Measuring bullying
(behavioural definition)
An adaption of the SNAQ approach was used to measure bullying (for the behavioural definition).
ADAPTED SHORT VERSION OF THE NEGATIVE ACTS
QUESTIONNAIRE (SNAQ)
Prevalence of workplace bullying was measured
using bullying items taken from the short version
of the Negative Acts Questionnaire (SNAQ)
developed by Notelaers, Hoel et al. (2018). It uses
an equal number of indicators for each of the three
distinguished forms of bullying: person-oriented,
work-related, and social exclusion.
Two adaptions were made to the SNAQ following
cognitive testing. A tenth item ‘Threats of violence
or physical abuse, or actual abuse’ was added.
The time period covered by the question was also
changed from the past 6 months to the past 12
months. This longer time period was felt to be
more appropriate given the number of lockdowns
experienced for many workers.
Respondents were required to score how often they
have experienced 10 negative acts over the past 12
months (never=1, seldom=2, sometimes=3, often=4,
always=5).
BEHAVIOURAL PREVALENCE
Bullying by definition is considered to be a
repeated or systematic behaviour that happens
frequently. The behavioural prevalence
figures in this section therefore refers to the
proportion of workers who experienced at
least one of the 10 negative acts ‘often’ or
‘always’ in the last 12 months.
ESTABLISHING THE MORE SERIOUS CASES OF
BULLYING
To establish a group or workers who are
potentially most exposed to very intense
bullying, overall scores were computed for
each individual with a possible range of 10
(never experienced any behaviours) to 50
(experiencing all behaviours on a daily basis).
This analysis is covered on page 38.
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