Managers may mistreat employees who perform poorly because they assume their behavior results from a lack of diligence rather than other factors, according to research we published in September 2021.

Surveys show that about one in seven U.S. workers feel that their manager engages in hostile behaviors toward them. Abusive supervision may range from relatively mild behaviors, such as lying or not giving credit for work, to more severe actions, such as insults or ridicule.

While past research has suggested that it’s the poor performance of workers provoking managers’ abusive reactions, we wanted to examine whether the supervisor’s faulty perceptions deserve at least some of the blame.

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