The influence of target personality in the development of workplace bullying

The Victim Precipitation Theory states that people may exhibit certain characteristics or behaviors that may act as vulnerability factors for either being picked as a target or for provoking others, hence contributing to escalate an underlying conflict and then increase the risk of victimization from others. In line with this, previous research indicates that certain target personality characteristics may be risk factors for exposure to workplace bullying, particularly so trait-anxiety and trait-anger. The evidence is, however, mainly cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies are needed. In addition, previous research studied exposure to bullying behaviors rather than the development of workplace bullying. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of personality in the development of workplace bullying, by looking at latent transitions across latent states of bullying exposure as a function of target trait-anxiety and target trait-anger. Data were collected in 2015-2016 among Romanian workers, at eight different measurement points over 6 months. Altogether, 300 respondents were included. Data were analyzed using a three-step latent Markov model. In the first step the statistical optimal number of latent classes or states were estimated, being "Not bullied," "Limited negative encounters," "Occasionally bullied," and "Severely bullied". In the second step, we modeled a latent class Markov model. In the third step, we added personality traits to the Markov chain and found that employees with trait-anxiety and trait-anger reported higher levels of bullying exposure at baseline, as hypothesized. Moreover, these personality traits were related to the subsequent development of bullying over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).