Kicking someone in cyberspace when they are down: Testing the role of stressor evoked emotions on exposure to workplace cyberbullying

ABSTRACT

New technologies at work broaden the scope of bullying behaviours to the online context, creating opportunities for a new form of bullying to arise – workplace cyberbullying. So far, knowledge on the factors contributing to workplace cyberbullying has been lacking. Within this emerging research line, the Emotion Reaction model, specifically focused on workplace cyberbullying, was put forward. In this study, we test the model’s main proposition regarding exposure to workplace cyberbullying; namely, that stressors evoked emotions predict exposure to cyberbullying and that this relation is moderated by emotion regulation strategies. The model was tested in two steps. First, the model as a whole was tested cross-sectionally. Next, the direction of causality between fear and sadness and exposure to cyberbullying was tested using a cross-lagged panel design. The results provide support for the central role of fear and sadness in the relationship between work stressors and cyberbullying exposure and the moderating role of reappraisal. No moderating effect of suppression was observed. In addition, support is found for the causal claim that fear and sadness predict cyberbullying exposure. The results and their implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Workplace cyberbullying
• emotions
• workplace bullying
• victimisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ivana Vranjes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2650-3015

Elfi Baillien http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1865-0450

Heidi Vandebosch http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6779-3170

Sara Erreygers http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3097-4784

Hans De Witte http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6691-517X

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [grant number G.0335.14N].