As posited by the stressor model, workplace aggression is an event that can cause people to fear for their well being. Employee well being consists of several different components including affective responses, domain-specific satisfaction, and life satisfaction, all of which correlate highly. We separately examine the three most common forms of psychological well being in the workplace aggression literature: Psychological distress, depression, and emotional exhaustion. We exclude the broader category of domain satisfaction described by Diener et al, and instead focus on one specific facet of domain satisfaction (i.e., job satisfaction) as a separate outcome variable.
According to the stressor–stress–strain model, psychological strain occurs when a stressor leads to impaired cognition or effect. Workplace aggression could lead to both impaired cognition and affect, as employees seek to make sense of and react to the aggressive event. Workplace aggression elicits both fear and anxiety as employees struggle to determine whether it will continue and how it will affect their position in the organization