Symposium 27. Abusive supervision: causes and consequences

Overarching Abstract Abusive supervision has enormous social and economic consequences, and is currently attracting intense research interest. In this symposium, prominent scholars from Australia and the USA present four papers that address some of the causes and consequences of abusive supervision. The first two address the causes of abusive supervision. Paper 1 looks at “strategic emotional intelligence” where supervisors utilize emotional manipulation skills to achieve personal ends at the expense of employees. In Paper 2, authors present empirical data from three studies to show that abusive supervision derives in part from supervisors’ experience of aggression at home and their consequent hostile attitudes. The next two papers address the consequences of abusive supervision. In Paper 3, the authors present a model linking abusive supervision to individual and team outcomes based in principles of emotion regulation, and discuss the potential for emotional intelligence skills to buffer the effects of abusive supervision. In the final paper, authors present the results of two studies that examined how employees’ feelings of “psychological entitlement” affect the level of abusive supervision they perceive, and discuss managerial tactics for reducing false perceptions of abusive supervision. The four papers should be of interest to both scholars and practitioners of IO psychology.