Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 24, 2025
07:36
An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime
Published on: May 3, 2016
8.6K
Attributions for abusive supervision: Who do subordinates blame and does it matter?
Uma Kedharnath1, Christine A Henle2, Troy Mumford2
1Department of Management, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, 4501 Timothy J. Hyland Hall, 809 W. Starin Road, Whitewater, Wisconsin, 53190, USA.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
|July 3, 2023
Summary
Subordinates
Area of Science:
- Organizational Behavior
- Social Psychology
- Management Studies
Background:
- Abusive supervision negatively impacts employee well-being and performance.
- Attribution theory provides a framework for understanding how individuals explain events.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how subordinates' attributions for abusive supervision influence their responses.
- To examine the role of perceived stability in these attributional processes.
- To identify entities blamed for abusive supervision.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Scenario-based experiment (N=183) testing a moderated mediation model.
- Study 2: Qualitative analysis of subordinate responses (N=107) to identify blame targets.
Main Results:
- Blaming self or organization for abuse led to less supervisor disliking and higher organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) toward supervisors, especially when abuse cause was perceived as stable.
- Supervisor disliking mediated the link between supervisor attributions and OCB-supervisor, unmoderated by stability.
- Common blame targets included supervisor, self, and organization; less common targets were relationship and work group.
Conclusions:
- Subordinates' attributions for abusive supervision significantly shape their affective responses and behavioral intentions.
- Perceived stability of the abuse's cause moderates the impact of self/organizational attributions on OCB-supervisor.
- Understanding attributional patterns is crucial for managing abusive supervision and its consequences.
Related Concept Videos
01:14Fundamental Attribution Error
12.9K
According to some social psychologists, people tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations—or attributions—for the behavior of other people. They tend to assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others. They tend to fail to recognize when the behavior of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state. This erroneous assumption is...
12.9K
01:27Parenting Styles
96
Diana Baumrind's four parenting styles — authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful, and permissive — each influence children's socio-emotional development differently.
Authoritarian Parenting
This style is strict and controlling, with little room for open dialogue. Authoritarian parents demand obedience and often enforce rules with minimal warmth. Children raised this way may lack social skills and initiative, usually comparing themselves to others unfavorably.
Authoritative...
Authoritarian Parenting
This style is strict and controlling, with little room for open dialogue. Authoritarian parents demand obedience and often enforce rules with minimal warmth. Children raised this way may lack social skills and initiative, usually comparing themselves to others unfavorably.
Authoritative...
96
00:56Attribution Theory
13.0K
Behavior is a product of both the situation (e.g., cultural influences, social roles, and the presence of bystanders) and of the person (e.g., personality characteristics). Subfields of psychology tend to focus on one influence or behavior over others. Situationism is the view that our behavior and actions are determined by our immediate environment and surroundings. In contrast, dispositionism holds that our behavior is determined by internal factors (Heider, 1958).
13.0K
01:08Obedience
32.9K
According to obedience research, we may harm others under the forceful pressures of an authority figure (Milgram, 1974). How about if the inappropriate orders were delivered with less force? The increasing interdependence between nurses and physicians compelled Hofling and his colleagues to explore nurses’ reactions to a potentially harmful medical request made by the perceived authority figure, the doctor (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966). In this situation,...
32.9K
02:20Milgram's Obedience to Authority
6.4K
Obedience to authority is classically demonstrated in a more famous series of social psychology experiments performed by Stanley Milgram. He was a social psychology professor at Yale who was influenced by the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal. Eichmann’s defense for the atrocities he committed was that he was “just following orders.”
6.4K
02:05Self-Presentation: Self-Monitoring and Self-Handicapping
39.1K
People can go to great lengths to protect their self-image and present themselves in ways that they want others to see them. Sociologist Erving Goffman presented the idea that a person is like an actor on a stage. Calling his theory dramaturgy, Goffman believed that we use “impression management” to present ourselves to others as we hope to be perceived. Each situation is a new scene, and individuals perform different roles depending on who is present (Goffman, 1959). Think about...
39.1K