Drawing a sword to assist? How colleague's experienced abuse motivates helping behavior among nurses

As peer abusive supervision becomes increasingly prevalent in healthcare organizations, the specific mechanisms through which it influences bystander behaviors require deeper exploration. Grounded in affective events theory, this study examines how colleague's experienced abuse affects bystander helping behaviors through an affective pathway, with experience similarity and organizational competitive atmosphere introduced as moderating variables.

To test the hypotheses, this study employed a cross-sectional design and conducted a survey among nurses at a hospital in Beijing, yielding 250 valid questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 26 and AMOS 28.

The results indicate that colleague's experienced abuse promotes helping behaviors by eliciting feelings of compassion among bystanders. Experience similarity positively moderates the relationship between colleague's experienced abuse and compassion, strengthening this effect as the level of experience similarity increases. Organizational competitive atmosphere negatively moderates the relationship between compassion and helping behaviors, with the indirect effect diminishing as the competitive atmosphere intensifies.

The findings enrich the application of affective events theory in abusive supervision research, provide theoretical support for interventions targeting bystander behaviors in the workplace, and offer practical guidance for organizations to design more targeted management practices when addressing workplace abusive behaviors.