The influence of workload and civility of treatment on the perpetration of email incivility

The consequences of experienced incivility at work are well documented. However, less is known about causal factors of incivility. Using an experimental design, we investigated the causal effects of workload (high vs. low) and civility of initial treatment (civil vs. uncivil) on the perpetration of incivility in emails. Given the prevalence of e-mail as a form of communication in office environments, and the high possibility of misattributions of sender intent through this medium, it is important to understand how incivility might manifest and be perpetrated through email. Our outcome measure of interest was independently-rated civility of response emails. We expected participants to respond with more incivility to uncivil (vs. civil) stimuli; that those with high (vs. low) workloads would perpetrate more incivility; and that high workload would exacerbate the effect of received civility on the incivility of email responses. All of our hypotheses were supported. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.