The Factor Structure of Generalized Workplace Harassment

Summary

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We describe the development and psychometric characteristics of the Generalized Workplace Harassment Questionnaire (GWHQ), a 29-item instrument developed to assess harassing experiences at work in five conceptual domains: verbal aggression, disrespect, isolation/exclusion, threats/bribes, and physical aggression. Over 1700 current and former university employees completed the GWHQ at three time points. Factor analytic results at each wave of data suggested a five-factor solution that did not correspond to the original five conceptual factors. We suggest a revised scoring scheme for the GWHQ utilizing four of the empirically extracted factors: covert hostility, verbal hostility, manipulation, and physical hostility. Covert hostility was the most frequently experienced type of harassment, followed by verbal hostility, manipulation, and physical hostility. Verbal hostility, covert hostility, and manipulation were found to be significant predictors of psychological distress.

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The Factor Structure of Generalized Workplace Harassment

A diverse body of research documents the pervasive nature and harmful consequences of harassment in the workplace. Most research to date has focused on sexual harassment, which is an illegal form of sex discrimination in the US. By contrast, U.S. laws currently do not prohibit more generalized forms of harassment that are not based on legally protected social status characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, age, disability).

This type of harassment has been subject to increasing research attention in recent years. Keashly and Jagatic (2003) present a comprehensive review of the American literature, which includes a summary of the variety of terms under which this construct has been studied, for example, bullying (Namie & Namie, 2000), workplace deviance (Robinson & Bennett, 1995), incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Cortina, Magley, Williams & Langhout, 2001), aggression (Baron & Neuman, 1996), abuse (Bassman, 1992; Richman et al., 1999), and emotional abuse (Keashly, 2001). This research derives from a variety of fields, and Keashly and Jagatic (2003) note that "definitions vary in the degree to which elements of time, intention, power differences, and norm violation are incorporated as central features of the construct they reflect" (p. 32). However, the various definitions share the commonality of describing behaviors in the workplace which do not legally represent discrimination, but that involve the mistreatment of others, and result in a hostile or offensive working environment for targets.1

In order to help unify the study of this construct, we wished to develop an umbrella term to more generally refer to it and its various incarnations in the literature. We refer to this ...

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