Supervisor-focused impression management and social undermining as self-enhancing responses to perceived job insecurity

Job insecurity has become a more prevalent societal issue across many advanced economies since the 1980s. Previous research has demonstrated the deleterious effects of job insecurity on workers’ physical and mental health, as well as their job attitudes and performance. The proposed study aims to explore two active ways in which employees may respond to perceived job insecurity. To preserve their job, we propose that employees experiencing job insecurity will engage in impression management tactics directed at their supervisor or engage in social undermining tactics directed at their coworkers. We hypothesize that this process will be moderated by the employee’s core self-evaluations (CSE), which will influence their appraisal of the situation. Employees with high CSE will be more likely to respond with supervisor-focused impression management, and employees with low CSE will be more likely to respond with coworker-focused social undermining. Data will be gathered through Qualtrics surveys distributed initially via convenience and snowball sampling with the future possibility of utilizing the survey platform Prolific to gather additional participants.