Why is Incivility Making Job Seekers Worse? A Time-Lagged Research

Abstract

The phenomenon that job seekers experience incivility in job search is becoming more and more common, but the consequences are still limited. In light of this gap, we integrate affective events theory with job search literature to examine how job seekers experienced incivility in job search influences affective and job search behavior. In a 4-weeks longitudinal cross-lagged investigation, we sought to test the time-lagged relationship between incivility and haphazard job search; additionally, we examined negative affect as a process that mediates this time-lagged relationship. The result indicated that experienced job search incivility led to job seekers’ negative affect, which in turn led to haphazard job search, negative affect mediated the time-lagged association between experienced job search incivility and haphazard job search. The results highlight the need for more attention to be paid to the negative consequences of uncivilized behavior in job search context.