The research discussed here forth pertains most dominantly to the moderating effect demonstrated by four different sources of social support on individual and organisational wellbeing in the presence of workplace bullying. Given the turbulent tensions cemented within a South African Apartheid past, bullying, particularly within the workplace, is a likely outcome channelled by conflicting sensations towards diversity. The foundational framework of the presented research was derived from the individual level factors depicted in Einarsen’s conceptual framework of the study and management of workplace bullying, and was implicitly modelled according to Cox and Mackay’s (1978, as cited in Cox & Mackay, 1985) transactional model centred on stressor-strain relationships coupled with associated buffers that may ameliorate the outcomes thereof. A plethora of research suggests that social support serves to operate effectively as a moderator within such a relationship, sufficing thus as a deciding factor in the formulation of the present study, where the stressor was conceptualised as workplace bullying, and the strain took the form of the potential adverse effects imposed on psychological wellbeing (individual wellbeing) and intention to leave (organisational wellbeing). Research has further provided evidence for organisational support from supervisors and colleagues, and external support from friends and family to be common instruments of assistance; the current study thereby sought to assess whether colleague, supervisor, friend, and family support would moderate the relationship between perceptions of bullying, psychological wellbeing and intention to leave. The present study further aimed to examine direct effects by assessing the existence of a relationship between perceptions of bullying, psychological wellbeing, intention to leave and these four sources of social support. Additionally the associations that exist between psychological wellbeing, intention to leave and the sources of support under observation were examined. Correlative analyses and moderated multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to decipher the nature of the relationships outlined above. Results yielded through moderated multiple regressions demonstrated that perceived social support from both colleagues and supervisors moderated the relationship between perceptions of bullying and intention to leave. It was additionally established that when analysed as a single variable, friends and family social support was able to demonstrate a significant inverse interaction effect on intention to leave in the presence of workplace bullying. Correlative analyses revealed that perceptions of bullying demonstrated an inverse association with supervisor support, suggesting thus that higher levels of supervisor support are associated with lower perceptions of bullying, and simultaneously that higher perceptions of bullying are associated with lower levels of supervisor support. Both colleague and supervisor support appeared to demonstrate inverse main effects for psychological wellbeing and intention to leave. Perceptions of bullying predicted the degree of variance vi explained in intention to leave. Therefore higher levels of bullying were found to predict higher levels of intention to leave. The present research therefore provided evidence for the buffering effect of social support, particularly support obtained from supervisors within the workplace, on psychological wellbeing and intention to leave, and colleagues for intention to leave in the presence of perceived workplace bullying. Additional individual-level factors worthy of future consideration, as detected by the current study included the function of childhood attachment, race, gender leadership, proximity, reciprocity, relational value and context specifity of the type and source support, propensity to seek support and coping. In conjunction with individual-level factors, organisational-level factors such as such as company culture, climate, context and industry, are essential factors to consider in the attempt to grasp a holistic understanding of the complexities that may function as precedents of the workplace bullying and social support process. The current study consequently recommended that future research account for the suggestions provided with regard to the limitations, theoretical and practical implications and potential resources utilisable in the subsistence of this process. In so doing, future research may aid in expounding an understandings of the severe experiences to which ‘victimised’ individuals are exposed, alongside the nature and function of various forms of support most effective for workplace difficulties. The responsibility to ensure that an organisation is functioning at optimum levels of productivity rests in the hands of Human Resources practitioners and industrial psychologists working within the organisation. The implications of failing such responsibility are severe; therefore it is necessary for such practitioners to grasp a holistic perspective of the underlying relational elements that operate within the workforce, and to consequently ensure the cultivation of a positive and productive work environment that is conducive to the nurturing of positive and productive employees. This may be aptly achieved through perpetual monitoring of both internal and external environments so as to detect and eradicate negative acts such as bullying, and thereby prevent the escalation of such events.

This project investigated the views of 49 university undergraduate students regarding the phenomenon of bullying in three distinct settings: their memories of compulsory education (primary and secondary), their personal workplace experience (or workplace study placement), and their life at one post-1992 university. The research design used 'active interviews' comprised of phases of interviewing individually and in groups, in which progressively deeper layers of interrogation sought to question their initial constructions of bullying. The study addressed two main research questions: how did students construct the concept of bullying in different contexts or settings, and how did the students explain differences in these constructions. The findings indicated that participants tended to view school-based bullying as being precipitated by within-person traits and personalities, but workplace bullying was thought to be driven by organisational structure or institutional ethos. Bullying at university was more difficult for them to discuss as most claimed little or no experience, directly or indirectly, of bullying while in higher education. As the study progressed, the participants expressed their understanding of bullying firstly through stereotyped and clichéd terms, but became much more critical and analytical when they were presented again with some of the contradictions and anomalies inherent in their earlier descriptions and explanations. Another important contribution to knowledge is the finding that participants viewed the higher education context as having several features that were protective against bullying behaviour, reducing their experience of bullying in HE to almost nil. These features: porosity, value of the learner to the institution, and voluntarism, were shown to hold important implications for understanding bullying in organisations or institutions; they develop and extend existing models found in adjacent fields of study.

The crabs-in-a-barrel (CIB) mentality—a specialized form of incivility that occurs among members of the same ingroup (i.e., intragroup incivility)—is an understudied yet destructive and consequential intragroup phenomenon. As previous studies on the CIB mentality among the Black community have primarily focused on targets of the deviant behavior, this study trailblazed by serving as the first to employ a mixed methods design to investigate the environmental, perceptual, and affective antecedents of instigated Black-on-Black (B-o-B) incivility in the workplace. More specifically, the present study adopted a social-interactionist approach to investigate whether various aspects of work climate (i.e., institutional discrimination, interpersonal prejudice, and competitive work climate); affective states (i.e., emotional taxation); and workgroup composition factors (i.e., perceived collective and competitive minority threats) were positively associated with instigated B-o-B incivility in the workplace. To that end, a cross-sectional design was employed with a U.S. based sample of 523 full-time Black professionals across various organizations and industries. The proposed hypotheses were tested using logistic regression analyses. Overall, the results showed that collective minority threat and experienced incivility were the most consistently significant predictors of instigated B-o-B incivility in the proposed model—with experienced incivility showing the greatest effect on the outcome variable between the two. Moreover, participants reported that there were 10 primary reasons and/or justifications for acting uncivilly towards another Black employee at their job within the past year. This study provides further support and validation to the notion that the CIB phenomenon represents another variant of the workplace incivility construct. Additionally, this study broadens the workplace incivility discussion and research stream by offering unique insight into the perspectives of racial minority instigators of uncivil behavior at work. The results hold considerable implications for practitioners and organizations seeking to better understand, and address, the issue of intragroup incivility in the workplace—particularly as it relates to Black professionals. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

O presente estudo teve por objetivo pesquisar a ocorrência de bullying em adolescentes de três escolas, públicas e privadas, da cidade de Porto Alegre, RS. Investigou os tipos mais utilizados de bullying e a freqüência com que ocorrem. Objetivou, também, verificar se existe diferença na auto-estima de adolescentes envolvidos no bullying, enquanto vítimas, agressores, vítimas/agressores e testemunhas, por sexo. A amostra foi composta por 465 adolescentes, de ambos os sexos, estudantes de quartas a oitavas séries do ensino fundamental. Dentre estas crianças, 52,7% pertenciam ao sexo masculino e a idade dos participantes variou entre nove e dezoito anos (M= 13,4 anos; dp = 1,47). Os instrumentos utilizados foram um questionário sobre bullying, com 15 questões de múltipla escolha e a Escala de Auto-Estima de Rosenberg. Os dados foram coletados de forma coletiva nas escolas, após autorização das mesmas e consentimento dos adolescentes e pais. Os resultados mostraram que 67,5% foram vítimas, 54,7% foram agressores, 43,6% foram vítimas/agressores e 83,9% foram testemunhas de bullying. Uma ANOVA apontou uma interação entre sexo e papéis de bullying em relação à auto-estima. Testes Post Hoc demonstraram que meninos no grupo de vítimas/agressores apresentaram média superior de auto-estima em relação às meninas. Verificou-se que meninos no grupo de testemunhas apresentaram maior média de auto-estima que no grupo das vítimas. Verificou-se que as meninas no grupo de agressoras apresentaram média mais alta que o grupo das vítimas/agressoras. Concluiu-se que o bullying é um fenômeno de ocorrência muito comum e que apresenta diferentes implicações na auto-estima das meninas e dos meninos envolvidos em diferentes papéis. Novos estudos para esclarecer algumas dessas questões são propostos. / This study examined the occurrence of bullying in adolescents registered in elementary schools of the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. It investigated the most common types of bullying and its prevalence. It aimed also to verify possible sex differences in the selfesteem of participant as a function of their roles in bullying as victims, aggressors, victims/ aggressors, or witnesses. The participants were 465 adolescents (52.7% males), nine to 18 years old (M= 13.4 years; sd = 1.47). The participants answered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and a bullying questionnaire consisting of 15 multiple choices questions. Results showed that 67.5% of the adolescents were victims, 54.7%, aggressors, 43.6%, victims/ aggressors, and 83.9%, witnesses. An ANOVA showed an interaction between sex and the participants’ bullying roles in relation to self-esteem. Post-hoc analyses demonstrated that boys in the victims/aggressors group were higher than girls in self-esteem. Male witnesses presented higher self-esteem than victims. Female aggressors presented higher self-esteem than the victims/aggressors group. The results showed that bullying is a very common phenomenon of frequent occurrence which presents different implications for girls and boys self-esteem as a function of the roles they play. New studies to clarify some of these questions are suggested.

Bullying in higher education has become a global concern on college campuses and is occurring there in face-to-face encounters and through social media. Bullying contributes to hundreds of thousands of students dropping out of their higher education programs annually. This study brings more awareness to the uncivil behaviors occurring on college campuses. It uses for its conceptual framework the fourth of the Seven Vectors of Identity Development articulated by Chickering and Reisser: developing mature interpersonal relationships. This study's 2 guiding questions investigated whether bullying took place on a single college campus and how the bullying revealed itself. Further, this study used qualitative methods to gather data through face-to-face semistructured interviews conducted on the institution's campus. The sample size for this study was 8 alumni. Its findings are based on individual participant perceptions that were analyzed for themes recurring throughout the interviews. These themes provided insight into the overall campus climate in the local setting as it pertains to bullying activities in a higher education context. The findings revealed that bullying does occur on the campus of the institution studied. In conclusion, these findings may contribute to positive social change by encouraging future research and may influence higher education administrators to take steps to mitigate the risks of bullying on their campuses.

This study used an explorative quantitative survey method for the purpose of examining bullying among older adults in retirement homes and the consequences of bullying among this population. The study also explored the type of bullying that occurs in the community. Senior community centers were the significant domains in which to research bullying among older adults because it involved immersion of the researcher into an environment of older adults who knew one another and have witnessed or have been victims of bullying in their retirement home communities. The primary purpose of this investigation was to enhance research on bullying among older adults in retirement homes. Another purpose of this research was to address the consequences of bullying in older adults and to address mental and physical consequences of bullying addressed in previous research. Currently there is not much research done on bullying among older adults. This study found that many older adults living in retirement homes are being bullied and many of them are not speaking up and isolating themselves for the purpose of avoiding their bullies. Moreover, this study shows that staff members of the retirement communities are lacking the knowledge of the bullying problem in their community. The study suggests that future studies on bullying among older adults include qualitative research to determine if older adults understand the difference of bullying and “just being grumpy” and also explore a qualitative research regarding the perpetrator of bullying and not the victims of bullying.

Workplace bullying has escalated among U.S. workers, and aside from its mental and physical toll, it can affect productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Researchers have identified the primary causes of workplace bullying as envy, leadership disregard, a permissive climate, organizational culture, and personality traits. This non experimental, quantitative study investigated the predictors of workplace bullying at the target level, and specifically examined if target EI, age, gender, and/or race/ethnicity predicts experienced workplace bullying. Participants (N = 151) 18 years or older with one year of work experience were recruited from the WBI database, a newspaper column, public presentations, and a blog. Participants completed the Negative Acts Questionnaire to assess experienced workplace bullying, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Short Form) to assess EI, and a demographic questionnaire. A Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Global trait EI and the 4 trait EI factors of well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability were not statistically significantly related to workplace bullying. Further, EI, age, gender, and race/ethnicity were also not related to workplace bullying. Further research is suggested, to include examining organizational effects on workplace bullying. The implications for social change it that resources currently allocated for target can be more appropriately directed toward supervisors and the organization's culture.

Bullying is a pervasive problem among children and adolescents worldwide, but relevant research, although growing, lacks coherence. The proposed study is the first to integrate three large bodies of research - on children's attachment, anger, and Social Information Processing (SIP) - in a comprehensive, developmentally informed, multi-method, multi-trait design to elucidate the origins of bullying behavior, victimization, and anti-bullying attitudes and emotions. It was predicted that (1) children's early attachment insecurity would be linked to their maladaptive SIP patterns and to higher anger proneness; (2) higher anger proneness would be associated with maladaptive SIP; (3) anger proneness and maladaptive SIP would both predict greater parent-reported aggression; (4) parent-reported aggression would predict both bullying behavior and victimization; (5) lower anger proneness and more adaptive SIP would be associated with anti-bullying attitudes and sympathy for victims of bullying. A series of path analyses revealed overall well-fitting models; however, the analyses of the specific pathways described in the hypotheses above were less conclusive. Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that attachment security, anger proneness, and social information processing each plays a role in the development of positive or negative peer relations, but how these factors come together needs to be further elucidated.

Violence and bullying in schools have become major issues of concern to teachers, students and parents in the new millennium. As evidence mounts of the destructive, pervasive and sometimes lethal impact of these phenomena within the education milieu, it has become apparent that an approach which compromises a pragmatic intervention informed by innovative theoretical perspectives is urgently required. The body of work presented in this portfolio attempts to address this need by presenting a comprehensive model for intervention in violence and bullying in schools. Based upon the findings of a survey of four Sydney metropolitan schools, and drawing upon extant theory and research, a number of important theoretical perspectives were identified. The proposal that violence may be resolved through education is explored and perceptions about contemporary influences, including the impact of exposure to media violence, are challenged. The conceptualisation of peer abuse as a legislated child protection issue is initiated and discussed. The necessity for the development of resiliency as an individual attribute for victims is examined and the function of peers as formal advocates for victims is proposed. In summary, this portfolio presents a body of scholarly, professional work focused on addressing the issues of violence and bullying in schools through new perspectives and a comprehensive model for intervention that can readily be implemented by educators / Doctor of Education (Ed. D.)

Workplaces abound in conflict. Individuals within organisations are therefore vulnerable to a wide range of intimidating interactional tactics. These tactics can have an extremely negative impact upon individual workers and upon subsequent organisational performance. Consequentially, the diverse forms of organisational social harassment, and specifically bullying, place a large financial burden upon both organisations and nations. Therefore, the identification of strategies used to prevent and ameliorate workplace bullying and an examination that highlights their comparative success or failure is of great importance for all employers, employees and government. This study focuses upon those strategies used to prevent and ameliorate such workplace bullying and investigates their impact.