Empathy or schadenfreude? Exploring observers’ differential responses to abusive supervision

Witnessing abusive supervision is pervasive in the workplace. Intuitively, observers should respond with empathy. Drawing on appraisal theory of emotion, however, we propose that observers’ emotional and behavioral responses to witnessing abusive supervision depend on the perceived goal competitiveness between observers and victims. Specifically, when perceived goal competitiveness is high or made salient, observed abusive supervision is positively associated with observers’ schadenfreude, which in turn decreases their helping behaviors toward victims. In contrast, when perceived goal competitiveness is low, observed abusive supervision is positively associated with observers’ empathic emotion, which in turn increases their helping behaviors toward victims. Data from one experiment and one multi-wave field study provide support for these hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and directions for future research.