Social anxiety mediates workplace incivility and work engagement

Samuel Ken-En Gan; Yusong Zeng; Zihan Wang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1320703

Social anxiety mediates workplace incivility and work engagement

Front Psychol. 2023 Nov 27:14:1320703. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1320703. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Samuel Ken-En Gan^{1

2

3

4

5

6}, Yusong Zeng^{1

2}, Zihan Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Applied Psychology and Discovery (APD), Joint Lab of Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
² James Cook University, Singapore, Singapore.
³ College of Science and Technology, Wenzhou-Kean University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
⁴ Wenzhou Municipal Key Lab for Applied Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Informatics, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
⁵ Zhejiang Bioinformatics International Science and Technology Cooperation Center, Wenzhou- Kean University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
⁶ Dorothy and George Hennings College of Science, Mathematics and Technology, Kean University, Union, NJ, United States.

Abstract

The average working person spends between 35 and 60 h a week in the workplace, making it an influential place for mental well-being and a place for socioeconomic contribution. Workplace incivility can diminish positive mental health outcomes and negatively impact work engagement through increased social anxiety. To investigate this, 118 working adults in Singapore aged between 19 to 67 years old were recruited for a survey consisting of demographic questions, the Workplace Incivility Scale, the Brief DSM-5 Social Anxiety Disorder Severity Scale, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-9 between November 2022 to April 2023. Correlational, regression, and mediation analysis showed workplace incivility scale scores to significantly predict social anxiety after controlling for covariates. This supports our hypothesis that employees exposed to workplace incivility would have higher social anxiety levels mediating work engagement after controlling for age and gender. The findings here show workplace incivility as a possible intervention target for social anxiety, in order to reduce negative impact on work engagement to improve employee experience and retention for organizations.

Keywords: age; employee experience; mediation analysis; social anxiety; well-being; work engagement; workplace incivility.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The work was covered by James Cook University Singapore, and by the Wenzhou Science and Technology Bureau, Key Lab Program, Wenzhou Municipal Key Laboratory for Applied Biomedical and Biopharmaceutical Informatics, Wenke Jiji (2021) No. 4, to Wenzhou-Kean University.