Bullying at work: Epidemiological findings in public and private organizations

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of bullying and harassment at work, to identify risk groups and risk organizations, and to investigate who the victims report to be their tormentors. Bullying and harassment are defined as situations where a worker or a supervisor is systematically mistreated and victimized by fellow workers or supervisors through repeated negative acts. However, to be a victim of such bullying one must also feel inferiority in defending oneself in the actual situation. Data from 14 different Norwegian surveys (N = 7986) are presented, encompassing a broad array of organizations and professions. The results show that bullying and harassment at work are widespread problems in Norwegian working life. As many as 8.6% of the respondents had been bullied at work during the previous six months. Organizations with many employees, male-dominated organizations, and industrial organizations had the highest prevalence of victimization. Older workers had a higher risk of victimization than younger workers. Even if men and women do not differ in prevalence of bullying, significantly more men were reported as bullies. Victims reported superiors as bullies as often as they reported colleagues as their tormentor(s).     

Reporting discrimination in public and private contexts.

The authors tested the hypothesis that members of stigmatized groups would be unwilling to report that negative events that occur to them are the result of discrimination when they are in the presence of members of a nonstigmatized group. Supporting this hypothesis, women and African Americans were more likely to report that a failing grade assigned by a man or a European American was caused by discrimination, rather than by their own lack of ability, when they made the judgment privately and in the presence of a fellow stigmatized group member. However, they were more likely to indicate that the cause of the failure was lack of ability, rather than discrimination, when they expected to make these judgments aloud in the presence of a nonstigmatized group member.     

Lying and deceiving--moral choice in public and private life

Suppose that there are good or morally defensible reasons for not responding truthfully to a question or request for information. Is a lie or a deception better as a means to avoid telling the truth? There are many situations in public and private life in which the answer to this question would serve as a useful moral guide, for instance, clinical situations involving dying patients, educational situations, involving young children and personal situations involving close friends. Intuitively, we feel that there is a moral asymmetry in favor of deceiving over lying. However, doubts have been cast on such intuition. The aim of this paper is to bolster this intuition. It will be argued that the claim of moral asymmetry in favor of deception can be supported on a consideration of the different degrees of expectation involved in communicative ethics. Two other objections to the claim of asymmetry will also be considered.     

Reactions to success and failure in public and in private conditions

It was shown that the reaction to success and failure differs when it is communicated publicly or privately and when the reaction to success and failure is measured publicly or privately. Participants took an intelligence test and received fictitious results which were positively or negatively discrepant from the average. The dependent variable was the evaluation of the intelligence test. It was found that when the subject's evaluation of the test was private, the test was evaluated more positively under public than under private success. However, it was evaluated more negatively under public than under private failure. Under public success feedback the test was evaluated more positively under private than under public evaluation, whereas under public failure feedback the effect was reversed. The results are interpreted in terms of a self-presentation model and were discussed in the context of earlier research within the field of interpersonal relations.     

在公共生活与私人生活之间:传统伦理的现代境遇

In terms of life space, individuals are usually settled in different spaces according to relationships of blood, geography, and profession. In pre-modern societies, ethics were realized through customs, conventions, taboos, magical practices, and politics. Because this was not an open process in which rationality was sufficiently employed, non-reflectiveness and non-criticality were its essence, and intuitions and feelings were its basic modes of existence. In modern societies, the logic of capital movement settles groups of people according to their economic dependence, and interactions based on individuals’ desires and self-serving calculations have become widespread and frequent. A space for public interaction and life in which rationality is sufficiently employed and rational bases of the rules are constantly questioned thus finally came into being. Families and villages lost their centrality, resulting in a crisis of private interactions and life, and of its system of norms. __________ Translated by Liu Huawei from Zhongguo renmin daxue xuebao 中国人民大学学报 (Journal of Renmin University of China), 2008, (1): 78–85     

Divergent influences of private and public self-consciousness in a compliance paradigm

A study was conducted to test the reasoning that two types of dispositional self-consciousness would be associated with two different influences on compliance behavior. The study utilized a paradigm in which subjects are induced to make incorrect responses on a perceptual task by means of simulated group pressure. Based upon results of previous research, the following predictions were made: that private self-consciousness—the disposition to be conscious of one's thoughts, feeling, and covert self-aspects—would be inversely correlated with compliance; and that public self-consciousness—the disposition to be conscious of one's social self-aspects—would be positively correlated with compliance. The data from the study provided support for both of these predictions. Discussion centers on the theoretical implications of these findings.     

Assessment of private and public self-consciousness: a Dutch replication

In the present article a replication of a study by Fenigstein, Scheier and Buss (1975), who constructed a Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS), is reported. The SCS was translated into Dutch, and its properties and its relation to Locus of Control was investigated. The norms and reliability coefficients presented are consistent with prior research. Also the results of a factor analysis that yielded the three factors: Private, Public Self-consciousness, and Social Anxiety are consistent with these findings. However, Private Self-consciousness did not correlate significantly with Locus of Control.     

The contribution of private and public information in foraging by Australasian gannets

Predators that forage on foods with temporally and spatially patchy distributions may rely on private or public sources of information to enhance their chances of foraging success. Using GPS tracking, field observations, and videography, we examined potential sites and mechanisms of information acquisition in departures for foraging trips by colonially breeding Australasian gannets (Morus serrator). Analyses of the bill-fencing ceremony between mated pairs of breeding gannets did not detect correlations between parameters of this reciprocal behavior and foraging trips, as would have been predicted if gannets used this behavior as a source of private information. Instead, 60 % of the departing birds flew directly to join water rafts of other conspecific en route to the feeding grounds. The departure of solitary birds from the water rafts was synchronized (within 60 s) with the arrival of incoming foragers and also among departing birds. Furthermore, solitary departing birds from the rafts left in the same directional quadrant (90º slices) as the prior arriving (67 %) and also prior departing forager (79 %). When associated plunge dives of conspecific were visible from the colony, providing a public source of information, gannets more often departed from the water rafts in groups. Our study thus provides evidence for the use of water rafts, but not the nest site, as locations of information transfer, and also confirms the use of local enhancement as a strategy for foraging flights by Australasian gannets.     

Correlates of organizational commitment: Differences in the public and private sector

Private and public sector managers were compared regarding their job characteristics and organizational commitment. We hypothesized that job characteristics would be positively related to commitment and that sector would moderate that relationship. Moderated regression analyses revealed partial support for both hypotheses. The existence of clarity and challenge were positively related to commitment. Job characteristics demonstrated a stronger relationship with commitment among private sector managers. Explanations for these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Factors related to bridge employment participation among private sector early retirees

Many retirees choose to participate in some form of bridge employment—part time, self-employment or temporary work that follows an individual’s long-term or career job and precedes permanent retirement (Feldman, 1994). In this study, correlates of bridge employment participation were examined using a sample of 133 early retirees from an oil and gas services firm. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that organizational tenure, certainty of retirement plans, and career-related pull factors accounted for a significant portion of the variance in overall participation in bridge employment after controlling for the effects of age, gender, and marital status. At the same time, the significance of organizational tenure, career-related pull factors, and entrepreneurial orientation, varied as a function of the category of bridge work performed by retirees, that is, whether retirees were employed within the same industry or a different industry. Differences between these results and those of previous studies using public sector employees are discussed.     

Family participation in the care of patients in public health disasters

The ethical implications of disaster planning garner increasing scrutiny. The role of families in disaster efforts is a topic that requires additional ethical examination. This article reviews the potential roles for families before and during disasters, with particular attention to the impact on children and vulnerable elderly patients. The potential positive and negative impact of family participation in different aspects of healthcare and disaster efforts is assessed.     

Effects of public and private deviancy on compliance with a request

A confederate requester asked subjects to write letters for an educational campaign after they had completed a battery of tests and received either deviant or nondeviant feedback. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the requester had knowledge of their test performance; the remaining half believed that the confederate did not know their test scores. Within these conditions, some subjects believed that complying with the request would involve future meetings with the requester while others were not led to anticipate any future interaction. As expected, deviants complied more than nondeviants replicating Freedman and Doob's (1968) results; however, neither the secret/known nor the future interaction variations produced effects. Contrary to the prediction that deviants are compliant because they wish to avoid mistreatment, secret deviants complied slightly more than known deviants. Compliance was discussed as instrumental in improving self-image.     

Turkish children's Bender-Gestalt test performance: differences in public and private school children

The present study was undertaken to provide data on the Bender-Gestalt test for children aged 5 to 11 in Turkey. Although it is well documented that sociocultural factors are important in cognitive evaluations, the effects of type of school and differing educational opportunities provided by these schools on the Bender-Gestalt test have not been previously investigated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of age, sex, and school type on Bender-Gestalt performance. The test was individually administered to 484 children between the ages of 5 and 11 years. The children were enrolled in either public or private schools. Koppitz's Developmental Scoring System was utilized. The results indicated that older children performed with fewer errors. Girls performed with fewer errors than boys. Finally, as expected, private school children outperformed their public school peers. The results are discussed with respect to the importance of taking into account various educational factors in utilizing commonly used tests.