Keeping a distance: Social identity, workplace bullying, and job satisfaction

Abstract

Workplace bullying has been widely researched due to the negative effects it has on employees’ psychological well-being and job satisfaction. At the same time, social identity theory has been applied to the study of work place bullying as a potential means to understand and reduce the experience of it. In this study, participants (N=65) took part in an online questionnaire where experiences of bullying, social identity, and job satisfaction were measured. Analyses indicated that social identity fully mediates the association between bullying and job satisfaction, such that experience of workplace bullying leads to a reduction in social identification, and a resultant increase in job satisfaction. The implications of these findings for a social identity account of workplace bullying, and the ways in which these findings might inform workplace anti-bullying interventions are discussed.