Be friendly, stay well: the effects of job resources on well-being in a discriminatory work environment

Abstract

Many studies have focused on the negative effects of discrimination on workers' well-being. However, discrimination does not affect just victims but also those people who witness discriminatory acts or who perceived they are working in a discriminatory work environment. Although perceiving a discriminatory work environment might be a stressor, the presence of job resources might counteract its negative effects, as suggested by the Job Demand-Resources model. The goal of this study is to test the effect of perceiving a discriminatory work environment on workers' psychological well-being when job autonomy and co-workers and supervisor support act as mediator and moderators respectively. To test the moderated mediation model data were gathered with a sample of Italian 114 truckers. Results demonstrated that job autonomy partially mediates the relationship between perceiving a discriminatory work environment and workers' well-being. Main interactional effects have been observed when co-workers support is introduced in the model as moderator, while no main interactional effects exist when supervisor support is introduced. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.