When and How Workplace Helping Promotes Deviance? An Actor-Centric Perspective

Despite the vast academic interest in workplace helping, little is known about the impact of different types of helping behaviors on physiological and behavioral ramifications of helpers. By taking the actor-centric perspective, this study attempts to investigate the differential impacts of three kinds of helping behaviors (caring, coaching, and substituting helping) on helpers themselves from the theory of resource conservation. To test our model, 512 Chinese employees were surveyed, utilizing a three-wave time-lagged design, and we found that caring and coaching helping were negatively associated with workplace deviance, whereas substituting helping was positively associated with subsequent workplace deviance. Emotional exhaustion mediated the effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance. Moreover, employees' extrinsic career goals influenced the strength of the relationship between three helping behaviors and emotional exhaustion and the indirect effects of three helping behaviors on subsequent workplace deviance via emotional exhaustion. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theories and practices.

Overcoming organizational politics with tenacity and passion for work: benefits for helping behaviors

PurposeThis study unpacks the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational politics and their helping behavior, by explicating a mediating role of employees' affective commitment and moderating roles of their tenacity and passion for work.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey data were collected from 476 employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk.FindingsBeliefs that the organizational climate is predicated on self-serving behaviors diminish helping behaviors, and this effect arises because employees become less emotionally attached to their organization. This mediating role of affective commitment is less salient to the extent that employees persevere in the face of challenges and feel passionate about working hard.Practical implicationsFor human resource managers, this study pinpoints a lack of positive organization-oriented energy as a key mechanism by which perceptions about a negative political climate steer employees away from assisting organizational colleagues on a voluntary basis. They can contain this mechanism by ensuring that employees are equipped with energy-boosting personal resources.Originality/valueThis study addresses employees' highly salient emotional reactions to organizational politics and pinpoints the critical function of affective commitment for explaining the escalation of perceived organizational politics into diminished helping behavior. It also identifies buffering effects linked to two pertinent personal resources.

Cyberbullying Among Tweens in the United States: Prevalence, Impact, and Helping Behaviors

The goal of this study was to provide key prevalence rates for experiences with cyberbullying among tweens (children between the ages of 9 and 12 years old). We were also interested in the extent to which tweens engaged in helping behaviors when they observed cyberbullying. American tweens ( n = 1034; mean age = 10.52, SD = 1.12) completed an online survey in which they reported on their experience with cyberbullying victimization, offending, and witnessing. Respondents were also asked how being cyberbullied made them feel, and to describe if they helped when they observed online mistreatment. Results revealed that about one in five tweens has been exposed to cyberbullying as a witness, a target, or an aggressor. This population has been historically understudied when it comes to their online experiences, and these findings highlight the need for deeper inquiry as well as additional guidance and support.

How Authoritarian Leadership Affects Employee's Helping Behavior? The Mediating Role of Rumination and Moderating Role of Psychological Ownership

Interpersonal helping behaviors, i.e., voluntarily assisting colleagues for their workplace related problems, have received immense amount of scholarly attention due to their significant impacts on organizational effectiveness. Among several other factors, authoritarian leadership style could influence helping behavior within organizations. Furthermore, this relationship could be mediated by workplace stressor such as rumination, known as a critical psychological health component leading to depressive symptoms, hopelessness and pessimism. In the meantime, less research attention has devoted to probe the crucial role of psychological ownership, which can buffer the adverse effects of authoritarian leadership upon rumination. Building on conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the adverse impacts of authoritarian leadership on employees' helping behaviors through mediating role of rumination, and also examines the moderating effect of psychological ownership between the relationship of authoritarian leadership and rumination. The data were collected from 264 employees in education and banking sectors and the results show: (i) authoritarian leadership has adverse impacts on helping behavior, (ii) rumination mediates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and employees' helping behaviors, and (iii) psychological ownership moderates the positive relationship between authoritarian leadership and rumination. This study concludes that authoritarian leadership has adverse impacts upon helping behavior, which needs to be controlled/minimized. The findings are of great significance for managers, employees, and organizations in terms of policy implications. The limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Exposure to Self-Directed Violence: Understanding Intention to Help and Helping Behaviors among Adolescents and Emerging Adults

Exposure to self-directed violence (SDV) is a public health issue. Prevention trains third parties to identify SDV risk and provide help. However, we know little about the range of help provided to those who engage in SDV. The current study used a cross-sectional online survey of 1031 adolescents and emerging adults to learn about their SDV exposure, intent and attempts to help, and barriers to helping. Most participants reported SDV exposure, commonly by a peer, and provided help. Regression analyses showed that intent to help was predicted by social norms and having knowledge of resources, and such knowledge (but not social norms) was also related to actual helping behaviors. Qualitative analysis of short open-ended questions on the survey documented a range of barriers to helping. Findings support but also encourage revision of theoretical models of helping upon which prevention programs are based.

Influence of Psychological Distance on People’s Willingness to Help Accident Victims: Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Inferences

Drawing on construal-level theory, this study explored how a sense of psychological distance from an accident influences people’s willingness to help victims. We conducted a scenario experiment with a sample of 81 Japanese undergraduates. Participants were presented with a short scenario describing an accident that happened on either a distant or a nearby mountain. The results show that the greater the distance perceived by participants from the accident, the more likely they were to infer negative traits about the victim at an implicit level. However, the more they inferred negative traits at an implicit level, the more likely they were to attribute the cause of the accident to external situational factors, at an explicit level. Finally, explicit external causal attribution aroused greater sympathy for the victim, resulting in an increased willingness to help. This discrepancy between implicit and explicit inferences was discussed in terms of cognitive elaboration, in which people engage in helping behaviors when they feel responsible for the fate of the victim.