Workplace Mistreatment and Employee Deviance: An Investigation of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Hostile Work Environments and Harmful Work Behaviors.

This study investigates the reciprocal relationship between workplace mistreatment—defined as hostile social situations including abusive supervision, workplace ostracism, and everyday discrimination—and employee deviance, which encompasses harmful work behaviors such as sabotage, theft, and abuse of coworkers. Analyzing data from over 1,300 employed adults in the United States collected weekly over 12 weeks, the research found that employee deviance both results from and contributes to mistreatment, with these effects occurring within a one-week time frame and remaining stable over the study period. Additionally, employees who are perceived by coworkers as having higher moral character, operationalized as honesty-humility, experience less mistreatment following deviant behavior, suggesting moral character evaluations moderate the deviance-to-mistreatment effect. The findings highlight the importance of addressing both mistreatment and deviance simultaneously in organizational interventions and recognizing subtle forms of mistreatment alongside overt abuse.