Negative workplace gossip and targets’ subjective well-being: a moderated mediation model

Abstract

Negative gossip is an everyday part of life and work whose outcomes have been the focus of a growing number of studies. However, the impact of negative workplace gossip on employees’ subjective well-being (SWB) appears to have received no attention in the literature. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we use time-lagged data from 243 employees in five firms in China to investigate the processes underlying the links between negative workplace gossip and SWB. Our findings show that negative workplace gossip has a significant negative effect on SWB, and that psychological distress mediates this relationship. We also find that emotional intelligence plays a moderating role between negative workplace gossip and targets’ psychological distress. Our results indicate for the first time that negative workplace gossip increases psychological distress and lowers SWB among its targets. As a result, several managerial implications are suggested, such as seeking to reduce the prevalence of negative workplace gossip, offering early support to employees in psychological distress, and taking steps to raise the emotional intelligence level of staff.

Keywords:

• Negative workplace gossip
• psychological distress
• emotional intelligence
• SWB
• conservation of resources theory

Data availability statement

The data that supports the findings of this study is available from the corresponding author (Y. Peng) upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 72102189); MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant number: 21YJC630015); the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 21AGL019); the Sichuan Planning Program of Philosophy and Social Science (Grant number: SC21C068).