Principal’s negative emotional manipulations, interpersonal suppression of teachers by the principal, and trust in the principal

• Principals' negative emotional manipulation lowers teachers' trust in them. • Interpersonal suppression fully mediates this trust decline. • Affective trust is more impacted than cognitive trust. • Study analyzed 654 Israeli elementary school teachers. • Research expands knowledge on school workplace emotional dynamics. This study investigated the effect of principals' negative emotional manipulations on teachers' affective and cognitive trust in the principal, focusing on the mediating role of interpersonal suppression. Data were collected from 654 public elementary school teachers in Israel. Using a multilevel mediation model analysis, the study examined the existence of mediated indirect links in two models: one predicting affective trust and the other predicting cognitive trust. The findings indicate that principals' negative emotional manipulation significantly reduced both affective and cognitive trust in the principal, with interpersonal suppression of teachers by principals fully mediating these relationships. These results reveal the effect of interpersonal suppression in shaping emotional and cognitive attitudes in the workplace. The size of the indirect effect was slightly larger for affective than for cognitive trust, suggesting that interpersonal suppression plays a more significant role in emotional processes. The research expands the relatively scarce knowledge on principals' negative emotional manipulations and interpersonal suppression in workplace research in general and schools in particular.