Date of Conferral

2-14-2024

Date of Award

February 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Hedy Dexter

Abstract

The potential for negative experiences in the workplace, such as managerial abuse (i.e., the inappropriate and harmful behavior of managers towards subordinates, including verbal aggression and unfair treatment), presents significant obstacles to employee satisfaction and overall well-being. Although ample evidence has supported the detrimental impact of managerial abuse on employees' life satisfaction, the influence of other factors such as the ability to regulate one’s emotional reactions and/or vent one’s anger by displacing it on someone without the power to retaliate may further impact one’s satisfaction with life. Informed by the theory of displaced aggression, the purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental, correlational study was to determine the relative strength of managerial abuse, emotion regulation, and displaced aggression in predicting employee life satisfaction. Online surveys were administered by SurveyMonkey to 117 participants currently employed and who reported to a manager. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that neither managerial abuse nor emotion regulation significantly predicted employee life satisfaction. However, a significant positive relationship was found between displaced aggression and life satisfaction, suggesting that venting one’s anger has a cathartic effect that serves to increase life satisfaction. Insights from this study may be used to inform organizational polices related to employee/manager role relationships with the potential to diffuse conflict and prevent a hostile work environment. Diffusing anger in the workplace has positive social change implications insofar as anger expressed either at work or at home affects not just the workers, but their families as well.

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