Competent or Warm? The Role of Job Performance and OCB in Predicting Workplace Aggression

This study proposes and investigates a curvilinear relationship between job performance and exposure to workplace aggression. Drawing upon the stereotype content model, we theorize two distinct mediating mechanisms at high and low levels of job performance. High performers provoke jealousy, and low performers provoke contempt from coworkers, both of which are positively associated with exposure to workplace psychological aggression. We further examine the moderating effect of organizational citizenship behavior- individual. The current study tested these relations using data from a sample of 187 teachers from India. We found support for the curvilinear relationship between performance and workplace psychological aggression and the mediating mechanisms of jealousy and contempt for high and low performers, respectively. We also found that employee citizenship behavior weakens the relationship between job performance and workplace aggression for high performers.