The Role of Negative Affectivity and Emotion Regulation in Reciprocal Incivility

The current study explored the relationships between incivility, negative affect, and emotion regulation styles using an experimental design. Participants were provoked by a confederate and then given opportunities to retaliate. The experiential manipulation impacted participants in different ways, necessitating an internal analysis (N = 101). In a hierarchical regression, reappraisal and condition moderated the relationship between the amount of respect perceived and feelings of negative affect, such that less respect was associated with more negative affect only for those low in reappraisal for those in the experimental condition. A post-hoc model of moderated mediation extending these effects to include measures of enacted incivility was tested. Partial support was found for this model depending on the type of enacted incivility, such that more disrespect was associated with more negative affect and that leads to more enacted incivility, but only for those low in reappraisal. Limitations and future research directions are presented.