An Ego Depletion Perspective Linking Political Behavior to Interpersonal Deviance

Area of Science:

• Organizational Behavior
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Political behavior in organizations is often self-serving.
• Limited research connects political acts to daily interpersonal deviance.
• Ego depletion theory provides a framework for understanding this link.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the daily relationship between political acts and interpersonal deviance.
• To examine the moderating roles of moral self-efficacy and chronic job strain.
• To test a mediated moderation model linking political acts to deviance.

Main Methods:

• Experience sampling method with 760 cases from 152 full-time workers in mainland China.
• Multilevel structural equation modeling.
• Hierarchical linear modeling.

Main Results:

• Daily political acts significantly correlate with interpersonal deviance.
• Moral self-efficacy acts as a buffer, weakening the political act-deviance relationship.
• Chronic job strain amplifies the relationship between political acts and interpersonal deviance.
• Moral self-efficacy mediates the moderating effect of chronic job strain.

Conclusions:

• Political behavior can negatively impact workplace interactions.
• Interventions enhancing moral self-efficacy may mitigate deviance.
• Managing job strain is crucial for controlling the negative consequences of political acts.