Victimization Behavior in the Workplace

Abstract

Workplace victimization represents a pervasive organizational phenomenon with profound psychological, somatic, and operational ramifications. The Victimization Behavior in the Workplace scale, developed by Karl Aquino, Steven L. Grover, Marion Bradfield, and David G. Allen (1999), is an 8-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to capture an individual’s subjective experience of being targeted by aggressive interpersonal actions within organizational settings. Grounded in victim precipitation theory and social interactionist perspectives, the scale operationalizes interpersonal aggression across two distinct, four-item dimensions: Indirect Victimization (covert, passive, or relational aggression such as reputational sabotage and deception) and Direct Victimization (overt, confrontational hostility including verbal slurs, profanity, obscene gestures, and physical threats). Items are evaluated on an authentic behavioral frequency rating format ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (more than ten times) over a one-year recall timeframe. Psychometric evaluations demonstrate sound internal consistency, with initial coefficient alphas of .81 for indirect victimization and .76 for direct victimization. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses affirm a robust two-factor oblique structure distinct from related constructs such as generalized incivility, affective disposition, and generalized interpersonal conflict. Criterion-related validity is substantiated through documented associations with negative affectivity, hierarchical status differentials, diminished employee self-determination, organizational deviance, and psychological distress. This article provides an exhaustive examination of the instrument’s theoretical architecture, psychometric properties, factor structure, scoring conventions, and broad utility across industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and occupational health psychology.

Keywords

workplace victimization, direct victimization, indirect victimization, interpersonal aggression, counterproductive work behavior, employee mistreatment, victim precipitation theory, occupational health psychology, psychometrics, negative affectivity

Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by a collaborative team of organizational scholars:

• Karl Aquino, Ph.D. — Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Dr. Aquino is a globally recognized authority on workplace victimization, moral identity, social justice, and interpersonal mistreatment.
• Steven L. Grover, Ph.D. — Professor of Management, Department of Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; formerly with Georgia State University. His scholarship centers on managerial ethics, leadership integrity, employee well-being, and workplace deception.
• Marion Bradfield, Ph.D. — Organizational researcher whose scholarship has addressed organizational behavior, interpersonal deviance, and the social dynamics of workplace aggression.
• David G. Allen, Ph.D. — Distinguished Professor of Management and Chair of the Department of Management, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States; and Distinguished Research Environment Professor, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. Dr. Allen specializes in employee turnover, social networks, and human resource management systems.

Purpose

The Victimization Behavior in the Workplace instrument was developed to satisfy a critical empirical and conceptual need in the organizational sciences: the objective and standardized operationalization of employee experiences as targets of aggressive behavior. Prior to its inception, the study of workplace hostility was dominated by perpetrator-centric models of counterproductive work behavior (CWB), workplace deviance, and aggression, often failing to systematically account for the victim’s psychological reality, behavioral reporting, and individual susceptibility factors.

Aquino and colleagues (1999) designed this scale to examine the direct interplay between target personal characteristics (such as negative affectivity), structural workplace determinants (such as hierarchical status), psychological empowerment (specifically self-determination), and the frequency with which individuals endure abusive behaviors. The tool serves several multifaceted clinical, diagnostic, and research objectives:

• Differentiating Aggression Modalities: The instrument cleanly delineates between covert (indirect) harm-doing, which is clandestine and ambiguity-laden, and overt (direct) confrontations that unambiguously violate social and legal norms.
• Investigating Target-Centric Dynamics: It equips researchers to test complex interactionist frameworks, including victim precipitation theory, investigating why certain organizational members are disproportionately targeted for hostility without falling into normative victim-blaming paradigms.
• Organizational Risk Auditing: Human resource professionals and organizational psychologists utilize the metric as a diagnostic climate audit to pinpoint insidious systemic dysfunction, psychological safety deficits, and toxic subcultures before interpersonal friction escalates into litigation or physical violence.
• Evaluating Interventions: The scale functions as an empirical pre- and post-test assessment metric to gauge the efficacy of civility interventions, anti-bullying protocols, conflict resolution workshops, and leadership development programs.

Psychological Construct

The construct of workplace victimization denotes an individual’s perception of being the recipient of aggressive, injurious, or hostile actions initiated by one or more organizational members. Unlike broad constructs of general incivility or interpersonal conflict, victimization explicitly implies an asymmetry of harm and intent, wherein the target’s well-being, social standing, or professional performance is deliberately undermined. Aquino et al. (1999) conceptualized this phenomenon across two distinct behavioral dimensions:

1. Indirect Victimization

Indirect victimization entails clandestine, passive-aggressive, or socially manipulative behaviors designed to inflict harm on the target while allowing the perpetrator to conceal their identity, obscure their malevolent intent, or maintain plausible deniability. Rather than engaging in public confrontations, perpetrators leverage relational and institutional avenues to compromise the victim’s standing.

This dimension captures four core operational manifestations:

• Reputational Defamation: Disseminating derogatory rumors or speaking poorly of the target to coworkers, directly damaging social capital and peer support systems.
• Task and Work Sabotage: Intentionally impeding the target’s workflow, hiding essential resources, failing to transmit critical information, or actively undermining productivity.
• Image Impairment: Orchestrating situations or manipulating deliverables to present the target as incompetent, negligent, or uncooperative to supervisors and colleagues.
• Deceptive Accusations: Fabricating untruths or shifting blame to ensure the target receives disciplinary scrutiny or informal institutional sanction.

2. Direct Victimization

Direct victimization consists of overt, explicit, and unambiguous acts of aggression executed directly against the target in a face-to-face or publicly discernible manner. Because these actions are flagrant, they convey immediate hostility, intimidate the target, and visibly breach baseline organizational and societal behavioral norms.

Direct victimization comprises four distinct behaviors:

• Discriminatory Degradation: Directing ethnic, racial, religious, or offensive slurs toward the employee, attacking core identity facets.
• Vulgar Harassment: Making obscene comments or gestures directly in front of the individual, undermining personal dignity and physical boundary integrity.
• Physical Threat: Intimidating the worker with explicit or implicit warnings of bodily harm, evoking primitive fight-or-flight stress responses.
• Verbal Abuse: Explicitly cursing, shouting, or using profane language to demean, subjugate, or humiliate the worker.

Theoretical Framework

The Victimization Behavior in the Workplace scale is firmly anchored in two complementary psychological frameworks: Victim Precipitation Theory and the Social Interactionist Perspective on Aggression.

Victim Precipitation Theory

Originating in classical criminology (e.g., von Hentig, 1948; Wolfgang, 1958) and extended to organizational psychology by Aquino and colleagues, victim precipitation theory posits that targets of aggressive behavior are not always entirely random recipients of external malice. Instead, certain personal characteristics, behavioral styles, and interpersonal orientations may unconsciously signal vulnerability, provoke hostility, or disrupt social equilibria, thereby elevating the statistical likelihood of being targeted.

Aquino et al. (1999) differentiated between two victim profiles:

• The Submissive Victim: Individuals characterized by low self-determination, diminished self-esteem, low organizational status, and non-assertive behavioral repertoires. These employees are perceived by predatory or domineering coworkers as safe targets who lack the power, social alliances, or personal resolve to retaliate or seek formal redress.
• The Provocative Victim: Individuals high in negative affectivity, irritability, or defensive behavioral patterns who frequently irritate, alienate, or burden their colleagues. Their abrasive demeanor engenders resentment, leading peers to retaliate through indirect sabotage or direct hostility as a punitive mechanism of informal social control.

Social Interactionist Perspective

Drawing on Tedeschi and Felson’s (1994) social interactionist model, workplace aggression is interpreted as a goal-oriented coercive action used to enforce social norms, establish or maintain social status, achieve perceived retributive justice, or manage identities. Perpetrators calculate the perceived social and material costs of aggression against the anticipated gains. Direct aggression is chosen when the perpetrator possesses institutional power or minimal fear of retaliation, whereas indirect aggression is preferred when formal sanctions, strong ethical codes, or organizational monitoring make overt assault dangerous to the perpetrator’s career trajectory.

Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Victimization Behavior in the Workplace measure has been rigorously substantiated across numerous independent empirical investigations.

Construct and Discriminant Validity

In the foundational validation study by Aquino et al. (1999) involving a heterogeneous sample of 347 employed professionals across diverse industries, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that the hypothesized two-factor oblique model (direct and indirect victimization) provided a significantly superior fit to the data compared to a unidimensional omnibus aggression model ($\Delta\chi^2$ tests indicated $p < .001$). The correlation between the direct and indirect victimization latent factors was positive and moderate ($r = .52$,$p < .001$), confirming that while both share common variance as manifestations of interpersonal hostility, they are conceptually and empirically non-redundant.

Nomological and Criterion-Related Validity

The scale demonstrates exceptional nomological network fidelity via predictable associations with core individual differences and organizational structural variables:

• Negative Affectivity (NA): Aquino et al. (1999) established that employee negative affectivity correlated positively with both indirect victimization ($r = .31$, $p < .01$) and direct victimization ($r = .27$,$p < .01$). Highly negative individuals both perceive and elicit greater interpersonal hostility.
• Employee Self-Determination: Employees who reported greater autonomy, decision latitude, and competence in their work roles exhibited statistically significant negative correlations with both indirect victimization ($r = -.24$, $p < .01$) and direct victimization ($r = -.20$,$p < .01$), substantiating the theoretical tenet that personal agency buffers against predatory targeting.
• Hierarchical Status: Aquino et al. (1999) identified significant interaction effects between hierarchical standing and personality traits: individuals low in organizational hierarchy who exhibited high negative affectivity suffered the highest rates of victimization, corroborating structural vulnerability hypotheses.
• Subsequent Validation Studies: In longitudinal research, Aquino and Douglas (2003) demonstrated that direct victimization uniquely predicted organizational retaliatory behaviors and interpersonal deviance, while indirect victimization was uniquely predictive of silent withdrawal, job turnover intentions, and psychosomatic exhaustion.

Reliability

The reliability of the Victimization Behavior in the Workplace instrument has been consistently established across both original validation work and numerous subsequent independent replications:

• Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha): In the initial validation investigation ($N = 347$), Aquino et al. (1999) observed a Cronbach’s alpha of $lpha = .81$ for the 4-item Indirect Victimization subscale, and $lpha = .76$ for the 4-item Direct Victimization subscale. Despite containing only four indicators per latent variable, both subscales meet and exceed Nunnally’s (1978) classical threshold of .70 for psychometric acceptability.
• Subsequent Field Evidence: Cross-validation studies across differing occupational contexts have confirmed high internal reliability. For instance, Aquino, Tripp, and Bies (2001) reported Cronbach’s alphas ranging from $.80$ to $.86$ for indirect victimization and $.74$ to $.81$ for direct victimization. Composite reliability coefficients calculated in structural equation modeling (SEM) frameworks regularly exceed $.82$ for indirect victimization and $.78$ for direct victimization.
• Test-Retest Stability: Studies employing multi-wave prospective designs (e.g., Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Tepper et al., 2006) demonstrate moderate-to-high longitudinal stability coefficients over six-month intervals ($r_{tt} = .58 – .68$), indicating that while victimization experiences fluctuate with team restructuring and conflict dynamics, exposure to persistent mistreatment exhibits marked chronic stability.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the 8-item instrument was originally derived and verified using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During preliminary instrument development, Aquino et al. (1999) subjected the pool of behavioral items to principal axis factoring with oblique (Promax) rotation, reflecting the theoretical expectation that distinct forms of mistreatment co-occur within toxic organizational climates. The analysis yielded a clean two-factor solution based on the Kaiser criterion (eigenvalues $> 1.0$) and scree plot inflection points:

• Factor 1 (Indirect Victimization): Accounted for the largest proportion of total common variance. The four indirect items loaded cleanly, with standardized factor loadings ranging from $.64$ to $.84$. Cross-loadings on the direct dimension were minimal ($< .20$).
• Factor 2 (Direct Victimization): Accounted for substantial incremental variance. The four overt behavioral items demonstrated primary factor loadings ranging from $.58$ to $.79$, with cross-loadings on the indirect dimension remaining below $.18$.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Statistics

In the primary CFA reported by Aquino et al. (1999), the two-factor oblique model exhibited excellent goodness-of-fit indices across standard structural benchmarks:

• $\chi^2 / df$ ratio $< 2.50$, indicating adequate parsimony.
• Goodness-of-Fit Index ($ ext{GFI}$)$= .96$
• Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}$)$= .95$
• Incremental Fit Index ($ ext{IFI}$)$= .95$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}$)$= .052$ ($90% \text{ CI } [.031, .074]$)

A nested model comparison against an alternative one-factor unconstrained model (where all eight items loaded onto a singular global victimization construct) revealed severe fit degradation ($Deltachi^2(1) = 84.32, p < .001$;$ ext{CFI} = .81$;$ ext{RMSEA} = .114$), cementing the empirical necessity of distinguishing indirect from direct aggressive vectors.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational and administrative parameters of the Victimization Behavior in the Workplace scale are summarized below:

• Tool Name: Victimization Behavior in the Workplace
• Authors: Karl Aquino, Steven L. Grover, Marion Bradfield, and David G. Allen (1999)
• Construct Measured: Frequency of employee exposure to direct (overt) and indirect (covert) interpersonal aggressive behaviors committed by coworkers.
• Instrument Type: Standardized self-report survey / psychological rating scale.
• Total Item Count: 8 items.
• Subscale Breakdown:
  • Indirect Victimization: 4 items (items 1 through 4)
  • Direct Victimization: 4 items (items 5 through 8)
• Authentic Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type behavioral frequency metric:
  • 1 = Never
  • 2 = One to three times
  • 3 = Four to six times
  • 4 = Seven to nine times
  • 5 = More than ten times
• Standard Time Horizon: Within the past one year (“within the last year”).
• Scoring Procedures:
  • Subscale scores are typically computed as the continuous mean of the items comprising that dimension (sum of item scores divided by 4), yielding a score range of 1.00 to 5.00 for both Indirect and Direct Victimization.
  • Alternatively, researchers may calculate sum scores (ranging from 4 to 20 per subscale, or 8 to 40 for an omnibus aggregate score).
  • Higher scores represent greater frequency of workplace victimization experiences.
  • No items are reverse-coded.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Victimization Behavior in the Workplace scale was originally published in 1999 in the Academy of Management Journal:

• Year of Publication: 1999
• Copyright & Ownership: The original publication is copyrighted by the Academy of Management. The scale items and validation data appear in the public scholarly literature.
• Usage Permissions: The scale may be utilized free of monetary charge for non-commercial academic, research, and instructional purposes without formal written permission, provided appropriate scholarly attribution is cited (Aquino et al., 1999).
• Commercial and Diagnostic Use: Commercial applications, proprietary consulting deployments, or integration into fee-for-service psychometric testing platforms may require permissions from the copyright holder (Academy of Management) and the primary author (Dr. Karl Aquino).

References

• Aquino, K., & Douglas, S. (2003). Identity threat and employee antisocial behavior: The moderating effects of status, race, and gender. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.195
• Aquino, K., Grover, S. L., Bradfield, M., & Allen, D. G. (1999). The effects of negative affectivity, hierarchal status, and self-determination on workplace victimization. Academy of Management Journal, 42(3), 260–272. https://doi.org/10.5465/256918
• Aquino, K., Tripp, T. M., & Bies, R. J. (2001). How employees respond to personal offense: The effects of blame attribution, victim status, and offender status on revenge and reconciliation in the workplace. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.1.52
• Bowling, N. A., & Beehr, T. A. (2006). Workplace harassment from the victim’s perspective: A theoretical model and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 998–1012. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.998
• Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Tedeschi, J. T., & Felson, R. B. (1994). Violence, aggression, and coercive actions. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10160-000
• Tepper, B. J., Duffy, M. K., Henle, C. A., & Lambert, L. S. (2006). Procedural injustice, victim precipitation, and abusive supervision. Personnel Psychology, 59(1), 101–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00725.x
• von Hentig, H. (1948). The criminal and his victim: Studies in the sociobiology of crime. Yale University Press.
• Wolfgang, M. E. (1958). Patterns in criminal homicide. University of Pennsylvania Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)