Assessment of Mobbing Behaviors Exposed by the Academic Personnel Working in a University, in Turkey

Ebru Avsar Raziye Peksen Akca

doi:10.4172/psychiatry.1000212

Abstract

Objective: To determine psychological violence behaviors (mobbing) exposed by academic personnel working in Erciyes University, Turkey. Methods: A questionnaire-based cross sectional study was performed in June 2010 in Erciyes University. No sampling methods were used, questionnaires were delivered by mail to all academicians and 450 of 850 (53.0%) questionnaires were returned. We used the Mobbing Perception Scale (MPS) for data collection. Results: A total of 58.2% of the academicians experienced recurrent physiological violence at least once a week in the workplace and 16.6% stated that they were directly exposed to mobbing behavior every day (>1 point) in the past year, 44.7% reported “assault to their professional status”, 42.8% reported “assault to personality”, 39.9 % reported “isolation from work”, 13.0% reported “direct negative behavior”. The most commonly (30.4%) experienced behavior was; “groundless talk about the person in question”. Mobbing was not associated with demographic and professional variables. The main source of mobbing was the managers. Also 68.0% of the victims resorted to passive defense strategies, and only 2.5% took legal action. Conclusion: Workplace mobbing is a critical problem for academicians in our university. The level of directly mobbing behavior was substantially high. The most common threatening behavior was “assault to professional status”. The primary mobbers were the managers. A great of majority academicians had not been received professional help and they internalized the mobbing. The findings indicated that levels of awareness of mobbing have increased among academicians.

Highlights

Mobbing is a kind of psychological violence, commonly encountered in disorganized work places, and usually targets bright, successful, and creative people
Mobbing perception among academicians Our findings based on own-declaration revealed out that 58.2% of 414 academicians were exposed to at least one of the 33 types of mobbing behavior defined in the Mobbing Perception Scale (MPS)
This study indicated that more than half of the academicians reported that they encountered verbal mobbing behaviors one or more times in the previous year and that majority of these behaviors were from their managers

Summary

Introduction

Mobbing is a kind of psychological violence, commonly encountered in disorganized work places, and usually targets bright, successful, and creative people. It is the most serious and destructive kind of violence and affects the whole of society, irrespective of age, race, language, educational level, or title [1]. There are some important aspects regarding mobbing; these include communication, social relationships, social status, the quality of private and professional life, assaults targeting health, the effects of the assaults upon the victim, the amount of damage to the victim, and persistence in the behavior [1,5]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion