Exploring the relationship between workaholism and workplace aggressive behavior: the role of job-related emotion

Most research on workaholism has been devoted to the refinement of the construct and to the study of its psychological health correlates. In the present study, we contribute to a better understanding of the interpersonal and organizational consequences of workaholism by investigating its relationship with workplace aggressive behaviour. Drawing on well-established models of workplace aggression, we hypothesised that workaholism would be related to aggressive behaviour over and above working conditions (e.g. interpersonal conflict), which are widely known for their potential to trigger aggressive behaviour. Furthermore, we also hypothesised that job-related affective states (specifically high-arousal negative affective states) would mediate the workaholism–aggressive behaviour relationship. We tested the hypotheses in two different samples of employees (N = 574, and N = 282) by using hierarchical regression and bootstrap multiple mediation analyses. Results were in line with predictions in both samples, suggesting that workaholism is an important factor as far as workplace aggression is concerned.