BIOBEHAVIORAL RESPONSE TO INCIVILITY THE EMBODIMENT OF INSULT: A THEORY OF BIOBEHAVIORAL RESPONSE TO WORKPLACE INCIVILITY Lilia M. Cortina University of Michigan 530 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104
[email protected] M. Sandy Hershcovis University of Calgary 2500 University Drive NW Calgary, AB T2N 1N4
[email protected] Kathryn B.H. Clancy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 607 S. Mathews Ave. Urbana, IL 61801
[email protected] (in press, Journal of Management) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors are grateful to Christine Porath, who provided feedback on an earlier draft of this article. Hershcovis acknowledges support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Clancy acknowledges support from NSF grant #1916599, the Illinois Leadership Center, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology, and thanks her trainees as well as the attendees of the 2019 Transdisciplinary Research on Incivility in STEM Contexts Workshop for their brilliant thinking and important provocations. BIOBEHAVIORAL RESPONSE TO INCIVILITY 1 Abstract This article builds a broad theory to explain how people respond, both biologically and behaviorally, when targeted with incivility in organizations. Central to our theorizing is a multifaceted framework that yields four quadrants of target response: reciprocation, retreat, relationship repair, and recruitment of support. We advance the novel argument that these behaviors not only stem from biological change within the body, but also stimulate such change. Behavioral responses that revolve around affiliation, and produce positive social connections, are most likely to bring biological benefits. However, social and cultural features of an organization can stand in the way of affiliation, especially for employees holding marginalized identities.