Overview
OSF
Prior to beginning our study, we secured approval to carry out our research through the Grand Valley State University institutional review board (Protocol 21-248-H, written consent obtained via online survey). Data and materials for our research are available via OSF at Participants were asked to complete the reference check for “the employee you least like to work with in your primary job.” We chose these instructions for several reasons. First, although applicants are asked to list preferred sources for reference checks, employers often ask for references from individuals not provided by the applicant, what the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) refers to as backdoor references [Second, we wanted to minimize demand characteristics insofar as we did not want to directly inform participants that our research interest (in part) was in their perceptions of an employee’s incivility, which we believed would occur if we had directly focused participant’s attention on an uncivil employee. We nonetheless reasoned that uncivil behavior would influence who participants decided to reflect upon; in addition to perceptions of competence, perceptions of warmth–to which uncivil behavior directly relate [