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Understanding supervisor-targeted aggression: a within-person, between-jobs design
Michelle Inness1, Julian Barling1, Nick Turner1
1Queen's U.
The Journal of Applied Psychology
|August 3, 2005
Summary
Workplace aggression predictors differ between jobs. Individual traits like aggression history impact both jobs similarly, while situational factors like abusive supervision are job-specific, explaining more aggression variance.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Workplace Behavior
Background:
- Understanding workplace aggression is crucial for employee well-being and organizational productivity.
- Moonlighting presents a unique context for studying workplace aggression due to dual employment and supervisor relationships.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate predictors of supervisor-targeted workplace aggression in moonlighters.
- To examine the relative contributions of within-subject situational differences and between-subjects individual differences.
Main Methods:
- Study involved 105 moonlighters (individuals holding two jobs with different supervisors).
- Assessed individual difference variables (self-esteem, history of aggression).
- Assessed situational factors (interactional injustice, abusive supervision) for each job.
Main Results:
- Individual difference variables explained similar variance in aggression across both jobs.
- Situational factors (interactional injustice, abusive supervision) were job-specific.
- Situational factors explained proportionally more variance in workplace aggression than individual differences.
Conclusions:
- Both individual and situational factors predict workplace aggression.
- Situational factors play a more significant, job-specific role in predicting aggression for moonlighters.
- Interventions targeting situational factors may be more effective in reducing workplace aggression in dual-job employees.