Selective Incivility Toward Black Employees Fuels Social Pain Minimization and Defensive Silence

Abstract Workplace incivility disproportionately impacts Black employees and sets the stage for employee silence, where workers deliberately withhold information out of fear of retaliation and mistreatment. Although silence can have devastating effects on organizational communication and effectiveness, little research has considered mechanisms linking it to incivility, particularly among Black employees. The current work addresses these and other gaps in the empirical literature to test whether emotion invalidation, termed social pain minimization mediates incivility’s effect on defensive silence. Results from three studies, employing multi-wave and experimental designs, and centering the perspectives of Black employees supported this hypothesis. Black employees reported greater incivility and social pain minimization than White employees. Furthermore, incivility mediated the effect of employee race on social pain minimization (Study 1). Experimental manipulations of uncivil treatment increased expected social pain minimization and defensive silence and social pain minimization mediated incivility’s effect on silence (Study 2). Across a 6-week period, incivility predicted social pain minimization, which then mediated the relationship between incivility and defensive silence. These results provide evidence that in incivility’s wake, emotion invalidation can lead employees to withdraw and engage in defensive silence.