Research Insights: When silence is not golden

Incivility in organizations leads to numerous harmful effects, including discouraging some from voicing their opinions in constructive ways. One concern is that women are more often silenced in this manner, particularly when speaking out is considered a deviation from gendered norms. 

Kristin Bain, assistant professor in the department of management, explores this topic in a co-authored (first author) article, “Silenced by Incivility,” published in the Journal of Business Ethics. 

Bain and her collaborators sought to learn whether, as incivility increases, women’s anticipated gender backlash increases more than men’s; further, whether women anticipate more gender backlash in uncivil contexts compared to women in civil contexts and men in uncivil contexts, which in turn is associated with increased silence. 

To test their hypotheses, Bain and her co-authors conducted two studies. In the first, 654 subjects comprised of men and women, of nearly equal numbers, took part in an online group participating in a marketing contest. The discussion was manipulated for incivility, and afterward subjects responded to questions about their experience. In the second study, 2,528 working adults (half women, half men) responded to a survey regarding their experience, when working with a usual group of colleagues, regarding incivility, anticipated gender backlash, and silence.

Results of the first study showed that in uncivil groups, but not civil groups, women anticipated more backlash than men, which was associated with women being more silent than men. The second study revealed that as incivility increased, women’s anticipation of gender backlash also increased—to a greater extent than men’s—which, in turn, was associated with more silence from women than men. 

Finally, the authors conclude that “this disproportionate impact of incivility on women’s silence gives organizations another reason to identify and address uncivil behavior and provides insight into why individually focused strategies for increasing voice may not always be effective.”

View paper in the Journal of Business Ethics (2025), Silenced by Incivility.