Predicting workplace aggression: A meta-analysis.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 57 empirical studies (59 samples) concerning enacted workplace aggression to answer 3 research questions. First, what are the individual and situational predictors of interpersonal and organizational aggression? Second, within interpersonal aggression, are there different predictors of supervisor- and coworker-targeted aggression? Third, what are the relative contributions of individual (i.e., trait anger, negative affectivity, and biological sex) and situational (i.e., injustice, job dissatisfaction, interpersonal conflict, situational constraints, and poor leadership) factors in explaining interpersonal and organizational aggression? Results show that both individual and situational factors predict aggression and that the pattern of predictors is target specific. Implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding Supervisor-Targeted Aggression: A Within-Person, Between-Jobs Design.

The authors investigated predictors of supervisor-targeted workplace aggression among 105 "moonlighters" (employed adults who work 2 jobs, each with a different supervisor), as a way of examining the relative role played by within-subject situational differences and between-subjects individual differences. Individual difference variables (self-esteem, history of aggression) explained a similar level of variance in aggression across both jobs, whereas situational factors (interactional injustice, abusive supervision) were job specific and explained proportionally more variance than did individual differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting and preventing supervisory workplace aggression.

The authors examined factors that lead to and prevent aggression toward supervisors at work using two samples: doctoral students and correctional service guards. The results supported that perceived interpersonal injustice mediates the relationship between perceptions of supervisory control over work performance and psychological aggression directed at supervisors, and further that psychological aggression toward supervisors is positively associated with physical acts of aggression directed at supervisors, supporting the notion of an escalation of aggressive workplace behaviors. Moreover, employees' perceptions of organizational sanctions (i.e., negative consequences for disobeying organizational policies) against aggression appear to play an important role in the prevention of workplace aggression by moderating the relationship between injustice and aggression targeting supervisors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Workplace aggression in teenage part-time employees.

Among adult employees, interpersonal injustice and abusive supervision predict aggression toward supervisors at work. The aim of this study was to assess whether similar relationships exist among teenage employees and, further, whether teenagers' reasons for working moderate these relationships. Multiple regression analyses on data from 119 teenage employees showed that financial and personal fulfillment reasons for working moderate the impact of interpersonal injustice and abusive supervision on aggression directed at workplace supervisors. These findings contribute to the understanding of workplace aggression by demonstrating that (a) teenagers engage in this workplace behavior, (b) the predictors are similar to those of adult aggression, and (c) reasons for working play a moderating role among this particular cohort. The possible long-term consequences of teenagers' use of aggression at work are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Effects of Individual Differences and Charismatic Leadership on Workplace Aggression.

This study examined the effects of individual differences variables (trait anger, self-control, negative affectivity, attitudes toward revenge, and attributional style) and charismatic leadership on incidents of workplace aggression in a sample of 213 employees from a wide range of organizations. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that the individual differences variables accounted for 27% of the variance in workplace aggression and that charismatic leadership accounted for an additional 3% after controlling for individual differences. In addition, psychological empowerment partially mediated the relationship between charismatic leadership and workplace aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the role of individual differences in the prediction of workplace aggression.

This study investigates the relationship between individual differences and the incidence of workplace aggression in a sample of employees from a transportation company and a public school system. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that measures of trait anger, attribution style, negative affectivity, attitudes toward revenge, self-control, and previous exposure to aggressive cultures accounted for 62% of the variance in the participants' self-reported incidence of workplace aggression. Further research on workplace aggression is advocated, focusing on the role of individual differences and their interactions with organizational and group-level variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferences about the morality of an aggressor: The role of perceived motive.

The research investigated perceivers' inferences about the morality of target persons who engaged in aggressive behavior. Across several experiments, inferences about the morality of an aggressor were based more on the perceived motives of the target than on the presence of facilitating situational forces. For example, when a target's aggression was facilitated by personal rewards for aggression (instrumental aggression), perceivers inferred more negative motives and attributed lower morality to the target than when the target's aggression was facilitated by situational provocation (reactive aggression). The results suggest that perceived motives play an important role in dispositional inference and pose a problem for models that focus primarily on perceived causality, assumptions about base rates (consensus), or diagnosticity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Husbands' and Wives' Marital Adjustment, Verbal Aggression, and Physical Aggression as Longitudinal Predictors of Physical Aggression in Early Marriage.

Marital adjustment, verbal aggression, and physical aggression have long been associated in the marital literature, but the nature of their associations remains unclear. In this study, the authors examined these 3 constructs as risk factors for physical aggression during the first 2 years of marriage in 634 couples recruited as they applied for marriage licenses. Couples completed assessments at the time of marriage and at their 1st and 2nd anniversaries. Results of path analyses suggest that prior verbal aggression and physical aggression by both partners are important longitudinal predictors of physical aggression but do not support the role of marital adjustment as a unique predictor of subsequent physical aggression. Contrary to prior research, results also failed to support physical aggression as a unique predictor of marital adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intergroup aggression: Its predictors and distinctness from in-group bias.

Investigated predictors of intergroup aggression and its relations to in-group bias. In a questionnaire, 156 Israeli adults reported perceptions of their own religious group and of the ultraorthodox Jewish out-group and expressed aggression toward the ultraorthodox (opposing institutions that serve their needs, supporting acts harmful to them, and opposing interaction with them). Respondents showed in-group favoritism in trait evaluations, but this bias was unrelated to aggression. Perceived intergroup conflict of interests, the postulated motivator of aggression, predicted it strongly. The effects of conflict on aggression were partially mediated by 2 indexes of dehumanizing the out-group (perceived value dissimilarity and trait inhumanity) and by 1 index of probable empathy with it (perceived in-group–out-group boundary permeability). These variables related to aggression more strongly among persons who identified highly with their in-group. The variables also mediated the effects of religious group affiliation on aggression. The value dissimilarity finding supports derivations from belief congruence theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual Versus Nonsexual Workplace Aggression and Victims' Overall Job Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis.

A meta-analytic approach was used to examine whether sexual and nonsexual forms of nonviolent workplace aggression (both verbal and nonverbal) share equivalent or differential relationships with victims' overall job satisfaction. When the meta-analytic comparison was restricted to all-female samples to hold victims' gender constant, nonsexual aggression was found to share a significantly stronger negative relationship with victims' overall job satisfaction than was sexual aggression. In addition, nonsexual aggression was found to share a stronger negative link with women's level of job satisfaction than with men's. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hostility, job attitudes, and workplace deviance: Test of a multilevel model.

The authors tested a model, inspired by affective events theory (H. M. Weiss & R. Cropanzano, 1996), that examines the dynamic nature of emotions at work, work attitudes, and workplace deviance. Sixty-four employees completed daily surveys over 3 weeks, reporting their mood, job satisfaction, perceived interpersonal treatment, and deviance. Supervisors and significant others also evaluated employees' workplace deviance and trait hostility, respectively. Over half of the total variance in workplace deviance was within-individual, and this intraindividual variance was predicted by momentary hostility, interpersonal justice, and job satisfaction. Moreover, trait hostility moderated the interpersonal justice-state hostility relation such that perceived injustice was more strongly related to state hostility for individuals high in trait hostility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Syndromal versus contextualized personality assessment: Differentiating environmental and dispositional determinants of boys' aggression.

Two studies examined how "syndromal" approaches to assessment confound differences between individuals in the person and situation variables that contribute to their behavior. In a field study, a widely used instrument was found to be sensitive to the base rates of boys' aggression but, as expected, did not discriminate between boys who were similar in their behavior base rates but different in their social environments and how they responded to them. A laboratory experiment replicated this finding and demonstrated that social observers discriminated between targets on the basis of their functional properties even though syndrome scores did not. The results clarify how syndromal methods can obscure situational factors, conflict with people's social knowledge, and reinforce the view that syndromes exist "in the individual" rather than in person–environment interactions. Implications for developing more contextually sensitive instruments are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing victim attributions and outcomes for workplace aggression and sexual harassment.

In 2 studies, we investigated victim attributions (Study 1) and outcomes (Study 2) for workplace aggression and sexual harassment. Drawing on social categorization theory, we argue that victims of workplace aggression and sexual harassment may make different attributions about their mistreatment. In Study 1, we investigated victim attributions in an experimental study. We hypothesized that victims of sexual harassment are more likely than victims of workplace aggression to depersonalize their mistreatment and attribute blame to the perpetrator or the perpetrator's attitudes toward their gender. In contrast, victims of workplace aggression are more likely than victims of sexual harassment to personalize the mistreatment and make internal attributions. Results supported our hypotheses. On the basis of differential attributions for these 2 types of mistreatment, we argue that victims of workplace aggression may experience stronger adverse outcomes than victims of sexual harassment. In Study 2, we compared meta-analytically the attitudinal, behavioral, and health outcomes of workplace aggression and sexual harassment. Negative outcomes of workplace aggression were stronger in magnitude than those of sexual harassment for 6 of the 8 outcome variables. Implications and future directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping in stressful episodes: The role of individual differences, environmental factors, and situational characteristics.

This article examines individual differences (extraversion and neuroticism), environmental factors (social support and work demand), and situational characteristics (type of stressful episode and its perceived importance) as predictors of three self-report measures of coping (general coping, direct coping, and suppression) derived from the Ways of Coping Questionnaire. The data analyzed were collected from 135 first-year female student nurses. Individual differences were assessed prior to exposure to the ward environment, and information about stressful episodes was obtained during the initial period of nursing practice. Multiple regression analyses showed that individual differences and environmental and situational factors were significant predictors of the coping scores and that patterns of main and interactive effects were different for each type of coping. For direct coping and suppression, predicted interactions across person, environmental, and situational variables contributed significantly to the explained variance. Curvilinear interactions between work demand and neuroticism were significant for both direct coping and suppression; interactions of social support and extraversion with perceived importance predicted direct coping; and interactions between neuroticism and extraversion and between work demand and importance predicted suppression. (70 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Harassing under the influence: The prevalence of male heavy drinking, the embeddedness of permissive workplace drinking norms, and the gender harassment of female coworkers.

Drawing from the literature linking alcohol consumption and aggressive behavior, the authors examine the degree to which the risk of gender harassment toward female workers may be associated with the drinking behaviors and perceived workplace drinking norms of their male coworkers. Using multilevel analyses to examine data from 1,301 workers (including 262 women employed in 58 work units in the manufacturing, service and construction sectors), our findings indicate that, even when controlling for a variety of other demographic and unit-level factors, there is a significant association between the proportion of males in a work unit identified as being heavy or "at-risk" drinkers and the probability of gender harassment toward unit females. Our findings further indicate that this association is amplified as a function of the embeddedness of permissive workplace drinking norms among males' referent others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived victimization moderates self-reports of workplace aggression and conflict.

A sample of 489 employed men between 32 and 36 years old responded to questions concerning rates of having engaged in workplace aggression and conflict. These individuals also completed a personality inventory and questionnaires related to past antisocial behavior and alcohol abuse. Consistent with prior research, workplace aggression and conflict were significantly correlated with particular personality variables (stress reaction, aggression, and control) as well as with general past antisocial behavior and alcohol abuse. Furthermore, these relationships were moderated by the perception of being victimized by others (alienation), with such perceptions strengthening associations between workplace aggression and other risk factors. These interaction effects, which cannot plausibly be attributed to the use of a self-report criterion, could have important implications for understanding and predicting aggression and conflict behavior within organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt and Relational Aggression and Perceived Popularity: Developmental Differences in Concurrent and Prospective Relations.

Relations of overt and relational aggression with perceived popularity among children and early adolescents were examined in 2 studies (Ns = 607 and 1,049). Among older youths, positive concurrent relations found between overt aggression and perceived popularity became nonsignificant when relational aggression was controlled, whereas positive associations found between relational aggression and perceived popularity held when overt aggression was controlled. Aggression and perceived popularity were not positively related for the younger participants. The 2nd study also examined the temporal ordering of these relations over 6 months. For older girls, positive relations between relational aggression and perceived popularity were bidirectional. For older boys, relational aggression did not predict increased perceived popularity, but perceived popularity predicted increased relational aggression. Implications for intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multivariate models of men's and women's partner aggression.

This exploratory study was designed to address how multiple factors drawn from varying focal models and ecological levels of influence might operate relative to each other to predict partner aggression, using data from 453 representatively sampled couples. The resulting cross-validated models predicted approximately 50% of the variance in men's and women's partner aggression. The 3 strongest direct predictors of partner aggression for men and women were dominance/jealousy, marital adjustment, and partner responsibility attributions. Three additional direct paths to aggression for men were exposure to family-of-origin aggression, anger expression, and perceived social support. The 1 additional direct path for women was a history of their own aggression as a child or teenager. Implications for more integrative theories and intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"It was a thought pitch": Personal, situational, and target influences on hit-by-pitch events across time.

This study tested the possibility that hit-by-pitch events in Major League Baseball could be explained by theories of aggression. Consistent with the general aggression model, personal and situational characteristics interacted to predict these events. Pitchers were more likely to hit batters in situations that allowed them to restore justice and protect valued social identities. Higher order interactions revealed that the likelihood of being hit by a pitch in these situations depended on the background of the pitcher and the race of the batter. Consistent with the culture of honor theory, pitchers from the southern United States were more likely to hit batters in these situations, but primarily if the batter was White. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The displaced aggression questionnaire.

Previous measures of aggressive personality have focused on direct aggression (i.e., retaliation toward the provoking agent). An original self-report measure of trait displaced aggression is presented. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided support for a 3-factor conceptualization of the construct. These analyses identified an affective dimension (angry rumination), a cognitive dimension (revenge planning), and a behavioral dimension (general tendency to engage in displaced aggression). The trait measure demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability as well as convergent and discriminant construct validity. Unlike other related personality measures, trait displaced aggression significantly predicted indirect indicators of real-world displaced aggression (i.e., self-reported domestic abuse and road rage) as well as laboratory displaced aggression in 2 experiments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)