Bulling

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Work & Stress
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Perceived severity of various bullying behaviours at work and the relevance of exposure to bullying
Jordi Escartín , Alvaro Rodríguez-Carballeira , Dieter Zapf , Clara Porrúa & Javier Martín-Peña
a a a a a b

Department of Social Psychology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
b

Department of Work & Organizational Psychology, University of Goethe-Frankfurt am Main, GermanyAvailable online: 01 Oct 2009

To cite this article: Jordi Escartín, Alvaro Rodríguez-Carballeira, Dieter Zapf, Clara Porrúa & Javier Martín-Peña (2009): Perceived severity of various bullying behaviours at work and the relevance of exposure to bullying, Work & Stress, 23:3, 191-205 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02678370903289639

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Work & Stress Vol. 23, No. 3, JulyÁSeptember 2009, 191Á205

Perceived severity of various bullying behaviours at work and the relevance of exposure to bullying
Jordi Escartına*, Alvaro Rodrıguez-Carballeiraa, Dieter Zapfb, Clara Porruaa ´ ´ ´ and Javier Martın-Penaa ´ ˜
a

Downloaded by [University of Barcelona] at 03:42 03 November 2011

Department of Social Psychology,University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; bDepartment of Work & Organizational Psychology, University of Goethe-Frankfurt am Main, Germany

In this study, perceptions of the severity of various bullying behaviours in the workplace are investigated. The main aims are (1) to obtain the assessments of workers regarding the severity of the various types of behaviour that constitute bullying(psychological abuse), and (2) to examine whether the degree of involvement with the phenomenon (represented by three different groups: victims, witnesses and employees with no previous experience of bullying) influences the severity assessments. A sample of 300 workers from various branches of four organizations in Spain (191 women and 109 men aged between 21 and 66 years) completed a questionnaire. Theresults showed that assessments of the perceived severity of the different types of bullying behaviour varied. Bullying behaviours fell into six categories, with various types of emotional abuse proving to be perceived as the most severe category. Moreover, the results showed that there was no significant difference in the perceived severity of bullying behaviour among victims, witnesses andemployees without previous experience of bullying. The consequences of these results and how they can influence theory, future research and practice are discussed. Keywords: bullying at work; psychological abuse; mobbing; emotional abuse; severity

Introduction The phenomenon of bullying, or mobbing, at work, which is a form of psychological abuse that occurs in the workplace, has grown to such an...