Another sleepless night: Does a leader's poor sleep lead to subordinate's poor sleep? A spillover/crossover perspective

Is it Time to Include Wearable Sleep Trackers in the Applied Psychologists' Toolbox?

Wearable sleep trackers are increasingly used in applied psychology. Particularly, the recent boom in the fitness tracking industry has resulted in a number of relatively inexpensive consumer-oriented devices that further enlarge the potential applications of ambulatory sleep monitoring. While being largely positioned as wellness tools, wearable sleep trackers could be considered useful health devices supported by a growing number of independent peer-reviewed studies evaluating their accuracy. The inclusion of sensors that monitor cardiorespiratory physiology, diurnal activity data, and other environmental signals allows for a comprehensive and multidimensional approach to sleep health and its impact on psychological well-being. Moreover, the increasingly common combination of wearable trackers and experience sampling methods has the potential to uncover within-individual processes linking sleep to daily experiences, behaviors, and other psychosocial factors. Here, we provide a concise overview of the state-of-the-art, challenges, and opportunities of using wearable sleep-tracking technology in applied psychology. Specifically, we review key device profiles, capabilities, and limitations. By providing representative examples, we highlight how scholars and practitioners can fully exploit the potential of wearable sleep trackers while being aware of the most critical pitfalls characterizing these devices. Overall, consumer wearable sleep trackers are increasingly recognized as a valuable method to investigate, assess, and improve sleep health. Incorporating such devices in research and professional practice might significantly improve the quantity and quality of the collected information while opening the possibility of involving large samples over representative time periods. However, a rigorous and informed approach to their use is necessary.

The hot and the cold in destructive leadership: Modeling the role of arousal in explaining leader antecedents and follower consequences of abusive supervision versus exploitative leadership

Due to its devastating consequences, research needs to theoretically and empirically disentangle different sub-types of destructive leadership. Based on concepts derived from aggression research distinguishing re- and proactive aggression, we provide a process model differentiating abusive supervision and exploitative leadership. High versus low arousal negative affect is installed as the central mediating factor determining (1) whether perceived goal-blockage (leadership antecedents) leads to abusive supervision versus exploitative leadership and (2) whether a specific leadership behavior leads to active versus passive follower behavior (leadership consequence). Further, theoretical anchoring of individual and contextual moderators onto the model's process paths is provided and exemplary hypotheses for concrete moderation effects are deduced. Based on the provided process model, we highlight four recommendations to facilitate process-based construct differentiation in future research on destructive leadership. To precisely understand the differences and commonalities in different forms of destructive leadership will ultimately enable custom-tailored inter- and prevention.

Plain Language Summary

Negative leadership—also named “destructive” leadership—has very bad effects on followers and organizations. There are not just one, but many forms of destructive leadership and it is important to understand where different sub-types come from (i.e., to understand their antecedents) and which specific effect they have (i.e., to understand their consequences). In this paper, we focus on better understanding two forms of destructive leadership, namely abusive supervision and exploitative leadership. These two forms are similar to the two main forms of aggression. Abusive supervision is similar to reactive aggression, an impulsive “hot blooded” form of aggression. Exploitative leadership is similar to proactive aggression, a premeditated “cold blooded” form of aggression. We explain the parallels between the two forms of aggression and the two forms of leadership and provide a model which allows to predict when one versus the other form of leadership occurs and to which follower behavior they lead. An important factor in this model is the physiological characteristic of the emotional reaction to an event (i.e., arousal). An emotional reaction can be high in arousal; for instance, anger is a high arousal negative emotional reaction. On the contrary, boredom, for instance, is a low arousal negative emotional reaction. Dependent on whether both a leader and a follower react to a negative event (e.g., not getting what they want, being treated badly by others) with high or low arousal, their behavior will be different. We explain how this mechanism works and how it can help us to better predict leaders' and followers' behavior. We also outline how individual characteristics of the leader and follower and characteristics of their environment and context interact with arousal and their behavior.

Can't stop eating my feelings: the maladaptive responses of abused employees toward abusive supervision

Although organizational research on abusive supervision and its detrimental effects on individuals and organizations has become increasingly popular, little attention has been paid to the maladaptive responses of subordinates to abusive supervision. We build upon self-regulatory theory to investigate one common but overlooked maladaptive response of subordinates to abusive supervision: subordinate overeating behavior. We conducted a single-source, multi-wave daily diary study on 10 consecutive working days (N = 115 employees and 1150 daily surveys) to investigate the relationship between abusive supervision and overeating behavior via a subordinate's negative mood at the high versus low values of subordinate's recovery experiences. We, from the perspective of self-regulatory impairment, found that a subordinate's perceptions of abusive supervision instill a sense of negative mood, which in turn render a loss of control over his/her behavioral intentions toward overeating behavior. Moreover, the first-stage moderation results demonstrated that recovery experiences at the workplace mitigate the depleting effects of abusive supervision. Abused subordinates are less susceptible to the effects of abusive supervision on overeating behavior via their negative moods when there are greater recovery experiences at the workplace. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

A sleep and self-control model of cyber incivility at work

OBJECTIVES

To conduct an empirical test of a conceptual model in which sleep duration would have an indirect negative effect on cyber incivility at work, mediated by self-regulatory fatigue and moderated by agreeableness.

DESIGN

A 2-week daily diary study in which employees completed daily surveys in the mornings and at the end of the workday.

SETTING

An observational study which measured sleep and work behaviors in the daily work lives of our participants.

PARTICIPANTS

One hundred thirty-one adults who were full-time employees and were also enrolled in a 2-year Executive Post Graduate Program at a university in India.

MEASUREMENT

Participants completed a baseline survey which included agreeableness as well as demographics and person-level control variables. At 7 AM each workday, we sent participants the morning survey which included the sleep measure. At 4 PM each workday, we sent participant the end of workday survey which included measures of self-regulatory fatigue, cyber incivility, and day-level control variables. Participants completed a total of 945 morning surveys and 843 afternoon surveys.

RESULTS

Results supported our model. Sleep duration was negatively associated with self-regulatory fatigue, which was positively related to cyber incivility. Agreeableness moderated the relationship between sleep duration and self-regulatory fatigue, as well as the indirect effect of sleep duration on cyber incivility.

CONCLUSION

Employees have more self-regulatory fatigue and thus engage in higher levels of cyber incivility at work after a shorter night of sleep, especially if those employees are low in agreeableness.

Cost of Serving Others: A Moderated Mediation Model of OCB, Ego Depletion, and Service Sabotage

Taking support from ego-depletion theory, this study examines ego depletion as a mechanism that explains how employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) leads to antagonistic consequences, i.e., service sabotage. Employees' positive psychological capital (PsyCap) is considered a moderator. PROCESS macro was used to test all the hypotheses using time-lagged, dyadic data collected from 420 employees and their 112 their supervisors associated with the service industry in China. This study finds that employees' exhibition of OCB is positively linked to ego depletion, which in turn drives service sabotage behavior. Furthermore, employees' PsyCap weakens the effect of OCB on employees' ego depletion. This study highlights the dark side of OCB, the mechanism through which it causes adverse effects, and the moderating effect of PsyCap. It also provides insights to the organizations for managing service sector employees to effectively interact with customers.

I Will Hurt You for This, When and How Subordinates Take Revenge From Abusive Supervisors: A Perspective of Displaced Revenge

Abusive supervision, defined as subordinates' perception of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviors, excluding physical contact, is associated with various negative outcomes. This has made it easy for researchers to overlook the possibility that some supervisors regret their bad behavior and express remorse for their actions. Hence, we know little about how subordinates react to the perception that their supervisor is remorseful and how this perception affects the outcomes of supervisors' undesired behavior. Specifically, drawing on the social exchange theory (SET) and displace revenge literature, this study explains how abusive supervision leads to victims' service sabotage behavior. In addition, this study also investigates how perceived supervisors' remorse (PSR) mitigates the adverse effects of abusive supervision. Based on time-lagged, dyadic data (63 supervisors, 212 subordinates) from Chinese individuals, this study found support for all the proposed relationships, i.e., abusive supervision leads to service sabotage through the mediating effect of revenge desire. The findings also conclude that PSR lessens the detrimental effects of abusive supervision on victims' behavior with their customers. Finally, this research contributes to service sabotage literature by highlighting the possibility where abusive supervisors cause service sabotage behavior among victims. This study also shows the importance of PSR's role in decreasing service sabotage behavior exhibited by victims of abusive supervisors in the service sector.