DOES RUDENESS REDUCE CREATIVITY? EXAMINING THE ROLE OF APPRAISAL AND RUMINATION FOLLOWING INCIVILITY AT WORK

Abstract

The current study examines how rude customers might deplete the creativity of service workers by investigating the roles of negative appraisal and rumination following customer incivility. Simultaneously, we also examine an alternative: can customer incivility promote the creativity of service workers? We propose that challenge appraisal of incivility is instrumental to boosting creativity. We ground our hypotheses in the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001) and transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), positioning incivility experiences as potential resource-depleting and/or resource-boosting events. This study contributes to the incivility and creativity literature by investigating dual pathways linking incivility to creativity via appraisal and rumination. We found that service employees often view customer incivility as negative, and it triggers rumination, while focal and post hoc analyses show that challenge appraisals can be associated with greater creativity. Further findings, theoretical and practical implications, and future research directions are discussed.