The Prevelance of Dark Triad Personality Traits In
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PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING Role of the Big Five Personality Traits in Predicting Workplace Bullying Perpetrators in South Africa by Mari van der Westhuizen Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (Department of Industrial Psychology) in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Stellenbosch University Department of Industrial Psychology | Stellenbosch University | Master’s thesis Supervisor: Mrs. Marietha de Wet March 2021 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 2 Abstract Workplace bullying as a psychosocial phenomenon has been an object of investigation on an international level for the past 20 years. Yet, limited research about this phenomenon exist in South Africa. Workplace bullying can be referred to as a form of counter-productive behaviour in the work environment, which has a significant effect on the well-being of employees and the organisation. This phenomenon can be understood by studying the person, as well as the environmental characteristics that may perpetuate or inhibit bullying in the workplace. This study specifically aims to explore bullying behaviours in South African organisations, and to what extent personality characteristics contributes to the occurrence of bullying in the workplace, i.e., the relationship between personality traits and workplace bullying. This study also aimed to find bullying scales that can accurately predict workplace bullying, as bullying scales are lacking in the literature. In addition, this study aimed to assist employers to identify and establish proactive interventions to prevent bullying in the workplace. The personality characteristics chosen for this study was the famous Big Five personality traits, namely Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to experience, and Conscientiousness. The Basic Traits Inventory (BTI) was used to measure the Big Five personality traits. As no single current scale would have been sufficient on its own to measure workplace bullies, a collection of three different scales was used to measure this phenomenon. The three different scales measuring the behaviour of workplace bullies (or prominent aspects of workplace bullies) were chosen to be one measuring bullying overtly, one measuring bullying covertly through personality, and one measuring Aggression. These three scales are Baughman et al.’s Bullying Questionnaire (BBQ), the Short Dark Triad (SD3), and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire - Short Form (BPAQ-SF), respectively. The formulated research hypotheses concerning the relationships between the Big Five personality traits and workplace bullying as a general construct were answered by exploring Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 3 the relationships between the BTI and the chosen bullying scales. The relationships between the three bullying scales were also investigated. The population under investigation consisted of working South Africans who have been permanently employed in an organisation for a minimum of 6 months. To find a sample that matched these criteria, non-probability purposive and convenience sampling with a snowball effect was used. The total number of respondents that completed the quantitative online survey in its entirety was 216. All scales and subscales were found to have acceptable reliability and discriminant validity to warrant its inclusion in this study. All three scales showed moderate convergent validity, but not very strongly. Anger (as one of the subscales of the BPAQ-SF) specifically did not correlate well with the other scales. The same was found with Narcissism (a subscale of the SD3). It was thus suggested that the BBQ, as the only overt bullying scale included in this study that is clearly measuring bullying behaviours, is the best choice to measure workplace bullying. Alternatives could be the BPAQ-SF with the Anger subscale removed, or the SD3 with the Narcissism subscale removed. With regards to the relationship between personality and workplace bullying, evidence was found for two of the five formulated hypothesis. The findings indicated that Conscientiousness, Openness to experience and Extraversion does not influence the likelihood of taking part in bullying behaviours, while low levels of Agreeableness and high levels of Neuroticism will result in an increased likelihood of taking part in bullying behaviours. It was thus suggested that, in attempting to predict workplace bullies through personality, only Agreeableness and Neuroticism are used, where a high degree of Neuroticism and a low degree of Agreeableness would be undesirable. It was further established that personality in general do not play such a notable role in workplace bullying, pointing towards the organisational environment perhaps playing a more prominent role. An important insight thus gained from this study is that organizations cannot simply attempt to stop workplace bullies from entering the organisation (e.g., through Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 4 personality testing); this is not enough. Organisations are perhaps better off in ensuring the internal environment is not enabling workplace bullying in the first place, i.e., that non-bullies do not become bullies only after entering the organisation. The work environment plays an important role in the occurrence of bullying. Organisations should assess their current organisational culture, social climate, the leadership styles in the organisation etc. to determine whether there are any problem areas. Key words: bullying, workplace, South Africa, personality, Big Five Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 5 Plagiarism declaration I herewith declare this work to be my own, that I have acknowledged all the sources I have consulted in the assignment/essay itself and not only in the bibliography, that all wording unaccompanied by a reference is my own, and that no part of this assignment/essay has been directly sourced from the internet without providing the necessary recognition. I acknowledge that if any part of this declaration is found to be false I shall receive no marks for this assignment/essay, shall not be allowed to complete this module, and that charges can be laid against me for plagiarism before the Central Disciplinary Committee of the University. I acknowledge that I have read the Guidelines for Writing Papers in Industrial Psychology and have written this paper accordingly, and that I will be penalised for deviating from these guidelines. Signed: Date: 02/14/2021 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their support and contribution in the completion of this study: I would like to thank my supervisor, Mrs Marietha de Wet, for her support the past three years, from honours throughout my Master’s degree. Her patience and dedication to this study, but also to me as a person, was invaluable. I would like to thank my parents, Lana and Kobus van der Westhuizen, who have always supported me in every way possible in my educational endeavours. I would like to thank Prof Martin Kidd who selflessly and patiently worked with me through this study’s statistical results and educated me throughout. I would like to thank Prof Deon de Bruin for allowing me to use the Basic Traits Inventory, free of charge, and to Mr Philip A. Vernon for sharing his and his colleagues’ bullying scale from their 2012 study without hesitation. I would like to thank all my friends and family members who kept me motivated and understood when I had to stay home and work instead of engaging in social activities with them. Lastly, I would like to thank each of this study’s research participants. Their contributions made this research possible, and assisted in the understanding of workplace bullying and its potential eradication from the workplace. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za PERSONALITY AND WORKPLACE BULLYING 7 Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................. 12 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 12 Work environment vs personality as antecedents of workplace bullying ...................... 14 Research initiating question and research objectives .................................................. 16 Structure of this study ................................................................................................. 17 Summary .................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2 - Literature Review ......................................................................................... 19 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 19 Bullying: A working definition....................................................................................... 41 Workplace bullying: A thorough investigation .............................................................. 42 Workplace bullying as a Counterproductive Work Behaviour ................................... 45 The effects of workplace bullying: Individual and organisational .............................. 50 The prevalence