Understanding cycles of abuse: A multimotive approach.

Fundamental to the definition of abusive supervision is the notion that subordinates are often victims of a pattern of mistreatment (Tepper, 2000). However, little research has examined the processes through which such destructive relational patterns emerge. In this study, we draw from and extend the multimotive model of reactions to interpersonal threat (Smart Richman & Leary, 2009) to formulate and test hypotheses about how employees'...