Coping style and gender effects on attitudinal responses to incivility

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether emotion- and problem-focussed employee coping styles affect the relationship between workplace incivility and job attitudes (job satisfaction, sense of community), and whether these effects vary by gender. Design/methodology/approach – Survey methodology was used to obtain self-report data from a sample of 314 working adults (90 percent Hispanic, 62 percent female) enrolled in courses at a public university. Findings – Targets of workplace incivility experienced lower job satisfaction and sense of community at work. Employees who typically used problem-focussed coping (PFC) to respond to work stressors experienced greater negative outcomes associated with incivility. Mixed results were found for employees who typically engaged in emotion-focussed coping (EFC) at work: frequent use of avoidant coping and religious coping buffered against the impact of incivility, however, support seeking coping styles strengthened the negative outcomes associated wi...