Perceptions of abusive supervision: aggressive supervisors, aggressive subordinates, and organizational climates

This research seeks to better understand how perceptions of abusive supervision develop. Recent theoretical and empirical work highlights limited research on how these perceptions form. We apply a broad social-psychological perspective to explain how subordinate characteristics, supervisor characteristics, and context contribute to perceptions of abuse. Drawing on conditional reasoning theory, we argue that the implicit motive to aggress of both supervisors and subordinates is central to predicting perceptions of abuse. Context, specifically group justice climate, may also limit such perceptions. We develop and test this theory using a multilevel, group-based framework to better explain how supervisor motive to aggress, subordinate motive to aggress, and group justice climate contribute to variance in perceptions of abuse. We test our theory using two samples. The first, with 274 employed students, examined how the motive to aggress shapes individual perceptions of abuse. The second included 245 employees nested in workgroups under 70 supervisors, allowing us to test the full multilevel model. In Study 2, 31% of the within-group variance in abuse perceptions was attributed to subordinates’ motive to aggress relative to the null model. In contrast, supervisors’ motive to aggress explained 43% of the between-group variance in abusive supervision perceptions, and group justice climate explained approximately 7% of the variance beyond subordinate motive to aggress relative to the null model. These substantial effect sizes underscore the importance of motive to aggress in understanding abusive supervision.