Article (Scientific journals)
Psychological contract violation or basic need frustration? Psychological mechanisms behind the effects of workplace bullying
Sischka, Philipp; Melzer, André; Schmidt, Alexander F. et al.
2021In Frontiers in Psychology
Peer reviewed
 

Files


Full Text
Sischka_etal_Workplacebullying_FrontPsyc_21.pdf
Author preprint (651.07 kB)
Download

All documents in ORBilu are protected by a user license.

Send to



Details



Keywords :
Workplace bullying; job satisfaction; well-being; turnover intentions; psychological contract violation; basic need frustration; self-determination theory
Abstract :
[en] Workplace bullying is a phenomenon that can have serious detrimental effects on health, work-related attitudes, and the behavior of the target. Particularly, workplace bullying exposure has been linked to lower level of general well-being, job satisfaction, vigor and performance, and higher level of burnout, workplace deviance, and turnover intentions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind these relations are still not well understood. Drawing on psychological contract and self-determination theory, we hypothesized that perceptions of contract violation and the frustration of basic needs mediate the relationship between workplace bullying exposure and well-being, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes. Self-reported data were collected among employees with different working backgrounds (N = 1,257) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in an online survey. Results showed that feelings of contract violation and frustration of basic needs accounted for unique variation in well-being, work satisfaction, burnout, vigor, and turnover intentions, pointing to individual contributions of both psychological mechanisms. However, when controlled for frustration of basic needs, feelings of psychological contract violation were no longer a mediator between workplace bullying exposure and work performance. Helping employees to deal effectively with workplace bullying exposure might buffer its negative effects and reduce their experienced frustration of basic needs, preserving their well-being, vigor, and work performance and, eventually, prevent burnout. The present study is the first to concurrently elucidate the proposed psychological mechanisms and unique contributions of psychological contract violation and frustration of basic needs in the context of workplace bullying.
Disciplines :
Social, industrial & organizational psychology
Author, co-author :
Sischka, Philipp ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)
Melzer, André ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)
Schmidt, Alexander F.
Steffgen, Georges ;  University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
Psychological contract violation or basic need frustration? Psychological mechanisms behind the effects of workplace bullying
Publication date :
2021
Journal title :
Frontiers in Psychology
Peer reviewed :
Peer reviewed
Available on ORBilu :
since 03 March 2021

Statistics


Number of views
141 (18 by Unilu)
Number of downloads
184 (7 by Unilu)

Scopus citations®
 
7
Scopus citations®
without self-citations
6
OpenCitations
 
6
WoS citations
 
8

Bibliography


Similar publications



Contact ORBilu