The indirect relations of workplace incivility with emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self‐blame: The moderating roles of observed incivility and trait emotional control

Summary Drawing from the social cognitive theory of self‐regulation, we develop a model linking experienced incivility to emotional exhaustion and supportive behaviors via self‐blame, with observed incivility experienced by coworkers as a first‐stage moderator and trait emotional control as a second‐stage moderator. We contend that employees will experience self‐blame if they perceive themselves to be distinct targets of incivility (i.e., observed incivility experienced by others is low). Self‐blame can potentially trigger prosocial responses for improving the situation, but self‐blaming targets rarely respond in a prosocial manner because rational attempts to do so are thwarted by deleterious negative emotions accompanying self‐blame. We argue that trait emotional control provides resources for managing these negative emotions to unleash a bright side of self‐blame, such that the relation of self‐blame with prosocial responses (i.e., being supportive to coworkers) will be more positive and the relation of self‐blame with emotional exhaustion will be less positive for individuals with high (vs. low) trait emotional control. Multiwave data collected from a sample of 220 police officers largely support our hypotheses, indicating that the indirect relation of experienced incivility with supportive behaviors via self‐blame is strongest at lower levels of observed incivility and higher levels of emotional control.