Entitled employees 'more frustrated on the job, more likely to abuse co-workers'

Washington(ANI): A new research from the University of New Hampshire has found that employees who feel entitled in the workplace are more apt to be frustrated on the job and lash out at their co-workers.

Paul Harvey and co-author Kenneth Harris studied behavior of workers who felt entitled and how their behavior affected job-related emotions, such as frustration.

The researchers were especially interested in knowing how frustration by entitlement-minded workers can affect the actions of others, such as abusing co-workers and engaging in political behavior in the workplace.

The survey was conducted on 223 full-time employees from a variety of organizations. The average age of the sample was 42.8 years and the gender composition was 45 percent male and 55 percent female. Participants reported an average of 10.1 years of tenure at their current employers.

The researchers found that individuals with strong entitlement-driven self-perceptions can feel more frustrated and dissatisfied with their work lives than employees with a more objective view of their relative worth and their contributions.

"Overall, the frustration experienced by entitled workers appears to stem from perceived inequities in the rewards received by co-workers to whom psychologically entitled employees feel superior," Harvey said.

The entitled employees studied also engaged in abusive workplace behaviors such as insulting, breaking promises and spreading rumors about co-workers in response to job-related frustration.

They also were more likely to engage in political behaviors such as ingratiation, self-promotion and doing favors.

In looking at how to deal with entitled employees, the researchers found that supervisor communication reduced job-related frustration among employees with low levels of entitlement, but increased frustration among psychologically entitled employees.

"Entitled employees are prone to experiencing relatively high levels of job-related frustration. Unfortunately, supervisors who increase communication with such employees can increase, rather than decrease, employee frustration. This finding gives us some insight about how managers might choose, or in this case not choose, to deal with entitled subordinates," Harvey said.

The research was published in the latest issue of the journal Human Relations in the article 'Frustration-based outcomes of entitlement and the influence of supervisor communication.