Hostile attribution in perceived justification of workplace aggression

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Workplace aggression is a significant issue.
• Understanding the psychological precursors to aggression is crucial for developing effective interventions.
• Hostile attribution bias may play a role in aggressive responses to workplace frustrations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a Hostile Attribution Scale (HAS).
• To test if hostile attribution predicts support for aggression in frustrating workplace scenarios with ambiguous supervisor motivation.
• To examine the influence of situational ambiguity on the relationship between hostile attribution and aggression.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 10-item Hostile Attribution Scale.
• Assessment of scale reliability (test-retest and internal consistency).
• Testing the predictive validity of the HAS on aggression in two workplace scenarios (Steve and Dan) with varying levels of ambiguity.

Main Results:

• The HAS demonstrated good test-retest reliability (.80) but weak internal consistency (alpha=.60).
• Hostile attribution predicted aggression in ambiguous scenarios for both "Steve" and "Dan".
• For the "Dan" scenario, hostile attribution predicted aggression regardless of situational ambiguity.

Conclusions:

• Ambiguous workplace situations are particularly likely to elicit aggression.
• Individual differences in hostile attribution are important predictors of workplace aggression.
• Future research should focus on understanding these individual differences to mitigate workplace aggression.