Researching Rudeness: The Past, Present, and Future of the

JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY AT 20

Researching Rudeness: The Past, Present, and Future of

the Science of Incivility

Lilia M. Cortina

University of Michigan

Dana Kabat-Farr

Dalhousie University

Vicki J. Magley and Kerri Nelson

University of Connecticut

Incivility refers to rude, condescending, and ostracizing acts that violate workplace norms of respect, but

otherwise appear mundane. Organizations sometimes dismiss these routine slights and indignities—

which lack overt malice—as inconsequential. However, science has shown that incivility is a real stressor

with real consequences: though the conduct is subtle, the consequences are not. We now know a great

deal about how common incivility is, who gets targeted with it, under what conditions, and with what

effects. The first half of this article reviews and synthesizes the last 15 years of workplace incivility

research. In the second half, we look beyond that body of scholarship to pose novel questions and nudge

the field in novel directions. We also point to thorny topics that call for caution, even course correction.

Incivility in organizations is as important now as ever. Our goal is to motivate new science on incivility,

new ways to think about it and, ultimately, new solutions.

Keywords: incivility, respect, organizations, organizational behavior, occupational stress

Averaging almost one article per day, research into workplace

incivility has exploded in recent years. Incivility refers to rude,

condescending, and ostracizing acts that violate workplace norms

of respect, but otherwise appear mundane. Organizations some-

times dismiss these routine slights and indignities—which lack

overt malice—as inconsequential. When we began studying inci-

vility 20 years ago, our goal was simply to put it “on the map” as

a construct worthy of organizational inquiry. Our efforts have met

with great success, as the science of incivility has since taken off.

A Google Scholar search of the term workplace incivility returned

23 works published from the years 1996 through 2000. Contrast

that with the last half decade (2011 through 2015), which saw

1,700 articles published on this topic. How did that journey begin

and where has it taken us? In what directions should the field head

next with this topic? Likewise, where should we tread with cau-

tion? These are the questions that motivate this paper.

The impetus for our article was a piece that two of us published

in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (JOHP) more

than 15 years ago: “Incivility in the Workplace: Incidence and

Impact” (Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001). Much to

our delight, that has proven to be our most highly cited work to

date. The present article begins by recounting the events that led up

to that publication, putting it in historical context. Next, we syn-

thesize (in broad strokes) the scholarly record that followed. That

is, we look back and chronicle the course taken by incivility

research since our “incidence and impact” article. We then look

forward to the future and chart promising new paths—and poten-

tial pitfalls—for this area of inquiry. Our article concludes with

recommendations, considerations, and cautions for the science of

incivility moving forward.

Before delving into content, we briefly note the scholarly

backgrounds of each author. Two of us (Lilia Cortina and Vicki

Magley) are what you might call “first-generation incivility

researchers,” helping establish on-the-job incivility as a topic

meriting scientific attention in North America. We began col-

laborating in the 1990s as doctoral students at the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one in Clinical-Community Psy-

chology (Cortina) and the other in Social, Organizational, and

Individual Differences Psychology (Magley). We shared the

same advisors—Louise Fitzgerald and Fritz Drasgow—and the

same subspecializations in women’s studies and quantitative

psychology. Until then, our primary research focus had been

sexual harassment in organizations.

The other two authors (Dana Kabat-Farr and Kerri Nelson) are

“second-generation incivility researchers,” training under Cortina

and Magley. We both began studying incivility in graduate school,

one (Kabat-Farr) in Personality and Social Contexts Psychology at

the University of Michigan and the other (Nelson) in Industrial/

Lilia M. Cortina, Departments of Psychology, Women’s Studies, and

Management and Organizations, University of Michigan; Dana Kabat-Farr,

Rowe School of Business, Dalhousie University; Vicki J. Magley and Kerri

Nelson, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lilia M.

Cortina, Departments of Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Management

and Organizations, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor,

MI 48109. E-mail: [email protected]

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2017, Vol. 22, No. 3, 299 –313 1076-8998/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000089

299

Organizational Psychology at the University of Connecticut. By

the time we entered the field, more than a decade had passed since

the publication of our advisors’ 2001 JOHP article, and workplace

incivility had flourished into a vibrant line of inquiry. We use an

interdisciplinary lens to study incivility, incorporating perspectives

from occupational health psychology, social/personality psychol-

ogy, and management science (one of us, Kabat-Farr, is now

Assistant Professor of Management at Dalhousie University in

Nova Scotia, Canada).

All authors on this article have found incivility to be an exciting

area of study, and we are delighted to tell you more. Let us begin

at the beginning.

What’s Gender Got to Do With It? Remembering

Years Past

The 2001 JOHP article began as a gender story in the mid-

1990s. It emerged from a unique partnership of psychologists and

legal professionals, who joined forces to conduct research com-

missioned by the Eighth Circuit Gender Fairness Task Force. This

was a 30-member task force, consisting of federal judges, court

employees, practicing attorneys, professors of law, and represen-

tatives from the offices of the United States Attorneys and Federal

Public Defenders. The Task Force defined its ultimate goals as

“understanding, identifying, isolating, and eliminating gender

bias” in the federal courts (Eighth Circuit Gender Fairness Task

Force, 1997, p. 11). To execute the necessary research, they

engaged a social science team: psychologist Louise F. Fitzgerald

and her lab, which included Cortina and Magley (then doctoral

students).

The main focus of the Fitzgerald Lab was sexual harassment in

organizations, so we suggested to the Task Force that this be their

main focus as well. The task force agreed that sexual harassment

was a problem in their work environment, but added that incivility

was just as problematic (and perhaps more prevalent). Though

incivility in the law had never received scientific scrutiny, it was

then a focus of many commentators in legal trade publications. For

instance, attorneys were described as “modern day gladiators”

(Corr & Madden, 1995, p. 9) and “barbarians of the bar” (Pierce,

1995, p. 60). Judges were perceived as too arrogant, impatient,

impolite, and preoccupied with case management to be civil (Han-

sen, 1991; Ring, 1992). Some critics argued that the notion of

“civil litigation” had become an oxymoron (e.g., Honeywell, 1994;

Wallis-Honchar, 1997).

Reports of incivility in the legal profession, however, were

entirely anecdotal. Was the rudeness really so rampant? To address

this question, we needed an instrument to measure the incidence of

incivility. No such instrument existed, so we created one. Informed

by focus groups and conversations with attorneys, judges, and

court employees, the social science team generated items that later

became the Workplace Incivility Scale (WIS; Cortina et al., 2001).

At that point, the team still conceptualized the project as one

primarily about sexual harassment, so we thought that if nothing

else, this new instrument could function as “filler items” in our

sexual harassment survey. The new items assessed experiences of

specific, uncivil acts from superiors and coworkers over the prior

5 years. (Side note: We fought for a 1- or 2-year time window, but

task force members insisted on 5 years. Some worried that one or

two years would not be sufficient to detect incivility, assuming it

to be rare in the venerable federal court context. We have received

countless questions over the years about why we chose such a long

time-frame for the original WIS. Our answer is simple: This choice

was not ours, and if anything, we resisted it.)

Armed with our new incivility (filler) items, we sent surveys to

all judges (N ⫽ 149) and all employees (N ⫽ 1,167) in the Eighth

Circuit court system, as well as 4,605 randomly sampled attorneys.

The court employee data became the basis of several JOHP

articles on workplace incivility (Cortina & Magley, 2003, 2009;

Cortina et al., 2001).

One might wonder whether the federal court

workplace is unique—perhaps a breeding ground for incivility—

given the American adversarial model of justice. That model,

however, applies to the trying of fact, not the typical organization

and functions of court personnel (e.g., managing court documents,

supporting IT systems, accounting). Work in this context is not as

unusual as it might seem at first glance.

Following the completion of the three surveys, we rolled up our

sleeves and dove into the data. Through a stroke of serendipity, we

discovered that our “filler items” were fascinating. First, they hung

together beautifully as a reliable and cohesive scale in all three

data sets. In the employee data, we also found evidence of validity

via convergence with a climate measure of fairness (Donovan,

Drasgow, and Munson’s, 1998, Perceptions of Fair Interpersonal

Treatment Scale). Second, we found that incivility was alarmingly

common in the federal courts: More than 60% of attorneys, 70% of

employees, and 74% of judges had encountered some kind of

uncivil conduct at work during the prior 5 years (Cortina et al.,

2001, 2002). One of the district court judges on the task force

(Honorable Carol E. Jackson) captured the findings eloquently:

When we looked at interactions among the lawyers and judges, we

discovered that both groups could benefit greatly from a Miss Man-

ners course. [Incivility] was experienced across the board as disturb-

ingly high...it’s hard to say how often this kind of behavior is

intentional, or, how often it results from what my grandmother used to

call “no home training.” (Eighth Circuit Gender Fairness Task Force,

1997,p.8)

Third, we learned that these everyday slights and indignities

mattered in individual work lives (Cortina et al., 2001, 2002). The

more frequently people encountered incivility on the job, the less

they liked that job (i.e., lower satisfaction with work, coworkers,

supervisors, promotion opportunities, and pay and benefits). Their

symptoms of psychological distress increased, and they described

more disengagement from work as well as thoughts and intentions

of quitting. Moreover, these findings were not an artifact of a

hectic work environment; even when controlling for general job

stress, the same relationships emerged. Seemingly small acts of

incivility, we learned, were just as corrosive to work and wellbeing

as overt harassment.

After finding that this conduct was a real stressor with real

consequences, we wondered what to call it. Legal professionals

termed it incivility in their trade literature, but we discovered that

European researchers had been investigating similar phenomena

for years at that point, under different names: aggression (a term

For results based on the attorney and judge surveys, see Cortina et al.

(2002) and Lonsway, Freeman, Cortina, Magley, and Fitzgerald (2002),

respectively.

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CORTINA, KABAT-FARR, MAGLEY, AND NELSON

used in the work of Kaj Björkqvist and colleagues), harassment

(Ståle Einarsen), bullying (Heinz Leymann), and sometimes mob-

bing (Dieter Zapf). In the first draft of the manuscript that ulti-

mately became the 2001 JOHP article, we dubbed this construct

psychological aggression, but reviewers took issue with this term.

Then, to our delight, Lynne Andersson and Chris Pearson pub-

lished their 1999 article in Academy of Management Review,

defining and theorizing this phenomenon in detail. Like our lawyer

friends, they called the conduct “incivility,” and ever since then so

have we.

The Work That Followed: 2001 Through 2016

The scientific study of workplace incivility is relatively

“young,” but it has come a long way in its short history. What has

this journey taught us? The review that follows is by no means

exhaustive; rather, we focus on major themes that emerged over

the past 15 years, starting with our 2001 JOHP article. Many

scholars have built on that work by delving further into the

incidence and impact of incivility, as well as factors that mediate

and moderate that impact. Although the literature has now grown

to encompass many related constructs, we confine our review to

articles specifically addressing “workplace incivility.” Notably, a

large majority of these studies utilized the Workplace Incivility

Scale (WIS; Cortina et al., 2001) or some adaptation of it (e.g.,

Blau & Andersson, 2005; Caza & Cortina, 2007; Cortina, Kabat-

Farr, Leskinen, Huerta, & Magley, 2013; Matthews & Ritter,

2016).

Incidence of Workplace Incivility: New Insights Into

Targets and Instigators

Targets. In our 2001 study, the great majority (⬎70%) of

employees reported having been subjected to incivility in the prior

5 years. Among those targets, nearly one third noted that they

encountered this rudeness anywhere from “sometimes” to “many

times” (Cortina et al., 2001). Since then, research has continued to

show that incivility is common, even ubiquitous in the contempo-

rary workforce. Over time it became clear that few workers escape

incivility, regardless of function, firm, or industry. Today this

might seem obvious, but 20 years ago it was not (recall the Eighth

Circuit Task Force members who insisted on a 5-year time window

for assessing uncivil experiences, believing that one or two years

could easily elapse with no incivility at all). Even after incidence

rates were well established, questions remained: Who tends to be

most targeted with incivility, under what conditions, and why?

Also in our 2001 article, we proposed that power (e.g., based on

gender or position) would play a role in experiences of incivility,

such that those with less social power are at higher risk for being

mistreated. Indeed, we found more women than men reporting

uncivil experiences, especially in male-dominated professions

such as the law (Cortina et al., 2002). Cortina (2008) continued this

focus on power when introducing the theory of selective incivility,

which posits that incivility can act as a covert, modern manifes-

tation of gender and racial discrimination (Cortina, 2008). Testing

this theory of “selective incivility,” Cortina and colleagues (2013)

found in multiple organizations that both gender and race (and

their interaction) do relate to risk for uncivil treatment. We elab-

orate on this work in the stigmatized identities subsection below.

Notably, research has also revealed that employees need not be

directly targeted with incivility to endure its effects: witnesses are

harmed as well. For example, people are less helpful, suffer

reduced task and creative performance, and display more dysfunc-

tional ideation when witnessing acts of incivility, though these

decrements are less pronounced when the witness is in competition

with the target (Porath & Erez, 2009). Further, witnesses are more

likely to experience negative emotions when the targeted coworker

is of the same gender (Miner & Eischeid, 2012), and they perceive

more harm when the target reacts in a negative way (Chui & Dietz,

2014). Beyond personal harm, observers seek justice for such

witnessed offenses; one experimental study found that witnesses

retaliated against incivility instigators in work-related ways by

giving them undesirable work tasks and providing negative work

evaluations (Reich & Hershcovis, 2015). It is important to note

that negative affect/emotionality functioned as a mediator in many

of these studies, helping explain the negative consequences of

these observational experiences.

Instigators. Since 2001, the literature has expanded to encom-

pass the perpetration of incivility. For example, research has found

that employees who are dissatisfied or exhausted with their jobs,

have faced distributive injustice (Blau & Andersson, 2005), or

have a dominant conflict management style (Trudel & Reio, 2011)

are more likely to act uncivilly toward colleagues. Others have

examined how individual differences and job-related factors inter-

act to predict incivility instigation (e.g., Taylor & Kluemper,

2012). For example, those with an obsessive passion for their work

appear more likely to perpetrate incivility, especially in organiza-

tional climates that emphasize mastery and learning (Birkeland &

Nerstad, 2016).

A recent body of research has examined incivility instigated by

not only coworkers and supervisors but also organizational “out-

siders,” answering a call of our original 2001 JOHP article to

expand beyond “insider” instigators. Customer incivility has re-

ceived the most attention in this respect (e.g., Arnold & Walsh,

2015; Kern & Grandey, 2009; Marchiondo, Cortina, Shannon,

Haines, Geldart, & Griffith, 2015; Sliter, Jex, Wolford, & McIn-

nerney, 2010; Sliter & Jones, 2016; van Jaarsveld, Walker, &

Skarlicki, 2010; Walker, van Jaarsveld, & Skarlicki, 2014; Wilson

& Holmvall, 2013). In fact, customer and coworker incivility can

interact to influence employees’ outcomes, suggesting that those

facing incivility on multiple fronts have fewer resources at their

disposal (Sliter, Sliter, & Jex, 2012). Additionally, family mem-

bers have been examined as external instigators of incivility,

whereby incivility experienced at home has negative consequences

in the workplace (e.g., Bai, Lin, & Wang, 2016; Lim & Tai, 2014).

Researchers have developed and validated scales to measure in-

stigated (Gray, Carter, & Sears, 2017) and experienced incivility

from customers (Wilson & Holmvall, 2013), paving the way for

future investigation on these topics.

In an effort to add clarity to the term perpetrator (and victim),

Hershcovis and Reich (2013) noted that workplace aggression can

be reciprocal. In fact, research has examined both individual and

organizational factors that turn targets into instigators, contributing

to a so-called “spiral” of incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999).

One study found that men were more likely to perpetrate incivility

when they worked in a context that tolerated rude, disrespectful

behavior (Gallus, Bunk, Matthews, Barnes-Farrell, & Magley,

2014). Employees are also more likely to enact incivility in re-

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SCIENCE OF INCIVILITY

sponse to experiencing incivility when working under passive

managers (Harold & Holtz, 2015). That said, Schilpzand, De Pater,

and Erez (2016) rightly noted that many of the theoretical tenets of

Andersson and Pearson’s “incivility spiral” have received little

empirical examination. Importantly, researchers have shown that

incivility instigation is not the only way in which employees

respond to incivility in the workplace, as discussed below.

Impact of Workplace Incivility: New Insights Into

When and Why

Over the past 15 years, research has consistently shown that

workplace incivility is related to negative outcomes for its targets.

The individual and organizational costs of this low-intensity be-

havior include work withdrawal (e.g., Pearson, Andersson, &

Wegner, 2001), job stress and psychological distress (e.g., Cortina

et al., 2001; Lim & Cortina, 2005), counterproductive work be-

haviors (CWBs) and lower job satisfaction (e.g., Penney & Spec-

tor, 2005), lower coworker and supervisor satisfaction (e.g., Martin

& Hine, 2005), incivility perpetration (e.g., Gallus et al., 2014; van

Jaarsveld et al., 2010), lower afterwork psychological detachment

and next-morning recovery (Nicholson & Griffin, 2015), reduced

creativity, task performance, and helpfulness (Porath & Erez,

2007), higher turnover intentions (e.g., Wilson & Holmvall, 2013),

lower marital satisfaction (Ferguson, 2012), depression, and higher

work-to-family conflict (Lim & Lee, 2011). In addition, studies

have shed light on factors that intervene in the impact of incivil-

ity—that is, mediators and moderators of the incivility-outcome

relationship. We organize this work into four categories: individual

differences, stigmatized identities, cognitive and emotional pro-

cesses, and job-related/situational factors.

Individual differences. The role of individual differences in

how employees perceive and cope with incivility has garnered

considerable attention. Beginning with perceptions, research has

shown that some people are more prone to perceiving and expe-

riencing incivility than others. For example, Bunk and Magley

(2011) suggested that certain individuals have a higher sensitivity

to interpersonal treatment, which translates into stronger reactions.

They developed and validated a scale measuring this individual

difference, opening the door for future research on mistreatment

perceptions. In a vignette study, Sliter, Withrow, and Jex (2015)

found that individuals who are higher in trait anger, conscientious-

ness, and surprisingly, positive affect are more likely to perceive

ambiguous behaviors as uncivil, whereas those higher in openness

are less likely to do so. Employees who are rated by their cowork-

ers as high in neuroticism and low in agreeableness also report

experiencing more incivility than others (Milam, Spitzmueller, &

Penney, 2009). Further, employees’ conflict management styles

may influence experiences, such that those with more dominating

styles are more likely to both encounter and engage in incivility

(Trudel & Reio, 2011).

Individual differences may also play a role in how employees

respond to uncivil behavior. For example, an external locus of

control, low emotional stability, or perceptions that others have

hostile intentions may make employees targeted with incivility

more likely to endure end-of-day negative affect (Zhou, Yan, Che,

& Meier, 2015). Employees high in neuroticism also appear more

likely to respond to a severe incivility incident by ignoring and/or

avoiding the perpetrator, whereas the opposite is true for those low

in neuroticism (Beattie & Griffin, 2014a). Further, Lim and Tai

(2014) found that employees experiencing family incivility were

more likely to suffer psychological distress when they had low

core self-evaluations; this distress, in turn, negatively affected job

performance. Ali, Ryan, Lyons, Ehrhart, and Wessel (2016) ex-

amined the moderating role of job seekers’ goal orientation on

their responses to incivility on the job market; they found greater

negative effects on job search self-efficacy and behavior when job

seekers had low “avoid-performance orientation” (that is, a low

tendency to avoid situations in which failure is a possibility). To

explain this pattern, they posited that individuals who are low in

performance-avoidant goal orientations may lack strategies to buf-

fer the effects of rejection.

Individual differences may also influence response strategies

that directly affect the organization. Using weekly experience

sampling, Taylor, Bedeian, Cole, and Zhang (2014) found that

changes in incivility frequency linked with changes in burnout and

turnover intentions, tentatively showing that these effects may be

stronger for those higher in conscientiousness. Narcissism may

also play a role, such that narcissistic individuals are more likely

to disengage and perform poorly when experiencing uncivil treat-

ment at work; a possible reason is that incivility thwarts opportu-

nities for narcissists to self-enhance (Chen et al., 2013). Using an

event-level perspective, Walker et al. (2014) found that employees

were more likely to respond to customer incivility by being uncivil

themselves when they perceived most of their interactions to be

civil. Employees may react to incivility with interpersonal devi-

ance when they believe that mistreatment should be reciprocated

and when they attribute hostile intentions to others (Wu, Zhang,

Chiu, Kwan, & He, 2014).

Stigmatized identities. Following the introduction of the the-

ory of selective incivility (Cortina, 2008), research has considered

how stigmatized identities affect workplace incivility experiences

and outcomes. In a test of the theory, Cortina et al. (2013) found

that women, people of color, and particularly African American

women reported more uncivil treatment than other groups, and

these experiences were associated with higher turnover intentions.

In a sample of conference attendees, Settles and O’Connor (2014)

also found that women (compared with men) described more

incivility at conferences. Further, although Kern and Grandey

(2009)

reported no differences in uncivil customer conduct toward

racial minority (primarily African American) versus White retail

employees, they did find that minority employees suffered more

stress from those experiences when they strongly identified with

their racial group. In contrast to these studies, Welbourne, Gan-

gadharan, and Sariol (2015) found Hispanic women describing less

incivility than either Non-Hispanic White women or Hispanic

men. Moreover, Hispanic employees demonstrated more resilience

toward negative outcomes.

Other researchers have considered the roles of factors such as

weight and motherhood status in incivility experiences. Sliter, Sliter,

Withrow, and Jex (2012) found that individuals meeting criteria for

being overweight or obese reported higher levels of incivility, and this

effect was moderated by race and gender. Additionally, in a study

conducted by Miner, Pesonen, Smittick, Seigel, and Clark (2014),

incivility experiences were more frequent for mothers of three chil-

dren compared with those with fewer children or none at all. Moth-

erhood, however, also served a buffering or protective role against

negative outcomes. Further, Porath, Overbeck, and Pearson (2008)

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CORTINA, KABAT-FARR, MAGLEY, AND NELSON

reported that employees’ coping strategies differed according to both

gender and status. Specifically, male targets, and those of higher

status, were more likely to respond aggressively to incivility, espe-

cially when the instigator was of equal status. In contrast, low-status

and female targets were more likely to distance themselves or avoid

the instigator.

Cognitive and emotional mechanisms. Other studies have

explored how incivility takes a toll by way of cognitive and emotional

processes. For example, research has concluded that incivility impairs

task performance and engagement by disrupting cognitive processes

(e.g., memory; Porath & Erez, 2007) or depleting mental, emotional,

and social energy (Giumetti, Hatfield, Scisco, Schroeder, Muth, &

Kowalski, 2013). Kabat-Farr, Cortina, and Marchiondo (2016) found

negative affect and guilt in response to incivility linking to decreased

empowerment and self-esteem as well as increased withdrawal; emo-

tional reactions were especially pronounced for the most committed

employees. Emotional processes may also help connect workplace

incivility to nonwork outcomes. One study found that workplace

incivility fueled hostile emotions, especially for those higher in trait

hostility; these emotions, in turn, predicted angry and withdrawn

behavior at home (Lim, Ilies, Koopman, Christoforou, & Arvey,

2016).

Further, these processes may work together to predict employees’

coping strategies, like support seeking, conflict avoidance, aggression,

assertion, and absenteeism (Cortina & Magley, 2009; Porath & Pear-

son, 2012). In a sample of university students, Caza and Cortina

(2007) found that incivility experiences related positively to percep-

tions of injustice and social ostracism, which in turn predicted lower

institutional satisfaction and higher psychological distress. Research

has also examined emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and job

demands as mechanisms influencing relationships among customer

incivility, employee-perpetrated incivility, and customer service qual-

ity (Sliter et al., 2010; van Jaarsveld et al., 2010). Negative emotions

and optimism may also mediate links between incivility and such job

outcomes as job satisfaction, work effort, and CWBs (Bunk &

Magley, 2013; Sakurai & Jex, 2012).

Third parties can also influence—and be influenced by— cognitive

and emotional responses to incivility. Schilpzand, Leavitt, and Lim

(2016) found a buffering effect, whereby targets who perceived they

were not alone in their experiences (i.e., witnessed a team member

being treated uncivilly) had lower appraisals of self-blame and, in

turn, less stress, rumination, and withdrawal. Foulk, Woolum, and

Erez (2016) suggest that incivility may be “contagious” by activating

concepts related to rudeness in the target’s mind and carrying over

into subsequent encounters with others.

Job-related and situational factors. Moving beyond the in-

dividual, research has demonstrated that both job-related and sit-

uational factors may exacerbate the negative effects of incivility.

For example, Welbourne and Sariol (2017) found that employees

with high job involvement were more likely to respond to incivility

by engaging in CWBs. They also reported that female targets with

jobs requiring higher task interdependence were more likely to

engage in CWBs, but the opposite was true for male targets.

Further, Sliter and Jones (2016) found that both physical aspects of

the work environment (e.g., disorganization, cleanliness) and qual-

ities of the employees themselves (e.g., unprofessional interaction,

neuroticism) play roles in incivility instigated by customers. Cam-

eron and Webster (2011) also examined incivility as a potential

consequence of “multicommunicating” (e.g., juggling more than

one conversation simultaneously) at work.

In contrast, both professional and personal resources can buffer

the negative effects of incivility. For example, Walsh and col-

leagues (2012) found that employees who perceive their work-

group as having a civil climate report fewer incivility experiences.

Further, transformational leadership (Arnold & Walsh, 2015)as

well as social/emotional support at work (Beattie & Griffin, 2014b;

Miner, Settles, Pratt-Hyatt, & Brady, 2012) and home (Lim & Lee,

2011) can attenuate negative outcomes of incivility. Job control

and psychological detachment can also reduce the impact of daily

e-mail incivility on end-of-workday distress and (subsequently)

next-morning distress (Park, Fritz, & Jex, 2015). However, inci-

vility can also undermine professional resources; Miner-Rubino

and Reed (2010) found that workgroup incivility predicted turn-

over intentions, burnout, and lower job satisfaction indirectly, via

decreases in organizational trust.

Notably, incivility can have effects at both the workgroup and

organizational levels. Lim, Cortina, and Magley (2008) found that

workgroup-level incivility predicted turnover intentions and health

impairments beyond individual experiences of incivility, and this

was mediated by (declines in) mental health and job satisfaction.

Further, Griffin (2010) found that organization-level incivility

explained additional variance in intentions to stay after accounting

for individual experiences.

In summary, the last 15 years have witnessed great strides in our

understanding of the incidence and impact of workplace incivility.

However, it is important to acknowledge that the majority of this

research on incivility’s impact has been based on cross-sectional,

correlational designs. Consistent with theoretical assumptions un-

dergirding this literature (e.g., stressors trigger strains, incivility

saps resources), we have used implicitly causal and temporal

language throughout this section (e.g., “impact”) with the caveat

that causal and temporal conclusions must remain tentative until

confirmed using other research designs. Recent work has started

filling these gaps, including workplace incivility experiments (e.g.,

Foulk et al., 2016; Giumetti et al., 2013; Hershcovis & Reich,

2013; Porath & Erez, 2007, 2009; Reich & Hershcovis, 2015;

Schilpzand et al., 2016) and daily diary survey designs (e.g.,

Beattie & Griffin, 2014a, 2014b; Nicholson & Griffin, 2015; Park

et al., 2015; Zhou et al., 2015). For example, studies utilizing diary

designs have provided tentative support for the conclusion that a

small number of incidents, even over a small timeframe, have

measurable consequences for employees such as reduced next-day

recovery and well-being. Further, Park et al. (2015) speculate that

findings from daily diary studies may be an “early warning sign”

of more serious outcomes to come. We eagerly anticipate further

advances in the literature, using these designs and others, to

continue deepening our understanding of the incidence and impact

of workplace incivility.

The preceding sections look back and synthesize the scholarly

record to date. We now shift to looking forward to the future of

incivility science. Many questions remain unanswered and many

methods unexplored; the next sections highlight topics that seem

especially ripe for further inquiry. We also note potential areas of

concern that call for caution (and, in some cases, course correc-

tion).

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SCIENCE OF INCIVILITY

Uncharted Waters: Promising Pathways for

Incivility Science

Beyond the dyad. Incivility research to date has largely taken

an individual target/instigator approach, conceptualizing one indi-

vidual for each role. Problematizing this perspective (Fox & Spec-

tor, 2005; Hershcovis & Reich, 2013), scholars have argued that

roles should be viewed as fluid, wherein an individual might be

targeted with incivility at one point, instigate incivility at another,

and later become a target once more. Recent work is starting to

push the discussion past the dyad, referring to the process of

incivility spreading like a contagious disease (Foulk et al., 2016).

The dyadic approach also limits our ability to understand how

incivility functions amid a network of actors. A network perspec-

tive could open up new and important empirical questions. In

particular, it may help us track which individuals within a network

are “senders” of rude behavior (behaving badly toward others),

“receivers” (on the receiving end), or reciprocators (exchanging

similar acts of insult; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006). Social

network analysis would also expand the ways in which we con-

ceptualize and operationalize some familiar concepts, such as

power. We could study the role of formal organizational power,

centrality (the degree of importance of an individual in a network),

and social power (see Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998),

as well as their intersections with various identities (e.g., race,

gender, and class). For example, we could consider the intersec-

tions of experience as determined by multiple positions of power

(or lack thereof): a female manager’s encounter with incivility

when she has a low degree of centrality in her network versus a

male’s experience in a similar organizational position with high

centrality.

Network analysis also enables group-level examination, allow-

ing us to consider the role of cliques and subgroups in facilitating

or inhibiting incivility. Cohesive subgroups of individuals may be

more likely to view others in the network as members of an

outgroup and use incivility to demarcate group boundaries. Groups

may be formed on the basis of shared social identity, similar

organizational status, or common views on organizational politics.

These groups may or may not be readily apparent to organizational

members, much less researchers, but might come to light through

social network analysis. It may be, for example, that rampant

incivility among restaurant employees is best understood through

a lens of group dynamics between front-house and back-of-house

employees.

Further, network analyses could enable studies of incivility at

the organization level, in order to detect how organizational con-

text affects incivility. The literature to date draws on samples from

a variety of industries, but does little to reconcile the various

organizational norms and structures in which participants are em-

bedded. A meso-level approach is necessary to compare and con-

trast the incivility phenomenon in relation to these norms and

cultures.

Network analysis has the potential to both answer new questions

as well as more thoroughly test existing ideas in the literature. For

example, network analysis can help tease apart issues of incidence

(at both the individual and group level) and impact. A method-

ological limitation of behavioral scales such as the WIS (Cortina et

al., 2001) is that they do not distinguish between reports of a few

behaviors many times versus many behaviors a few times. Social

network analysis allows measurement of number and frequency of

incivility experiences, enabling a finer-grained calculation of in-

civility and its effects over time for a particular target, including

comparisons of incidence-impact relationships for different indi-

viduals within the network. With this method, we may uncover

information as to when infrequent exposure to incivility matters

and whether there exists a threshold effect: an amount of incivility

after which deleterious outcomes emerge for the target or others in

the network. Further, a longitudinal network analysis would more

fully test the idea of incivility functioning as a contagion, increas-

ing exposure of incivility across people and time. Finally, social

network analysis could also enable a test of the tit-for-tat theory of

incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999), examining the process

through which targets may or may not reciprocate uncivil actions.

Incivility researchers interested in conducting social network stud-

ies should look to related mistreatment literatures for guidance,

including school bullying (e.g., Huitsing, Snijders, Van Duijn, &

Veenstra, 2014), ostracism (e.g., Yang & Treadway, 2016), and

cyberaggression (Wegge, Vandebosch, Eggermont, & Walrave,

2015).

Beyond the spiral. Andersson and Pearson (1999) offered the

metaphor of a “spiral” to conceptualize a tit-for-tat progression of

uncivil events on the job. As we summarized in our 2001 JOHP

article, their theory proposes that

incivility can represent the beginning of an upward spiral of negative

organizational events, eventually escalating to coercive and violent

employee behavior. [Andersson and Pearson] suggest that the accu-

mulation of a series of low-level, aggravating encounters leads to a

“tipping point,” when the last minor injustice triggers intense, retal-

iatory aggression....Thus, relatively minor forms of interpersonal

mistreatment can, over time, precipitate major organizational conflict.

(Cortina et al., 2001,p.65)

According to this reasoning, incivility begets incivility, aggres-

sion, and violence. Pointing to research in criminology, Andersson

and Pearson (1999, p. 458) give the example that, “one person

mocks another; the second responds with an obscene insult. The

first shoves; the second hits. And the conflict escalates until one

person is seriously wounded.”

Andersson and Pearson (1999) proposed the incivility spiral as

a possible chain of events, but we know from empirical research

that it is not a common one. Physical violence, after all, is rare in

organizations (Schat, Frone, & Kelloway, 2006). To their credit,

Andersson and Pearson (1999) acknowledged that the spiraling of

incivility into an “exchange of coercive actions” is “relatively

infrequent” (p. 462), observing that there are points when any of

the parties involved can depart from the uncivil exchange. For

example, targets can ignore the behavior, reinterpret it as benign or

unintentional, or walk away. They can also recognize the rudeness

for what it is, but take no action in response. Or instigators can

apologize, prompting forgiveness from the target. In these scenar-

ios, the disrespect never “spirals” into aggression, violence, or

anything of the sort. Andersson and Pearson (1999) wrote explic-

itly about these points of departure from the incivility spiral, and

this was clear in their graphical depiction of a sample spiral

(Figure 3 in Andersson & Pearson, 1999, p. 460). However,

subsequent research has all but ignored the notion of departure

points. As of this writing, a Google Scholar search of the terms

workplace incivility and departure points returns all of three pub-

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304

CORTINA, KABAT-FARR, MAGLEY, AND NELSON

lications (one of which we authored: Kabat-Farr et al., 2016). In

contrast, when we replace departure points with spiral, we find

more than 500 scholarly works.

We recommend that researchers take seriously the notion of

departure points and forge new insights into the incivility-response

cycle. If spirals into coercive aggression and violence are rare,

what are some more typical behavioral reactions to incivility on

the job? How do people commonly respond to rudeness within

their work relationships, and how can we make sense of those

reactions? These questions require new theory and new interdis-

ciplinary thinking. In short, we suggest that the metaphor of the

incivility spiral may have run its course. It has been useful in

capturing the rare incident of incivility that escalates into violence,

drawing theoretical and practical attention to this topic. Let us now

build on that foundational work with new propositions, new con-

cepts, and new results pertaining to incivility in the workplace.

Beyond the critical incident. Like other areas of organiza-

tional science, workplace incivility research is grappling with the

question, “What is the appropriate temporal lens for this topic?” As

noted earlier, the WIS asks respondents to provide retrospective

accounts of the frequency of their experiences, looking back over

the past 5 years (original 7-item WIS; Cortina et al., 2001)orone

year (newer 12-item version; Cortina et al., 2013). Many studies

follow these general accounts with a series of detailed questions

about a critical incident (e.g., asking about its duration, perpetra-

tors, appraisal, coping; Bunk & Magley, 2013; Cortina & Magley,

2009). More recently, some researchers have moved beyond this

critical incident approach and collected true longitudinal incivility

data—via either event-contingent sampling or interval-contingent

sampling (cf., Meier & Gross, 2015; Rosen, Koopman, Gabriel, &

Johnson, 2016; see Cole, Shipp, & Taylor, 2016 for a summary).

We applaud these efforts, as conducting such research, quite

simply, is difficult. However, it is time (so to speak) to contem-

plate the value of different temporal approaches to the science of

incivility.

To begin, the typical retrospective recall approach to assessing

incivility does allow researchers to capture broad-stroke connec-

tions between experiences and outcomes. In other words, such

studies are the basis for understanding that experiences of incivil-

ity carry both professional and personal costs, as already reviewed.

The importance of this research should not be ignored: before its

accumulation, the idea that such seemingly small, low-level, am-

biguous behaviors could really affect workers was dismissed as

absurd. Also, retrospective accounts allow for incidence and prev-

alence estimates. Although varying temporal “lookback” periods

make it difficult to compare such estimates directly, it would be

even more difficult to generalize incidence estimates from event-

based or daily diary accounts of such experiences.

Longitudinal methods are important in isolating causal and

dynamic relationships. As Cole and colleagues conclude, “the

adoption of a purely static or ‘snapshot’ approach toward inter-

personal mistreatment masks considerable and meaningful fluctu-

ations in the experience of, responses to, and consequences of such

behavior” (2016). Further, they offer insightful guidance—not

repeated here for lack of space—in the construction of such

longitudinal studies.

Although we look forward to continued longitudinal contribu-

tions to this literature, we also want to balance our enthusiasm with

three considerations. First, virtually all of the recent prospective

incivility research involves interval-contingent sampling (Beal &

Weiss, 2003). That is, it is still retrospective; the retrospective time

period is simply shortened from (usually) one year to one day/

week/month with repeated measurements the next day/week/

month. How frequently and over what duration this assessment

occurs strike us as blind endeavors, likely as driven by construct

demands as they are by financial limitations and/or student-

progress realities. One challenge to the literature, given these

varied temporal frames, is that it is quite difficult to make direct

comparisons across studies. As Ford and colleagues (2014) dem-

onstrate, time lags do affect the strength of associations between

stressors and strains. We suggest that article abstracts include all

temporal details of study designs, not only to be very explicit

up-front, but also to facilitate comparisons as studies accumulate.

Additionally, we recommend that researchers take care to provide

ample descriptive information about the frequency of incivility

detected in such longitudinal studies, again to facilitate compari-

sons.

Second, we submit that the sheer nature of incivility—with its

ambiguity and low-level nature—may well make longer time

frames more appropriate than shorter ones. Interpersonal ex-

changes are not always, immediately— or within even a day or

so—recognizable as involving a behavior problematic enough to

note on a survey. Considerations of the context, the people in-

volved and how they typically behave, and the behavior in ques-

tion may require time to process; likewise, understanding of the

situation as rude or inappropriate could also take time. Of course,

some experiences are obvious, but many are not (by definition,

incivility is ambiguous). It remains an empirical question what

factors influence rapid identification.

Finally, we must always keep in mind that longitudinal studies

often necessitate truncated measurement. Rather than respond to a

comprehensive list of behaviors in the repeated surveys, partici-

pants may be asked to respond to an abbreviated scale or single

item, again requiring rapid interpretation. As behavioral detail gets

lost, so does precision. It is important that we weigh the benefits of

repeated measurement against the costs of truncated measurement.

Clearly, more research is needed to understand incivility through a

temporal lens. Until then, we caution against the assumption that

longitudinal methods are always best for answering the increas-

ingly complex questions arising in this area.

Beyond the negative. Research has concluded that incivility

is both common and costly to organizations, with costs including

lost revenue (Porath & Pearson, 2013). The vast number of schol-

arly articles on the topic have included an equally vast number of

“practical implications” sections. However, few ideas about prac-

tical interventions have been put to an empirical test. What should

organizations do to stem the tide of incivility or curb its insidious

spread?

To combat incivility, scientists and practitioners have developed

civility interventions, many with great success. Cisco Systems,

Inc., was one of the first corporations to introduce a civility

promotion training program (Pearson & Porath, 2009). Through

workshops, case studies, coaching, and video presentations, em-

ployees and managers learn to both recognize and address incivil-

ity. Cisco’s culture of mutual respect complements these formal

training activities. In the public sphere, the National Institute for

Civil Discourse promotes healthy, civil political debate in the

United States, linking incivility research to public practice. Addi-

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305

SCIENCE OF INCIVILITY

tionally, organizational scholars (Spence Laschinger, Leiter, Day,

Gilin-Oore, & Laschinger, 2012) have documented the success of

the Civility, Respect, and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW)

intervention, finding workgroups that implement the 6-month pro-

gram to have lower supervisor incivility, higher civility percep-

tions, and more positive job attitudes (e.g., commitment, self-

efficacy) one year later.

Examining these successful civility interventions may help us

understand the mechanisms of harm in an uncivil workplace. For

example, CREW, which aims to both reduce incivility and pro-

mote civility, includes weekly or biweekly meetings with a trained

facilitator to set goals and promote positive teamwork (Spence

Laschinger et al., 2012). At the center of these meetings is the

formation of respectful and trusting relationships among members

(Spence Laschinger et al., 2012), pointing to the importance of

shared positive workgroup norms. The success of this relational

approach to fostering civility also suggests that notions of reci-

procity and positive emotional contagion may be at play (Leiter,

Day, Oore, & Spence Laschinger, 2012). Another civility inter-

vention, the Civility Among Healthcare Professionals project, fo-

cuses on themes of community, engagement, and empowerment in

efforts to enhance the quality of the social environment at work

(Graham, Zweber, & Magley, 2013; Walsh & Magley, 2013). A

much shorter term intervention than CREW, these train-the-trainer

2-hr sessions are conducted in small groups and can foster imme-

diate changes in knowledge and attitudes surrounding workplace

civility (Graham et al., 2013; Walsh & Magley, 2013). These

intervention examples focus on civil behaviors and discourse, but

what is civility?

The science of workplace civility is just beginning to take off. In

their 1999 article, Andersson and Pearson conceptualized civility

as a manner of conveying respect, cooperation, and moral stan-

dard; they noted that business has been often a place where civility

is manifested as “formality yet friendliness, distance yet polite-

ness” (p. 453). Other scholars define civil behavior as treating

others with dignity, respecting others’ feelings, and upholding

social norms for mutual respect (Carter, 1998; Johnson, 1988).

More recently, Porath, Gerbasi, and Schorch (2015) conceptual-

ized civility as being treated with respect, dignity, politeness, and

pleasantness. Workplace civility includes behaviors that do not

necessarily warrant public documentation or notice (Van Dyne,

Cummings, & McLean Parks, 1995).

We contend that civility lies on a 2-dimensional spectrum of

interpersonal organizational behavior, as illustrated in Figure 1.

One dimension captures impact on performance, from enhancing

to degrading. The second dimension entails a range from low

intensity/high ambiguity to high intensity/low ambiguity. Crossing

these two dimensions, we find four quadrants of interpersonal

organizational behavior. Civil conduct falls into the performance-

enhancing, low-intensity, high-ambiguity quadrant.

Civil behaviors, similar to incivility, are low-level and ambig-

uous in their intent (see Figure 1). Individuals who engage in

civility do so because it is “the right thing to do” (Andersson &

Pearson, 1999), with no intention to benefit the target or organi-

zation (Pearson et al., 2001). From the target or observer’s per-

spective, civil behaviors may not be overt in their positive intent.

They may not even be particularly memorable. Someone held the

elevator for you, listened to your contributions during a meeting,

said “thank you” at the end of their email: none of these actions are

extraordinary. Civility involves respectful, polite behaviors that

most of us would desire in our working environment.

Burgeoning research on civility in organizations shows promise:

civil individuals benefit from their positive actions. Porath et al.

(2015) found that individuals who perceive a colleague to be civil

are more likely to ask him/her for work advice and to perceive

her/him as a leader. Greater perceptions of civility by one’s net-

work are associated with improved performance on account of

perceptions of warmth and competence. In other words civility,

though subtle, can be performance-enhancing. Its impact on per-

formance may be smaller than more extraordinary acts of inter-

Performance

enhancing Performance

degrading

Civility

Courtesy

Incivility

nciv

Microaggressions

Low intensity/High ambiguity High intensity/Low ambiguity

Interpersonal

cizenship behavior

son



enship

Social support

ocia

sup

Helping

Hel

Posive

deviance

Aggression

sion

Bullying

Bul

ying

Harassment

assme

Ostracism

Figure 1. Two-dimensional spectrum of interpersonal organizational behavior.

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306

CORTINA, KABAT-FARR, MAGLEY, AND NELSON

personal citizenship (Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2017); we suggest this

possibility in Figure 1—with civility positioned closer to neutral

on the performance dimension, compared with more extraordinary

positive behaviors— but this proposition requires empirical test-

ing.

Civility has also been conceptualized at the organizational and

team levels as “workgroup norms for civility” (Walsh, Magley,

Reeves, Davies-Schrils, Marmet, & Gallus, 2012), and early re-

search indicates that it can improve safety climate, reduce work-

place injuries (McGonagle, Walsh, Kath, & Morrow, 2014), and

reduce interpersonal deviance in the face of organizational con-

straints (Clark & Walsh, 2016). This emerging research, it is

interesting to note, focuses on norms of interpersonal treatment,

which is one area that the incivility field is relatively silent on

(despite norm violation being a key distinguishing factor of inci-

vility as defined by Andersson & Pearson, 1999). As this schol-

arship moves forward, it will be important to test the “antidote”

ability of a civility climate, especially in organizations that have

established and pungent incivility norms.

Civility is associated with certain positive outcomes, but should

it be the ultimate goal? Or should organizations strive for more? A

civil climate serves as the foundation to positive relationships and

empathy at work (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2000). We en-

courage research that builds on civil foundations to branch farther

into the positive realm, fostering behaviors such as interpersonal

citizenship characterized as positive “above and beyond” helping,

cooperation, consideration (Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2017; Settoon

& Mossholder, 2002).

The spectrum of workplace behaviors detailed in Figure 1

conceptualizes conduct at an individual level. However, (in)civil-

ity interventions generally focus on the group level, in which there

may be both good and bad actors. To combat incivility, we suggest

focusing on positive workplace actions, but we caution that it takes

many more positive behaviors to overcome the negative (Baumeis-

ter, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). Because of this,

efforts to eliminate rudeness should be in place as well as efforts

to encourage the positive. At the same time, we also should be

cognizant of the implications and complexities of encouraging

positive behavior. Research by Eagly (2009) details gender differ-

ences in pro-social behavior, both in the performance of and

stereotypes about such actions. Women tend to be more relational

(establishing close personal, dyadic relationships), whereas men

tend to enact prosocial behaviors that aid the organization or group

(Eagly, 2009). Both forms of pro-social behavior should be en-

couraged and rewarded, keeping in mind what we know about

gender and helping behavior: helping behavior may be seen as

“in-role” for women (consistent with gender stereotypes of women

and communal) and “extra-role” for men, resulting in these be-

haviors being less noticed and less rewarded for women (Allen &

Rush, 2001; Caleo, 2016; Lovell et al., 1999). At the same time,

when men do help, their behaviors may be attributed to self-

serving motivations, resulting in devaluation (Farrell & Finkel-

stein, 2007). However, there is also research to suggest that men’s

altruistic helping behaviors on work tasks are rewarded through

positive evaluations and recommendations, whereas women’s are

not (Heilman & Chen, 2005). Although we want to spur helping

behaviors, we must be mindful of how these behaviors intersect

with social norms and identities.

In sum, civility may be a springboard for more intense positive

actions. Research has demonstrated the benefits of such acts for

those who engage in them (i.e., focusing on the actor). We en-

courage researchers to delve also into the receiving end of inter-

personal citizenship behaviors; such an approach could enable us

to document how positive behaviors function as social resources

for employees. Early research in this area suggests promising

effects of being targeted with interpersonal citizenship behavior,

including increased job satisfaction (Regts & Molleman, 2013),

thriving, empowerment, and performance of organizational citi-

zenship (Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2017). This evidence indicates that

organizations may be able to foster gains through the building of

social resources via positive interactions (e.g., Hakanen, Perhoni-

emi, & Toppinen-Tanner, 2008).

Troubled Waters: Proceed With Caution

The dark side of civility. The preceding section frames civil-

ity in a positive light, but not all scholars share this sunny view of

civility in organizations. If we look beyond the confines of our

discipline (psychology), we find thought leaders in other fields

expressing alarm about civility interventions. Intriguing questions

emerge: does civility have a dark side? Where might we find

problems in this work and how can we correct them? Is it possible

to reconcile the pro- and anti-civility perspectives?

These questions came to a head in August 2014, when the firing

(or “un-hiring”) of Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois at

Urbana–Champaign ignited heated debate nationwide about inci-

vility in (academic) employment. Top university executives issued

calls for civility and respect. For example, in his September 2014

inaugural address, University of Michigan President Mark Schlis-

sel expressed aspirations for “Michigan to be known as a place

where mutual respect does not require agreement, where differ-

ences of perspective are treated with sensitivity, and where we all

become advocates for, and experts in, civil discourse.” That same

month, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks messaged his

campus that: “We can only exercise our right to free speech insofar

as we feel safe and respected in doing so, and this in turn requires

that people treat each other with civility” (see Flaherty, 2014).

According to these and other leaders, civility is a prerequisite for

the free and open exchange of ideas—it is vital for a strong

academy. However, other scholars are condemning such calls for

civility as regressive tools of censorship.

According to some academics—often in the humanities—civil-

ity has a dark underbelly that works against free and critical speech

(e.g., Flaherty, 2014). For instance, UCLA history professor Mi-

chael Meranze (2014) maintains that “the repetitive invocation of

‘civil’ and ‘civility’ to set limits to acceptable speech bespeaks a

broader and deeper challenge to intellectual freedom.” These cri-

tiques are often referring to attempts by those at the top to silence

dissident voices below them, in the name of civility. In this sense,

the discourse of “civility” structures and is structured by power.

According to historian Joan Scott (2015), “the notion of civility

consistently establishes relations of power whenever it is invoked.

Moreover, it is always the powerful who determine its meaning—

one that, whatever its specific content, demeans and delegitimizes

those who do not meet its test.” In other words, people in power

can define what constitutes civility and incivility, and then relegate

their critics to the dust-heap of the latter. Echoing similar senti-

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SCIENCE OF INCIVILITY

ments, media studies scholar Andrew Calabrese (2015, p. 540)

shows how civility can be “wielded as a weapon to limit, silence

or otherwise control the free expression of the weak.” Once

branded as uncivil, one loses credibility and rationality in the eyes

of others, and one’s critical ideas lose purchase (Scott, 2015).

These scholars caution that dangerous agendas hide behind appeals

to civility, especially when those appeals come from above.

We should add that these problems are not confined to aca-

demia: across a variety of industries, calls for civility can have the

effect of suppressing unpopular speech or minority opinions. One

can imagine a corporate board meeting in which members with

different ideas about strategic planning acquiesce to the views of

those in power, scared of being accused of rudeness should they

oppose the dominant majority or challenge the status quo. In this

way, civility mandates can make employees feel unsafe to speak

up and express divergent perspectives. This self-silencing can be

bad for people and bad for organizations, stifling innovation and

diversity of thought.

The “perils of civility” argument stands in contrast to the theory

of selective incivility (Cortina, 2008; see also Cortina et al., 2013;

Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2012). This perspective views incivility as

an instrument of oppression, used to ostracize women, people of

color, and other undervalued minorities from organizational life

(Cortina, 2008). Note that an analysis of power also figures prom-

inently in this work: unequal distributions of power pervade our

society, and “asymmetrical power combined with prejudice sets

the stage” for selective incivility on the job (Cortina, 2008, p. 62).

Moreover, experts in workplace mistreatment (not only incivility

but also harassment, bullying, abusive supervision, and the like)

often advocate civility and respect as progressive goals to strive

for— essential components of a healthy, hostility-free work envi-

ronment (e.g., Feldblum & Lipnic, 2016; Leiter, Laschinger, Day,

& Oore, 2011; Yamada, 2010). Civil and respectful conduct can-

not, by definition, be hostile conduct.

In our view, there is merit in both the anti- and pro-civility

standpoints. Rather than being incompatible, perhaps they are

confronting different realities. The humanists stress that their aims

are not to “claim that all appeals to civility are inherently fraud-

ulent and valueless” (Calabrese, 2015, p. 550) or encourage “the

warfare of the uncivil” (Scott, 2015). Instead they urge critical

analysis of (in)civility, especially through a lens of power; we

could not agree more. Two important questions emerge from this

work: (1) who is invoking civility, and (2) why?

Scott, Calabrese, Meranze, and others protest calls for civility

issued by the powerful (answering the “who” question) to control,

discipline, and silence dissident minorities (the “why” question).

In contrast, occupational health psychologists promote calls for

civility issued by stakeholders at all levels (including but not

limited to leadership) for the purpose of protecting workforce

health and wellbeing; the objective is to create dignified working

conditions for all persons, especially those in the minority (Cor-

tina, 2008; Cortina et al., 2013; Kabat-Farr & Cortina, 2012).

These are different sets of actors, pursuing different goals. One

could easily agree with both viewpoints, so perhaps they are not so

irreconcilable after all.

The diverging perspectives on civility point to interesting but

thorny questions: Is one employee’s right to free (but potentially

harassing or hateful) speech in conflict with another’s right to

respect at work? In the specific context of higher education, should

we defend faculty sexism, racism, or homophobia in the name of

academic freedom? Should we use “civility” as a criterion in

selection and promotion decisions; if so, how should we go about

doing that, and how can we make certain that civility goals do not

act as cover for prejudice? In short, this controversy reveals a

potential dark side to civility: when used to suppress voice, criti-

cism, or anger over social ills. It also exposes a bright side to some

incivility: when used to protest social injustice, sometimes loudly

and angrily. Both possibilities, we suggest, deserve attention. The

challenge here is that “once we destabilize the binary of good–

civility versus bad–incivility, we must contend with a much more

elusive set of demons” (Calabrese, 2015, p. 541). This takes us into

new territory, marked with both promise and peril. Proceed with

caution.

To help incivility researchers make sense of this difficult terrain,

we urge scholars to bridge their disciplinary divides. Many hu-

manists, alarmed about the dark side of civility, seem unaware of

the volumes of organizational research on this topic. Likewise,

many organizational scientists know nothing about the critical

discussions of civility impinging on academic freedom that are

cropping up in the humanities. We recommend more interdisci-

plinary conversations and collaborations in this domain. Partner-

ships across social science disciplines, and between social scien-

tists and humanists, could yield innovative insights into problems

of (in)civility in organizations. Additionally, we advocate that such

discussions not exclude another oftentimes ignored stakeholder in

academia— university staff. Akin to the court employees in our

2001 JOHP article, their work environment is also entrenched in

the cultural norms of the academy.

The trouble with siloes. The workplace mistreatment litera-

ture is now bursting with an array of different constructs. At first

glance, this may seem a positive development, signaling a surge of

interest in these topics. The research is becoming segmented into

siloes, however, as each scholar works narrowly on her/his favorite

construct. We urge researchers to resist this trend. Instead, it is

important that we read widely across diverse literatures, diverse

disciplines, and diverse forms of interpersonal mistreatment. This

can help open up new avenues of inquiry and avoid reinventing old

ones. To illustrate, we offer examples of three related literatures

(on cyberbullying, ostracism, and sexual harassment) that could

inform the science of incivility moving forward.

Bullying, and in particular cyberbullying (bullying carried out

using mobile phones or the Internet; e.g.,

Smith et al., 2008), lives

in a distinct literature from incivility; however, we see great

potential to inform the science of incivility. For example, incivility

research to date has been centered on face-to-face interactions (for

important exceptions see Giumetti et al., 2013; Lim & Teo, 2009;

Park, Fritz, & Jex, 2015), but given the increased use of telecom-

muting and the integration of technology, it may be more likely to

occur virtually. The cyberbullying literature has pointed to unique

features of cyber mistreatment that might also be pertinent for

incivility researchers to consider. First, digital mistreatment takes

place where there is a lack of supervision (Patchin & Hinduja,

2006), making it more difficult to detect. Second, instigators are

sometimes protected by the anonymity of cyberspace (Kowalski &

Limber, 2007), making it difficult to identify the perpetrator.

Finally, cyber mistreatment may thrive on account of the accessi-

bility of targets (Slonje, Smith, & Frisén, 2013). Workplace mis-

treatment is no longer limited to a 9-to-5 office, but continues long

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This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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CORTINA, KABAT-FARR, MAGLEY, AND NELSON

after the workday, making it difficult to escape. As the cyberbul-

lying literature grows, incivility scholars may find it helpful to

look there for guidance.

Social ostracism is another related literature that incivility re-

searchers may find useful, in particular the work that examines

physiological consequences. For instance, social ostracism can

trigger engagement in unethical behavior, and physiological

arousal (measured using galvanic skin response) acts as a key

mechanism in this relationship (Kouchaki & Wareham, 2015).

Additionally, McQuaid and colleagues used a psychobiological

approach to uncover a genetic basis for responses to interpersonal

environments, and found that differences in the oxytocin receptor

gene may make some people more sensitive to negative social

stressors than others (McQuaid, McInnis, Matheson, & Anisman,

2015). The incivility literature has so far been relatively silent on

the biological front (for an exception see Giumetti et al., 2013, who

found no significant relationship between simulated supervisor

cyber incivility and heart rate), leaving many interesting questions

open for future study.

Incivility scientists should seek to bridge research on identity-

ambiguous (e.g., incivility, ostracism) and identity-salient mis-

treatment (sexual harassment, racial/ethnic harassment, heterosex-

ist harassment, etc.). Housed in separate literatures, these varieties

of misbehavior are conceptualized as separate and distinct, when in

reality they are highly correlated (e.g., Lim & Cortina, 2005) and

sometimes one and the same (see Cortina, 2008). Moreover, un-

derstandings of identity-salient mistreatment could advance our

understandings of incivility. The sexual harassment literature, for

instance, is much older than incivility science. Harassment spe-

cialists have dealt extensively with organizational prevention and

remediation strategies, which could inform interventions designed

around workplace incivility. Sexual harassment scientists have

also been in conversation with experts in employment law; this

could provide insights into how to think about legal implications of

workplace incivility. Studies of sexual harassment outside of North

America have started to yield a cross-cultural understanding of

gender and aggression in organizations; this work can help us think

about how cultural values and norms influence incivility on the

job. These are just a few examples. Our point is that we must resist

the temptation of insularity, and instead realize the benefits of

cross-pollination of ideas from disparate literatures, disciplines,

and mistreatment domains.

Steering clear of myths. Looking back over the past 15 years,

we raise a point that returns us back to our 2001 JOHP article,

which focused on the incidence and impact of workplace incivility.

As is clear from the present review, that paper laid the foundation

for considerable—and consistent—research highlighting that

workplace incivility is abundant and of consequence. Most empir-

ical articles, in fact, begin with a brief overview of this set of facts

prior to introducing the unique contribution of that article’s re-

search. Such introductions are certainly understandable, but, given

the considerable and consistent evidence, they beg the question of

their continued purpose. In other words, why is it that we, re-

searchers, feel the need to continue articulating these relation-

ships?

We believe that the answer to this question lies in an anticipated

disbelief from the audience about the pervasiveness and serious-

ness of incivility. This anticipated disbelief has, at least for us,

been very real and only marginally lessened over the years, despite

the accumulated evidence to the contrary. We routinely hear com-

ments like the following: Aren’t people making too much out of

simple slights, exaggerating what’s happened? Could people be

“claiming” mistreatment in an effort to protect themselves from

possible (deserved) organizational sanctions? Aren’t people being

a bit overly sensitive? Is it really that big of a deal?

Such comments reflect attitudes and beliefs that parallel those

expressed as core myths about sexual violence. Specifically, these

myths have been defined as “attitudes and beliefs that are generally

false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny

and justify male sexual aggression” in the form of rape (Lonsway

& Fitzgerald, 1994, p. 134) and sexual harassment (Lonsway,

Cortina, & Magley, 2008, p. 600). Pervasive in our society, these

fallacies deny the reality of sexual violence and, when denial

becomes impossible, justify it. We suggest that similar mytholo-

gies may surround all forms of interpersonal mistreatment—inci-

vility included—in which power dynamics, doubt of victim harm,

and suppression of perpetrator culpability loom large.

What happens with dismissive attitudes such as these is an

empirical question. And, we argue, one that is worth asking. At an

individual level, we anticipate that such attitudes might undermine

victims’ desire to report their experiences. In other words, if

victims themselves question the nature of their experience(s), it

seems highly unlikely that they would seek assistance from others,

either organizationally or personally. At a group level, with shared

sentiment that, for example, “a bit of animosity can fuel creativ-

ity,” we anticipate that group functionality might suffer. Of course,

these ideas are speculative and require careful investigation. At

this point, we hope to encourage researchers to consider how

myths such as these might function to impede victims’ well-being.

Perhaps most important, however, we hope that such myths not

shape future research choices.

Closing Thoughts

The science of incivility has traveled far during its short life.

Since generating the (filler) items comprising the original Work-

place Incivility Scale (Cortina et al., 2001), we have learned a great

deal about incidence rates, impacts, boundary conditions, media-

tors, moderators, and more. This article builds on that work by

reviewing it, critiquing it, and looking beyond it. We pose novel

questions and nudge the field in novel directions. We also point to

thorny topics that call for caution, even course correction. Incivil-

ity (and civility) in organizations is as important now as ever. Our

goal is to motivate new science on incivility, new ways to think

about it and, ultimately, new solutions.

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Received November 28, 2016

Revision received April 11, 2017

Accepted May 12, 2017 䡲

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