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Most of the previous literature has focused on the positive effects of ethical leadership on organizations and employees, but some studies have unexpectedly found that ethical leadership is negatively related to employees’ well-being at work. Based on the theory of workplace anxiety, this research explored whether ethical leadership can reduce employees’ well-being at work by causing them to feel anxious about organizational citizenship behavior and whether organizational concern motivation moderates this mechanism. We collected 227 three-stage time-crossed data samples from 12 institutions in Hainan China, then tested our research hypotheses to confirm that ethical leadership has a negative impact on employees’ well-being at work under certain conditions. We found that: (1) ethical leadership is significantly and positively correlated with the organizational citizenship anxiety perceived by employees, (2) organizational citizenship anxiety perceived by employees plays a completely mediating role between ethical leadership and employee well-being at work, and (3) organizational concern motivation not only negatively moderates the negative correlation between employees’ organizational citizenship anxiety and well-being at work, but also further moderates the indirect negative effect of ethical leadership on employee well-being at work through organizational citizenship anxiety.

Anxiety arising from workplace bullying is a key concern for job performance. Anxiety can explain the effects of workplace bullying: individuals may seek to deal with their anxiety by applying specific behaviors. However, anxiety research does not carefully distinguish between state anxiety and trait anxiety, and so the impact of anxiety in general has been seen as complex and contradictory. Individuals may respond to bullying and anxiety through “passive resistance” or by “swallowing the insult.” However, under what circumstances do individuals choose between these options? This paper summarizes the mechanisms of state anxiety and trait anxiety and uses cognitive balance theory to measure loss of self-control and the strategic choices. A moderated mediation model is presented for the relationship between workplace bullying and job performance using key variables of state anxiety and trait anxiety. Employee-supervisor pairs from 20 organizations and institutions from Tianjin, Jiangsu, and Hainan participated in a two-point longitudinal survey in 2019, 82.67% effective. Analysis verified that trait anxiety is the decisive perspective for choosing between “passive resistance” and “swallowing the insult.” This provides theoretical and practical contributions to psychology and organizational behavior research.

Employing message endorser is a popular strategy in encouraging consumers to protect the environment. This research explores how the social status of endorsers and the forms of normative messages can influence the effectiveness of endorsement for pro-environmental behaviors. Drawing on the focus theory of normative conduct and the match-up hypothesis, the authors propose that the effects of endorser social status on consumers’ responses to green advertising are contingent on whether the normative messages is framed as injunctive norms or descriptive norms. In three experiments, the results indicate that participants show more positive attitudes toward the advertisement and higher intentions to act environmentally friendly when endorsers with high social status are presented in combination with injunctive norm appeals. In contrast, ordinary consumer endorsers produce stronger impact on attitudes and behavioral intentions when descriptive norm appeals are used. These findings show that marketers using endorsers to promote pro-environmental behaviors should develop normative message accordingly.