Gender Differences in Perceived Costs and Benefits of Workplace Mistreatment

• Main Author: Greco, Lindsey
• Format: Others
• Published: TopSCHOLAR® 2011
• Subjects: incivility; workplace aggression; counterproductive workplace behavior; violence in the workplace; organizational behavior; Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Personality and Social Contexts; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1043; http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2046&context=theses

Workplace mistreatment, in the form of both incivility and aggression, can have a major impact on personal and organizational outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the mental judgments that individuals make before engaging in either uncivil or aggressive behavior. Data was analyzed in terms of both the potential costs and the potential benefits that an instigator could expect from engaging in such behavior, with specific emphasis on gender differences in cost/benefit expectations. There were no significant gender differences in either the perceived costs or the perceived benefits of engaging in incivility. The hypothesis that individuals with a low cost and/or high benefit pattern of responses of incivility were more likely to report instigating uncivil behaviors was also unsupported. The limitation of statistical analyses by a violation of the assumption of equal variances is discussed.