The DOI matches its Crossref record; 15 of the 15 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Catching rudeness is like catching a cold: The contagion effects of low-intensity negative behaviors.
Abstract
In this article we offer a new perspective to the study of negative behavioral contagion in organizations. In 3 studies, we investigate the contagion effect of rudeness and the cognitive mechanism that explains this effect. Study 1 results show that low-intensity negative behaviors like rudeness can be contagious, and that this contagion effect can occur based on single episodes, that anybody can be a carrier, and that this contagion effect has second-order consequences for future interaction partners. In Studies 2 and 3 we explore in the laboratory the cognitive mechanism that underlies the negative behavioral contagion effect observed in Study 1. Specifically, we show that rudeness activates a semantic network of related concepts in individuals' minds, and that this activation influences individual's hostile behaviors. In sum, in these 3 studies we show that just like the common cold, common negative behaviors can spread easily and have significant consequences for people in organizations.
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Cited by
Who strikes back? A daily investigation of when and why incivility begets incivility.
Rosen, C. C., Koopman, J., Gabriel, A. S., & Johnson, R. E. (2016) · Journal of Applied Psychology · doi:10.1037/apl0000140 · Cited by 300
Personality Change: Implications for Organizational Behavior
Tasselli, S., Kilduff, M., & Landis, B. (2018) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2016.0008 · Cited by 114
Powerlessness Also Corrupts: Lower Power Increases Self-Promotional Lying
Li, H. (., Chen, Y.-R., & Hildreth, J. A. D. (2023) · Organization Science · doi:10.1287/orsc.2022.1630 · Cited by 12
Metadata
- Authors
- Foulk, T., Woolum, A., & Erez, A.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Published
- 2016-01
- Volume
- 101
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 50-67
- ISSN
- 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1854
- OpenAlex
- W798079786
- Cited by
- 168
- References
- 15
- FWCI
- 27.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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