Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-mzsfj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-15T23:15:29.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Centering the Target of Mistreatment in Our Measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2018

Thomas Sasso  and
M. Gloria González-Morales
Thomas Sasso
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
M. Gloria González-Morales*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to M. Gloria González-Morales, Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada. E-mail: mggonzal@uoguelph.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Victim precipitation is embedded deeply within industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. Cortina, Rabelo, and Holland (2018) are right to challenge the assumptions that have perpetuated victim blaming in our discipline (consciously and unconsciously); however, a significant source of victim precipitation discourse within our field was strikingly absent in their discussion: construct measurement. The nature of how we measure most of our workplace aggression and mistreatment constructs (e.g., incivility, abusive supervision, bullying) have potential to negate the experiences of targeted employees as well as the unique impact of various perpetrator behaviors. Furthermore, how we interpret these measures can result in researchers and practitioners privileging the experiences of some individuals and dismissing the experiences of others. How can we hope to achieve a progressive approach to mistreatment in our disciplines if our measures do not keep pace?

Information

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 107 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council supported this research that was conducted in partial fulfillment of Thomas Sasso's master's thesis.

References

Aquino, K., & Thau, S. (2009). Workplace victimization: Aggression from the target's perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 717–741. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163703 Google Scholar
Cortina, L. M., Rabelo, V. C., & Holland, K. J. (2018). Beyond blaming the victim: Toward a more progressive understanding of workplace mistreatment. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 11 (1), 81–100.Google Scholar
Hershcovis, M. S. (2011). “Incivility, social undermining, bullying . . . oh my!”: A call to reconcile constructs within workplace aggression research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32, 499–519. doi: 10.1002/job.689 Google Scholar
Sasso, T., & González-Morales, M. G. (2014, May 15–17). Development of the perceived victimization measure. Symposium session. Novel approaches to the study of workplace incivility and victimization. Presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Honolulu, HI.Google Scholar
Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 178–190. doi: 10.2307/1556375 Google Scholar