Abstract
Workplace suicide is prevalent, yet scholars know little about how workplace factors affect employee depression and suicide in organizations. We integrate the work social interaction perspective with affective event theory to propose that both social undermining behavior (i.e., abusive supervision) and social support (i.e., leader humor) impact employee depression and suicidal ideation. We collected data from 482 employees in Study 1 and 664 employees in Study 2 through the alumni networks of colleges in Southern China. The independent variables were abusive supervision and leader humor. The experience of depression was the mediator and suicidal ideation was considered the dependent variable. Ordinary least squares regression and a bootstrapping-based mediation test using the PROCESS macro was conducted. Our results support our hypotheses that abusive supervision is positively associated with employee depression, whereas leader humor is negatively associated with employee depression. Moreover, we find that depression mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and employee suicidal ideation as well as the link between leader humor and employee suicidal ideation. Our results suggest that leader humor is a potential protective factor, whereas abusive supervision is a potential risk factor in predicting employee depression and suicidal ideation.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the grants funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71802203), The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities to L. T. (Grant No. 18wkpy16), Funding for the scientific research of the Young Hundred Talents Program (Grant No. 263113394).
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Ling Tan contributes to conception and design of the work, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, drafting the article; Tiansheng Xia contributes to conception and design of the work, data collection, and drafting the article.
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Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Appendix
Appendix
Leader abusive supervision in Study 1 | |
1) Ridicules me. | |
2) Tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid. | |
3) Puts me down in front of others. | |
4) Makes negative comments about me to others. | |
5) Tells me I’m incompetent. | |
Scales used in the studies | |
Leader humor behavior in Study 2 | |
1) My leader expresses humor with me at work. | |
2) I’ve seen my leader inject humor into many types of situations when interacting with me. | |
3) My leader jokes around with me. | |
4) My leader uses humor to entertain me. | |
5) My leader says clever things that amuse me. | |
Depression scale in Studies 1 and 2 | |
1) | |
0. I do not feel sad. | |
1. I feel sad. | |
2. I am sad all the time and I can’t snap out of it. | |
3. I am so sad and unhappy that I can’t stand it. | |
2) | |
0. I am not particularly discouraged about the future. | |
1. I feel discouraged about the future. | |
2. I feel I have nothing to look forward to. | |
3. I feel the future is hopeless and that things cannot improve. | |
3) | |
0. I do not feel like a failure. | |
1. I feel I have failed more than the average person. | |
2. As I look back on my life, all I can see is a lot of failures. | |
3. I feel I am a complete failure as a person. | |
4) | |
0. I get as much satisfaction out of things as I used to. | |
1. I don’t enjoy things the way I used to. | |
2. I don’t get real satisfaction out of anything anymore. | |
3. I am dissatisfied or bored with everything. | |
5) | |
0. I don’t feel particularly guilty. | |
1. I feel guilty a good part of the time. | |
2. I feel quite guilty most of the time. | |
3. I feel guilty all of the time. | |
6) | |
0. I don’t feel I am being punished. | |
1. I feel I may be punished. | |
2. I expect to be punished. | |
3. I feel I am being punished. | |
7) | |
0. I don’t feel disappointed in myself. | |
1. I am disappointed in myself. | |
2. I am disgusted with myself. | |
3. I hate myself. | |
8) | |
0. I don’t feel I am any worse than anybody else. | |
1. I am critical of myself for my weaknesses or mistakes. | |
2. I blame myself all the time for my faults. | |
3. I blame myself for everything bad that happens. | |
9) | |
0. I don’t have any thoughts of killing myself. | |
1. I have thoughts of killing myself, but I would not carry them out. | |
2. I would like to kill myself. | |
3. I would kill myself if I had the chance. | |
10) | |
0. I don’t cry any more than usual. | |
1. I cry more now than I used to. | |
2. I cry all the time now. | |
3. I used to be able to cry, but now I can’t cry even though I want to. | |
11) | |
0. I am no more irritated by things than I ever was. | |
1. I am slightly more irritated now than usual. | |
2. I am quite annoyed or irritated a good deal of the time. | |
3. I feel irritated all the time. | |
12) | |
0. I have not lost interest in other people. | |
1. I am less interested in other people than I used to be. | |
2. I have lost most of my interest in other people. | |
3. I have lost all of my interest in other people. | |
13) | |
0. I make decisions about as well as I ever could. | |
1. I put off making decisions more than I used to. | |
2. I have more difficulty in making decisions than I used to. | |
3. I can’t make decisions at all anymore. | |
14) | |
0. I can work about as well as before. | |
1. It takes an extra effort to get started at doing something. | |
2. I have to push myself very hard to do anything. | |
3. I can’t do any work at all. | |
15) | |
0. I can sleep as well as usual. | |
1. I don’t sleep as well as I used to. | |
2. I wake up 1–2 h earlier than usual and find it hard to get back to sleep. | |
3. I wake up several hours earlier than I used to and cannot get back to sleep. | |
16) | |
0. I don’t get more tired than usual. | |
1. I get tired more easily than I used to. | |
2. I get tired from doing almost anything. | |
3. I am too tired to do anything. | |
17) | |
0. My appetite is no worse than usual. | |
1. My appetite is not as good as it used to be. | |
2. My appetite is much worse now. | |
3. I have no appetite at all anymore. | |
18) | |
0. I haven’t lost much weight, if any, lately. | |
1. I have lost more than five pounds. | |
2. I have lost more than ten pounds. | |
3. I have lost more than fifteen pounds. | |
19) | |
0. I don’t feel that I look any worse than I used to. | |
1. I am worried that I am looking old or unattractive. | |
2. I feel there are permanent changes in my appearance that make me look unattractive. | |
3. I believe that I look ugly. | |
20) | |
0. I am no more worried about my health than usual. | |
1. I am worried about physical problems like aches, pains, upset stomach, or constipation. | |
2. I am very worried about physical problems and it’s hard to think of much else. | |
3. I am so worried about my physical problems that I cannot think of anything else. | |
21) | |
0. I have not noticed any recent change in my interest in sex. | |
1. I am less interested in sex than I used to be. | |
2. I have almost no interest in sex. | |
3. I have lost interest in sex completely. | |
Suicidal ideation in Studies 1 and 2 | |
During the last 12 months, have you ever thought about committing suicide? |
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Tan, L., Xia, T. Predictors on workplace suicidal ideation: from a social interaction perspective. Curr Psychol 42, 6131–6141 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01928-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01928-9