Workplace bullying and the enacted incivility of those targeted: the roles of anger, shame and fear Open Access

Workplace bullying can take a variety of forms (Christensen and Evans-Murray, 2021; Rai and Agarwal, 2019; Yao et al., 2020) and serves as a negative work event causing harmful consequences for the victims, organisation and its other stakeholders (Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Bauer and Spector, 2015; Einarsen et al., 2009). Einarsen et al. (2020) argue that bullying is associated with three characteristics: (1) repetition (i.e. one to two negative events per week); (2) duration (i.e. over six months period); and (3) patterning (i.e. involves a range of negative acts) and defined as repeated aggressive actions and practices directed against employees. Given that employees are more sensitive to negative workplace experiences than positive ones (Baumeister et al., 2001), workplace bullying may have serious impacts on victims. Being subjected to bullying can lead to range of negative consequences including self-doubt, depression, anxiety, to suicidal ideation (Christensen and Evans-Murray, 2021) and outwardly-focused responses such as incivility (Einarsen et al., 2009; Jahanzeb et al., 2021; Yao et al., 2020). The ubiquity of workplace bullying on a global scale has been demonstrated by reported prevalence rates of typically between 0.3 and 20% as measured across all continents and much higher rates in some settings (Leon-Perez et al., 2021).

Incivility is also considered negative behaviour but is distinct from bullying. Incivility refers to a subtle and low-intensity form of negative workplace behaviour, often marked by ambiguous intent to harm (Schilpzand et al., 2016). Examples of workplace incivility include making disrespectful comments, ignoring a colleague, belittling coworker contribution or using a condescending tone (Andersson and Pearson, 1999; Hülsheger and Alberts, 2021; Schilpzand et al., 2016). In contrast, bullying is typically more intense and overt (e.g. intimidating, name calling, teasing, spreading rumours) making them easier to recognise as harmful (Schilpzand et al., 2016). Although workplace incivility is considered to be of low intensity and intent to harm may be ambiguous, these behaviours go against the principles of mutual respect and violate the conventional norms of workplace conduct (Hülsheger and Alberts, 2021; Porath and Pearson, 2012). Due to its subtle nature, 98% of employees have experienced incivility across every industry, and earlier estimates of the monetary cost of incivility place it at up to $14,000 per employee annually due to cognitive distractions, rework, customer dissatisfaction and project delays (Moon and Hur, 2018; Niven et al., 2022; Porath and Pearson, 2012). Due to its high prevalence and negative behavioural and financial implications on employees and organisations, Schilpzand et al. (2016) called for researchers to explore factors that contribute to acts of incivility so that organisations can work towards diminishing its prevalence. Similarly, Christensen and Evans-Murray (2021) contended that while employees are increasingly aware of the consequences of workplace bullying, further research is necessary to explore how bullying experiences contribute to incivility, as the mechanism connecting bullying and incivility remain insufficiently explored (also see Schilpzand et al., 2016).

Particularly in the last decade, service sectors such as the hospitality sector have sought to understand how employees respond to experienced workplace bullying since bullying is prominent in the service sector where demands from customers and pressures from competitors are high (Hsu et al., 2019). Similarly, research in the service sector has focused on exploring the relationship between workplace bullying and work-related outcomes such as well-being, coping or defending behaviours (e.g., task coping, knowledge hiding – Hsu et al., 2019; Jung and Yoon, 2019; Yao et al., 2020) or deviant behaviours (e.g. CWB – Alqhaiwi et al., 2024) rather than developing uncivil behaviours towards others (i.e. enacted incivility).

Despite these studies demonstrating a positive relationship between bullying and overt workplace deviance behaviour, limited attention has been paid to understanding how exposure to bullying leads to enacted incivility, particularly employees' emotional experience (Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Krishna et al., 2023). Past research (e.g. Jahanzeb et al., 2021; Krishna et al., 2023) used a single discrete emotion as a mediator. However, it is equally important to explore how the experience of bullying may give rise to more subtle behaviours to harm and to identify different emotional mechanisms such as inwardly-focused and outwardly-focused emotions that may mediate these responses. To fill these gaps in literature, the present study uses the parallel mediation mechanisms including inwardly-focused and outwardly-focused emotional mediators to understand how they associate with affective responses. In the present study, we incorporate three types of discrete emotional reactions as distinct affective mediation mechanisms: anger, defined as feelings ranging from irritation to fury and rage (Tangney et al., 1996); shame, characterised by feelings of being victimised, undervalued, or worthless (Glomb, 2002); and fear, described as feelings of being afraid or experiencing threat. By doing this we add to the literature on how inwardly-focused emotions (shame and fear) and outwardly focused-emotions (anger) instigate targets of bullying to subsequently engage in uncivil behaviours. Furthermore, examining multiple mediation pathways behind the effect of workplace bullying on enacted incivility may enhance our understanding of how different pathways simultaneously translate workplace bullying into enacted incivility in the same study context: Examining multiple pathways also helps to avoid any exaggerated effect when exploring each mediation pathway in isolation.

Notwithstanding the harms of bullying in workplaces as noted above, personal attributes may influence how targets react to bullying (Anasori et al., 2023; Nimmi et al., 2023; Teo et al., 2021), yet there is a limited understanding of the role of personal attributes as boundary conditions accounting for the varying reactions of targets when exposed to bullying. Affective events theory (AET) posits that stable individual traits can influence how employees react to workplace events (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). Individuals high in trait positive affectivity such as mindfulness are generally more resilient and better able to regulate their emotional responses to negative events (Hülsheger and Alberts, 2021). The current study explores trait self-control; one's natural inclination to regulate impulses and maintain goal-directed behaviour as a form of trait positive affectivity may serve as a boundary condition in the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility. Existing studies within the bullying literature mainly have focused on contextual boundary conditions (Hayat and Afshari, 2021; Sheehan et al., 2020; Teo et al., 2021) or other personality traits (Anasori et al., 2023; Nimmi et al., 2023) albeit that trait self-control may be a crucial self-regulatory mechanism. From an AET perspective, employees high in trait self-control may be better equipped to manage the emotional fallout of bullying experiences, thereby reducing the likelihood of expressing incivility towards others as a reactive behaviour. Understanding boundary conditions is important for organisations to introduce coping strategies for employees to manage the impact of bullying.

The current study aims to draw on AET to understand the relationship between experienced bullying and enacted incivility, parallelly mediated by inward (shame and fear) and outward (anger) negative affective mechanisms and moderated by trait self-control. Specifically, this study seeks to address the following research questions (RQs):

In responding to these research questions, this study provides several insights to advance the workplace bullying literature. First, it extends this research stream by engaging with employees' enacted incivility towards others as employees' behavioural responses to workplace bullying. Second, by examining inwardly-focused (shame, fear) and outwardly-focused (anger) negative affective processes as parallel mediators, this study extends prior studies of workplace bullying that have concentrated on either inwardly-focused (e.g. shame (Krishna et al., 2023)) or outwardly-focused (anger (Jahanzeb et al., 2021)) affective process as mediators that link workplace bullying with employee outcomes (silence, general deviance) and also by instead focusing on uncivil behaviours towards others at the outcome. Third, through investigating trait self-control, a crucial self-regulatory mechanism, as a boundary condition, this study challenges the existing studies in the workplace bullying stream that have focused on the contextual moderators or personality traits such as emotional intelligence (Ashraf and Khan, 2014), neuroticism (Jahanzeb et al., 2021), resilience (Chang et al., 2025) or self-esteem (Nimmi et al., 2023).

Our study aims to develop a research model by drawing on AET (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) to explore how workplace bullying influences incivility through anger, shame and fear. AET focuses on the “structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work” and it “considers events as proximal causes of affective reactions” (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996, p. 11). That is, a negative work event such as workplace bullying elicits targets' negative emotions (Singh and Srivastava, 2023). AET further explains that emotional reactions to affective experiences influence employees' work-related behaviours (Babalola et al., 2019). For instance, a work event may make employees feel angry or frustrated and these emotional reactions in turn may have subsequent behavioural implications. Research (e.g. Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Glaso et al., 2011) has demonstrated that workplace bullying can influence employees' emotions and lead to affect-driven behaviour.

Furthermore, AET suggests that an individual's disposition contributes to their emotional reaction (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). That is, trait positive affectivity can reduce the negative emotional response to a negative event (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). Building on this understanding of AET, we investigate whether trait self-control as a trait positive affectivity (Meier and Gross, 2015) can serve as a boundary condition to reduce the effect of workplace bullying on employees' emotions. Taken together, we use AET to investigate the impact of workplace bullying on employees' incivility through their anger, shame and fear and the interactive effect of trait self-control with workplace bullying on those three mediators (see Figure 1).

Incivility is a low-intensity deviant workplace behaviour with an ambiguous intent to harm others (e.g. ignoring or excluding people, not paying attention to someone, social undermining) violating workplace norms (Andersson and Pearson, 1999; Cortina et al., 2001; Jung and Yoon, 2019; Yao et al., 2020). Incivility has characteristics that uniquely differentiate it from other negative workplace behaviour (such as aggression, violence and abusive supervision) – Schilpzand et al. (2016) identified these characteristics as: (1) low intensity (2) intentionality of the act is ambiguous and (3) incivility can be enacted not only by leaders and managers but also by co-workers and customers (Chaudhuri et al., 2023; Moon and Hur, 2018). Therefore, incivility is a commonly experienced negative workplace behaviour causing harm (Cortina et al., 2001; Niven et al., 2022; Porath and Pearson, 2012) due to psychological distress, avoidance of the instigator, withdrawal from work or taking the frustration out on other employees and customers, overall job dissatisfaction or even organisational exit (Cortina et al., 2001; Moon and Hur, 2018; Niven et al., 2022). Schilpzand et al. (2016) pointed out the importance of investigating potential antecedents of instigated incivility as well as how and when they drive employees to instigate uncivil behaviours towards colleagues. Hence in the present study, we use workplace bullying as a contextual antecedent, the outwardly-focused emotion of anger and inwardly-focused emotions of shame and fear as a potential mediation mechanism of affective processes linking such a contextual antecedent with employee-instigated incivility.

As AET posits, employees' negative experiences (e.g. being a target of bullying) can evoke negative emotional reactions towards themselves and others. Livne-Ofer et al. (2019) argued that affective events such as organisational exploitation led to complex inward- (shame and guilt) and/or outward-focused emotions (anger and hostility) causing various negative attitudinal and behavioural responses by victims. In the present study, we consider workplace bullying as a negative affective event and examine its relationship with employees' enactment of uncivil behaviours through the inward affective processes (shame and fear) and the outward affective process (anger). Workplace bullying is not a one-off event, but a persistent psychological harm towards the targeted individual (Einarsen et al., 2009). Research (Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Babalola et al., 2019; Bagozzi et al., 2018; Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996) suggests that such negative workplace events provoke stronger affective responses when negative emotions accumulate through their exposure to affective events over a period (Glaso et al., 2011). When bullying behaviour occurs on a regular basis, it can be a cause of social and psychological stress and trigger outwardly-focused negative behaviours like acts of incivility. In the present study, we use bullying as a negative experience to explore its relationships to incivility via negative emotions of anger, shame and fear.

Emotions are relatively short-term, intense, affective reactions that result from appraisals about the transactions people have with their environment (Lazarus and Lazarus, 1994). Workplace bullying leads victims to feel negative emotions due to the psychological distress they experience when they are subjected to bullying (Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Eisenberger et al., 2004). However, the emotional responses of bullying victims may vary depending on their attributed reason for the bullying (Martinko et al., 2002). Glomb (2002) defined anger as an “emotional state that may include feelings that vary in intensity from mild irritation to fury and rage, physiological and cognitive reactions, and behaviour tendencies” (p. 22). Anger is a high physiological arousal negative moral emotion characterised by external attribution (Russell, 1980). Anger is one of the emotional responses of bullying victims (Niven et al., 2022) and is a universal primary emotion that can be triggered by unfair treatment when an organisational member violates the interpersonal norms and behaviour, or when an individual's or group's identity is threatened or challenged (Bagozzi et al., 2018; Livne-Ofer et al., 2019; Porath and Pearson, 2012). Aims of anger are usually to fight, damage and defend (Tariq and Bacha, 2022). For instance, when an employee is subjected to bullying, this shows a lack of respect and unfair treatment by the bully (external attribution), evoking anger in the victim. In demonstration of AET, employees may engage in subtle negative and uncivil behaviours to release the psychological distress they experience (Meier and Gross, 2015). Thus, exposure to bullying may evoke workplace incivility through the emotion of anger.

In addition to external attributions upon exposure to workplace bullying, victims may also make an internal attribution in the form of shame (Porath and Pearson, 2012; Tracy and Robins, 2006). When victims make internal attributions in response to bullying, they may feel shame for perceiving themselves as self-victimised (Martinko et al., 2002). Shame is described as self-relevant negative affect that can occur when individuals feel they are victimised, undervalued, worthless, powerless and small in a given context (Tangney et al., 1996). Further, feelings of shame directly and negatively affect one's core self-concept (Bagozzi et al., 2018; Livne-Ofer et al., 2019; Tangney et al., 1996) and arouse intense negative emotions that involve feelings of inferiority, incapacitating the individual and evoking their desire to hide from the situation (Hejdenberg and Andrews, 2011; Tangney et al., 1996). Hence, when exposed to workplace bullying, individuals may find the strong painful experience difficult to describe, hence they may hide and internalise their feelings. As they internalise their feelings, they may suffer with deficiency in their core self-concept, leading to a stronger feeling of shame. Although this feeling may drive the victim to withdraw and avoid the environment when there is no control over the event (Bagozzi et al., 2018; Miranda et al., 2020; Tangney et al., 1996; Tracy and Robins, 2006), AET indicates that it is also possible for bullying targets to engage in acts of incivility through the accumulation of shame, especially when the experience is ongoing and the victim cannot avoid the work environment (Miranda et al., 2020). Hence, shamed individuals may engage in deviant behaviours to get some sense of control and relief from the self-victimising mindset (Hejdenberg and Andrews, 2011). Thus, exposure to bullying may evoke workplace incivility through the emotion of shame.

Fear is a high physiological arousal aversive emotion (Russell, 1980; Niven et al., 2022), arising in response to danger or threat, including threats that people are exposed to in the work environment (Malik and Pichler, 2023). Fear is an emotional state involving a sense of uncertainty, feeling afraid or scared for a threat of harm or an undesirable event (Lebel, 2016; Watson and Clark, 1994). Employees may feel scared, powerless and threatened when bullied and therefore feel fearful. Though avoiding and withdrawing are generally responses associated to the emotion of fear (Srivastava et al., 2023), based on AET employees who feel the emotion of fear may also choose to respond to experienced bullying by engaging in uncivil behaviours to regain some control over their work environment (Malik and Pichler, 2023; Porath and Pearson, 2012). Thus, exposure to bullying may evoke workplace incivility through the emotion of fear.

Although AET proposes negative consequences of negative affect, not all individuals who experience negative events at work will act with the same level of negative emotions. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors may moderate the relationship between workplace bullying and negative emotions (anger, shame and fear). We focus on how trait self-control moderates such relationships.

De Ridder et al. (2012) conceptualised trait self-control as people's capacity to override or change their inner responses inhibiting undesirable behaviour and facilitating desirable behaviour. Research on trait self-control posits it as a relatively stable trait across different situations and over a time (Tangney et al., 2004), and individuals with high trait self-control can anticipate the long-term cost of impulsive behaviour thus resist temptation to engage in such negative behaviours. Furthermore, De Ridder et al. (2012) highlighted that high trait self-control is more effective in inhibiting undesirable behaviour (e.g. acting with anger) than promoting desirable behaviour (e.g. offering gratitude).

Drawing on AET that suggests an individual's disposition influences their emotional reactions to negative events (Weiss and Beal, 2005), we posit that exposure to bullying may be less likely to elicit negative emotions of fear, shame and anger for employees with higher self-control. Employees with high self-control, through their strong regulatory willpower and self-control systems, engage in deliberate assessment (Hofmann et al., 2009), thereby weakening the impact of workplace bullying on their emotional reactions. Thus, being high in trait self-control can help individuals see the long-term cost of negative emotions such as anger, shame and fear as well as their expression in undesirable acts, and hence exert resources to control such negative emotions (Denson et al., 2011).

On the contrary, employees with low self-control may experience stronger emotional reactions to workplace bullying. Low self-control indicates that individuals have limited willpower to evaluate the long-term consequences of their emotions, making them more susceptible to immediate, emotionally-driven reactions (Lian et al., 2017). Without sufficient regulatory capacity, these employees are more likely to be dominated by automatic responses, amplifying the emotional impact of workplace bullying. Thus, we lastly hypothesise that:

Figure 1 depicts our hypothesized relationships.

We chose the hotel industry as of one the service industries in Jordan as the research context for the following reasons. Firstly, relatively little attention has been paid to investigate workplace bullying in the Eastern context (Alqhaiwi et al., 2024; Anasori et al., 2023). Although Western research suggests that workplace bullying leads to negative outcomes (Hewett et al., 2018), Eastern studies showed contrasting results. For example, while previous Eastern research showed workplace bullying to increase performance (Majeed and Naseer, 2021), others found it to reduce well-being (Hayat and Afshari, 2021) and creativity (Anasori et al., 2023). Such research underscores the importance of more investigations of workplace bullying in the Eastern context. Furthermore, the hotel industry in Jordan is rapidly developing and ensuring a positive work environment in hotels contributes to higher performance (Koburtay and Syed, 2021). Indeed, being situated in a high-volume tourist region (i.e. the Middle East), addressing issues related to workplace bullying is crucial for maintaining competitiveness in this industry.

After gaining approval from the relevant university ethics committee, we contacted five hotel chains in Jordan to ensure a representative sample of hotel employees. One of them, which has two hotels operating in two different tourist locations (i.e. Amman and Dead Sea), approved the study. The other four chains declined participation due to internal policies limiting the research assistant access, ongoing organisational restructuring or concerns over employee workload. Despite this, the participating hotel chain granted access to a diverse and sufficient number of employees across two distinct geographic locations, aligning with the study's objectives. A trained research assistant distributed the study cover letter and surveys to employees in sealed envelopes on-site. Participants who completed the study were instructed to place the envelopes in locked boxes in their hotel (e.g. prayer room) to be collected by the research assistant after a week.

To diminish the common methods variance threat, we collected two-wave data with a one-month time lag (Podsakoff et al., 2024). At Time 1, participants rated workplace bullying, trait self-control and demographics. The Time 2 survey collected data regarding participants' anger, shame, fear and enacted incivility. Out of 620 surveys distributed at Time 1, 415 were returned. At Time 2, 328 participants completed surveys, representing the final sample (response rate: 52.9%). To mitigate non-response bias, we employed several remedies. First, we secured support from hotel management to facilitate data collection. Participants were assured of anonymity, voluntary participation, confidentiality of responses and that there were no right or wrong answers. Statistically, we run a survey wave analysis (Armstrong and Overton, 1977) by comparing the first 30 and latest 30 participants. Independent-samples t-tests revealed nonsignificant differences between these groups in terms of demographics or key research variables, suggesting minimal concern regarding non-response bias (Rogelberg and Stanton, 2007). Of the participants, 226 (68.9%) were males, and the mean organisational tenure was 7.57 years. The mean age was 35.9 years (SD = 8.8), and most employees (84%) have completed their diploma degree or above.

We translated the items into Arabic following the Back-translation technique (Brislin, 1980). The translation process involved two bilingual academics. One of the authors initially translated the items from English to Arabic, and then a second translator independently translated them back into English. The two translators then met to resolve any discrepancies between the two versions, ensuring agreement on semantic equivalency.

Workplace bullying was gauged with the 9-item short version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (Einarsen et al., 2009). Respondents rated how often they experienced behaviours (e.g. “Spreading gossip and rumours about you”) at the workplace in the last six months on a scale from 1 “Never” to 5 “Daily”. In this study, the Cronbach's alpha (α) was 0.91.

Anger, shame and fear were measured using 5 items each from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule – Expanded Form (Watson and Clark, 1994). Respondents indicated their feelings of anger (e.g., angry, irritable; α = 0.85), shame (e.g., ashamed, timid; α = 0.90) and fear (e.g., afraid, scared; α = 0.85) while working in the current organisation in the past month on a scale of 1 = “very slightly or not at all” to 5 = “extremely”.

Enacted incivility was assessed through 7 items from the “Enacted Incivility Scale” (Cortina et al., 2001). Respondents indicated how often they engaged in incivility towards others at work in the past month on a scale from 1 = “Hardly ever” to 4 = “Frequently”. A sample item includes, “Put others down or was condescending to them in some way”. In this study, α = 0.92.

Trait self-control was measured with 5 items taken from Tangney et al. (2004). Participants rated how each statement (e.g. “In general, I am good at resisting temptation”) reflected them on a scale from 1 = “Very much” to 5 = “Not at all”. Items were reversed, so a higher score indicates higher self-control. In this study, α = 0.90.

Avoidance was assessed with four items taken from (Simon et al., 2015). Participants indicated how often they engaged in such behaviour (e.g. Avoided my supervisor or co-worker) in the past month on a scale from 1 = “Never” to 5 = “Very often”. In this study, α = 0.76. Since employees' demographics can relate to their incivility (Birkeland and Nerstad, 2016), we controlled for age, gender and organisation tenure.

We tested the research model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). PLS-SEM was used in this study due to its statistical power and predictive nature which aligns with the study's aims (Hair et al., 2019). Following Hair et al. (2019), we first assessed the measurement model to evaluate construct reliability and validity. Second, we evaluated the structural model and examined the path coefficients. A 10,000 bootstrap sample size was employed to generate t-values and 95% biased-corrected confidence intervals (CI).

CMV was diminished through procedural remedies, such as multi-wave data, using various anchor labels and ensuring participants' anonymity (Podsakoff et al., 2024). Further statistical remedies such as the marker variable and collinearity tests were employed. As a marker that is theoretically unrelated to other constructs in our model (Lindell and Whitney, 2001), we included “attitude toward social media usage” in the survey. The marker variable technique indicated low CMV threat since the exclusion of the marker did not change the significance levels of the correlations (Lindell and Whitney, 2001). The collinearity test also suggested low CMV threat since the highest variance inflation factor (VIF) was 1.2, lower than the cut-off value of 3.0 (Hair et al., 2019).

The measurement model results are presented in Table 1. Reliability was assessed through α and composite reliability. The results suggest high construct reliability as they exceeded the cut-off value of 0.70, ranging from 0.85 to 0.92. Convergent validity was confirmed as the factor loading of all items exceeded 0.70, and the average variance extracted (AVE) was above 0.50 for all constructs, ranging from 0.60 to 0.71 (Hair et al., 2019). Discriminant validity was assessed using two techniques, presented in Table 2. First, the square root of each construct AVE surpassed its correlations with other constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Second, the heterotrait–monotrait (HTMT) values were below 0.85 (Henseler et al., 2015).

The structural model was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R²), the predictive relevance (Q²) (Hair et al., 2019), standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) (Henseler et al., 2016) and the goodness of fit (GoF) (Wetzels et al., 2009). R² values of anger (=0.34), shame (=0.09), fear (=0.04) and enacted incivility (=0.22) indicated a decent explanatory power. Q² values were larger than zero, indicating good predictive relevance (Hair et al., 2019) (Table 3). The SRMR value (=0.04) was lower than the threshold of 0.08 (Henseler et al., 2016). The GoF value (=0.32) was higher than the highest R² value and suggested a good fit (Wetzels et al., 2009).

Table 4 presents the hypothesis testing. In support of H1a, the indirect effect (ab) for the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility via anger (ab = 0.10, CI [0.05, 0.16]) was positive and significant. Also, the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility via shame (ab = 0.05, CI [0.01, 0.09]) was positive and significant, supporting H1b. In testing the mediating role of fear for the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility, the indirect was non-significant (ab = −0.01, CI [-0.04, 0.00]). Therefore, H1c was not supported.

In testing the moderating effect of trait self-control, the interactive effect of workplace bullying and trait self-control on anger was negative and significant (b = −0.15, p < 0.05), supporting H2a. The simple slope analysis using the low (-SD) and high (+SD) levels of trait self-control showed that the relationship between workplace bullying and anger is weaker with high (b = 0.29, p < 0.01) and stronger with low (b = 0.60, p < 0.001) trait self-control (Figure 2). In support of H2b, the interactive effect of workplace bullying and trait self-control on shame was negative and significant (b = −0.20, p < 0.01). The simple slope analysis (Figure 3) shows that workplace bullying has a non-significant effect on shame with high (b = 0.02, p > 0.05) and significant stronger negative effect with low (b = 0.41, p < 0.001) trait self-control. Furthermore, the interaction between workplace bullying and trait self-control on fear was negative and significant (b = −0.15, p < 0.05), providing evidence to support H2c. The simple slope analysis (Figure 4) showed that workplace bullying has a non-significant impact on fear with high (b = −0.02, p > 0.05) and a significant stronger negative impact with low (b = 0.28, p < 0.001) trait self-control.

In addition to the hypothesised relationships noted earlier, we also conducted a supplementary analysis to further test the utility of anger, shame and fear as mediators. As this supplementary analysis was exploratory in nature, we opted to test a different dependent variable to that of the originally hypothesised relationships and proposed model, while retaining the aforementioned multiple mediation components as an added check of the mediation mechanisms. Given workplace bullying may result in employees being absent more frequently or leaving the organisation (Iqbal et al., 2025; Liao et al., 2023), we included employee avoidance behaviour as an additional outcome through the emotional mechanisms of anger, shame and fear. The supplementary analysis was conducted using Model 4 of PROCESS macro on SPSS with 95% CI and 5,000 bootstrap to assess the mediation (Hayes, 2017). The results suggested that workplace bullying leads to employee avoidance behaviour through shame (ab = 0.03, CI [0.00, 0.07]) and fear (ab = 0.02, CI [0.00, 0.05]), but not anger (ab = 0.00, CI [-0.05, 0.06]).

The results of the analyses show that the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted workplace incivility was mediated by anger and shame. That is, when targets of workplace bullying feel the emotions of anger and shame, this heightens their reaction of incivility directed at colleagues in their workplace. For example, an individual having insulting or offensive remarks directed at them and who feels angry by those remarks, is more likely to demean or be rude to others in their workplace than are those who did not feel angry. Although workplace bullying was positively related to the emotion of fear, the relationship between bullying and both anger and shame was stronger than those with fear. The hypothesis that fear would also mediate the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility was not supported in the analysis. Therefore, it seems from the results of the analyses that workplace bullying is more likely to evoke feelings of anger and shame in targets than feelings of fear. Our finding is somewhat consistent with Niven et al. (2022) who found negative events at work (i.e. face-to-face incivility) lead to negative experience (i.e. exhaustion and turnover intention) via anger but not by fear. This could possibly be because anger often drives individuals to act impulsively, whereas fear is regarded as an essential survival response (Ashkanasy and Dorris, 2017).

The findings of our exploratory supplementary analysis suggest that employees who experience bullying tend to engage in “avoidance” behaviour only through emotional mediators of shame and fear but not via anger. Prior research suggests that targets of abusive supervision who experience fear use “avoidance” as a response strategy (Iqbal et al., 2025; Kiewitz et al., 2016). Our findings confirm and add to the prior research that workplace bullying leads to avoidance not only via fear but also via shame. It could be that bullying victims who experience shame and fear (Kiewitz et al., 2016; Lopez-Alvarez et al., 2024) or less assertive personalities (Kiewitz et al., 2016) may use avoidance as an emotional coping strategy. It could be argued that employees who experience anger after a negative incident of bullying may retaliate in response and engage in uncivil behaviour.

However, not allowing oneself to lose control (as displayed by those with high levels of trait self-control) can offset the emotional reactions of anger and shame in targets of bullying, and in doing so reduce the likelihood of the target subsequently engaging in behaviours that are uncivil towards their colleagues. For individuals with high levels of trait self-control, the results of the analysis indicate that the level of anger, shame and fear they experience remains low even when exposed to more frequent bullying behaviours.

The findings from the main and supplementary analyses advance the workplace bullying literature in various ways. First, the current work extends the stream of workplace bullying research by identifying two negative forms of employee outcomes of workplace bullying, namely active negative behaviour (uncivil behaviours towards others or enacted incivility) and passive negative behaviour (avoidance behaviour). Unpacking these two different forms of employees' behavioural responses towards workplace bullying, this study challenges prior studies that have separately examined either well-being (Hsu et al., 2019), or passive behavioural responses (e.g. task coping [Jung and Yoon, 2019], resource defending behaviour [e.g. knowledge hiding, Yao et al., 2020]) or active negative behavioural responses (e.g. deviant or counterproductive work behaviours in general Jahanzeb et al., 2021).

Second, this study enriches the workplace bullying literature by drawing upon AET to postulate and uncover both inwardly-focused (i.e. shame) and outwardly-focused (i.e. anger) affective processes as parallel mediation mechanisms linking workplace bullying with employees' enacted incivility. This enhances the understanding that upon exposure to workplace bullying, employees may inwardly process (i.e. shame) this negative event or outwardly display (i.e. anger) their negative emotions (Porath and Pearson, 2012) and in turn engage in uncivil behaviours towards others (i.e. enacted incivility). This finding provides crucial insights into the concurrent mediating effects of inwardly- and outwardly-focused affective processes underlying the nexus between workplace bullying and low intentional acts of harm such as enacted incivility. By unpacking these parallel negative affective mediation mechanisms, this study advances prior studies of workplace bullying that have focused on either inwardly-focused affective process (e.g. shame (Krishna et al., 2023)) or outwardly-focused affective process (anger (Jahanzeb et al., 2021)) as mediators in separate studies that link workplace bullying with employee outcomes (silence, general deviance) other than uncivil behaviours towards others (i.e. enacted incivility). Moreover, the present study extends prior works of workplace bullying by uncovering shame and fear as dual affective mediation pathways between workplace bullying and avoidance behaviour.

Furthermore, the study reveals that an outwardly-focused affective response (i.e. anger) contributes more to enacted incivility as well as to the translation of workplace bullying into enacted incivility than an inwardly-focused affective response (i.e. shame). This finding covers the gap in previous studies on workplace bullying in regard to how differently inward- and outward-focused affective processes operate in translating the experience of workplace bullying into enacted incivility. Nonetheless, this study offers an interesting observation regarding the non-significant mediating effect of fear in the relationship between workplace bullying and employees' enacted incivility in hotel industry. A potential explanation for this observation is that, in the context of a collectivistic culture such as Jordan, although individuals develop the inwardly-focused feeling of fear, they may be less inclined to offend others with uncivil behaviours due to their desire to maintain relationships with them. However, the inwardly-focused feeling of shame may be strong enough to challenge an individual's self-victimising mindset and drive them to engage in uncivil behaviours to regain a sense of control over their service-oriented work environment (Hejdenberg and Andrews, 2011).

The exploratory supplementary findings further reveal that employees who experience workplace bullying engage in avoidance behaviour only through inwardly-focused mediation mechanism of shame and fear but not via outwardly-focused mediation mechanism of anger. A potential explanation is that bullying victims who inwardly process the bullying experience in forms of fear and shame tend to adopt a more passive coping strategy such as avoidance behaviour, while employees who outwardly display their negative emotions (in form of anger) may adopt a more active coping strategy such as engaging in uncivil behaviours towards others.

Third, the present inquiry extends the stream of workplace bullying research through its observation of the role of trait self-control, a crucial self-regulatory mechanism, as an individual boundary condition for the effects of workplace bullying on both inwardly-focused (i.e. shame, fear) and outwardly-focused (i.e. anger) affective reactions. With this individual boundary condition, this study challenges the existing studies in the workplace bullying stream that have concentrated on the contextual moderators, such as perceived organizational support (Hayat and Afshari, 2021), climate for conflict management (Ekmekcioglu et al., 2024), workplace friendship (Rai and Agarwal, 2019), manager training in anti-bullying practices (Sheehan et al., 2020), or personality traits such as emotional intelligence (Ashraf and Khan, 2014), neuroticism (Jahanzeb et al., 2021), resilience (Chang et al., 2025), or self-esteem (Nimmi et al., 2023). Furthermore, interestingly, albeit fear is found not to mediate the effect of workplace bullying on enacted incivility, trait self-control serves as a moderator that significantly attenuates the effect of workplace bullying on fear. It could be that, while individuals may not translate fear into uncivil behaviours in the study setting of a collectivistic culture such as Jordan (see earlier discussion in this section), they still develop the inwardly-focused feeling of fear and thus employees who are high in trait self-control can self-regulate their emotions more effectively and feel less fear in the context of workplace bullying.

Finally, by drawing on AET to build and validate the current research model, this study not only provides empirical evidence to support this theory but also extends it. Its findings provide evidence that when individuals are exposed to an affective event (e.g. workplace bullying in the service sector), affective processes (e.g. anger, shame, fear) can take shape and stimulate them to partake in behaviours oriented towards others (e.g. uncivil behaviours) or undertake a passive coping strategy (e.g. avoidance behaviour). Nonetheless, the current results expand this theory by showcasing fine-grained negative affective and behavioural reactions in response to a negative affective event as well as adding two different affective processes, namely inwardly-focused (e.g. shame/fear) and outwardly-focused (e.g. anger) ones, to this theory. Additionally, the findings leverage the understanding of individual boundary conditions (e.g. trait self-control) that potentially influence individuals' affective reactions towards an affective event.

Our findings offer several practical implications. First, bullying at work results in uncivil behaviour. Thus, organisations should be very clear and transparent about their policies including examples of bullying and uncivil behaviours and consequences, ensuring systems to report bullying and uncivil behaviours are functional so that employees report these incidents without fear and retaliation (López-Cabarcos et al., 2020; Malik and Pichler, 2023). Second, workplace bullying can come from any employee, hence training all employees including managers (Sheehan et al., 2020) on workplace bullying and incivility and its impact to create a culture of psychological safety is important (Chen et al., 2022). The effectiveness of training on workplace civility can be enhanced by pre-training assessments of training scepticism and training discrepancy, so that such barriers can overcome prior to the training itself (Walsh and Magley, 2020). There is also evidence that training in conflict management (incorporating the conflict management skills of emotion regulation, interpersonal communication and problem-solving) can reduce incidences of workplace bullying and improve organisational outcomes (Leon-Perez et al., 2016).

Furthermore, as anger and shame mediated the relationship between workplace bullying and enacted incivility, interventions need to be introduced to help employees manage their anger and feelings of shame. Given that trait self-control weakens the negative impact of workplace bullying via anger and shame, employers should consider applying interventions to enhance self-regulation among employees. Moreover, interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction programs (MBSR, Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2017), cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT, Malik and Pichler, 2023), individual and collective mindfulness-based training (Badham and King, 2019) or emotional intelligence training (Hutchinson and Hurley, 2013) may help employees to increase self-awareness, self-regulation skills and communication, so that they can better manage emotions and behaviours at work, doing so would lead to more harmonious relationships between employees in general and may be beneficial to ensuring that any bullying that arises does not escalate, as individuals high in trait self-control are less likely to experience anger or shame when exposed to workplace bullying. Furthermore, managers should encourage employees to seek out employee assistance programs if they need help with managing difficult emotions such as anger or shame (Chen et al., 2022).

The evidence for the effectiveness of training on self-control techniques on enhancing actual self-control is mixed at best, with some studies reporting no improvement in self-control (Miles et al., 2016). However, there is some evidence that training in emotional intelligence and self-control may reduce the likelihood of aggressive behaviours following provocation (Denson et al., 2011). Thus, the design and delivery of any such emotional intelligence/self-control enhancement training for employees in workplaces would need to be done with realistic expectations. It is notable that people with high levels of self-control are found to perform well across various life domains, including at work through the development of good work habits (De Ridder et al., 2012).

Also, the findings of our exploratory supplementary analysis that targets of workplace bullying may engage in avoidance behaviours (such as avoiding interactions with others at work) as a coping mechanism highlight the importance of the aforementioned training interventions and reporting systems. Research suggests that avoidance behaviour can be harmful in the longer term when employees remove themselves from workplace activities, increase absenteeism and turnover intention, adding significant costs to the organisation (Tussing et al., 2022). Hence, encouraging employees to report and deal with bullying incidents through the relevant organisational channels is essential to ensuring collegiality and effective business operations.

Although a deliberate effort has been made to overcome potential limitations of this study, such limitations do exist. For example, relying on self-report data may pose issues associated with common method variance (CMV) (Podsakoff et al., 2003). We have attempted to counter the concerns by assuring the anonymity of participants, and importantly through collecting data over two waves, as well as using different anchor labels (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Also, our analysis of the marker variable (Lindell and Whitney, 2001), significant interactive effects (Siemsen et al., 2010), and collinearity indicated that CMV was not an issue in this instance. Nonetheless, it is recommended that researchers adopt experimental and longitudinal research designs in future to provide evidence for causality.

A further possible limitation of this study is that it was limited to a single hotel chain in Jordan. Such an approach may have some implications on the generalisability of the findings to other populations in the service sector, so this should be kept in mind with interpretations of the findings. However, this also provides an opportunity for researchers to re-test the modelling in other cultural or industrial contexts (e.g. healthcare) where interpersonal behaviours are of particular importance (Cho et al., 2016; Karatepe et al., 2019). Furthermore, our model examined the impact of one form of mistreatment (i.e. workplace bullying) on enacted incivility with the specific mediators of anger, shame and fear, along with trait self-control as a moderator variable. The current model can be expanded by exploring other mediators and moderators of relevance. Future research may also integrate different types of bullying into the model. For example, future studies can include work-related bullying, personal-related bullying or physical threats or even upward, horizontal or downward bullying (Chen et al., 2022) into the model to explore if there are any differences in the way victims engage in incivility or mechanisms through which bullying can translate into subsequent deviant behaviours.