The influence of behavioural, individual and contextual variables on the perception and labelling of workplace bullying behaviours.

Workplace bullying is a serious and frequently occurring workplace issue that can have a number of negative, sometimes devastating consequences for employees who are targeted. At the same time, there are many employees who, despite being exposed to frequent and persistent bullying in the workplace do not label themselves bullied. Thisthesis investigated a number of behavioural, individual and contextual variables that werepredicted to have an influence on the perceived severity of workplace bullying behaviours and the actual labelling of the behaviours as bullying using established workplace bullying measures and vignettes. Overall, the results indicated that the perceived severity and labelling of workplace bullying behaviours were influenced by the behaviours involved, by characteristics of the employee being subjected to the behaviours, by characteristics of the employee perpetrating the behaviours and by the connection that the targets co-workers had to the bullying interaction. Specifically, the analyses indicated that behaviours that personally ridiculed the target were perceived as severe and as bullying more frequently than other categories of bullying behaviour. Participant gender and current experience with workplace bullying were also revealed to be predictive of whether negative workplace behaviours were perceived as severe and bullying in nature. The formal position held bythe perpetrator relative to the target was revealed to influence whether the behaviours wereperceived as severe. The formal position of the perpetrator, the presence of others during the bullying act and the knowledge that others in the workplace were also being targeted significantly influenced whether the behaviours were labelled as bullying in nature