Workplace micro-aggressions and affective consequences: the moderating role of emotional contagion

Abstract

Abstract This study applied affective events theory to conceptualize micro-aggressions as affective micro-events and tested (1) the mediating role of negative affect in the relationship between micro-aggressions and (a) emotional exhaustion and (b) work engagement, and (2) the moderating role of emotional contagion in these indirect relationships. A daily diary design was employed with a sample of 40 participants over five consecutive days, resulting in 200 observations. The findings revealed that daily micro-aggressions were positively associated with emotional exhaustion and negatively related to work engagement through negative affect. Additionally, emotional contagion moderated the relationship between daily micro-aggressions and negative affect, with the indirect effect between micro-aggressions and emotional exhaustion being stronger for individuals with lower levels of emotional contagion. A similar pattern emerged for work engagement. These results provide valuable insights into the impact of daily micro-aggressions in the workplace and highlight the role of emotional contagion, offering important implications for future research in this area.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 14 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.