective events theory as a means of tying together the emotions research into a useful theoretical framework. Finally, I focus the discussion on the three discrete emotions of contempt, anger, and fear, as they are the primary emotions theoretically related to social undermining.

15 2.3.1 EMOTIONS IN THE MANAGEMENT LITERATURE

Affect is a short-term experience of feeling states encompassing hedonistic

(pleasure/pain) appraisals and intensity (e.g., Ekman, 1992; Frijda, 1986). Affect is comprised of two types of states, moods and emotions. Moods are a diffuse, general feeling of positivity (pleasant) or negativity (unpleasant) that is not necessarily linked to a specific event (Barsade & Gibson, 2007). Moods arise from low-intensity stimuli and/or non-salient antecedents (Cropanzano, Weiss, Hale, & Reb, 2003; Elfenbein, 2007). Thus, moods are an enduring state, but of low intensity (Frijda, 1986; Tellegen, 1985).

Emotions, on the other hand, are unique feelings (both cognitive and physiological) that are elicited by a specific cause (Frijda, 1986; Lazarus, 1991) and prompt specific actions

(Ekman, 1992). Emotions act as a signal to an individual to adapt to her or his current environment (Schwarz & Clore, 2003): positive emotions helping to encourage well- being and negative emotions suggesting a stressor exists that needs to be resolved.

Therefore, while emotions can be related to one another, each emotion is its own discrete state (e.g., anger, fear, and contempt) with specific antecedents and consequences

(Ekman, 1992; Elfenbein, 2007).

The workplace provides ample opportunity for emotion eliciting events (Basch &

Fisher, 2000), such as conflicting role demands (Williams, Suls, Alliger, Learner, &

Wan, 1991), cognitive strain (Bodrov, 2000), and time pressure (Baber, Mellor, Graham,

Noyes, & Tunley, 1996). Izard (1993) suggested that such emotion eliciting events activate learned “scripts” constituting specific behavioral, cognitive, and emotional reactions. In this way, responses to emotion eliciting events are automated such that evaluative cognition is bypassed in favor of the less effortful emotional response. Forgas

16 (1995; Forgas & George, 2001) label this phenomena as “affect infusion,” wherein individuals tend to rely on emotion and their associated heuristics when engaged in substantive cognitive processing. For example, it is believed that positive emotions prompt optimistic situational appraisals that promote greater risk taking (Ashton-James &

Ashkanasy, 2005). Supporting this proposition, a study of decision makers found evidence that positive emotions were related to higher risk taking under conditions of uncertainty (Mittal & Ross, 1998).

Theory and empirical work suggest that relational characteristics shape an individual’s emotional response to an event. Lazarus (1991; Lazarus & Lazarus, 1994) proposes that a prominent determinant of the specific emotion experienced in any given situation is the relationship that an individual has to others involved in the event (see also

Shweder, 1993). Using autobiographical recall and vignettes, Fischer and Roseman

(2007) explored how relationship factors may influence the feelings of contempt following a trust breach. The authors found that feelings of contempt is moderated by the strength (i.e., intimacy) of the relationship between the trustor and trustee.

2.3.1.1 AFFECTIVE EVENTS THEORY

Weiss and Cropanzano's (1996) affective events theory (AET) draws heavily from the empirical and theoretical work on emotions overviewed above to provide a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between workplace events and emotional responses. AET posits that experiencing daily events prompts affective responses. Over time, the accumulation of affective responses to specific events will shape an individual’s perceptions and judgments, such as work attitudes, and performance-related behaviors (Weiss & Beal, 2005). Weiss and

17 Cropanzano do not specify what constitutes an event, nor the corresponding emotions experienced; however, there is a growing literature regarding the impact of discrete events in the workplace. In the deviance literature, for instance, empirical evidence has explored the damaging effects of bullying on feelings of anger, anxiety, fear and distress

(Ayoko, Callan, & Härtel, 2003; Tracy, Lutgen-Sandvik, & Alberts, 2006) and subsequently power imbalance and group membership change (Salin, 2003), interpersonal conflict (Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2009) and job satisfaction and turnover intentions (Glasø, Vie, Holmdal, & Einarsen, 2011).

AET provides a framework for understanding the confluence of events and emotions in shaping an individual’s perception of their workplace environment (Ashton-

James & Ashkanasy, 2005; Basch & Fisher, 2000). Similar to the ideas proposed by Izard

(1993), AET suggests that emotions help to prompt learned behavioral scripts and help reduce the cognitive effort for sense-making. As such, Many phenomena at work are influenced by affective events, including relationship development (e.g., leader-member exchange; Cropanzano, Dasborough, & Weiss, 2017) and identity management (Mohr et al., 2019), employees reactions to human resource management policies and practices

(Chacko & Conway, 2019), and affect contagion (e.g., from subordinate to supervisor;

(Lanaj & Jennings, 2019). Additionally, affect is believed to influence how individuals process information such that individuals in a positive mood rely more on heuristic processing (Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser, 1994) while individuals in a negative mood rely more on cognitive processing (Lerner & Keltner, 2001). Thus, AET provides a useful theoretical framework for combining research the role of emotions as a mediator between eliciting events and behaviors.

18 2.3.2 ROLE OF EMOTIONS IN SOCIAL UNDERMINING

In conceptualizing social undermining as social influence, we can conceptualize the social undermining campaign as consisting of discrete social undermining event that elicits a unique emotion. Indeed, due to its pernicious nature, social undermining may be considered a relatively common emotion-eliciting event in the workplace. I propose three emotions that would be most likely to emerge in response to social undermining: contempt, anger, and fear. If social undermining is accepted, the witness is likely to experience contempt for the victim. When the witness is persuaded by the underminer, the victim appears comparatively inferior relative to the social group (e.g., Greenbaum et al., 2012, 2015), prompting contempt. Contempt can lead to disassociation with, and ostricization of, the target (Keltner & Haidt, 1999), which serves the goals of the underminer. If social undermining is rejected, the witness is likely to perceive the social undermining as an attempt to degrade the victim. When the witness is not persuaded by the underminer, the underminer is likely to appear to have breached interpersonal justice norms (e.g., Cortina & Magley, 2003), prompting negative affect toward the underminer.

Dependent on contextual factors that limit perceptions of situational control (e.g., power;

Hareli & Rafaeli, 2008), this negative affect can manifest as feelings of anger or fear.

Anger can lead to behaviors designed to punish the target (Dubreuil, 2010; Fitness,

2000). On the other hand, fear can lead to avoidance or appeasement behaviors (Lerner &

Keltner, 2001; Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000).

2.3.2.1 CONTEMPT

Contempt is defined as a negative emotion that conveys a disregard for another

(Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Morris & Keltner, 2000). Contempt is believed to be a

19 discrete emotion that reflects a negative evaluation of an individual (Frijda, 2007) and is defined by an absence of respect toward another individual (Gervais & Fessler, 2017).

Contempt is often classified as a “cool” (rather than “hot”) emotion (Izard, 1993), as it shapes appraisals of an other’s character or competence following a transgression (Rozin,

Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999).

Being a “cool” emotion, contempt promotes avoidant tendencies, prompting exclusion. Contempt may act to diminish interactions with individuals deemed incompetent or unworthy. Specifically, contempt promotes the exclusion of the targeted individual from one’s social network (Mackie et al., 2000; Roseman, Copeland, &

Fischer, 2003; Roseman et al., 1994). Contempt may be a longer-lasting emotion than most of the discrete emotions, leading to negative and durable changes in beliefs regarding another person (Frijda & Mesquita, 1994). Therefore, feelings of contempt are likely to drastically change the witness’s perceptions of the victim’s ability to contribute to the group in any meaningful way and prompt ostracism behaviors. At greater intensities, contempt may prompt individuals to engage in behaviors that directly harm the target as a means to increase social separation from the target (Dubreuil, 2010). As the goal of the underminer is to damage the reputation of the victim, both sets of behaviors (i.e., ostracism and direct harm) are conducive to the goals of the underminer.

2.3.2.2 ANGER

Anger is defined as a negative emotion that signals the frustration of a goal (Ekman,

2006). Anger is elicited in situations where the individual can attribute blame to a specific entity for wrong-doing (i.e., person, group, or organization) while at the same time the individual has a high degree of perceived control to address the situation

20 (Lazarus, 1991; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). From this description, there are three components that facilitate the experience of anger. First, the situation must be one that creates a sense of unfairness (Lebel, 2017; Roseman et al., 1994). Second, the situation must provide a target for the emotion, in that anger involves a cognitive attribution of blame to a specific entity (Roseman, 2013). Finally, the situation must be one that allows for a sense of control such that the individual feels able to act in opposition to the target of the anger (Averill, 1973; Frijda, Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989; Morris & Keltner, 2000;

Roseman et al., 1994). Supporting the necessary eliciting components of anger, Kuppens,

Van Mechelen, Smits, and De Boeck (2003) asked participants to recall a recent unpleasant situation to determine which situational factors contribute to feelings of anger.

They found that, while other accountability and perceptions of arrogant entitlement are specific factors that promote feelings of anger, no single component was necessary or sufficient alone.

Anger is typically associated with negative approach (fight) behaviors (Cannon,

1935; Frijda, 2009). More specifically, anger is believed to promote aggression toward a target, prompting conflict (Adler, Rosen, & Silverstein, 1998), blame (Aquino, Tripp, &

Bies, 2001), and revenge (Tripp & Bies, 1997). Anger is also theorized to motivate the actor toward achievement of goals (Izard, 1993; Keltner & Gross, 1999), leading to positive outcomes for the actor (Tafrate, Kassinove, & Dundin, 2002). Empirical work in the negotiations literature suggests that anger may help focus an individual on key topics and achieve self-serving outcomes during negotiations (Friedman et al., 2004; Van Kleef

& Côté, 2007; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004). Thus, anger prompts individuals to act in a way that achieves their goals. A witness who experiences anger will likely act

21 against the underminer, as within the social undermining context the underminer has committed a normative transgression.

2.3.2.3 FEAR

Fear is defined as a negative emotion that signals ongoing threat to important goals (Lazarus, 1991). Fear is experienced in response to a threat (Frijda, 2007; Lazarus,

1991) when individuals perceives low situational control (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003;

Reeve, 2014; Roseman, 2013). That is, fear is focused on protecting the self (Haidt,

2003). Fear may be felt vicariously when witnessing another experience a threat only as long as there is a strong identification with the other (Keltner & Haidt, 1999).

As a universally experienced emotion, fear is believed to promote self-protecting behaviors (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984); more commonly described as “void (flight) behaviors (Frijda, 1986, 2009, 2010). Indeed, seminal empirical work on emotions suggests fear is positively related to inhibition and avoidance behaviors (e.g., Frijda et al.,

1989). For example, utilizing a recall task across 100 subjects, Roseman et al. (1994) found that fear was strongly correlated with “running away” and “requests for help” (r =

.67 and .42, respectively). Similarly, Leventhal (1970) suggested that fear prompts behaviors associated with psychological processes of “fear-control” – the downplaying or denial of the threat – or “danger-control” – the cognitive evaluation of the threat and potential actions. Leventhal (1971) proposes that the degree to which an individual engages in “fear-control” versus “danger-control” may be determined by factors associated with situational control, such as self-esteem. Rogers (1975) furthered

Leventhal’s work, developing the protection motivation theory, which suggests fear directs threat and coping appraisals and culminates into protection directed motivations.

22 When individuals feel ill equipped to cope with a given situation, fear is experienced and the individual is thus encouraged to engage in behaviors designed to protect the self.

Indeed, Fitness (2000) found that employees who fear retribution from an abusive supervisor will engage in avoidance behaviors. Similarly, Kiewitz, Restubog, Shoss,

Garcia, and Tang (2016) found that fear of supervisor abuse was positively related to employee silence. Conversely, fear can prompt individuals to act to preserve their own safety. For example, Keltner, Young, & Buswell (1997) reviewed the empirical research on appeasement and found that, in cases where there is a heightened sense of potential conflict or aggression, fear prompts behaviors designed to show submission to the target of fear. In the context of social undermining, a fearful witness is likely to either withdraw from the victim or to otherwise behave in harmful behaviors toward the victim as a means of self-preservation.

2.4 THE SOCIAL INFLUENCE FRAMEWORK OF SOCIAL UNDERMINING

“Social life is constantly determined in its course by the

presence of the third person” (Simmel, 1950: p.149)

Conceptualizing social undermining as a social influence process helps integrate the current state of the social undermining literature and promote a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms that allow social undermining to proliferate in organizations. Therefore, I integrate theory and research on social undermining (e.g.,

Duffy et al., 2002, 2006) with the theory of social influence – changing others’ relationship (COR; Halevy, Halali, & Zlatev, 2019) – and emotions – affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) – to propose a theoretical framework for understanding social undermining as a form of social influence operating on the witness.

23 This framework is presented in Figure 2.1 below. While reviewing the social influence framework of social undermining model, it is important to keep in mind that social undermining should be understood as a triadic-level phenomenon. That is, social undermining is a phenomenon that requires three actors – the underminer, the victim, and the witness. Social undermining operates within the context of this triadic relationship.

The development of a social influence framework of social undermining will make four contributions. First, it will provide clarity surrounding the social undermining construct. By shifting the frame from the victim and underminer to the witness, the social influence framework of social undermining allows for understanding how social undermining behaviors are signals that are interpreted by the witness. That is to say, social undermining behaviors prompt responses from the witness, but those responses may not be directed at the victim. Second, a social influence framework will provide a method that links the underminer-focused research and the victim-focused research within a single conceptual framework. The social influence process is the lynch pin between the motivated actions of undermining and the negative consequences to the victim by clarifying when undermining, through witness response, adversely affects the victim. Third, a social influence framework of social undermining will illuminate the reason why social undermining differs from other forms of workplace aggression by highlighting the essential role of the witness. Whereas other forms of workplace aggression involve direct interaction between the aggressor and the victim, undermining behavior, with its focus on reputation, harms the victim through its impact on the witness

(Hershcovis, 2011; Yoo, 2013). Finally, a social influence framework of social undermining will allow research to approach social undermining through a dynamic lens.

24 By conceptualizing social undermining as a series of social influence events, research can examine the formation and change of emotions and attitudes toward both the victim and the underminer.

In the following sections, I will outline the social influence framework of social undermining. First, I will discuss the psychological processes involved in a singular social influence event, as presented in figure 2.1. Then, I will extend the event-based perspective by considering social undermining as an episodic interaction between the witness and the underminer and victim.

2.4.1 SOCIAL UNDERMINING AS AN EVENT

As indicated in the literature review above, not much is known in the social undermining literature regarding the interaction between the underminer and the witness besides it being a necessary condition of social undermining (Hershcovis, 2011).

However, the social influence literature provides some insight into the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Individuals seek knowledge of a coworker’s performance trajectory in order to identify potential rivals and, in competitive environments, will undermine those they have identified as potential rivals, regardless of their current performance (Reh et al., 2018). Indeed, Simmel (1955: p. 30) notes, “it is usually much easier for the average person to inspire another individual with distrust and suspicion toward a third… than with confidence and sympathy”). While social undermining has not been directly studied in the social influence literature, behaviors comprising social undermining have.

Gossip is a particularly common, yet complex, social behavior (Dunbar, 2004;

Giardini, 2012). As such, it has been of unique interest in the field of sociology. And, as

25 negative workplace gossip (henceforth referred simply as gossip) is a subcomponent of social undermining, understanding gossip is advantageous to understanding social undermining as social influence. Gossip is a social phenomenon that influences affect, cognition, and behavior (“hearts, minds, and deeds”) of individuals (Baumeister, Zhang,

& Vohs, 2004; Beersma & Van Kleef, 2012). Gossip occurs when one individual engages in informal and evaluative communication with another about an absent third individual

(Kurland & Pelled, 2000). Gossip is also believed to provide a group-regulatory function which allows for the identification of individuals who are not contributing Dunbar

(2004). Kniffin and Wilson (2005) state that “the degree of common fate shared by a group’s members influences the degree to which gossip is used as an instrument of social control.” As such, there is social acceptability surrounding gossip to identify poor performers.

I propose that social influence process of social undermining works within the same processes as gossip. However, social undermining is motivated toward a specific goal, whereas the goals of gossip are more diffuse. The underminer attempts to influence the witness’ perception regarding the victim through sharing negative statements regarding the victim. The witness is apt to believe the underminer due to the use of gossip as a key social regulatory process. Thus, the underminer is able to prompt small shifts and shape the relationship between the witness and the victim, all the while acting as a confidant.

I propose that this social influence process unfolds in a two-stage model. The first stage is the witness sense making following an underminer’s attempt at influence. The underminer may intentionally use damaging comments or negative gossip behaviors

26 regarding a victim in order to try to shape the opinions of the witness. The witness, in turn, makes sense of the comments or gossip, incorporating relevant social information to determine whether to accept or reject the influence of the underminer. As individuals tend to enter into interactions with a general expectancy of trustworthiness (Jones & Shah,

2016), the witness may be predisposed to engage in low levels of cognitive elaboration when they are engaged in this sense-making process. An example of the negative effects of this predisposition towards trust is exemplified in the construct of “over-trust,” wherein an individual trusts more than the situation actually warrants and, subsequently, is more lenient in judging a partner and experiences delay in perceiving exploitation

(Goel, Bell, & Pierce, 2005). Conversely, social undermining is different from other forms of persuasion because, by definition, it is a malicious action (Duffy et al., 2002).

Underminers engage in undermining with the intention to damage the victim (Duffy et al., 2012), and individuals are more or less sensitive to such actions (Folger, 1987).

The second stage encompasses the witness emotional and behavioral response. As contempt reflects a negative evaluation of an individual (Frijda, 2007), it is likely that the witness will experience contempt when they are influenced by the underminer. Feelings of contempt toward the victim will promote witnesses to engage in behaviors that support the goals of the underminer, such as socially excluding the victim. Conversely, the witness is likely to experience anger or fear toward the underminer upon experiencing a negative attribution change toward the underminer. Feelings of anger toward the underminer may promote the witness to engage in retribution behaviors, such as lodging a formal complaint or reprimanding the underminer. Feelings of fear toward an

27 underminer may promote withdrawal and inhibition behavior, such as avoiding the underminer and remaining silent.

2.4.1.1 OUTCOMES

When the witness accepts social undermining, they are likely to follow the path of contempt and build social difference with the victim. This outcome will lead to the current findings regarding victim outcomes within the social undermining literature.

However, the social influence framework of social undermining allows the witness to reject social undermining, leading down the paths of anger and/or fear.

To my knowledge, there is no research on how witnesses respond to social undermining. However, work has looked at how individuals cope with stressful situations. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed the transaction model of stress that outlines two potential coping strategies. Problem-focused coping suggests that one can respond to stress by either changing the situation to eliminate the source of stress (e.g., taking direct action, seeking support) or changing one’s view of the situation (e.g., positive reappraisal). Emotion-focused coping suggest that one can respond to stress through emotional control through humor (Hogh & Dofradottir, 2001; Keashly, Trott, &

MacLean, 1994), emotional regulation (Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004) or forgiveness

(Aquino, Tripp, & Bies, 2006; Hallberg & Strandmark, 2006; Struthers, Dupuis, & Eaton,

2005).

Additionally, the justice literature provides some insight into potential witness responses. Upon witnessing a breach of justice, individuals are motivated to alter the behavior of the transgressor through punishment and demonstrate a willingness to prevent further mistreatment (Glomb, 2002; R. Lee & Brotheridge, 2006). Thus,

28 retaliatory aggression is commonly viewed to be a legitimate and/or morally appropriate response to victimization (Tripp, Bies, & Aquino, 2002; Zapf & Gross, 2001) and has been found to be a common strategy (e.g., (Dupré, Inness, Connelly, Barling, & Hoption,

2006; Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007; Tepper, Duffy, & Shaw, 2001). Several studies found moderating factors that indicate that retaliatory aggression may spread out to become aggression toward coworkers (e.g., Aquino & Douglas, 2003; Jockin, Arvey, & McGue,

2001). Conversely, witnesses may engage in “escape responses” – quitting or transferring; Tepper, 2000; Zapf & Gross, 2001), being absent from work (Kivimäki et al., 2003; Zapf, Knorz, & Kulla, 1996), or avoiding/ignoring the perpetrator (Keashly et al., 1994).

In exploring how to alleviate the negative outcomes for the victim, the workplace aggression literature has highlighted a few potential witness responses. Research has found that support from coworkers and supervisors following victimization may reduce negative psychological consequences (Schat & Kelloway, 2003). Qualitative research suggests that a lack of support from colleagues following victimization decreases an employee’s ability to defend themselves against an aggressor and increases feelings of isolation, vulnerability, and diminishes feelings of self-worth (Lewis & Orford, 2005).

These studies suggest that witnesses may sometimes engage in supporting behaviors.

However, research suggests that there is a cost to standing up to an aggressor. In studying abusive supervision, Cortina & Magley (2003) found that enactment of active behaviors (e.g., confronting an aggressor) may lead to work-retaliation victimization such as discharge, demotion, or involuntary transfer and that the use of voice (e.g., seeking social support from others or whistle blowing) may lead to social-retaliation victimization

29 such as ostracism and threats. Thus, the witness who stands up may become the next victim.

2.4.1.2 SOCIAL CONTEXT FACTORS

The role of the social environment influences the interpretation of behaviors as workplace aggression. For example, work environments that are stressful and competitive

(Vartia, 1996), possess high levels of role conflict (Einarsen, Raknes, & Matthiesen,

1994; Skogstad, Einarsen, Torsheim, Aasland, & Hetland, 2007) and role ambiguity

(Agervold & Mikkelsen, 2004; Jennifer, Cowie, & Ananiadou, 2003; Quine, 2001), contain a large number of employees (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996) working interdependently (Zapf, 1999) contribute to the perceptions of behaviors as aggressive.

As suggested by the social influence theories, interaction patterns between individuals also appear to influence the identification of behaviors as aggression. Authoritarian leadership styles foster perceptions of victimization (Einarsen et al., 1994; Hallberg &

Strandmark, 2006). On the other end of the spectrum, “hands-off”/laissez-faire styles of leadership also positively relate to perceptions of victimization (Skogstad et al., 2007).

Within the context of social undermining, I propose two key social context factors that will shape the social influence framework of social undermining. First, the relationship between the witness and the other two actors within the social undermining triad is likely to influence the first stage of the witness sense-making process. A strong relationship helps fulfil various psychological and sociological needs (Ashforth, 2001) and is more likely to be sought after and protected (Aron & Aron, 2000). Thus, positive relational factors between the witness and the underminer will predispose the witness to be more accepting of the social influence attempt. Conversely, positive relational factors

30 between the witness and the victim will predispose the witness to be less accepting of the social influence attempt. Second, relative power between the underminer and the witness will be an important constraint on the witness’ behavioral outcome (McAllister, Ellen, &

Ferris, 2018). An underminer is not likely to engage in influence unless they perceive themselves as having power in the situation. Therefore, it is likely that underminer power will moderate the response pattern of the witness. Under conditions where the underminer is perceived to have low power, the witness may respond with retribution behaviors directed at the underminer.

2.4.2 SOCIAL UNDERMINING AS A CAMPAIGN

Social undermining does not occur occasionally. Rather, it is a series of discrete events that all work toward the desired goal of the underminer: damage the victim’s reputation. Thus, it is important to consider how each discrete social undermining event builds upon previous events to shape the witness’ opinion and perceptions of the victim. I propose that social undermining as a campaign works through self-reinforcing cycles of the discrete events described above. Social influence suggest that repeated messages serve to change an individual’s opinions and perceptions, even when any single event may not be persuasive on its own (Cacioppo & Petty, 1979; DeMarzo, Vayanos, &

Zwiebel, 2003). At the same time, research into gossip suggests that sharing information regarding a third-party serves to strengthen the relationship between gossips over time

(Dunbar, 2004). Thus, repeated social undermining events should operate to slowly reinforce acceptance of the social undermining message. Similarly, repeated social undermining events may serve to automate emotion scripts. Such emotion scripts make it easier for individuals to experience certain emotions in similar contexts (Izard, 1993) and

31 prompts individuals to think and behave in specific patterns (Forgas & George, 2001).

Therefore, social undermining works through slow escalation, causing minor changes in the attitudes and behaviors of the witness that slowly build upon themselves over time.

By taking a dynamic-event based view, it is apparent that there are two questions that must be answered in order to understand how and why social undermining works.

The first question is “how does a witness respond to a single social undermining event?”

More specifically, it is important to understand the social factors that promote the acceptance or rejection of the social undermining influence attempt. The second question is “how does a campaign of social undermining events work to change the witness’ attitude and behavior?” It is important to explore how the social factors that influence the witness response to social undermining establishes a trend of attitude and behavior change. In the next two chapters of this dissertation, I propose and test the event-based view of social undermining (Chapter 2) and the campaign-based view of social undermining (Chapter 3).

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Social Context Behavior Harming Factors Contempt toward the Victim Victim Withdrawal from Victim Perceptions of Victim

Social Anger toward Retaliation toward Undermining Event Underminer Underminer

33 Perceptions of

Underminer Behavior

Appeasing the

Underminer Fear

Withdrawal from Victim

Figure 2.1 Social Influence Framework of Social Undermining

CHAPTER 3

STUDY 1: SOCIAL UNDERMINING AS AN EVENT

The primary purpose of this chapter is to uncover the role of the witness in the social undermining phenomena. That is, this chapter seeks to answer the question: under what conditions a witness accepts the social influence of the social underminer – and responds in a manner that is conducive to the underminer’s goal – and under what conditions a witness rejects the social influence of the social underminer – and responds in a manner that is counter to the underminer’s goal. Through the integration of the

Changing Other’s Relationship (COR) framework (Halevy et al., 2019) and affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), I build hypotheses regarding the social factors that shape the witness sense-making process in response to social undermining.

Specifically, I build theory to reconceptualize social undermining as a series of social influence events. Additionally, I explore the influence of emotions in the witness response to the social influence events of social undermining. AET suggests that emotions play a key role in determining how individuals respond to events within the workplace. The confluence of emotions and social factors should direct the witness’ attitudinal and behavioral response.

In this chapter, I build a witness model of social undermining to suggest that a social influence event of social undermining prompts an immediate emotional response that prompts further cognitive and behavioral responses. This approach allows me to highlight factors that influence a witness’ response to the social influence of the

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underminer. Additionally, this approach allows for the identification of factors that may cause social undermining to “backfire” on the underminer. That is, by exploring a single event, it is possible to work out the social influence mechanisms that allow the witness to be more or less susceptible to social undermining. The balance of this chapter develops theory outlining the psychological processes associated with a witness’ interpretation and response to social undermining and the moderating role of power within the social network. This chapter ends with a study of 100 working professionals that finds evidence suggesting social undermining elicits discrete emotions that prompt specific behaviors directed at supporting the underminer or attacking the underminer.

3.1 WITNESS MODEL OF SOCIAL UNDERMINING

Recall that the social underminer is a harmful broker. According to the definition, the goal of the underminer is to weaken a target’s relationships (Duffy et al., 2002). The social underminer does this through activities such as gossip and social isolation of the target. Indeed, the COR provides an explanation for why an individual chooses social undermining as opposed to the many other behavioral options they have available. Under the COR framework, the underminer possess the means (social influence), motive (envy / bottom line mentality), and opportunity (position in the social network) to engage in social undermining. Specifically, as a harmful broker, the underminer sends a message to the witness with the goal being to change the witness’ perceptions of the victim.

However, the COR suggests that the witness undergoes the process of message decoding as illuminated in (Friedkin, 1998, 2003) social influence theory. That is, the witness receives and interprets the message from the underminer and, subsequently, experiences emotional, cognitive, and behavioral change.

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The sense-making that occurs during this social influence process is influenced by the social context (Halevy et al., 2019; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). As social undermining is a triadic-level phenomenon, the relationship that the witness has with the underminer and the victim will shape how the witness makes sense of the social influence messages from the underminer. Thus, a key factor in determining how social undermining plays out is the push/pull dynamic established by the relationship factors associated with the underminer – which would promote accepting social undermining – and the relationship factors associated with the victim – which would promote rejecting social undermining.

3.2 RELATIONAL IDENTIFICATION

According to the COR, factors representing the social connection between actors is important in understanding social influence phenomenon (Halevy et al., 2019), such as social undermining. Indeed, many of the social influence theories, supported by social comparison theory (e.g., Festinger, 1954), suggests that individuals are strongly influenced by the attitudes and opinions of similar others. Indeed, the primary premise of social influence within the social network literature is that the degree of influence is relative to the characteristics of the influencer and the relationship between the influencer and target of influence (Friedkin, 1998). Friedkin takes the stance that social influence must provide a force to change an individual’s entrenched beliefs and opinions. This conceptualization of social influence is echoed in related theories. For example, the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) suggest that a message gains persuasive power due to central and peripheral cues operating on the dual levels of cognition. Within the COR, Halvey and colleagues integrates the social influence theories to suggest that social influence is housed within the relationship

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between the broker (message sender) and another triad actor (message receiver). That is, a strong tie between message sender and message receiver will increase the likelihood of social influence. Conversely, a weak tie between sender and receiver will decrease the likelihood of social influence. In other words, the likelihood of successful social influence – that is, a change of opinion in the target that is conducive to the influencer’s goal – is influenced by characteristics of the target-influencer relationship.

The literature has extensively explored the influence that relationship characteristics have on the strength of influence. For example, (Larrimore, Jiang,

Larrimore, Markowitz, & Gorski, 2011) examined the peer-to-peer lending environment

(e.g., Kickstarter) and found that the quick development of trust was a significant, positive predictor of the success of funding. In an experiment that has been replicated multiple times throughout the years, Chaiken (1979) performed a field study and found evidence that attractiveness of the message sender influenced the persuasive power of messages. In testing the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, Petty, Cacioppo, &

Goldman (1981) divided their study into high and low elaboration groups and had participants espouse a specific value, then attempt to persuade others of an idea either consistent with that value or antithetical to that value. Their results suggested that, in situations of low cognitive elaboration, an individual’s perceptions of the message sender was more influential than the content of the message alone.

Relational identification – the degree to which recurring connections between two individuals support one’s self-concept (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007) – provides an acceptable proxy for these relationship characteristics. Relational identification is built upon formal relationships (e.g., supervisor-subordinate) and informal relationships (e.g., friends; Sluss

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& Ashforth, 2008). Such work relationships are important as they help fulfil psychological needs such as belonging and purpose (Ashforth, 2001; Hinde, 1997). Thus, relationships that meets one’s specific socio-psychological needs are more likely to be attractive and fostered (Aron & Aron, 2000) and the degree of relational identification grows. The seminal work by Sluss and Ashforth (2007) considers relational identification to be a method to capture the ability for coworkers to influence each other’s affective responses to the organization. It is believed that individuals may internalize into their self-concept those they respect and wish to emulate (Aron & Aron, 2000; Ashforth &

Mael, 1989). This internalization process leads to a haloing effect wherein a positive association is made with the relationship as well as the relevant other (Sluss & Ashforth,

2007). Therefore, an individual will come to develop a deep level of trust within the relationship (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996) and an increase in valuation of opinions and information stemming from the relationship (Sluss & Ashforth, 2008).

3.3 WITNESS EMOTIONS

Many social influence theories suggest that a social influence event is liable to produce an emotional response (e.g., Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Integrating the COR and

AET provides some insight into how social factors (i.e., relational identification) prompts emotional responses to the experience of a social influence event of social undermining.

First, the COR suggests that social factors will be a primary predictor of the outcome of social influence. Therefore, a witness who has a relational identification with the underminer will be more likely to accept the information from the underminer as true.

Conversely, individuals discount disconfirming information regarding an individual with whom they have a strong relationship. Therefore, a witness who has a relational

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identification with the victim will be more likely to reject the information from the underminer.

Additionally, as social undermining is designed to work below the level of overt detection (Duffy et al., 2002), the social influence event of social undermining should fail to cause cognitive elaboration (Petty et al., 2005). That is to say, the witness will incorporate the information provided by the underminer and change their evaluation of the witness. However, this change of opinion will manifest much more as a feeling than a cognitive decision. As contempt is the feeling that best reflects a negative appraisal of a targeted individual (Fischer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016), I propose that the witness will experience an increase in contempt. Additionally, as the COR suggests that successful social influence should reinforce the relationship between the engaged parties, the witness should perceive the underminer more positively after the social undermining event. Such positive appraisals will should lead to lower feelings of anger and fear toward the underminer. Therefore, I hypothesis the following:

Hypothesis 1: Following an undermining event, witness relational identification

with the underminer will be:

(a) Positively related to contempt toward the victim.

(b) Negatively related to anger toward the underminer.

(c) Negatively related to fear of the underminer.

Conversely, the COR also suggests that relational identification with the victim will influence the social influence process. Specifically, when there is a strong tie between the witness and the victim, attempts at social influence may backfire upon the underminer. This potential for social influence to fail and damage the influencer is

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exemplified in work looking at political skill within the workplace (e.g., Harris,

Zivnuska, Kacmar, & Shaw, 2007; Wihler, Blickle, Ellen, Hochwarter, & Ferris, 2017).

As social undermining is intentional and malicious, it is likely to be viewed as an unjust experience. Empirical evidence suggests that situations that are believed to be unfair or unjust prompt negative affective responses (e.g., Folger, 1987, 1998; Greenberg, 1990;

Lazarus, 1991; Sheppard, Lewicki, & Minton, 1992). It has been proposed that the negative emotions experienced in response to justice violations are an “energizing” outcome (Skarlicki & Folger, 1997, p 4.35) such that they form a key role in understanding responses to interpersonal justice (Krehbiel & Cropanzano, 2000; Mikula,

Scherer, & Athenstaedt, 1998). The two negative affective emotional responses that are most prevalent in the workplace are anger and fear (Adler et al., 1998; Lebel, 2017;

Mackie et al., 2000). Both anger and fear are emotional responses associated with goal frustration and norm breach (Frijda, 2009), but differentiate based on perceptions of control. Anger is the predominant emotion experienced when the individual perceives high control and fear is the predominant emotion experienced when the individual perceives low control. Therefore, under situations of high relational identification with the victim, the witness is likely to experience negative emotions directed toward the underminer.

Hypothesis 2: Following an undermining event, witness relational identification

with the victim will be:

(a) Negatively related to contempt toward the victim.

(b) Positively related to anger toward the underminer.

(c) Positively related to fear.

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3.4 WITNESS ATTITUDINAL AND BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES

Emotions act as a source of information during sense-making and help direct attitudinal and behavioral responses (Forgas & George, 2001). AET suggests that emotions are the proximal outcome of an event and, in turn, shape cognitive processes following an event (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). In the context of social influence, the cognitive response directed by emotions will be reflected in changes in opinions and attitudes of a target. As outlined above, contempt and anger will be directional emotions.

That is, contempt and anger have been linked to prompting “other condemning” responses (Haidt, 2003). As outlined above, contempt will be directed toward the victim while anger will be directed toward the underminer. Contempt promotes an individual to treat the target with less warmth, respect, and consideration in future interactions

(Gervais & Fessler, 2017; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1995). Specifically, contempt is associated with the loss of respect (Haidt, 2003; Laham, Chopra, Lalljee, & Parkinson,

2010) and a lower evaluation of a target’s competence (Wojciszke, Abele, & Baryla,

2009). Anger, on the other hand, promotes an individual to seek redress of norm violation or justice breaches (O’Reilly & Aquino, 2011). Specifically, anger is associated with negative evaluation and potential for dehumanization of the target (Haslam & Loughnan,

2014; Moller & Deci, 2010). (Fear is unique among the three emotions as it is an emotional response that does not target a specific individual, rather it is more situationally focused (Leventhal, 1970).

As both contempt and anger influence how an individual perceives a target, I propose that these emotions will shape reputational changes during the social influence process of social undermining. Specifically, when a social undermining attempt is

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accepted, and contempt is felt, the witness will develop negative attributions of the victim. Conversely, when a social undermining attempt is rejected, and anger is felt, the witness will become wary of the underminer. Thus, social undermining has an important impact on the reputation of both the victim and the underminer.

Reputation has been linked to trust (Ostrom, 1998) and has been studied extensively in economics research (e.g., King-Casas et al., 2005; Lahno, 1995). Bravo and Tamburino (2008) utilized evolutionary modeling to demonstrate trust’s dependence on the spread of reputation through a social group. Similarly, Sommerfeld, Krambeck, and Milinski (2008) found evidence that positive gossip regarding a target’s reputation increased perceptions of that target’s trustworthiness and that negative gossip decreased perceptions of trustworthiness. Wong and Boh (2010) also found evidence that gossip among peers influence a target’s reputation and peer perceptions of the target’s trustworthiness. Therefore, I propose that feelings of contempt toward a victim will be associated with a negative perception of the victim’s trustworthiness while feelings of anger toward the underminer will be associated with a negative perception of the underminer’s trustworthiness

Hypothesis 3: Feelings of contempt toward the victim will have a negative

relationship with perceptions of victim trustworthiness.

Hypothesis 4: Feelings of anger toward the underminer will have a negative

relationship with perceptions of underminer trustworthiness.

The behavioral responses associated with an emotion are defined as action tendencies (Ekman, 1999; Frijda, 2010; Haidt, 2003; Laham et al., 2010). That is, emotions create an impulse within an individual to behavior in a certain manner – what

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Izzard (1993) described as behavioral scripts. Each discrete emotion elicits its own unique action tendency. Contempt is associated with social distancing (Mackie et al.,

2000; Roseman, 2013; Roseman et al., 1994). Anger is associated with action (Cannon,

1935; Frijda, 2009). Fear is associated with avoidance (Frijda et al., 1989; Roseman et al.,

1994). However, the expression of these action tendencies may differ given contextual constrains (Lowe & Ziemke, 2011; Mackie et al., 2000).

Contempt is a “cool” emotion (Izard, 1992) that promotes social distance

(Roseman et al., 2003). Contempt indicates that a target is a low-status outsider who is deserving of disdain (Fischer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). (Gervais & Fessler, 2017) indicate that contempt should be understood as a structure of social affect; contempt is relationship-bounded as it is defined by an absence of respect toward another individual.

Contempt motivates neither approach nor avoid behaviors (Haidt, 2003), but rather promotes attributions of a target that cause an individual to treat the target with less warmth, respect, and consideration in future interactions (Gervais & Fessler, 2017;

Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1995). As such, low levels of contempt may lead to exclusion and relationship dissolution (Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Frijda, 1986), but higher levels of contempt may lead to mockery and ostracism (Dubreuil, 2010). Therefore, feelings of contempt prompt action to harm the victim. As contempt may promote a broad range of behaviors – all of which work in tandem with the underminer’s actions – I classify the behaviors associated with contempt as “piling on.”

Hypothesis 5: Feelings of contempt toward the victim will have a positive

relationship with (a) counterproductive behaviors toward the victim and (b)

withdrawal from the victim.

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Anger is a strong emotional drive that promotes action (Frijda, 1986). In response to anger induced by moral violations, individuals seek to compel perpetrators to change their behavior and may engage in overt punishment to encourage compliance to norms

(Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Even when the incident that provoked anger was witnessed rather than felt, anger can still drive a desire for revenge. For example, Haidt & Sabini

(2000; reported in Haidt, 2003) presented participants with video clips that portrayed injustice and asked them to rate a variety of alternative endings. Participants were most satisfied by endings in which the perpetrator suffered in a manner that was equitable to the transgressions, and the perpetrator knew that their suffering was due to their transgression. Thus, anger may direct individuals to engage in retaliatory or revenge behaviors (Bies & Tripp, 2005; Tripp & Bies, 1997). Therefore, feelings of anger prompt action to support the victim and/or attack the underminer.

Hypothesis 6: Feelings of anger toward the underminer will have a positive

relationship with retaliation.

Similar to anger, fear is a strong emotional drive. However, where anger promotes action for change, fear promotes situational avoidance and self-preservation (Lazarus &

Folkman, 1984). Fear was found to be more closely tied to behaviors such as “running away” and “requesting help” than any of the other discrete emotions (Roseman et al.,

1994). This may be due to fear being closely associated with a feeling of low situational control (Reeve, 2014; Roseman, 2013). Thus, fear prompts an individual to evaluate the situation to determine the action that provides the highest degree of safety (Leventhal,

1970; Rogers, 1975). This action tendency may manifest as withdrawal and/or silence behaviors (Kiewitz et al., 2016; Lebel, 2017; LeDoux, 1996). Another strategy that a

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fearful witness may choose to employee is to support the underminer in order to mitigate the potential of being the next target (Keltner et al., 1997). Whether directly supporting the underminer, or engaging in withdrawal, the behaviors associated with fear all help to promote the underminer’s primary goal; damaging the relational tie to the victim.

Therefore, feelings of fear prompt action directed at protecting oneself through appeasing the underminer.

Hypothesis 7: Feelings of fear toward the underminer will have a positive

relationship with (a) counterproductive behaviors toward the victim and (b)

withdrawal from the victim.

3.5 THE MODERATING INFLUENCE OF POWER

Situational factors limit and shape the expression of emotions to behaviors. The knowledge that an individual can distribute punishment and reward (i.e., has power;

Festinger, 1953), is one of the strongest contextual factors to shape behavior. For example, the behavioral expressions associated with anger are mitigated when the target of anger has a higher social status (Allan & Gilbert, 2002), the target of anger may be able to retaliate (Deffenbacher, Oetting, Lynch, & Morris, 1996), or to avoid general negative consequences (Averill, 1973; Beatty & McCroskey, 1997). Indeed, this innate consideration may cause individuals to withhold acting on the impulses driven by anger, even without conscious awareness (Smits & De Boeck, 2007). Thus, the expression of behaviors associated with anger should decrease when the underminer is perceived as being powerful. Conversely, as fear is associated with a lack of situational control, perceiving the underminer as powerful should assist the activation of behavioral scripts associated with fear (i.e., deference and safety; Lebel, 2017; Van Kleef, De Dreu, &

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Manstead, 2004). Therefore, underminer power constrains the behavioral expressions of the witness by weakening actions against the underminer and strengthening actions to protect oneself.

Hypothesis 8: Underminer power will moderate the relationship between

emotions and behaviors such that, when underminer power is high:

(a) the relationship between anger toward the underminer and retaliation will

be weakened.

(b) the relationship between fear toward the underminer and appeasement

will be strengthened.

3.6 STUDY 1

3.6.1 METHODS

3.6.1.1 PARTICIPANTS AND DESIGN

The study sample consisted of 101 full-time working adults recruited from

Amazon MTurk1. This study utilized a critical incident elicitation recall task. Participants were paid $5 for their time. Sampling was constrained to full-time US employees Two attention check questions were administered to ensure data quality. Additionally, participants provided qualitative data regarding their job roles and responsibilities, which was reviewed by independent coders. One participant was removed from this study as the response indicated it was bot-generated, leaving a final sample of 100 full-time working

1 Prior to data collection, the literature was reviewed for best practice recommendations for the use of online panel data sources (e.g., Porter, Outlaw, Gale, & Cho, 2019). MTurk provided a viable option given the need for a sample of working adults and the desire for a sample that crossed multiple industries. Additionally, MTurk provided a more geographically diverse participant pool with large variability in job experiences, thus this sample is potentially more generalizable than other potential samples. For these reasons, M-Turk was determined to be an appropriate data source for this research.

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adults. Participant ages ranged from 25 to 76 (M = 40.80, SD = 9.72) years old.

Participants had an average of 20.62 (SD = 10.11) years of work experience. The sample was 45% female and predominantly Caucasian (87% Caucasian, 7% African American,

2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 2% Hispanic, 2% Other). Participants came from a variety of industries (e.g., media communication, restaurant, banking, and manufacturing) and a broad range of positions (e.g., cashier, engineer, and general manger).

3.6.1.2 TASK DESCRIPTION

Participants completed a critical incident elicitation recall task utilizing the

Critical Incident Technique (CIT) developed by Flanagan (1954). The CIT has been used extensively in the research of complex social phenomena in industrial and organizational psychology (Butterfield, Borgen, Amundson, & Maglio, 2005) such as revenge (Aquino et al., 2001), deviance among employees (e.g., Crossley, 2009), and deviant interactions between customers and employees (e.g., Leo & Russell-Bennett, 2012). The CIT is useful in research of complex social phenomena as it provides rich data surrounding real-world incidents, which helps researchers explore and understand events and psychological mechanisms that influence emotional and behavioral outcomes (Butterfield et al., 2005).

In this study, participants were asked to recall a time when information was shared with them about a targeted colleague. The type of information was specified to be information which “may have highlighted issues regarding the targeted colleague’s performance at work. Or this information may have focused on the targeted colleague’s personality, character, or ability and may discourage you from interacting with her or him. This type of information is often not easily verified and may or may not have been true.”

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Participants were asked to provide the initials of the individual who shared the information and the targeted colleague. These initials were then piped into subsequent questions to strengthen the recall process and delineate the underminer from the victim.

To help participants recall the incident, they were asked to describe the incident that occurred, their relationship with the individuals involved in the incident, how they felt after the incident, and if the incident changed their interactions with the people involved.

Following the critical incident questions, participants completed a series of close-ended questions assessing the study’s central variables.

Surveys were completely anonymous to help mitigate socially desirable responses. Examples of the social undermining witnessed include gossip regarding a targeted individual’s professional and personal life activities, as well as negative comments regarding the targeted individual’s abilities or behaviors.

3.6.1.3 MANIPULATION

Underminer power was manipulated between participants by changing the wording in the recall instructions. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the underminer high-power condition, they were instructed to recall a time when a manager or supervisor shared information with them. Participants in the underminer low-power condition were instructed to recall a time when a peer shared information with them. The change in target role between manager/supervisor and peer is a popular power manipulation, both in recall tasks (Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky,

2008; Rucker & Galinsky, 2009) and in lab experiments (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee,

2003; Hsee, Hatfield, Carlson, & Chemtob, 1990; Kipnis, 1972). Underminer power conditions were dummy coded (0 = underminer low-power; 1 = underminer high-power).

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3.6.1.4 MEASURES

Unless otherwise indicated, all Likert-type measures used a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Relational identification was measured for the underminer and the victim using the four-item scale from Sluss, Ployhart, Cobb, and Ashforth (2012). These items (e.g., “My relationship with [target] was vital to the kind of person I was at work.”) demonstrated an acceptable level of agreement for both the underminer (α = .97) and the victim (α = .97). The discrete emotions were measured using a modified version of (Izard Carroll, Libero Deborah Z, Priscilla, & Mauric, 1993) emotions scale (e.g., “I feel like screaming at somebody or banging on something,” “I feel like somebody is a low-life, not worth the time of day,” and “I feel scared, uneasy, like something might harm me.”). The individual subscales of contempt (α = .89), anger

(α = .77), and fear (α = .94) all exhibited acceptable levels of agreement. The modification implemented was the addition of text entry for the anger and contempt subscales for participants to indicate the target of the emotions. Perceptions of trustworthiness for both the underminer and the victim were measured using 3 items from the Ferrin, Bligh, and Kohles (2008) scale (e.g., “[target] meets his/her obligations to me.”). For both the underminer (α = .97) and the victim (α = 97), this scale presented acceptable reliability. Counterproductive workplace behaviors (CWB) toward the victim and withdrawal from the victim was measured using the 12-item approach/avoidance oriented CWB scale from Ferris, Yan, Lim, Chen, and Fatimah (2016). Example items include “I made fun of [target]” and “I refused to talk to [target].” Both the CWB (α =

.83) and the withdrawal (α = .94) subscales demonstrated acceptable reliability.

Retaliation toward the underminer was measured using a modification of the 4-item scale

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developed by Skarlicki and Rupp (2010). The scale was changed to reflect the undermining context (e.g., “[Underminer] should be reprimanded for the way she/he treated [target].”) and demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .94).

Participants respond to a manipulation check measures of their relationship with both the victim and underminer, their recalled emotional state, and their behavioral response to the incident. The underminer power manipulation check included 8-item

Capacity for Power scale (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006), modified to target the underminer (e.g., “I think [underminer] has a great deal of power in the workplace” and

“Even if [underminer] voices them, their views have little sway in the workplace;” α =

.95).

The associated means, standard deviation, alphas, and correlations for all measures for Study 1 are presented in Table 3.1.

3.6.2 ANALYSIS

Path analysis was used to model the data as it models and tests the entire hypothesized pattern of relationships (Figure 3.1) and allows for simultaneous estimation of all path coefficients. Additionally, path analysis allows for the comparison of multiple competing models using various model fit indices. Specifically, to evaluate the model fit,

I use the chi-square (χ2), the comparative fit index (CFI), root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR). CFI provides a sample-size adjusted comparison between the data and the hypothesized model based on the chi-squared test. For CFI, higher numbers are better and values greater than .90 indicate reasonable fit (Bentler, 1990; Cheung & Rensvold, 2001).

RMSEA compares the hypothesized model to the population covariance matrix,

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providing an estimate that penailizes for the number of parameters (Byrne, 1998). SRMR is the standardized square root of the difference between the sample and model covariance matricies (Byrne, 1998). For both the RMSEA and SRMR, lower numbers are better and values below .08 indicate reasonable fit (MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara,

1996).

Model fit estimates are presented in table 3.2. The hypothesized model provided acceptable fits based on the criteria outlined above (χ2(16) = 20.08, CFI = .99, RMSEA =

.05, SRMR = .06). As the data gathered for this study is cross-sectional in nature, I utilized the model fits to assess the hypothesis model compared to several potential competing models. First, as path analysis proposes directionality, I compared the hypothesized model to a model running backwards (i.e., behavior to emotion to relational identification). The results of the χ2 difference test indicate that the hypothesized model provided a significantly better fit to the data (Δ χ2(2) = 52.74, p < .01). Then, I compared the hypothesized model to a model that removed the paths from relational identification with the underminer to anger and fear as well as the path from relational identification with the victim to contempt (limited model). The results of the χ2 difference test indicate that this limited model did not provide a better fit (Δ χ2(3) = 3.1, n.s.). Thus, the hypothesized model was retained and used for all hypothesis tests.

3.6.3 RESULTS

Hypothesis 1 predicted that relational identification with the underminer will be

(a) positively related to contempt and negatively related to (b) anger and (c) fear. These hypotheses are tested in the path estimates between relational identification with the underminer and each of the discrete emotions. The estimates between relational

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identification and contempt (-.12, SD = .10), anger (.01, SD = .09), and fear (.15, SD =

.08) were not significant. Thus, hypothesis 1 was not supported.

Hypothesis 2 predicted that relational identification with the victim will be (a) negatively related to contempt and positively related to (a) anger and (c) fear. These hypotheses are tested in the path estimates from relational identification with the victim and the discrete emotions. These estimates were not significant (contempt = -.09, SD =

.10; anger = -.14, SD = .09; fear = -.03, SD = .08). Thus, hypothesis 2 was not supported.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that feelings of contempt would have a negative relationship with perceptions of victim trustworthiness. This was tested in the path estimate between contempt and perception of victim trustworthiness (-.49, SD = .08, p <

.01). This estimate is significant and in the correct direction. Thus, hypothesis 3 is supported.

Hypothesis 4 predicted that feelings of anger would be negatively related to perceptions of underminer trustworthiness. This was tested in the path estimate for the relationship between anger and perceptions of underminer trustworthiness. While indicating a negative relationship, this estimate (-.08, SD = .10) was not significant. Thus, hypothesis 4 was not supported.

Hypothesis 5 predicted that feelings of contempt toward the victim will be positively related to (a) counterproductive workplace behaviors (CWB) and (b) withdrawal from the victim. Hypothesis 5a was tested in the path estimate between contempt and CWB (.37, SD = .04, p < .01). Hypothesis 5b was tested in the path estimate between contempt and withdrawal (.35, SD = .09, p < .01). Both of these paths were positive and significant. Thus, hypothesis 5 was supported.

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Hypothesis 6 predicted that anger will be positively related to retaliation. This was tested in the path estimate between anger and retaliation (.17, SD = .10, p < .05), which was positive and significant. Thus, hypothesis 6 was supported.

Hypothesis 7 predicted that fear will be positively related to (a) CWB toward the victim and (b) withdrawal from the victim. These were tested in their correspond paths.

Both paths to CWB (.18, SD = .04, p < .05) and withdrawal (.18, SD = .10, p < .05) were significant and positive. Thus, hypothesis 7 was supported.

Hypothesis 8 predicted the moderating effect of underminer power on the relationship between (a) anger and retaliation and (b) fear and CWB/withdrawal. This was tested through using a multigroup path analysis, using power condition as the grouping variable. Results of this multigroup path analysis is presented in table 3.3. This model presented acceptable model fits (χ2(32) = 41.58, CFI = .98, RMSEA = .07, SRMR

= .08). This model was then compared to a multigroup path analysis model where the paths from anger to retribution, fear to CWB, and fear to withdrawal were held constant between groups. A χ2 difference test suggested that constraining the paths did not provide a significant improvement to model fit. Thus, the model that allowed the paths to vary between groups was retained.

Hypothesis 8a predicted that underminer power would weaken the relationship between anger and retaliation behaviors. This was tested by comparing the path estimate between the low and high underminer power groups. In the low underminer power group, the path estimate was positive and significant (.25, SD = .12, p < .05) while in the high underminer power group the path estimate was not significant (.13, SD = .15, n.s.). This

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pattern indicates that underminer power weakens the relationship between anger and retaliation behaviors. Thus, hypothesis 8a was supported.

Hypothesis 8b predicted that underminer power would strengthen the relationship between fear and CWB and fear and withdrawal behaviors. This was tested by comparing the appropriate path estimates across the underminer power groups. The non-significant path estimate from fear to CWB in the low underminer power group (-.01, SD = .07, n.s.) becomes significant in the high underminer power group (.29, SD = .05, p < .01).

Similarly, the non- significant path from fear to withdrawal in the low underminer power group (.03, SD = .15, n.s.) becomes significant in the high underminer power group (.24,

SD = .13, p < .05). This pattern supports the moderating effect of power on the relationship between fear and appeasement behaviors. Thus, hypothesis 8b was supported.

3.4 DISCUSSION

This study tested the social influence process of social undermining using a sample of working adults reflecting upon real world events. As suggested by theory, this study found evidence to suggest that a social influence event of social undermining prompts emotional responses which in turn motivate behavioral responses. Interestingly, and counter to theory, this study did not find evidence suggesting that relational identification was a key component influencing the specific discrete emotion felt in response to social undermining. However, exploring the measures of trustworthiness perceptions indicates that individuals found the underminer (M = 3.77) to be a more trustworthy person than the victim (M = 3.29; p < .01). These findings may indicate that witness’ have a proclivity toward siding with the underminer.

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Reflecting on the gossip literature, the lack of support for relational identification in a single instance of social undermining is not surprising. Gossip is an integral part of human social functioning, even if we don’t readily admit it (Ellwardt et al., 2012; Kniffin

& Wilson, 2005). Individuals seek out gossip to discover information on coworkers, peers, supervisors just as readily as they seek out gossip about famous social influencers and public figures (Dunbar, 2004). Therefore, a strong relational bond between underminer and witness may not be necessary for a single social undermining event to be influential.

The findings of this study did find evidence for the impact of underminer power on several of the emotion-to-behavior relationships. Specifically, the findings suggest a powerful underminer limits the witness’ enactment of retaliation behaviors and promotes the enactment of appeasement behaviors. This is potentially one of the reasons why social undermining is perceived to be accepted by all witnesses. As social undermining is an ambiguous social behavior, there is uncertainty in interpretation. This uncertainty may manifest as feelings of low power relative to the underminer and prompt behaviors that appease the underminer rather than behaviors to confront the underminer. In order to test this post-hoc hypothesis, I performed a series of OLS regressions using Levenson's

(1981) six-item locus of control measure (α = .85) as a predictor for retaliation behavior

(.39, p < .05), CWB toward the victim (-.10, n.s.), and withdrawal from the victim (-.42, p < .05). The pattern of results is consistent with the prediction of the role of uncertainty; individuals engage in more retaliatory behavior when they perceive themselves as having high control in the social undermining situation, but engage in withdrawal behaviors when they perceive themselves as having low control in the social undermining situation.

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While this study provides important insights into the social mechanisms underlying social undermining, it does have a few limitations. First, as this study is cross- sectional in nature, it can only provide correlational insights. That is, this study is unable to describe the relationships between variables. Social undermining, however, is a dynamic phenomenon. While this study provides important insights into the immediate response to a social influence event of social undermining, a stronger study should test the longitudinal impact of social undermining as a social influence campaign. Second, the sample used in this study came from MTurk. While every precaution was taken, there is no guarantee regarding data integrity. However, this MTurk sample has a strong benefit that no other sample would provide. Namely, it allowed the assessment of social undermining across a large swath of industries, at multiple levels of the organization, and in multiple directions (i.e., peer-to-peer undermining, peer-to-supervisor undermining, supervisor-to-peer undermining). Any other sample would have been restricted on one or more of these dimensions. Finally, this study asked participants to recall an incident of social undermining. This is problematic in that memory is malleable (Smith & Ellsworth,

1987). Additionally, while the recall task was carefully worded, social undermining potentially works best when its undetectable. Therefore, recalling an event that was unnoticed may not be possible. While the recall approach allowed for capturing real- world incidences of social undermining, future studies should assess the direct experience of social undermining, rather than the recalled experience.

3.5 CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I built and tested the witness model of social undermining to suggest that a social undermining should be conceptualized as a social influence event

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that prompts an emotional response that, in turn, shapes the attitude and behavior of the witness. The findings contained in this chapter highlight the complexity of the social influence mechanism that underlies social undermining. However, it is also apparent from this study that a single instance of social undermining does not provide the full picture. Therefore, in the next chapter I focus on exploring social undermining as a campaign.

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Table 3.1 Study 1 Descriptive Statistics

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. Power Conditiona - - - 2. RI w/ Underminer 3.58 1.22 .32 (.97) 3. RI w/ Victim 2.87 1.25 -.02 .05 (.97) 4. Contempt 2.15 1.25 -.27 -.13 -.09 (.89) 5. Anger 2.15 1.07 -.12 .00 -.14 .51 (.77) 6. Fear 1.56 .97 .13 .15 -.03 .18 .33 (.94) 7. Victim TW 3.29 1.32 .09 .06 .32 -.53 -.31 -.04 (.97) 8. Underminer TW 3.77 1.23 .12 .38 -.02 -.02 -.06 .07 -.23 (.84) 9. CWB 1.50 .56 .01 -.19 -.14 .41 .26 .22 -.55 .15 (.83) 10. Withdrawal 2.19 1.30 .06 -.22 -.20 .40 .30 .22 -.61 .16 .92 (.94) 11. Retaliation 1.76 1.17 .09 -.08 .14 -.04 .13 .04 .41 -.59 -.03 -.09 (.94) 12. Gender .45 .50 .06 -.06 -.01 .01 .02 .10 -.07 .07 .27 .22 .03 58 a

Notes: n = 100. Dummy coded 0 = low underminer power, 1 = high underminer power. Values above .28 are statistically significant. Alphas along the diagonal. RI = “Relational Identification.” TW = “Trustworthiness.”

Table 3.2 Study 1 Model Fit Indices

Hypothesized Backward Limited

Fit Indices Model Model Model χ2 20.08 72.815** 23.39 df 16 18 19

Δ χ2 52.74** 3.31

CFI .99 .53 .99 RMSEA .05 .18 .05 SRMR .06 .12 .07 * p < .05; ** p < .01

Table 3.3 Study 1 Power Moderation Test: Multigroup Path Analysis

Low Power High Power Underminer Underminer Paths Est Est Contempt Relational Identification w/ Underminer -.11 .07 Relational Identification w/ Victim -.09 -.09 Anger Relational Identification w/ Underminer -.11 .20 Relational Identification w/ Victim -.04 -.20 Fear Relational Identification w/ Underminer .11 .05 Relational Identification w/ Victim .07 -.13 Perception of Victim Trustworthiness Contempt -.56** -.32** Perception of Underminer Trustworthiness Anger .01 -.22 CWB toward Victim Contempt .45** .37** Fear -.01 .29** Withdrawal from Victim Contempt .43** .38** Fear .03 .24* Retribution toward Underminer Anger .25* .13

Note: A χ2 difference test comparing the above model to a model which held the paths from anger to retribution toward underminer and fear to CWB toward victim and withdrawal from victim constant across groups suggests that allowing the paths to vary between groups produces a better fitting model (Δχ2(3) = 3.65, n.s.).

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χ2(16) = 20.08, p = .22; CFI = .99, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .06 .37** -.12 (.04) CWB toward Relational (.10) Contempt toward Victim Identification w/ Victim Underminer -.09 -.49** (.08) Withdrawal from (.10) .35** Victim Perceptions of (.09) Victim TW .01 (.09) .17* Anger toward (.10) Retaliation toward Underminer Underminer -.08 (.10) -.14 60 (.09) Perceptions of

Underminer TW

.15 .18* CWB toward Relational (.08) (.04) Fear Victim Identification w/ Victim -.03 (.08) Withdrawal from .18* Victim (.10)

Figure 3.1 Witness Model of Social Undermining n = 69; † p < .10; * p < .05, ** p < .01 Note: Gender used as a control on all dependent variables. Covariances are estimated among the disturbance terms between contempt, anger, and fear (not shown). Standard errors in parentheses. Effect sizes are standardized. Relational identification with the underminer was used as a control variable on perceptions of underminer trustworthiness. Relational identification with the victim was used as a control variable on perceptions of victim trustworthiness.

CHAPTER 4

STUDY 2: SOCIAL UNDERMINING AS A CAMPAIGN

In Chapter 3, I proposed and tested a witness model of social undermining that explored how and why social undermining works. The key limitation of that study was that it focused on a single social undermining event. While this approach allowed for a detailed examination the confluence of social factors and emotions in the witness’ response to social undermining, it did not provide insight into how social undermining unfolds over time.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to explore social undermining as series of repeated social influence events. That is, this chapter seeks to answer how social undermining may create self-reinforcing spirals. Integrating research on emotions (e.g.,

Forgas & George, 2001; Izard Carroll E., 1993) and social influence (Halevy et al., 2019;

Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), I further develop the witness model of social undermining to propose that witnesses automate their responses to a social underminer, which allows them more easily access to scripted emotional and behavioral responses. Thus, the insidious nature of social undermining is due to the creation of these scripts within the witness, rather than solely on any single social influence event.

In this chapter, I introduce a longitudinal perspective to the witness model of social undermining to suggest that social undermining establishes emotional and behavioral spirals. Additionally, I highlight the importance of social factors at shaping the direction and magnitude of these spirals. I tested my developed hypotheses with a

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longitudinal behavioral lab study using random coefficient growth modeling. The results of this study support the primary mechanisms of social undermining; specifically that, over time, attitudes and behaviors toward the victim decrease. Surprisingly, this study found an interesting pattern of results when considering the role of social factors (i.e., relational identification and underminer power). The moderator tests suggest that relational identification with the victim may cause punishment behaviors directed toward the underminer, but only in cases where the underminer has low power.

4.1 THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

As social undermining occurs over an extended period of time (Duffy et al.,

2002), a witness will be exposed to repeated social influence events. As social undermining is insidious, no single social influence event will be overtly aggressive in of itself. However, qualitative work (e.g., Crossley, 2009) suggests individuals prompted to recall social undermining are able to reflect upon, and identify, a social undermining campaign. Therefore, there is something unique about social undermining that allows it to appear acceptable at the time, but is identifiable as a social transgression under cognitive scrutiny.

4.1.1 SOCIAL INFLUENCE

The evolving nature of social undermining is characteristics of indirect social influence in which individuals become easier to sway if exposed to a consistent message over time (Cacioppo & Petty, 1979; DeMarzo et al., 2003). For example, Freedman and

Fraser (1966; see also Burger, 1999) suggest a social influence phenomenon commonly referred to as “foot in the door.” This phenomenon suggests that a small change in opinion caused by one social influence event will make it easier for a similar social

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influence event to cause a larger change of opinion. In a field study, the authors found that individuals who agreed to a small request (e.g., responding to a survey regarding purchasing habits) predisposed individuals to allow for a large request (e.g., allowing a team of 5-6 individuals into their home to document household products). A similar process may be occurring in what I label as the undermining campaign. Specifically, I define the undermining campaign as a series of social influence events wherein an underminer attempts to shape a witness’ attitude and behaviors toward a targeted victim over time.

The witness may be predisposed to accepting the initial social influence events of a social undermining campaign because it is perceived as gossip or harmless joking. As a witness accepts the first few social influence events, it becomes easier for the social underminer to change the witness’ opinion of the target. Over time, this process becomes a negative spiral. As gossip among peers influences perceptions of the target’s trustworthiness (Wong & Boh, 2010), such negative opinions are likely to manifest as decreased perceptions of trustworthiness. At the same time, gossip helps to strengthen the relationship between the gossiper and the listener (Dunbar, 2004). Such strengthening of the bonds between the gossiper and the listener is likely to manifest as increases in perceptions of trustworthiness. Thus, the witness’ perceptions of the underminer should become more favorable over time over time. Therefore:

Hypothesis 1a: Over the course of an undermining campaign, a witness will

perceive an underminer as more trustworthy.

Hypothesis 1b: Over the course of an undermining campaign, a witness will

perceive a victim as less trustworthy.

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4.1.2 EMOTIONS

Recall that emotions are believed to be generated through eliciting events

(Cropanzano et al., 2017; Mohr et al., 2019; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) such that situational factors direct the discrete emotion experienced (Frijda, 2009; Izard et al.,

1993). For example, contempt has been found to be felt in response to interacting with a perceived low-status other (Laham et al., 2010), while both anger and fear are experienced in response to a transgression (Denson et al., 2011; Mackie et al., 2000).

Thus, as was supported in study 1, a witness is likely to experience contempt when they accept social undermining while they are likely to experience anger or fear when they reject social undermining. The degree to which an individual perceives control over a situation directs whether anger or fear felt (Lebel, 2017).

Over time, the link between situation and emotion becomes strengthened such that discrete emotions are said to have unique elicitors (Ekman, 1999). Additionally, as individuals develop emotion scripts (Izard, 1993), individuals find it easier to experience specific emotions after repeatedly experiencing eliciting events (Frijda et al., 1989).

When considering the undermining campaign, it is likely that the intensity of each discrete emotions will build upon itself in response to repeated experiences of social undermining events. Thus, as the social undermining campaign unfolds, the emotional response to each social influence event may become stronger.

Hypothesis 2: Over the course of an undermining campaign, witness feelings of

(a) contempt toward the victim, and (b) anger and (c) fear toward the underminer

will increase.

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Emotions help access specific behavioral scripts in response to specific events

(Forgas & George, 2001). This link between emotions and behaviors was found in study

1 wherein contempt and fear lead to behaviors that harmed the victim as well as withdrawal from the victim while anger lead to behaviors that harmed the underminer.

With repeated access, the expression of these behaviors build upon one another such that the behavioral intensity increases. Additionally, the positive spiral of emotions indicates that action tendencies will contain greater motivational force over time. Therefore, responding to the social undermining campaign, the witness will experience greater feelings of contempt for the victim, perceive the victim as being increasingly incompetent or otherwise unworthy, and more likely to punish them. Similarly, responding to the social undermining campaign, the witness will perceive themselves and the underminer as competent contributors and increase rewards.

Hypothesis 3a: Over the course of an undermining campaign, witness behaviors

aiding the underminer will increase.

Hypothesis 3b: Over the course of an undermining campaign, witness behaviors

aiding the victim will decrease.

Hypothesis 3c: Over the course of an undermining campaign, witness behaviors

aiding the self will increase.

4.1.3 ROLE OF SOCIAL FACTORS

As indicated by the COR, and specified in the witness model of social undermining in Chapter 3, social factors influence the degree to which social influence is successful in changing opinions. Relational identification – the integration of a relationship into one’s core self-concept (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007) – is a strong social

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factor that shapes social influence as it depicts the degree to which an individual has come to develop a deep relationship with a partner. Such deep relationships manifest as deep levels of trust with the a partner (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996), a haloing effect regarding attributions of a partner (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007), and a degree to which an individual respects a partner (Aron & Aron, 2000; Ashforth & Mael, 1989). In the hypotheses developed above, we followed the course of the social undermining literature with the assumption that the witness has a high degree of relational identification with the underminer. However, the witness may just as likely have a high degree of relational identification with the victim. In such a case, the witness is less likely to accept social undermining and more likely to identify it as a social transgression. As the transgressions compound, due to the social undermining campaign, the witness will be less likely to feel contempt and more likely to feel anger and fear (Aquino et al., 2001).

Hypothesis 4: Relational identification between the witness and the victim

moderates the impact of an undermining campaign on emotion, such that

(a) witness feelings of contempt toward the victim will decline over time.

(b) witness feelings of anger toward the underminer will increase over time.

(c) witness feelings of fear toward the underminer will increase over time.

Additionally, as the transgressions compound, the witness is more likely to identify the underminer as having an agenda behind their gossip. When identified, individuals who are believed to be spreading rumors through gossip for a selfish goal are perceived as less trustworthy and respectable (Dunbar, 2004). At the same time, as the witness evaluates the repeated social influence events, the witness is forced to reflect upon the reputation of the victim. Rejecting the social influence attempt strengthens an

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individual’s current evaluation and opinion of a target (Ellwardt et al., 2012). Therefore, it is likely that the witness will perceive the victim as more trustworthy over time.

Hypothesis 5: Relational identification between the witness and the victim

moderates the impact of an undermining campaign on perceptions of

trustworthiness, such that

(a) witness perceptions of underminer trustworthiness will decline over time.

(b) witness perceptions of victim trustworthiness will increase over time.

Finally, as emotions and perceptions become automated in response to the rejection of social undermining events, it is more likely that the witness will create corresponding scripts to help the victim and harm the underminer. As the witness may experience co-victimization (Skarlicki & Rupp, 2010), they may engage in self- supporting behaviors to help alleviate the psychological stress they experience. Thus, the expected behaviors will change such that:

Hypothesis 6: Relational identification between the witness and the victim

moderates the impact of an undermining campaign on behaviors, such that

(a) witness behaviors aiding the underminer will decline over time.

(b) witness behaviors aiding the victim will increase over time.

(c) witness behaviors aiding the self will increase over time.

Similar to relational identification, the power of the underminer has the ability to set the trajectory for the witness’ expression of behaviors. Power – the ability to distribute rewards or enact punishment (Festinger, 1953) – limits an individual’s ability and desire to engage in retribution behavior for fear of retaliation (Deffenbacher et al.,

1996) or other negative consequences (Averill, 1973; Beatty & McCroskey, 1997). Thus,

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the power of the underminer will shape the witness’ choice of behavior. As indicated before, these behaviors become encoded in scripts and the witness will become more likely to engage in similar behaviors in the future. Thus, as underminer power increases, the witness is more likely to help the underminer, as a method of appeasement, and less likely to provide aid to the witness or the self, in order to prevent the possibility of becoming a future target.

Hypothesis 7: Underminer Power will moderate the impact of an undermining

campaign on behavior, such that

(a) witness behaviors aiding the underminer will increase over time.

(b) witness behaviors aiding the victim will decrease over time.

(c) witness behaviors aiding the self will decrease over time.

4.2 STUDY 2

4.2.1 METHODS

4.2.1.1 PARTICIPANTS AND DESIGN

The study sample consisted of 53 undergraduate students recruited from a large university in southeastern United States. Participants were offered extra credit for participation as well as $15 monetary compensation. This study was a 3-factor longitudinal experiment where participants play a 21-round game with two computer partners. Data was gathered every 3 rounds during the game. 9 participants were dropped for suspecting they were playing with computer partners, leaving 44 participants and a total of 308 observations. Participant ages ranged from 18 to 22 (M = 19.91, SD = .86) years old. The sample was predominantly male (70%) and predominately Caucasian

(70% Caucasian, 16% Asian/Pacific Islander, 7% African American, and 7% Hispanic).

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4.2.1.2 TASK DESCRIPTION

This experiment used a cognitively demanding task, named the t-task, which allowed for a within-person (undermining messages) and two between-person (relational identification with victim or with underminer and underminer power high or low) manipulations. The experiment was run on zTree (Fischbacher, 2007), an open source computer platform, and participants facial expressions were recorded. The t-task is a game wherein participants had 15 seconds to click on all occurrences of the letter “t” within a 10x10 grid of letters. Grids were randomly generated for each participant each round. Participants were ostensibly grouped with two other participants. After completing a round of the t-task, participants were shown their individual performance as well as their group’s performance. Participants were then allowed to send private messages to their fellow group members. These messages would only be read by the specific player and not by the any other group member. One group member was randomly selected to be a “silent player;” meaning that they could receive but not send messages. Every three rounds, the average team performance was calculated. If the group’s performance put them into the 50th percentile, they were rewarded with 9 points. One participant was randomly chosen to be the “point allocator;” distributing the points among the group members during the game. The point distribution of the points was then displayed to the participants. Finally, participants were informed that a $5 bonus will be rewarded at the end of the game based on individual performance.

The paradigm of the t-task requires deception. While participants were told they were paired with others in the room, they were, in fact, paired with two pre-programed computers that provided scripted messages. Additionally, regardless of actual

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performance on the t-task, the displayed individual and team performances were held constant across participants while varying across rounds. Finally, participants were always assigned to both the role of the “silent player” and the “point allocator.”

4.2.1.3 WITHIN-PERSON MANIPULATION

During the game, participants received pre-scripted messages from their computer group members. These messages were designed to convey a gradual increase in undermining. Specifically, one computer player (the underminer) made undermining statements regarding the performance and ability of the other computer player (the victim). The victim computer player made neutral comments related to the t-task.

4.2.1.4 BETWEEN-PERSON MANIPULATION

Relational identification was manipulated through the team formation process using an adaptation of the minimal group technique (Hertel & Kerr, 2001; Lemyre &

Smith, 1985). Prior to the lab, participants completed a survey of psychometric questions and provided a unique code, which they were told to bring to the lab. At the start of the lab, participants were asked to enter their unique code so that groups could be built based on their personalities. Participants were also prompted to provide demographics information (age, gender, and major) as well as select a “spirit animal” (an image of a fish, bird, dog, mouse, or snake). Participants were then presented with a screen which displayed demographic information, “spirit animal” choice and a personality description for all three group members. This personality description utilized either the positive or negative descriptions developed by Forer (1949), which were designed in the same manner as horoscopes: to be general and vague enough that anyone can find that it reflects their personality. Participants were always received the positive personality

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description. Individuals in the underminer relational identification condition were shown a screen wherein they shared the same approximate age (Participant age minus 1), the same gender, the same major, the same spirit animal, and the same personality description as the underminer, while the victim was much older (Participant age + 5), a different gender, a different major, a different spirit animal, and a different personality description. The same manipulation was used for the victim relational identification condition, except that the victim shared the same information as the participant while the underminer differed.

Underminer power was manipulated through the manner by which the $5 bonus was awarded at the end of the game. Participants in the high underminer power condition were informed that one group member will be randomly selected to review the average performance of each group member at the end of the game to determine who should receive the $5 bonus. The underminer computer player was always selected for this role.

Each time participants reviewed the round results, they were shown a message reminding them that the underminer computer player had the power to distribute this reward at the end of the game. Participants in the low underminer power condition were told that the experimenter would review the average individual performance and allocate the $5 bonus.

4.2.1.5 PROCEDURE

Approximately a week before the in-lab portion of the study, participants completed an online questionnaire which gathered background characteristics.

Participants were told that they would play a game called the t-Task Game and that they would be randomly assigned to groups of three. To minimize end-game effects (Cochard,

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Van, & Willinger, 2004), participants were not informed of the number of rounds in the game. All participants then went through a practice round where the groups were formed and the t-task was displayed and explained. At the end of the practice round, participants completed a brief competency check to ensure that they understood the game. The participants were then told they would be assigned to their roles. In reality, all participants were placed in the role of the silent player and the point allocator.

4.2.1.6 DEPENDENT VARIABLES

Perceptions of trustworthiness for the underminer and the victim were measured every three rounds, following the allocation of points, using three items from (Ferrin et al., 2008). These items were “[partner] meets his/her obligations to me,” “[partner] deals with me honestly,” and “in my opinion, [partner] is reliable.” These measures presented acceptable levels of reliability (alphas ranging from .79 to .98 for perceptions of underminer trustworthiness and .81 to .92 for perceptions of victim trustworthiness).

Emotions were measured by processing videos of participant using the facial analysis software, Affectiva. Affectiva is an analysis software built upon the facial action coding system (FACs) developed by Ekman and Friesen (1978). FACs has been used in a wide array of fields to study the influence of emotions on cognition and behavior (e.g.,

Broch-Due, Kjærstad, Kessing, & Miskowiak, 2018; Huseynov, Kassas, Segovia, &

Palma, 2019). Affectiva uses a neural learning algorithm to apply FACs to frame-by- frame video processing, and has been verified in several large scale studies (e.g., Stöckli,

Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Borer, & Samson, 2018). As emotions are short-term feelings

(Ekman, 1992; Frijda, 1986), contempt, anger, and fear were calculated as the maximum

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FACs value for each emotion during the 5 second interval following the display of the undermining messages.2

Aiding behaviors were measured as the proportion of the reward distributed to each player every three rounds. Participants were asked to choose the percentage of the 9 point reward to give to each player. Percentages were used to prevent participants from following a strategy of equal distribution, encouraging participants to reward/punish their fellow players.

The average reward distributed to each player per condition per round is displayed in figures 4.1 - 4.3. The average perceptions of trustworthiness per condition per round is displayed in figures 4.4 and 4.5. Means, standard deviations, alphas, and correlations are presented in table 4.1.

4.3 ANALYSIS

Random coefficient growth modeling analyses were conducted to examine the dynamic confluence of social factors on the growth of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response to social undermining. Statistical models were estimated using the nlme package (Pinheiro & Bates, 2000) in the open software platform, R. Following the procedure established in literature (Bliese & Ployhart, 2002), I created a variable (Time) to estimate the trajectory of growth for the dependent variables. Time was coded as a sequential vector starting from 0 and incrementing by 1 for each observation period (0 to

7 for the trustworthiness and behavior analysis, 0 to 20 for the emotions analysis).

2 As there is minimal guidance within the literature, and in order to assess the robustness of the results presented in this study, I also ran the models using the maximum of the likelihood values during the 3 second and 7 second intervals following the display of partner messages as well as the average of the likelihood values in each of these time period following the display of partner messages. All results were consistent with what is displayed in this paper.

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4.4 RESULTS

I followed the five-step modeling process for random coefficient growth modeling presented by Bliese and Ployhart (2002). First, I estimated the intraclass correlation (ICC) to test the degree of within-person variance on each of the dependent variables. Second, I estimated a model with Time as a predictor to assess the pattern of overall within-person change. Third, I tested the degree of between-person change by allowing slopes to randomly vary. Fourth, I tested for the influence of autocorrelation in the residuals.

Finally, I included the condition dummy codes (relational identification and underminer power) to test my substantive hypotheses.

Table 4.2 and 4.4 provides the results of the log likelihood tests used during the model building process outlined above. For perceptions of trustworthiness and aiding behavior, the results of the model building process indicate that the best fitting models allowed for random intercepts as well as allow for time to randomly vary between subjects and accounted for autocorrelation. For contempt, a model with random intercepts only fit the data best. For anger, a general linear model fit the data best. However, according to Bliese, Maltarich, and Hendricks (2018), there is no drawback to modeling random intercepts when this test fails. Therefore, and to keep the models consistent in this set of analyses, I will model anger with a random intercept. For fear, a model with random intercept and slope fit the model best.

Perceptions of trustworthiness demonstrated relatively high ICCs (ICCUnderminer =

.53; ICCVictim = .50), as did aiding behaviors (ICCunderminer = .40; ICCvictim = .36; ICCself =

.57). This is unsurprising given that these are within-individual measures. In such circumstances, we would expect to find high within-entity agreement. The emotions

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demonstrated diverging ICCs with contempt (ICC = .05) and anger (ICC = .01) having low values and fear (ICC = .44) having a high value. According to Bliese et al. (2018), even low values of ICC indicate that there are within-entity effects occurring. Thus, though low, these ICCs provide interesting insights into the nature of emotions.

Specifically, contempt and anger may be much more situationally constrained within an individual whereas fear is more global.

Results for the basic growth model (i.e., control and time variables; Model 1), the main effects model (i.e., inclusion of condition dummy codes; Model 2), and the interaction effects model (i.e., inclusion of interaction terms between time and each condition dummy code; Model 3) are presented in tables 4.5 to 4.7.

Hypothesis 1 predicted (a) the growth of perceptions of underminer trustworthiness and (b) the decline of perceptions of victim trustworthiness over time.

Hypothesis 1a and 1b are tested by the time coefficient in Model 1 of table 4.5. Time is not a significant predictor of perceptions of underminer trustworthiness (Time = .02, n.s.), but it is a significant predictor of perceptions of victim trustworthiness (Time = -

.14, p < .01) suggesting perceptions of victim trustworthiness decrease over time. Figure

4.6 displays the decline of victim trustworthiness. Thus, while hypothesis 1a was not supported, hypothesis 1b was supported.

Hypothesis 2 predicted that the emotions of (a) contempt, (b) anger, and (c) fear will increase over time. These hypotheses were tested by the time coefficient in Model 1 of table 4.6. Time was a marginally significant, negative predictor of anger (Time = -.09, p < .10) and was not a significant predictor for either contempt (Time = -.11, n.s.) or fear

(Time = -.02, n.s.). Thus, hypothesis 2 was not supported.

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Hypothesis 3 predicted that behaviors aiding (a) the underminer and (c) the self will increase, while behaviors aiding (b) the victim will decrease over time. These hypotheses were tested by the time coefficient in Model 1 of table 4.7. Time was not a significant predictor of behaviors aiding the underminer (Time = .45, n.s.), but was a significant predictor of behaviors aiding the victim (Time = -1.57, p < .01) and the self

(Time = 1.29, p < .01). The declining growth in behaviors aiding the victim is depicted in figure 4.7. Thus, while hypothesis 3a was not supported, hypotheses 3b and c were supported.

The next set of hypotheses explore the influence of the social factors of relational identification and underminer power. Hypothesis 4 predicted that relational identification with the victim will (a) decrease growth of contempt, but increase growth of (b) anger and (c) fear. These hypotheses were tested by the Time*Relational Identification coefficient in Model 3 of table 4.6. This interaction term was not significant for contempt

(Time*Relational Identification = .15, n.s.), but was significant for anger

(Time*Relational Identification = .22, p < .05) and marginally significant for fear

(Time*Relational Identification = .56, p < .10). As depicted in figure 4.8, relational identification flips the decline of fear such that participants who identified with the victim experienced an increase in fear over time. While the interaction term for relational identification and time predicting anger was mathematically significant, it is not of practically significant. Specifically, the model indicates that the average likelihood of experiencing anger during the experiment was 3.31% and every round it increased by

.22%. Thus, there is only marginal support for hypothesis 4.

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Hypothesis 5 predicted that relational identification with the victim will (a) decrease the growth of perceptions of underminer trustworthiness and (b) increase the growth of perceptions of victim trustworthiness. These were tested by the coefficient for the interaction term of Time and Relational Identification in Model 3 of table 4.5. The interaction term was not significant for perceptions of either underminer trustworthiness

(-.03, n.s.) nor victim trustworthiness (-.02, n.s.). Thus, hypothesis 5 was not supported.

Hypothesis 6 predicted that relational identification with the victim will (a) decrease the growth of behaviors aiding the underminer while increasing the growth of behaviors aiding (a) the victim and (b) the self. These hypotheses were tested in the interaction term Time*Relational Identification in Model 3 of table 4.7. Relational identification significantly moderated the growth of behavior aiding the underminer

(Time*Relational Identification = -1.28, p < .05) and marginally significantly moderated the growth of behavior aiding the self (Time*Relational Identification = 1.36, p < .10), but not behavior aiding the victim (Time*Relational Identification = -.07, n.s.). The moderating influence of relational identification with the victim on behaviors aiding the underminer and the self are presented in figures 4.9-4.10 and 4.11-4.12, respectively. As seen in figures 4.9 and 4.10, participants in the relational identification with the victim condition engaged in less behaviors aiding the underminer over time compared to those in the relational identification with the underminer condition, regardless of the power of the underminer. As seen in figures 4.11 and 4.12, participants in the relational identification with the victim condition engaged in more behaviors aiding the self over time compared to those in the relational identification with the underminer condition, regardless of the power of the underminer. Thus, hypothesis 6 was largely supported.

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Finally, hypothesis 7 predicted that underminer power will (a) increase the growth of behaviors aiding the underminer and decrease the growth of behaviors aiding (a) the victim and (b) the self. These hypotheses were test in the coefficient of the

Time*Relational Identification interaction term in Model 3 of table 4.7. While this interaction was not significant for behaviors aiding the underminer (Time*Relational

Identification = .83, n.s.), behaviors aiding the victim (Time*Relational Identification = -

.87, n.s.), nor behaviors aiding the self (Time*Relational Identification = -.06, n.s.), each coefficient was in the hypothesized direction. However, hypothesis 7 was not supported.

4.5 DISCUSSION

This study sought to establish the accumulated effects of social undermining on a third-party witness within a social structure. As suggested by the social undermining literature, this study found evidence that social undermining prompts an overall decline in the witness’ perceptions of the victim behaviors aiding the victim. However, counter to the social undermining literature, this study did not find evidence for a corresponding increase in perceptions of the underminer nor behaviors aiding the underminer. There was evidence suggesting that relational identification may be an important moderator on the growth of perceptions and behaviors. Relational identification with the victim appears to significantly decrease behaviors aiding the underminer. Additionally, relational identification with the victim appears to influence the emotional response to social undermining such that the rate at which anger and fear grow increases over time.

Worth noting are a few hypotheses that failed to find support. Specifically, there appears to be limited support for the growth of emotional response over time. This may be indication that discrete emotional responses do not grow or decline over time.

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However, the current models fail to test the direct influence of emotions on the growth or decline in perceptions and behaviors following social undermining. Supplemental analysis of the influence of the discrete emotions of anger, fear, and contempt on the growth of aiding behaviors are presented in table 4.8. These results suggest that, while the expression of emotions themselves may not change over time, discrete emotions may influence the outcomes of the social influence process of social undermining. This interpretation is supported in the findings from Chapter 3. Future research should look further into the direct relationship between emotional states and witness responses to social undermining.

Second, due to the number of participants (n = 44), it is possible that this study is under powered to adequately test the between-person effects. Going forward, it will be important to test these findings using a larger sample size to test the between-person effects. In a recent study, Ferris et al. (2016) examined the mediating effect of emotions

(anger and anxiety) on the relationship between abusive supervision and enactment of approach/avoidance-oriented CWB. The average correlation between abusive supervision and all other variables was r = 0.40. Based on an alpha of 0.05, I estimate a sample size of 46 observations per cell will provide me with a power of 0.80 for the desired effect sizes. Therefore, the next iteration of this study will require approximately 184 participants to fill all four cells in my 2 (relational identification) x 2 (underminer power) empirical design.

Similarly, while the power manipulation was built upon several successful implementations in the literature (e.g., (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Briñol, Petty, Valle,

Rucker, & Becerra, 2007; Galinsky et al., 2003; Overbeck & Park, 2001; Sachdev &

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Bourhis, 1985; Schmid Mast, Jonas, & Hall, 2009), it may be beneficial to update and implement a stronger manipulation. While participants in the high underminer power condition were reminded each round that the underminer would determine if they were deserving of a $5 bonus at the end of the round (thus, placing the underminer in a position to reward or punish the participant), exit interviews with the participants indicate that the importance of this role assignment may have decreased over the course of the study.

Finally, this study suffered due to the technical limitations of the behavioral lab.

Specifically, the zTree program created required a large amount of computational power to create the random boards presented to each individual and to organize the orchestration and display of stimuli at the correct times during the study. This can be overcome through two steps. First, as zTree loads all screens each round (even when they are marked as

“unseen”), removing the training round from the task rounds will facilitate in faster transitions. Second, pre-generating 10x10 grids and fixing these grids across participants will alleviate the computational power in randomly creating the grids each round. This will drastically reduce the time required to cycle from one round to the next round.

4.6 CONCLUSION

This chapter allowed for the exploration of social undermining as a longitudinal social influence process designed to shape the opinion and attitude of the witness. The findings of this chapter help to define why it is important to consider the witness when discussing social undermining. Assuming the witness responds in a manner that is conducive to the goals of the underminer overlooks much regarding what is occurring.

Social undermining is unique due to the witness, and therefore, it is the actions and

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reactions of the witness that should determine if the phenomenon is social undermining or not. By understanding social undermining through the lens of the witness, it is possible to determine how to interrupt the social influence mechanisms at play and direct witness responses to be more conducive to creating a safer and happier workplace.

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Table 4.1 Study 2 Descriptive Statistics

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. Power Conditiona - - - 2. Relational Identification - - 0.04 - Conditionb 3. Average Perceptions of 4.34 .62 -0.04 0.12 (.90) Underminer Trustworthiness 4. Average Perceptions of 3.73 .81 -0.05 0.13 0.66 (.85) Victim Trustworthiness 5. Average Contempt 9.45 9.62 -0.14 -0.03 0.05 -0.01 - 6. Average Anger 1.13 2.44 0.06 -0.21 -0.10 -0.07 0.05 - 7. Average Fear 18.74 17.86 -0.37 -0.17 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.16 - 8. Average Underminer 32.70 6.22 0.09 -0.29 0.23 -0.03 -0.05 0.03 0.24 - Aiding Behavior 82 9. Average Victim Aiding 26.34 6.84 -0.07 -0.12 0.18 0.47 -0.05 0.20 0.26 0.42 - Behavior 10. Average Self Aiding 40.95 11.01 0.00 0.24 -0.24 -0.27 0.06 -0.14 -0.30 -0.83 -0.86 - Behavior Notes: n = 44. aDummy coded 0 = low underminer power, 1 = high underminer power. bDummy Coded 0 = relational identification with the underminer, 1 = relational identification with the victim. Values above .41 are statistically significant. Alphas along the diagonal.

Table 4.2 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Perceptions of Trustworthiness

Model Perceptions of Underminer Perceptions of Victim Trustworthiness Trustworthiness Log Log

df Likelihood L. Ratio df Likelihood L. Ratio Step 1 Fixed Intercept 2 -424.13 2 -525.48 Random Intercept 3 -343.29 161.67** 3 -452.90 145.17** Step 2 Fixed Slopes 4 -285.36 4 -390.34 Step 3 Random Time 6 -255.38 59.96** 6 -385.00 10.69** Step 4 Autocorrelation 7 -252.33 6.11* 7 -379.50 11.00**

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* p < .05; ** p < .01. n = 308, 44 participants over 7 rounds.

Table 4.3 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Behaviors

Model Underminer Aiding Behavior Victim Aiding Behavior Self Aiding Behavior Log Log Log

df Likelihood L. Ratio df Likelihood L. Ratio df Likelihood L. Ratio Step 1 Fixed Intercept 2 -1271.85 2 -1317.71 2 -1424.11 Random Intercept 3 -1223.27 97.16** 3 -1276.63 82.16** 3 -1330.98 186.31** Step 2 Fixed Slopes 4 -1069.25 4 -1091.64 4 -1136.90 Step 3 Random Time 6 -1038.70 61.09** 6 -1077.24 28.80** 6 -1095.71 82.37** Step 4 Autocorrelation 7 -1032.57 12.26** 7 -1073.82 6.83* 7 -1086.37 18.68**

84 * p < .05; ** p < .01. n = 308, 44 participants over 7 rounds.

Table 4.4 Study 2 Model Building Log Likelihood Tests – Emotions

Model Contempt Anger Fear Log Log Log

df Likelihood L. Ratio df Likelihood L. Ratio df Likelihood L. Ratio Step 1 Fixed Intercept 2 -3221.63 2 -2311.30 2 -3172.86 Random Intercept 3 -3216.90 9.45** 3 -2311.02 .56 3 -3023.87 297.99** Step 2 Fixed Slopes 4 -3217.53 4 -2311.67 4 -3024.99 Step 3 Random Time 6 -3216.73 1.61 6 -2306.40 10.54** 6 -3021.02 7.94* Step 4 Autocorrelation 7 -3216.14 1.17 7 -2304.83 3.15† 7 -3021.02 .00

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† p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01. n = 924, 44 participants over 21 rounds.

Table 4.5 Study 2 Perceptions of Trustworthiness Growth Models

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Basic Growth Main Effects Interaction Effects Variable Est SE Est SE Est SE Underminer

Trustworthiness Intercept 4.31** .11 4.19** .17 4.14** .15 Time .02 .02 .02 .02 .06 .05

Relational Identificationa .23 .18 .26 .16 Underminer Powerb .02 .19 .05 .17

Time*Relational Identification -.03 .06 Time*Underminer Power -.03 .06

Victim Trustworthiness Intercept 4.10** .11 4.08** .27 4.14** .24 Time -.14** .03 -.14** .03 -.17** .05

Relational Identificationa .24 .29 .27 .26 Underminer Powerb -.20 .29 -.33 .26

Time*Relational Identification -.02 .06 Time*Underminer Power .08 .06 Note: † p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01; aCoded 0 = Identification with Underminer, 1 = Identification with Victim; bCoded 0 = Low Underminer Power, 1 = High Underminer Power

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Table 4.6 Study 2 Emotions Growth Models

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Basic Growth Main Effects Interaction Effects Variable Est SE Est SE Est SE Contempt Intercept 10.96** 2.30 12.48** 3.29 15.19** 4.25 Time -.11 .18 -.11 .18 -.38 .32

Relational Identificationa .28 3.00 -1.81 4.68 Underminer Powerb -2.26 3.06 -5.49 4.77

Time*Relational Identification .15 .35 Time*Underminer Power .32 .36

Anger Intercept 2.11* .84 2.21* 1.00 3.31* 1.55 Time -.09† .06 -.09 .06 -.18† .11

Relational Identificationa -.30 .71 -3.12† 1.69 Underminer Powerb .07 .73 .73 1.73

Time*Relational Identification .22† .12 Time*Underminer Power -.05 .12

Fear Intercept 19.28** 3.44 29.59** 5.07 33.73** 5.98 Time -.02 .16 -.03 .16 -.35 .29

Relational Identificationa -3.60 5.01 -10.61 6.49 Underminer Powerb -13.94* 5.11 -14.69* 6.62

Time*Relational Identification .56† .32 Time*Underminer Power .06 .33 Note: † p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01; aCoded 0 = Identification with Underminer, 1 = Identification with Victim; bCoded 0 = Low Underminer Power, 1 = High Underminer Power

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Table 4.7 Study 2 Behavior Growth Models

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Basic Growth Main Effects Interaction Effects Variable Est SE Est SE Est SE Underminer Aiding

Behavior Intercept 31.47** .89 32.15** 1.36 32.08** 1.51 Time .45 .34 .46 .33 .59 .56

Relational Identificationa -1.76 1.40 -.15 1.63 Underminer Powerb -.31 1.43 -.71 1.66

Time*Relational Identification -1.28* .61 Time*Underminer Power .83 .62

Victim Aiding Behavior Intercept 30.48** .93 31.89** 1.74 31.06** 1.79 Time -1.57** .27 -1.78** .35 -1.17† .62

Relational Identificationa -2.07 1.81 -1.98 1.93 Underminer Powerb .32 1.84 1.38 1.96

Time*Relational Identification -.07 .67 Time*Underminer Power -.87 .68

Self Aiding Behavior Intercept 37.73** 1.60 36.95** 2.28 36.99** 2.41 Time 1.29** .37 1.29** .43 .54 .76

Relational Identificationa 2.56 2.45 2.13 2.60 Underminer Powerb -.71 2.48 -.72 2.64

Time*Relational Identification 1.36† .82 Time*Underminer Power .06 .83 Note: † p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01; aCoded 0 = Identification with Underminer, 1 = Identification with Victim; bCoded 0 = Low Underminer Power, 1 = High Underminer Power

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Table 4.8 Study 2 Influence of Discrete Emotions on Behavior

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Basic Growth Main Effects Interaction Effects Variable Est SE Est SE Est SE Underminer Aiding Behavior Intercept 31.47** .89 32.65** 1.08 32.92** 1.18 Time .45 .34 .38 .31 .18 .40

Contempt -.02 .02 -.04 .03 Anger -.06 .05 .00 .16 Fear -.03 .02 -.04 .03

Time*Contempt .01 .01 Time*Anger .03 .09 Time*Fear .00 .01

Victim Aiding Behavior Intercept 30.48** .93 28..07** 1.30 29.40** 1.39 Time -1.57** .27 -1.18** .36 -1.78** .45

Contempt .02 .02 -.02 .03 Anger -.05 .07 -.15 .21 Fear .09** .03 .04 .04

Time*Contempt .02† .01 Time*Anger .06 .11 Time*Fear .02 .01

Self Aiding Behavior Intercept 37.73** 1.60 39.61** 1.43 37.69** 1.55 Time 1.29** .37 .69 .43 1.58** .47

Contempt .00 .02 .05† .03 Anger .01 .06 .20 .18 Fear -.06* .03 .01 .04

Time*Contempt -.03** -.01 Time*Anger -.11 .10 Time*Fear -.03* .01 Note: † p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01; aCoded 0 = Identification with Underminer, 1 = Identification with Victim; bCoded 0 = Low Underminer Power, 1 = High Underminer Power

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Figure 4.1 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behaviors Per Round

Figure 4.2 Study 2 Victim Aiding Behaviors Per Round

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Figure 4.3 Study 2 Self Aiding Behaviors Per Round

Figure 4.4 Study 2 Perceptions of Underminer Trustworthiness Per Round

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Figure 4.5 Study 2 Perceptions of Victim Trustworthiness Per Round

Figure 4.6 Study 2 Perceptions of Victim Trustworthiness Growth (Victim Trustworthiness Model 1, Table 4.5)

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Figure 4.7 Study 2 Growth of Victim Aiding Behavior (Victim Reward Model 1, Table 4.7)

Figure 4.8 Study 2 Growth of Fear predicted by Relational Identification (Averaged across Power Condition; Fear Model 3, Table 4.6)

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Figure 4.9 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (Low Underminer Power)

Figure 4.10 Study 2 Underminer Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (High Underminer Power)

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Figure 4.11 Study 2 Self Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (Low Underminer Power)

Figure 4.12 Study 2 Self Aiding Behavior by Relational Identification (High Underminer Power)

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CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

This dissertation extends the current social undermining literature and challenges the key, unstated assumption of previous research. Integrating theory and empirical findings of the social influence literature and the emotions literature, this dissertation conceptualizes social undermining as a social influence process that changes the social fabric of the workplace into an environment of indifference, and ultimately hostility, toward a targeted individual. In so doing, this dissertation changes the current focus in the literature from the underminer or the victim to the witness. Social undermining cannot be identified through the motivations of the underminer – as those motivations can equally motivate alternative behaviors (e.g., Reh, Tröster, & Van Quaquebeke, 2018) – or the perceptions of the victim – as the experience of victimization is not unique to social undermining (e.g., Aquino & Thau, 2009). Rather, social undermining should be identified through its influence on the witness.

Using the social influence framework of social undermining, I proposed and tested the witness model of social undermining in two studies; one cross-sectional and one longitudinal. The first study (Chapter 3) approached social undermining as a single social influence event in order to explore the underlying sociological and psychological mechanisms of social undermining. Using a recall task, 100 individuals provided informative data regarding real-world social undermining experiences. The results of this study demonstrated that social undermining prompts discrete emotional responses that

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shape the witness’ attitudes and behaviors. Additionally, this study demonstrated the importance of social factors (i.e., underminer power) in shaping the expression of different behaviors. The second study (Chapter 4) viewed social undermining through a dynamic lens in order to explore how a campaign of social undermining may influence self-reinforcing emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral spirals. Utilizing a cognitively taxing, multi-round task, 44 individuals were exposed to a series of social undermining messages. Through a combination of computer aided emotion-analysis, self-report, and behavioral choice, this study found evidence to suggest a strong main effect of social undermining prompting behaviors that would harm the victim, over time. Additionally, relational identification appeared to influence how the individual chose to behave toward the underminer, but not toward the victim. Counter to the first study, underminer power did not appear to influence the expression of behavior.

5.1 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS

This dissertation offers four theoretical implications to the literature. First, by integrating social influence theories into the current body of work, this dissertation clarifies social undermining’s distinction from similar constructs such as incivility (e.g.,

Penney & Spector, 2005) or supervisor abuse (e.g., Wheeler, Halbesleben, & Whitman,

2013). Specifically, by highlighting the role of the social component of social undermining, this dissertation illuminates why social undermining is potentially more pernicious and more damaging than other forms of social undermining. Additionally, recasting social undermining as a social influence process allows for the identification of the specific social and psychological mechanisms at work.

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Second, this dissertation explicitly highlights the importance of understanding the witness’ role in social undermining. The unstated assumption in all of the social undermining literature is that the witness implicitly accepts social undermining and works to facilitate the goals of the underminer. By exploring social undermining as a social influence process, this assumption can be explored. The social influence framework of social undermining developed in this dissertation provides guidance as to what factors facilitate acceptance of social undermining and what factors facilitate rejection of social undermining. Additionally, the social influence framework of social undermining outlines social factors – such as underminer power – that may force witness’ to act in ways that are conducive to the goals of the underminer without accepting social undermining. This approach opens up a whole new avenue for the social undermining literature.

Third, this dissertation explicitly explores the witness’ role through two studies.

To my knowledge, this is the first empirical test of the witness’ response to social undermining. Leveraging a survey of real-world examples and a multi-round behavioral lab study, this dissertation highlights the mechanism through which social undermining affects the victim (i.e., through the witness). Additionally, it highlights the key process by which the witness makes sense of the social undermining event, and how a series of such events eventually shape the witness’ attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral response.

Finally, this witness extends the current understanding of the social influence literature by proposing the ramifications for a failed social influence attempt. To my knowledge, the social influence literature has focused primarily on the mechanisms of social influence and factors that increase the persuasiveness of social influence, but have

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not explored the ramifications when an individual discovers that they were the target of social influence. By integrating the work done on in the management literature on political power with the social influence literature, this dissertation proposes that social influence can fail. Additionally, the social influence framework of social undermining provides a compelling theoretical framework for the potential detrimental outcomes to the social influencer if their actions are detected.

5.2 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Understanding social undermining as a social influence process provides several practical implications for researchers and practitioners. First, and potentially most important, this dissertation highlights the importance of researching social undermining.

Research into workplace bullying occurred predominantly in the 1990s and early 2000s

(e.g., Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Leymann, 1990; Neuman & Baron, 2006; Randall,

2001). A recent survey conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) found that

19% of US employees experienced bullying at work, 19% have directly witness bullying at work, and 63% are aware that bullying occurs in their workplace.3 According to the

WBI figures, 60.3 million US employees were affected by workplace bullying in 2017.

As workplace bullying has become identified as a problem within organizations, the growth in the body of literature has increased exponentially since the introduction of the construct by Leymann (1990), such that there have been ten comprehensive reviews

(Bartlett & Bartlett, 2011; Branch, Richards, & Dretsch, 2013; Ciby & Raya, 2015; Ståle

Einarsen, 2000; Moayed, Daraiseh, Shell, & Salem, 2006; Rai & Agarwal, 2016, 2018;

Rayner & Hoel, 1997; Samnani & Singh, 2012) and two detailed meta-analyses (Nielsen

3 See: https://www.workplacebullying.org/2017-prevalence/

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& Einarsen, 2012; Nielsen, Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2010) covering the past 30 years over work. The result of this extensive research has been the development of effective

HR practices, such as “zero tolerance” and “managing with respect” policies along with clear procedures on how to handle reports of bullying (Vartia et al., 2011).

While social undermining is adjacent to workplace bullying on the nomological network of workplace aggression behaviors, one of its key defining characteristics is its pernicious nature. Indeed, social undermining may be so subtle that it may be a socially acceptable manner to achieve individual success and/or promotion, especially at the top of the organization (Keeves et al., 2017). Thus, social undermining may be as prevalent, if not more prevalent, than workplace bullying. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the underling mechanisms of social undermining. I hope this dissertation provides the first steps toward shifting the conversation from describing the phenomenon to proscribing solutions with wide reaching organizational impact.

5.3 CONCLUSION

The goal of this dissertation was to build and test theory surrounding the witness’ role in social undermining. Through the integration of theory and research from the social influence and emotions literatures and the use of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, this dissertation provides the first step in changing the current conversation in the social undermining literature. A common call from the literature is to explore the role of the witness in social undermining as it will provide valuable insight into how to mitigate this damaging, yet common, workplace behavior (e.g., Aquino & Thau, 2009; Hershcovis,

2011). In providing a framework for future research to build upon, this dissertation is an answer to that call.

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