Running Head: MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 1

Workplace Mistreatment Climate and Potential Employee and Organizational Outcomes:

A Meta-Analytic Review from the Target’s Perspective

Liu-Qin Yang David E. Caughlin Michele W. Gazica

Portland State University University of South Florida

Donald M. Truxillo

Portland State University

Paul E. Spector

University of South Florida

Address all correspondence to:

Liu-Qin Yang, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology

Portland State University

P.O. Box 751

Portland, OR, 97207

Fax: 503-725-3904

lyang@pdx.edu

Please cite

Yang, L.-Q., Caughlin, D.E., Gazica, M.W., Truxillo, D. M., & Spector, P.E. (In Press).

Workplace mistreatment climate: A review of contextual influence from the target’s

perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 2

Abstract

This meta-analytic study summarizes relations between workplace mistreatment climate—MC

(specific to incivility, aggression, and bullying) and potential outcomes. We define MC as

individual or shared perceptions of organizational policies, procedures, and practices that deter

interpersonal mistreatment. We located 35 studies reporting results with individual perceptions

of MC (psychological MC) that yielded 36 independent samples comprising 91,950 employees.

Through our meta-analyses, we found significant mean correlations between psychological MC

and employee and organizational outcomes including mistreatment reduction effort (motivation

and performance), mistreatment exposure, strains, and job attitudes. Moderator analyses revealed

that the psychological MC-outcome relations were generally stronger for perceived civility

climate than for perceived aggression-inhibition climate, and content contamination of existing

climate scales accentuated the magnitude of the relations between psychological MC and some

outcomes (mistreatment exposure and employee strains). Further, the magnitudes of the

psychological MC-outcome relations were generally comparable across studies using dominant

(i.e., most commonly used) and other climate scales, but for some focal relations, magnitudes

varied with respect to cross-sectional vs. prospective designs. The three studies that assessed MC

at the unit-level had results largely consistent with those at the employee level.

Key Words: organizational climate civility climate violence prevention climate bullying

meta-analysis

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 3

Workplace mistreatment represents an interpersonal situation under which at least one

member initiates counternormative negative actions or stops normative positive actions towards

another member in the same workplace (Cortina & Magley, 2003). Workplace mistreatment in

its various forms, ranging from rudeness (i.e., incivility; Andersson & Pearson, 1999) to

physical aggression, has received an increasing amount of attention in the organizational

literature (for reviews see Aquino & Thau, 2009; Barling, Dupre, & Kelloway, 2009; Bowling

& Beehr, 2006; Branch, Ramsay, & Barker, 2012; Brees, Mackey, & Martinko, 2013; Estes &

Wang, 2008; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010; Hershcovis et al., 2007; Leiter, 2013; Samnani,

Singh, & Ezzedeen, 2013; Schat, Frone, & Kelloway, 2006). The present paper focuses on three

forms of commonly occurring workplace mistreatment: incivility, aggression, and bullying.

Specifically, we conceptualize workplace incivility as low-intensity mistreatment, which has

ambiguous intent to harm the target and violates norms for mutual respect in the workplace

(Andersson & Pearson, 1999). We define workplace aggression as overt physical or

nonphysical behavior that harms employees (Neuman & Baron, 2005). Finally, we define

bullying as a situation in which targets are exposed to abusive and offensive workplace acts

repeatedly and over a period of time, and from which they have difficulties defending

themselves (Einarsen, 2000; Rayner, 1997).

These forms of mistreatment differ in terms of intensity: incivility is expressed with the

lowest intensity (e.g., being ignored or excluded from professional camaraderie), physical

aggression has the highest intensity (e.g., being kicked), whereas nonphysical aggression and

bullying falls in between incivility and physical aggression in terms of intensity. They also

differ in terms of intent to harm, as incivility is expressed with ambiguous intent whereas

nonphysical aggression, physical aggression, and bullying all have clear intent to harm. Prior

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 4

literature has supported the conceptual distinction among these forms of mistreatment (e.g.,

Tepper & Henle, 2011).

Various forms of workplace mistreatment have been found to be prevalent and

consequential. Findings from a U.S. national survey showed that 41% of employees reported

experiencing nonphysical aggression, while 6% reported being physically attacked at work in

the prior year (Schat et al., 2006). The majority of studies conducted in Europe and North

America found that 10-15% of the workforce experiences workplace bullying (Keashly &

Jagatic, 2011; Zapf, Escartin, Einarsen, Hoel, & Vartia, 2011). Consequences of mistreatment

for employees, organizations, and society include decreased employee health (e.g., Lim & Lee,

2011), employee performance (Schat & Frone, 2011), and (in healthcare) quality of patient

services (Lanza, 2006), as well as increased worker compensation claims (Boyd, 1995).

Given the aforementioned consequences of workplace mistreatment, it is imperative to

identify its potential antecedents, especially those factors that may ameliorate this issue. The

majority of research on mistreatment’s antecedents has focused on the employee's individual

characteristics and experiences such as stress and unfairness, from the perspectives of both

perpetrators (Barling et al., 2009; Hershcovis et al., 2007) and targets (Aquino & Thau, 2009;

Bowling & Beehr, 2006). More and more research, however, has suggested that organizational

contextual factors (e.g., organizational culture and leadership) predict occurrences of workplace

mistreatment either by themselves or through interacting with other antecedents, such as

individual characteristics or experiences (Aquino & Lamertz, 2004; Barling et al., 2009; Leiter,

2013). Specifically from the target’s perspective, Bowling and Beehr (2006) stated:

Some specific variables in the [proposed] model [about antecedents and consequences

of workplace harassment] still need empirical research to link them to workplace

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 5

harassment [or mistreatment]. These include the organizational variables of culture and

climate, the nature of human resource systems... (p. 1007)

In response to this call, there has been a burgeoning stream of research on organizational

climate specific to mistreatment, which we define as employees’ individual or shared

perceptions of organizational policies, procedures and practices focused on deterring

mistreatment (i.e., psychological or unit-level mistreatment climate; MC). Yet, there has been

no clear understanding regarding the specific roles MC may play in the mistreatment process.

Given the complexity of the interpersonal mistreatment processes (e.g., influenced by the

relationship dynamics between various social partners; Leiter, 2013), one cannot assume that

MC will function in the same way as does workplace climate in other organizational domains

such as safety climate (Zohar, 2000) or innovation climate (Anderson & West, 1998).

Specifically, MC is regulated by norms related to interpersonal work relationships (e.g.,

treating each other in nice instead of unpleasant ways), which are often subject to individual

interpretations and the influence of dynamic relationship quality. Because it is embedded in a

subjective and dynamic interpersonal context, MC is less likely to be implemented consistently

or monitored objectively. In contrast, other types of commonly studied climates like safety

climate or innovation climate are typically influenced by more clearly defined organizational

rules and policies and driven by more objective criteria like safety records or the number of

patents granted (e.g., Bain, Mann, & Pirola-Merlo, 2001; Zohar, 2010). Admittedly, MC may

somewhat overlap with other social-interaction-related climates such as service climate

(Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998), in that both MC and service climate involve policies,

procedures, and practices focused on maintaining positive social interactions with others in the

work environment. These two climates, however, differ conceptually because service climate

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 6

emphasizes ways of ensuring employee efforts and skills to deliver high-quality customer

service, whereas MC emphasizes ways of reducing negative social interactions between any

parties in the workplace. Because service quality can be tied to objective indicators (e.g.,

number of customers retained), presumably policies, procedures, and practices central to the

formation of service climate are likely to be more measurable and less susceptible to personal

interpretation than those for MC.

Given the unique and complex nature of MC, it is important to review and synthesize

the existing literature on MC by focusing on both general and mistreatment-specific outcomes,

and to suggest directions for future research. We focus on incivility, aggression, and bullying

because conceptually these three forms of mistreatment encapsulate various forms of workplace

mistreatment in terms of intensity and intent of the perpetrator. Therefore, findings from our

qualitative and quantitative reviews on MC could generalize to other forms of mistreatment that

fall on similar spectrums of intensity and intention, such as abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000).

The present paper has the following research purposes. First, we review and summarize

the conceptualizations and measures of existing MC constructs in the domains of incivility,

aggression, and bullying. Second, informed by context theory (Bamberger, 2008; Johns, 2006;

Rousseau & Fried, 2001), we meta-analyze the relations of psychological MC with employees’

mistreatment exposure and other potential employee and organizational outcomes—specifically,

employee motivation and performance in reducing mistreatment, strains, and job attitudes.

Finally, we examine possible moderators of the relations between mistreatment climate and

focal outcomes. The conceptual and methodological moderators include climate across the three

forms of mistreatment, content deficiency and contamination of the MC scales used, dominant

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 7

vs. other climate scales used (i.e., the most commonly used scale vs. others), and types of study

design used (i.e., cross-sectional vs. prospective).

This paper extends the mistreatment literature in at least three ways. First, it provides a

conceptual synthesis of the MC literature. Specifically, it clarifies the different units of theory

corresponding to the constructs of unit-level vs. psychological climate, as applied to the three

focal forms of mistreatment. The prior literature has not conceptualized climate consistently

across these forms of mistreatment, and thus our synthesis is critical for guiding the field

forward. Such conceptual clarification and synthesis could further enhance future investigations

of climate in the context of workplace mistreatment including the forms beyond the present

review, such as abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000) and emotional abuse (Keashly, 1998).

Second, it integrates existing evidence supporting the role of psychological MC as a

contextual antecedent of mistreatment. As Johns (2006) states: “In comparison to intrapsychic

personal constructs, one less often finds reviews of the literature or meta-analyses based around

contextual variables” (p. 393). Our effort constitutes one of the few meta-analyses that is

focused on contextual variables, and thus extends previously published meta-analyses and

empirical reviews on antecedents of mistreatment exposure that mostly focused on intrapsychic

personal variables such as personalities or attribution (e.g., Aquino & Thau, 2009; Bowling &

Beehr, 2006). As such, it contributes to the empirical understanding of contextual effects on

workplace mistreatment and should inform future efforts (e.g., targeted interventions to

improve climate) to reduce mistreatment, an issue consequential to employees, organizations,

and society (Aquino & Thau, 2009; Schat et al., 2006).

Finally, the present study examines conceptual and methodological moderators to

understand the boundary conditions for psychological MC, thereby furthering our

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 8

understanding of what factors may enhance the positive effects of psychological MC and what

factors may inhibit such effects. Specifically, findings about the differential effects of

psychological MC types (e.g., climate specific to incivility vs. aggression) can inform future

research and interventions about whether one specific type or multiple types of psychological

MC should be the focus. Furthermore, findings related to methodological moderators such as

measurement quality and rigor of research design will not only point out methodological factors

that may limit understanding of climate’s effects, but also suggest methodologies that will

enhance understanding.

Psychological and Unit-Level Mistreatment Climate

Consistent with the literature on general organizational climate (e.g., Glick, 1985; James

& Jones, 1974), we differentiate psychological and unit-level MC because they represent

different units of theory. Psychological MC represents individuals’ unique perceptions of

organizational- and group-level attributes associated with workplace mistreatment, while unit-

level MC represents shared understandings of the same organizational- and group-level

attributes. In this paper, group-level refers to a general meso level within the organization, which

may include the work team level or department level. That is, psychological and unit-level MC

are closely related yet distinct because psychological MC captures employees’ personal

interpretations of workplace policies, procedures and practices aiming at deterring mistreatment,

whereas unit-level MC captures the consensual interpretations of these policies, procedures and

practices among multiple employees within the same unit (group or organization). Regardless of

the units of theory, a positive MC reflects employees’ favorable perceptions of available policies,

procedures, and practices that discourage mistreatment towards employees; conversely, a

negative MC indicates that employees perceive a lack of appropriate policies, procedures, and

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 9

practices to discourage mistreatment, or even the existence of policies, procedures, and practices

that worsen workplace mistreatment.

Scholars in the field of workplace mistreatment have not conceptualized MC consistently

across the different forms of mistreatment—notably incivility, aggression, and bullying. We

located 10 MC constructs that each represented one domain of mistreatment. Civility climate has

been labeled as Civility, Respect, Engagement at Work (CREW) climate (Meterko, Osatuke,

Mohr, Warren, & Dyrenforth, 2007), perceived workplace civility climate (Ottinot, 2008, 2010),

and workgroup climate for civility (Walsh et al., 2012). Aggression-inhibition climate includes

perceived violence policy adequacy (Hegney, Plank, & Parker, 2003), organizational

(in)tolerance of aggression (Schat, 2005), violence prevention climate (Kessler, Spector, Chang,

& Parr, 2008; Spector, Coulter, Stockwell, & Matz, 2007), perceived organizational sanctions [of

aggression] (Inness, LeBlanc, & Barling, 2008), and perceived prevention of violence (Mueller

& Tschan, 2011). Climate of bullying is measured both positively and negatively, as climate of

[tolerating] bullying (e.g., Hutchinson, Jackson, Wilkes, & Vickers, 2008) and perceived anti-

bullying policy (Baillen, Neyens, & De Witte, 2011). Across these 10 MC constructs, only two

were conceptualized and measured at both the individual and unit level (i.e., perceived

workplace civility climate; Ottinot, 2008, 2010; violence prevention climate; Chang, Eatough,

Spector, & Kessler, 2012; Spector et al., 2007). Table 1 presents the conceptualizations and

measurements of the aforementioned MC constructs.

Mistreatment Climate, Context Theory, and Potential Employee and Organizational

Outcomes

In the present meta-analytic review, we include only studies reporting results on

psychological MC. As shown in Figure 1, the focal employee and organizational outcomes

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 10

utilized in our meta-analytic review include motivation and behavior to reduce mistreatment (i.e.,

mistreatment-reduction motivation and performance), mistreatment exposure, and other potential

outcomes (i.e., employee strains and job attitudes). Mistreatment-reduction motivation represents

employees’ motivation to reduce their exposure to mistreatment. As such, it includes both

employees’ mistreatment-prevention motivation (e.g., violence- and aggression- prevention

motivation; Chang et al., 2012) and their awareness of the workplace mistreatment. An

awareness of mistreatment represents employees' understanding of the inherent risks of

mistreatment and a readiness to follow appropriate procedures and practices (e.g., aggression

awareness; Yang & Caughlin, 2012). Mistreatment-reduction performance refers to employees’

behaviors aimed at reducing the number of mistreatment occurrences, which include actions of

participation (e.g., volunteer to help coworkers handle mistreatment incidents) and compliance

(e.g., follow correct procedures and practices to prevent mistreatment incidents). One example of

this construct is violence- and aggression-prevention performance proposed and tested by Chang

and colleagues (2012). Regarding types of mistreatment exposure, we investigated incivility,

physical aggression, nonphysical aggression, and bullying. We separated physical and

nonphysical aggression to be consistent with prior literature (e.g., Schat et al., 2006; Spector,

Zhou, & Che, 2014). Regarding employee strains, we included emotional strains (e.g., anxiety,

depression) and physical strains (e.g., psychosomatic symptoms, musculoskeletal disorder

symptoms). Finally, in the domain of employee job attitudes, we included organizational

commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions.

Context theory (Bamberger, 2008; Johns, 2006; Rousseau & Fried, 2001) posits that

work context factors, including social context, provide opportunities or constraints that allow or

limit employees to form certain attitudes and cognitions, and to demonstrate certain behaviors.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 11

Johns (2006) argues that social context constitutes a critical part of the work context and that it

includes three aspects, of which social influence (i.e., influences from others one interacts with)

is the most relevant to the present review. Social influence involves discretionary social

interactions and is believed to be an aspect of social context critical for understanding workplace

phenomena of an interpersonal nature—workplace mistreatment in our case. Because

psychological MC is based on employees’ observations of management and coworker practices

to deter or tolerate workplace mistreatment, we contend that it constitutes a psychological proxy

for social influence. In other words, psychological MC should be a critical psychosocial

environmental antecedent of the target employee’s experiences of and reactions to mistreatment

(e.g., Glick, 1985; James & Jones, 1974).

Because psychological MC is part of the psychosocial context in which employees make

sense of their interpersonal environment (Johns, 2006; Weick, 1995), we contend that MC

(perceived social cues) helps guide them to take appropriate actions with respect to the perceived

relative priority of multiple work goals. That is, with positive psychological MC, employees may

perceive that making efforts to reduce mistreatment exposure has as high a priority as (or even a

higher priority than) performing their job tasks well. Following the expectancy theory of

motivation (Vroom, 1964), positive psychological MC provides psychosocial cues that may

strengthen employees’ efficacy expectations, outcome expectancy, and outcome valence related

to mistreatment reduction (Chang et al., 2012). When perceiving positive MC, employees believe

policies, procedures, and supportive practices are available in their immediate work environment.

Accordingly, they may feel more efficacious in taking actions to reduce mistreatment exposure,

believe mistreatment reduction performance will lead to positive outcomes (e.g., reduced

mistreatment exposure or recognition by the supervisor), and value the importance of these

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 12

outcomes. In other words, positive psychological MC is expected to contribute to stronger

mistreatment reduction motivation. As such, compared to their counterparts who perceive

negative psychological MC, these employees should be more motivated to reduce mistreatment

occurrences, to better comply with mistreatment reduction policies and procedures, and to

participate more frequently in mistreatment reduction (including prevention) efforts.

Furthermore, positive psychological MC indicates employees’ awareness of and having

access to available organizational resources pertaining to managing mistreatment (e.g., policies

and procedures, management support, relevant training programs), which should directly

contribute to these employees’ reduced exposure to mistreatment and reduced emotional and

physical strains. Specifically, positive psychological MC may directly help employees manage

their strains and attitudes through signaling available organizational resources in support of

preventing and/or coping with the mistreatment issue; it may relate to lower employee exposure

to mistreatment incidents through better preparing employees for mistreatment prevention (e.g.,

going through pertinent training and asking for assistance from appropriate colleagues). In

contrast, when employees perceive negative psychological MC, they may experience more

pressure and strains at work because they need to prioritize getting the work done while knowing

that they have to handle frequent mistreatment incidents without support. Such pressure and

strains may be reinforced by perceiving a lack of organizational support such as few

organizational policies and procedures related to mistreatment and management’s delayed

actions to address mistreatment incidents. Further, the pressure from having to handle demands

from both work deadlines and mistreatment incidents could contribute to employees’ increased

exposure to mistreatment (Yang, Spector, Chang, Gallant-Roman, & Powell, 2012) and

increased strains (Chang et al., 2012). Finally, following context theory (Johns, 2006), perceived

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 13

social cues associated with positive psychological MC (e.g., the management and coworkers care

about reducing mistreatment incidents) should also help shape employees’ attitudes towards their

job or the entire organization. Thus, we contend that there will be direct relations between

psychological MC and the target employee’s mistreatment reduction motivation and performance,

mistreatment exposure, strains, and job attitudes.

Hypothesis 1: Psychological MC will positively relate to mistreatment reduction

motivation and performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, and

negatively relate to mistreatment exposure, emotional and physical strains, and

turnover intentions.

Moderators

Types of psychological MC in relation to incivility, aggression, and bullying. We

posit a research question regarding whether different types of MC (incivility, aggression, and

bullying) will moderate the magnitude of the MC-outcome relations. Consistent with context

theory (Johns, 2006), psychological MC reflects a psychosocial influence that shapes employees’

attitudes towards workplace mistreatment and their job and organization at large, and directs

their attention to managing interpersonal mistreatment, regardless of the forms of mistreatment.

Thus, following context theory, psychological MC pertaining to the three different forms of

mistreatment may have a similar magnitude of relations to various outcomes of the mistreatment

target and the organization.

Where the number of primary studies is sufficient, we compare the magnitudes of the

MC-outcome relations across domains of psychological MC. Notably, due to an inadequate

number of available primary studies focused on perceived climate of bullying (k = 1), we are

only able to compare the effect sizes of psychological MC pertaining to incivility vs. aggression.

Research Question 1: Will psychological MC pertaining to incivility and aggression have

comparable effect sizes in relation to focal employee and organizational outcomes?

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 14

Differences in usage of MC scales. With regard to the measurement of psychological

MC, we investigated whether our meta-analytical findings are influenced by the over-

representation of primary studies using Kessler et al.’s (2008) scale of violence prevention

climate and Ottinot’s (2008) perceived workplace civility climate scale for assessing perceived

aggression-inhibition climate and perceived civility climate, respectively. This moderator

analysis is important because these two dominant climate scales were used in no fewer than half

of the primary studies included in the analysis of the psychological MC-outcome relations. As

such, we pose a research question targeted at the potential moderating effect of the climate scale

types (dominant vs. other) on the focal psychological MC-outcome relations.

Research Question 2: Will effect sizes for the psychological MC-outcome relations differ

between those studies using the dominant climate scale and those using other scales?

Content deficiency and contamination of MC scales. Based on our review of the

literature (see Table 1), there is large variability across existing MC scales in terms of

dimensionality, ranging from unidimensional (e.g., perceived anti-bullying policy; Baillen et al.,

2011) to multidimensional (e.g., violence prevention climate scale with three dimensions;

Kessler et al., 2008). As such, we anticipate some degree of variability across MC scales

regarding the extent to which a particular MC scale sufficiently reflects the complete content

domain of psychological MC. For example, Hegney and colleagues’ (2003) scale of violence

policy adequacy includes only the component of policies for deterring violence, which should

have a higher level of content deficiency than Ottinot’s (2008) perceived workplace civility

climate scale, which includes three components of climate (i.e., policies, procedures, and

practices). Further, our examination of the existing MC scales suggests that there is variability in

the degree of item content contamination across scales (i.e., including content beyond the

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 15

intended MC construct). For example, the CREW civility climate scale (Meterko et al., 2007)

includes some items that clearly measure constructs beyond civility climate, such as “A spirit of

cooperation and teamwork exists in my work group” and “This organization does not tolerate

discrimination.” Following Messick (1995), content deficiency (i.e., construct

underrepresentation) and contamination are two of the major threats to construct validity of focal

phenomena, which could contribute to biased estimates of the relations between the focal

construct (psychological MC in our case) and other variables. In the present case, scales of

psychological MC that include only one or two of the three climate components of policies,

procedures, and practices (Reichers & Schneider, 1990) should be considered to have greater

content deficiency than those that include all three climate components. Further, a MC scale with

a higher portion of its items measuring content beyond climate (e.g., 75% for the CREW scale;

Meterko et al., 2007) is considered to have greater content contamination than a scale with a

lower portion or none of its items measuring content beyond climate (e.g., 0% for the scale of

perceived organizational sanctions [of aggression]; Inness et al., 2008). MC scales’ content

deficiency and contamination may distort the estimates of focal relations (Messick, 1995) and yet

the direction of distortion cannot be predicted; thus, we pose the following research question:

Research Question 3: Will the content a) deficiency and b) contamination of MC scales

used by primary studies significantly moderate the magnitudes of MC-outcome relations?

Study design. Prior research indicates that studies using cross-sectional designs tend to

have higher correlations than those using time-lagged or longitudinal designs due to factors such

as potentially higher common method variance in cross-sectional studies (Lindell & Whitney,

2001; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003) and the natural decrease of effect sizes as

time lag between measurements increases (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). We, however, want to

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 16

acknowledge that there also are arguments and evidence supporting that effect sizes reported by

cross-sectional studies (including those using self-report measures) are not necessarily inflated.

That is, the extent of inflation of effect sizes in such studies depends on the nature of study topics

and to what extent the attenuation effect of measurement errors offsets the upward biases

resulting from the same-time and/or same-source responses (Conway & Lance, 2010; Lance,

Dawson, Birklebach, & Hoffman, 2010; Spector, 2006). Taking into account the majority of

research evidence in the literature, we pose a hypothesis regarding the moderating role of

research design in relation to the magnitude of the MC-outcome relations.

Hypothesis 2: Among studies using prospective designs (time-lagged or longitudinal

designs), psychological MC will relate to potential outcomes to a weaker extent than

those studies using cross-sectional designs.

In summary, the current study reviewed empirical studies focused on psychological

and/or unit-level MC pertaining to incivility, aggression, and bullying; meta-analyzed the

relations between psychological MC and its potential outcomes (i.e., mistreatment exposure,

employee motivation and performance in reducing mistreatment, strains, and job attitudes); and

examined the potential effects of five conceptually and methodologically important moderators.

Finally, it is important to note that in our study we chose not to include sexual harassment as

another form of workplace mistreatment for the following reason: Sexual harassment is

qualitatively different from the forms of workplace mistreatment we defined above because it is

motivated by the target’s gender and is influenced by legislative regulations. Indeed, empirical

studies indicate that sexual harassment is conceptually different from the forms of workplace

mistreatment defined above (Fendrich, Woodward, & Richman, 2002; Hershcovis & Barling,

2010).

Method

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 17

Literature Search

Existing studies on MC and their potential consequences were identified using six

methods: (a) computer-based searches of electronic databases, (b) manual searches of selected

empirical journals, (c) manual searches of selected conference programs, (d) manual searches of

reference lists of relevant articles, (e) requests for unpublished empirical work posted on the

listservs of relevant professional associations, and (f) email correspondence with known scholars

of MC. Through PsycINFO, GoogleScholar, and other ProQuest databases (e.g.,

PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, or PsycCRITIQUES), we searched electronic databases for

studies on MC published through 2013. Our search terms included mistreatment, aggression,

violence, assault, bullying, mobbing, incivility, and civility, along with climate, culture, or norms.

Methods b and c were intended to supplement the electronic searches and we searched the past

five years, 2007 through 2013. The first set of manual searches was conducted by searching

journal publications in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health

Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Academy of Management Journal,

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, European Journal of Work and

Organizational Psychology, Work and Stress, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment, and Health, and Human Relations. The second set

of manual searches involved searches of the five most recent years of conference programs for

the Academy of Management, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Work,

Stress, and Health conferences. Furthermore, we posted requests for unpublished work on the

listservs of Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Academy of Management

(including both the human resources and organizational behavior divisions), and Society for

Occupational Health Psychology. Finally, to identify unpublished and un-presented work, we

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 18

emailed 36 authors who had previously published or presented empirical work related to MC.

For those studies in which usable effect size information were suspected but not reported, we

contacted the authors to request the relevant information.

In total, we identified and retrieved 6,488 journal articles, book chapters, theses,

dissertations, and unpublished manuscripts. From these sources, we applied the following

inclusion/exclusion criteria. First, we included only those samples from studies that empirically

investigated some form of climate specific to workplace mistreatment and at least one of the

focal relations between psychological MC and potential outcomes (e.g., the psychological

MCemotional strains relation). Second, effect sizes were included only if the potential

outcomes (e.g., mistreatment exposure, emotional strains) of psychological MC were assessed

from the mistreatment target’s perspective; we identified only one study that assessed MC from

the mistreatment perpetrator’s perspective. Third, we included only studies reporting an effect

size that could be converted to a correlation coefficient; for those cases in which an unusable

effect size was reported (e.g., regression coefficient), we contacted the study authors to request a

zero-order correlation for the bivariate relation. Fourth, samples were excluded when an effect

size was reported based on the same sample as a prior work; for instance, Bertello (2012) and

Machin, Bertello, and Gillespie (2013) both reported the same data from the same sample;

ultimately, we included Machin et al. and excluded Bertello, as the former had been formally

presented at a conference on a more recent date. Fifth, we excluded one sample in which an

intervention targeting topics beyond MC (i.e., Civility, Respect, Engagement at Work [CREW])

was applied within a prospective design (i.e., the same CREW intervention group from Leiter,

Laschinger, Day, & Oore, 2011 and Leiter, Day, Laschinger, & Gilin-Oore, 2012). Specifically,

we included the effect sizes derived from the prospective correlation matrix associated with the

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 19

control group from Leiter et al. (2011, 2012). We excluded, however, the prospective correlation

matrix derived from the intervention group, because the relations between MC and relevant

outcomes were influenced by the CREW intervention applied between the two time points.

After applying the above inclusion/exclusion criteria, 36 independent samples from 35

sources were retained for meta-analytic purposes because they provided effect sizes for the

psychological MC-outcome relations. Two studies (i.e., Schat, 2005; Walsh et al., 2012) each

provided two independent samples while two studies (i.e., Leiter et al., 2011, 2012) were based

on the same independent sample. Of these 36 samples, 19 were from unpublished sources (e.g.,

conference presentations and dissertations) and 4 used time-lagged or longitudinal design (for the

complete list, see studies marked with “*” in the reference list). Of the included samples, the

most commonly used measures for perceived aggression-inhibition climate and perceived civility

climate were the violence prevention climate scale (Kessler et al., 2008; 15 samples) and the

perceived workplace civility climate scale (Ottinot, 2008; 6 samples), respectively. In terms of

coding, the second and third authors coded all 36 samples independently, and all discrepancies

were resolved after careful discussion. In addition, our literature search process identified four

studies focused on unit-level MC, including three on group-level MC (i.e., Chang & Golubovich,

2012; Gallus, Walsh, van Driel, Gouge, & Antolic, in press; Ottinot, 2010) and one on dyadic-

level MC—shared between the focal employee and one coworker (Chang et al., 2012). Because

there was only one study reporting results on the relation between unit-level MC and most focal

outcomes, we did not include these four studies in the meta-analytic review; instead we will

describe them narratively in the discussion section.

Finally, we conducted additional searches for studies about climate specific to other

forms of mistreatment through 2013 by using the following methods: (a) electronic database

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 20

searches, (b) manual searches of the aforementioned journals, and (c) manual searches of the

aforementioned conference programs. For the electronic searches we used the following

combinations of search terms: abusive supervision, emotional abuse, ostracism, social

undermining, workplace harassment (excluding the sexual component), counterproductive work

behavior toward individuals (CWBI), and interpersonal deviance, along with climate, culture, or

norms. We did so because these other forms of mistreatment are commonly studied (e.g., Tepper

& Henle, 2011) and empirical studies on climate specific to these forms may enrich our present

meta-analytical review. Interestingly, using the additional search terms, we were unable to locate

any studies that met our inclusion criteria.

Meta-Analytic Strategy and Analysis

We applied the psychometric meta-analytic method proposed by Hunter and Schmidt

(2004) which results in random effects models. To conduct the analyses, we extracted the zero-

order correlations1, sample sizes, predictor and outcome reliabilities, publication status (i.e.,

published, unpublished), and research design (i.e., cross-sectional, prospective), where available.

When any of the aforementioned information was not included in a published or unpublished

manuscript, we requested the information from the study’s author(s). When a reliability for a

predictor or outcome variable was not available for a given sample (e.g., single-item measure),

we imputed the value by averaging the other available sample reliabilities for the given variable,

which is consistent with past practices (e.g., Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Reliability imputation was

1 Because the four studies on unit-level MC also provided correlations for our meta-analyses of

psychological MC’s effects, we re-ran all pertinent meta-analytical models by using pooled

within-unit correlation matrices from these studies (only applicable to the three studies on group-

level MC), for the purpose of removing the data nesting effects. Results indicated that all

population-level estimates only differed by a magnitude of .01-.03 from those reported in this

manuscript and all significance levels of these estimates remained the same (e.g., whether

corresponding confidence intervals included zero).

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 21

only necessary for approximately 10% cases relative to the total number of available reliability

estimates. For primary studies using multi-dimensional psychological MC scales such as the

three-dimensional violence prevention climate scale (Kessler et al., 2008) and the three-

dimensional workplace civility climate scale (Ottinot, 2008), we used one of the following

approaches to retrieve necessary information: (a) from the authors, we requested the estimated

reliability for an overall climate variable and effect sizes based on an overall climate score, or (b)

using Hunter and Schmidt’s (2004) suggested formulas, we estimated effect sizes and the

reliability for an overall climate variable based on the available climate variable subdimensions

and their effect sizes. Estimates of the population effect size (ρ) of the focal relations were

calculated by computing the sample-weighted average of correlations across samples after

correcting the correlations for the unreliability in both the predictor and the outcome. Confidence

and credibility intervals were calculated using the Hunter and Schmidt (2004) approach.

Moderator Analysis

When applicable and consistent with Research Questions 1-3 and Hypothesis 2, a series

of moderator analyses were conducted for each of the focal relations between psychological MC

and potential outcomes. The Q test (Rosenthal, 1991) was used as an indicator of between-

sample heterogeneity such that a significant Q suggested the likely presence of moderators. We

used an additional indicator of between-sample heterogeneity to determine the likelihood of

moderators. Specifically, a 95% credibility interval that includes zero served as an indicator that

the population estimate likely reflected the presence of more than one underlying subpopulation

(resulting from moderators) as opposed to a single population (Whitener, 1990). For all MC-

outcome relations suggesting significant heterogeneity (based on one or both of the indicators),

we used sub-group analysis and independent-sample t-test to examine effects of categorical

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 22

moderators (Neter, Wasserman, & Whitmore, 1993; Hunter & Schmidt, 2004), and used

weighted least squares multiple regression to examine effect of continuous moderators (Steel &

Kammeyer-Mueller, 2002). For categorical moderators, we investigated whether psychological

MC type (perceived civility climate vs. perceived aggression-inhibition climate), study design

(cross-sectional vs. prospective design), and MC scale type (dominant vs. other) served as

moderators when at least three studies were available for each level of the moderator variables. It

is important to note that due to the small number of studies that used prospective designs, we

conducted subgroup analyses when only two prospective studies were available, so as to better

explore the moderating role of study design and inform future research. One additional

categorical moderator was tested for the relations between psychological MC and emotional

strains. Specifically, a sufficient number of samples were identified to investigate the relations

between overall psychological MC and specific forms of emotional strains (i.e., anxiety, anger,

and depression).

With regard to continuous moderators (i.e., MC scales’ content deficiency and

contamination), the first and second authors independently rated the extent to which specific MC

scales were deficient in measuring policies, procedures, and practices components of

organizational climate as defined by James and Jones (1974), and the proportion of items of

these scales that had content contamination (reflecting constructs beyond the focal MC, such as

perceived civility climate). Specifically, the authors rated content deficiency as 0 if all three

climate components were included in a specific scale, as 1 if two components were included (one

missing component) and as 2 if one was included (two missing). After independently rating all

psychological MC scales, there were two discrepancies between raters for content deficiency and

three discrepancies for contamination—these were resolved via careful discussion. The

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 23

converged content deficiency and contamination ratings were then submitted to weighted least

squares regression analysis (Steel & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2002), which has been shown to be

robust to multicollinearity for meta-analytic moderator analysis. To ensure adequate sample size

(i.e., k) and statistical power for such regression analyses, we examined the effects of MC scales’

content deficiency and contamination on the relations of psychological MC with overall

mistreatment exposure (incivility, aggression, and bullying), employee strains (emotional and

physical strains), and job attitudes (organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover

intentions), with the corresponding k values equal to 28, 25, and 24, respectively2.

Outlier Analysis

Consistent with the meta-analytic reporting standards (APA Publications and

Communications Board, 2008; Kepes, McDaniel, Brannick, & Banks, 2013), we ran outlier

analyses by reporting the meta-analytical results with and without Warren et al.’s (2008) sample.

Warren et al.’s sample included 75,595 participants who all worked in the healthcare industry

and, more specifically, in Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. Given that Warren et al.’s sample was

over 30 times larger than the second largest sample, we were concerned that the it might over-

represent one specific industry (i.e., healthcare) and, moreover, one specific type of hospital

systems (e.g., VA hospitals). As such, we ran the MC-exposure analyses with and without

Warren et al.’s sample. This outlier analysis is only relevant to the MC-exposure relation found

in Table 2 for two reasons: (a) Warren et al. only investigated civility climate in relation to

nonphysical aggression which precluded it from the subsequent subgroup analyses involving

2 Due to a small sample size (k = 5), we did not run regression models to examine the potential

effect of these two continuous moderators on the relations of MC with mistreatment

mistreatment-reduction motivation and performance.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 24

mistreatment exposure, and (b) Warren et al. did not investigate the relations between civility

climate and our other focal outcomes.

Supplementary Analysis

We ran a supplementary path analysis based on the population-level correlations between

focal variables (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1995) to detect potential indirect effects of

psychological MC on focal outcomes. In particular, psychological MC can predict the target

employee’s mistreatment exposure, which then accounts for downstream employee strains and

job attitudes. Indeed, a fair amount of prior evidence has supported the implications of

mistreatment exposure for the target employee’s strains and job attitudes (Aquino & Thau, 2009;

Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Further, we identified four empirical studies including one

intervention-based and three survey studies that found evidence for the indirect effects of

psychological MC on the target employee’s strains and job attitudes through incivility or

bullying exposure (i.e., Hutchinson et al., 2008; Hutchinson, Wilkes, Jackson, & Vickers, 2010;

Leiter et al., 2011; Machin et al., 2013).

It is important to meta-analytically examine whether psychological MC has potential

indirect effects on the target employee’s strains and job attitudes independent of its direct effects,

for the following two reasons. First, results from such analyses could aid conceptual clarification

of the possibly independent pathways psychological MC takes in shaping downstream employee

strains and attitudes. That is, positive psychological MC may directly help employees to better

manage strains and form more positive work attitudes via signaling and fostering organizational

support, and negative psychological MC (lack of organizational support for the mistreatment

issue) could serve as a stressor that strains employees (e.g., Chang et al., 2012). Further, it could

indirectly help manage employees’ strains and attitudes via a pathway of better preparing them

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 25

for reducing or coping with mistreatment incidents. Second, findings from such analyses could

inform future research and interventions regarding possible direct and indirect consequences of

shaping psychological MC for employee outcomes.

We used Mplus 5.21 (Muthén & Muthén, 2006) to run a path model based on the

estimates of population-level correlations between psychological MC, overall exposure, overall

mistreatment reduction effort (including motivation and performance), overall strains, and

overall job attitudes (all variables coded as positive). As part of the analysis, we requested

estimates of indirect effects of psychological MC on overall strains and job attitudes. The

population-level correlations of overall exposure with overall strains and overall job attitudes

were estimated from Bowling and Beehr’s (2006) meta-analytical study, that between overall

strains and overall job attitudes was estimated from Clarke’s (2010) meta-analytical study, while

the rest of correlations were based on our present meta-analytic review3. In other words, all focal

categories of variables were included in the correlation matrix and entered into the path model;

we specified mistreatment exposure as the mediator between psychological MC and overall

strains and job attitudes, with mistreatment reduction effort specified as a covariate predicting

overall exposure in accordance with the literature (e.g., Chang et al., 2012; Gazica & Spector,

2013; Yang & Caughlin, 2012). Finally, we used a sample size of 352—a harmonic mean

estimated based on sample sizes of the studies included in the path analysis, which is consistent

with the prior literature (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1995).

Results

Hypothesis 1 posited that psychological MC (averaged across all forms of mistreatment)

would positively relate to mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction

3 The population-level correlation matrix is available from the first author.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 26

performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction, and negatively relate to

mistreatment exposure, emotional and physical strains, and turnover intentions. As shown in

Table 2, the estimated population-level effect size of the psychological MC-outcome relations

varied from -.25 (e.g., for physical strains) to .56 (for organizational commitment). Specifically,

there were significant positive relations of psychological MC with organizational commitment

(ρ = .56), job satisfaction (ρ = .52), mistreatment-reduction motivation (only available in the

domain of aggression; ρ = .51), and mistreatment-reduction performance (only available in the

domain of aggression; ρ = .50), as the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of their effect sizes did

not include zero. Additionally, there were significant negative relations between psychological

MC and mistreatment exposure (ρ = -.42 vs. ρ = -.30 with Warren et al., 2008 included vs.

excluded, respectively), emotional and physical strains (ρ = -.33 and ρ = -.25, respectively), and

turnover intentions (ρ = -.42). In other words, more positive psychological MC was related to

higher mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction performance, organizational

commitment, and job satisfaction, as well as less mistreatment exposure, lower emotional and

physical strains, and turnover intentions. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported.

Further, we note that there was large between-sample variability in the psychological

MC-outcome relations across all presumed outcome variables (see Table 2). Such large

variability was indicated by either a significant Q-statistic (Rosenthal, 1991) or a 95%

credibility interval that includes zero (Whitener, 1990).

Research Question 1 was concerned with whether psychological MC pertaining to

incivility and aggression would have comparable effect size magnitudes in relation to potential

employee and organizational outcomes. The number of available studies was sufficient for

comparisons related to mistreatment exposure, job attitudes (organizational commitment, job

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 27

satisfaction, and turnover intentions), and emotional strains. According to results of independent

sample t-tests, we found the effect size comparison across civility climate and aggression-

inhibition climate to be significant for all potential outcomes except turnover intentions and

emotional strains. Specifically, in Table 3 we show that civility climate and aggression-inhibition

climate had comparable population effect size estimates in relation to turnover intentions (ρ = -

.40 vs. ρ = -.41) and emotional strains (ρ = -.38 vs. ρ = -.32), as t-tests between the effect sizes

for the two types of climate were nonsignificant for turnover intentions (t[13] = -.32, ns) and

emotional strains (t[18] = -1.60, ns).

In contrast, across perceived civility climate and aggression-inhibition climate, we found

significant differences between their relations with regard to organizational commitment (ρ = .59

vs. ρ = .42; t[8] = 2.96, p < .05), job satisfaction (ρ = .53 vs. ρ = .43; t[23] = 2.94, p < .01), such

that, when compared to aggression-inhibition climate, civility climate had stronger relations with

organizational commitment and job satisfaction. With regard to the psychological MC-exposure

relations, the effect sizes for nonphysical and physical aggression exposure were each contrasted

with that for incivility exposure. The civility climate-incivility exposure relation (ρ = -.40) was

significantly stronger than the relation of aggression-inhibition climate with nonphysical

aggression exposure (ρ = -.25; t[22] = -4.21, p < .01) and physical aggression exposure (ρ = -.21;

t[25] = -5.52, p < .01). Hence, in response to Research Question 1, compared to aggression-

inhibition climate, civility climate had a similar effect size in relation to turnover intentions and

emotional strains; stronger effect sizes in relation to organizational commitment, job satisfaction,

and mistreatment exposure.

To address Research Question 2, we examined whether the magnitude of the

psychological MC-outcome relations was contingent upon the type of scale used (dominant vs.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 28

other). As shown in Table 4, t-tests of the MC-outcome relations’ effect sizes across subgroups

of the dominant and other (non-dominant) scales were all nonsignificant, except for between the

dominant (i.e., Ottinot) vs. non-dominant (i.e., scales other than the Ottinot) civility climate

scales in relation to job satisfaction. Specifically, compared to the non-dominant civility climate

scales, the civility climate-job satisfaction relation was weaker for those studies using the Ottinot

scale (ρ = .50 vs. ρ = .59; t[8] = 2.63, p < .05). Thus, our estimated population effect sizes of the

MC-outcome relations were largely uninfluenced by the overrepresentation of the dominant

climate scales (i.e., Kessler et al., 2008; Ottinot, 2008), with the aforementioned exception of the

civility climate-job satisfaction relation.

To address Research Question 3 regarding potential moderating effects of MC scales’

content deficiency and contamination on the psychological MC-outcome relations, Table 5

presents results from the weighted least squares regression analysis. We did not find evidence

for the moderating effect of scale content deficiency; that is, MC scales’ content deficiency did

not seem to influence the magnitude of psychological MC-outcome relations. Further, we found

that MC scales’ content contamination significantly increased the magnitude of the

psychological MC-exposure and psychological MC-strain relations (β = .40 and β = .43,

respectively, p < .05), but not the magnitude of the MC-job attitude relation (β = .08, p = .73).

Thus, MC scales’ content contamination moderated the magnitudes of the psychological MC-

exposure and psychological MC-strain relations.

To address Hypothesis 2 on the potential moderating effect of study design (cross-

sectional vs. prospective) on the psychological MC-outcome relations, Table 6 presents results

from subgroup analyses for various psychological MC-outcome relations. We found

comparable (i.e., not significantly different) magnitudes for the relations of psychological MC

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 29

with emotional strains, physical strains, and incivility exposure, across cross-sectional and

prospective studies, as indicated by nonsignificant t-tests across the corresponding subgroups.

In contrast, we found significant differences in the magnitudes of psychological MC-job

attitudes and MC-physical aggression exposure relations with respect to cross-sectional vs.

prospective designs: organizational commitment (ρ = .59 vs. ρ = .37; t[8] = 4.32, p < .01), job

satisfaction (ρ = .53 vs. ρ = .43; t[21] = 4.02, p < .01), turnover intentions (ρ = -.43 vs. ρ = -.36;

t[12] = -2.58, p < .05), and physical aggression exposure (ρ =- .21 vs. ρ = -.26; t[16] = -2.50, p

< .05). That is, the psychological MC-job attitudes relations were significantly weaker across

those studies using prospective designs, but the psychological MC-physical aggression

exposure relation was stronger across those studies using prospective designs. As such, we

found partial support for Hypothesis 2. Thus, different study designs did result in effect sizes of

varying magnitudes for psychological MC in relation to job attitudes (organizational

commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions) and physical aggression exposure,

although unexpectedly prospective designs resulted in stronger MC-physical aggression

exposure relations than cross-sectional designs. We suggest a cautious interpretation of the

aforementioned significant subgroup analyses, primarily because of the small number of

prospective studies available for these analyses (i.e., k = 2-3).

Finally, regarding the supplementary path analysis, we found that psychological MC had

significant direct effects on employee strains and positive job attitudes (β = -.16 and β =.41, p

< .01, respectively) and significant indirect effects on these outcomes through mistreatment

exposure (β = -.14 and β = .10, p < .01, respectively). The path model had adequate fit (χ2 =

3.71; df = 2; comparative fit index = .99; non-normed fit index = .98; root mean square error of

approximation = .05; standardized root mean square residual = .01).

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 30

Discussion

The present paper reviewed studies of psychological and unit-level MC in the domains of

incivility, aggression, and bullying. Through our meta-analyses, we showed that psychological

MC was significantly related not only to mistreatment exposure but also to seven other potential

outcomes, namely mistreatment-reduction motivation, mistreatment-reduction performance,

emotional strains, physical strains, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover

intentions. This meta-analytic study also explored the role of five moderators of the

psychological MC-outcome relations, and found evidence for the moderating effect of a

conceptual moderator (psychological MC in the incivility vs. aggression domain) and a

methodological moderator (content contamination of MC scales). Finally, we also found meta-

analytical evidence for the indirect effects of psychological MC on employee strains and job

attitudes via the mediation of mistreatment exposure. Thus, this paper makes important

contributions to the literature on workplace mistreatment.

The Relations between Psychological MC and Employee and Organizational Outcomes

The present meta-analytic review shows that better psychological climate pertaining to

mistreatment is associated with less mistreatment exposure, less emotional and physical strains,

and better job attitudes. The effect size of the above relations (i.e., population-level estimates as

absolute values) ranged between -.25 and .40 for the psychological MC-strains and psychological

MC-exposure relations, and between .42 and .51 for the psychological MC-motivation,

psychological MC-performance, and psychological MC-job attitudes relations. These effect sizes

are comparable to the magnitude of climate-outcome relations in the safety literature (e.g.,

Christian, Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011). Further,

the relations of psychological MC with job attitudes and mistreatment reduction effort (including

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 31

motivation and performance) seem to be stronger than those of psychological MC with employee

strains and mistreatment exposure.

Consistent with context theory (e.g., Johns, 2006), psychological MC may exert

contextual influence on employees by providing psychosocial cues related to the priority of

managing mistreatment (as compared with work productivity). When perceiving positive

psychological MC, employees understand reducing mistreatment is set by their management as

high a priority as meeting work deadlines, and thus judge their work environment as supportive

(Chang & Golubovich, 2012). Indeed, there is evidence suggesting that violence prevention

climate is positively related to perceived supervisor support (Yang & Caughlin, 2012). With such

perceived support, employees tend to form positive attitudes about their job, feel motivated, and

actually expend effort to reduce mistreatment occurrences (e.g., prevention). Further, they may

experience less mistreatment exposure and fewer strains due to high-level role clarity regarding

prioritizing demands from handling mistreatment vs. central job tasks (Chang et al., 2012). Yet

the contextual influence of psychological MC on various employee and organizational outcomes

varied significantly across studies, which led to our investigation of multiple potential

moderators described below.

Conceptual and Methodological Moderators of the Psychological MC-Outcome Relations

The first moderator we examined was the different mistreatment domains to which

psychological MC is applied. Our analysis found evidence for comparable magnitude of relations

of psychological MC with turnover intentions and emotional strains, across civility climate and

aggression-inhibition climate. This finding is consistent with context theory because employees

working in an organization with more positive civility climate and aggression-inhibition climate

tend to receive more psychosocial cues regarding how to prioritize demands from mistreatment

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 32

reduction vs. from central tasks. Such higher role clarity owing to cues for priorities could have

contributed to employees’ lower turnover intentions and emotional strains, regardless of whether

it is in the context of reducing incivility or aggression. From the standpoint of organizational

management, fostering either positive civility climate or positive aggression-inhibition climate

may be an effective way to reduce employee emotional strains and turnover intentions through

exerting positive contextual influence. Conversely, tolerating negative civility climate or

negative aggression-inhibition climate may account for employees’ higher emotional strains and

intention to quit. Indeed, Leiter and colleagues (2011) conducted an intervention among a group

of healthcare workers that targeted enhancing civility climate and other climates as well (e.g.,

management’s commitment to enhancing respect between employees and facilitating employee

engagement at work); that intervention significantly reduced participating employees’ emotional

exhaustion and turnover intentions.

Interestingly, we did find evidence showing that civility climate is more strongly related

to employees’ organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and mistreatment exposure, than is

aggression-inhibition climate. In other words, fostering positive civility climate in the

organization may be effective in enhancing employees’ organizational commitment and job

satisfaction and reducing their exposure to incivility; fostering positive aggression-inhibition

climate may also improve these outcomes, but with a lesser effect.

One possible explanation for the aforementioned differences between the two types of

psychological MC is related to the systematic differences in conceptualizations of different types

of psychological MC. Specifically, our review of all existing psychological MC constructs across

the domains of incivility and aggression suggests that civility climate constructs include both

foci of discouraging mistreatment (incivility) and encouraging positive treatment (civility). In

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 33

contrast, aggression-inhibition climate constructs focus solely on discouraging mistreatment

(aggression). Thus, incivility- and civility-related policies, procedures, and practices not only

direct employees’ attention and effort to reducing incidents of uncivil interpersonal interactions,

but also offer alternatives for them to foster positive and respectful social interactions (e.g.,

Sypher, 2004). In contrast, aggression-inhibition climate solely emphasizes policies, procedures,

and practices pertaining to discouraging mistreatment (aggression). Following Higgins (1997),

discouraging mistreatment is aligned with the tenets of prevention-focused regulation because it

is focused on reducing losses and minimizing errors (e.g., incivility incidents); in contrast,

encouraging positive treatment (e.g., civility) is aligned with promotion-focused regulation

because it is focused on increasing gains (positive social interactions). Because civility climate

has the potential to trigger both foci of regulatory processes among employees in terms of

reducing negative consequences of incivility and enhancing benefits of civility, it could then

exert stronger influence on employees’ levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction,

emotional strains, and incivility exposure. In contrast, aggression-inhibition climate might only

trigger prevention-focused regulatory processes among employees through an emphasis on

discouraging aggression, and thus demonstrates a somewhat weaker influence on those employee

outcomes. Future research should empirically test the potential mechanism of self-regulatory foci

(Higgins, 1997) underlying the differential effects of civility vs. aggression-inhibition climate by

simultaneously including the two types of climate in the same study and actually measuring

employees’ self-regulatory foci.

Another possible explanation for the differential relations of perceived civility and

aggression-inhibition climates with outcomes stems from context theory (Johns, 2006; Rousseau

& Fried, 2001). That is, perceived civility climate (as conceptualized in the literature) may offer

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 34

a richer set of psychosocial cues regarding what will be punished (incivility) and what will be

rewarded (civility), and thus exerts a stronger contextual influence than perceived aggression-

inhibition climate. In contrast, perceived aggression-inhibition climate only offers cues regarding

what will be punished, and thus exerts a relatively weaker contextual influence on various

employee and organizational outcomes than civility climate. Future research should empirically

investigate specific possible mechanisms underlying context theory that account for the stronger

magnitude of civility climate-outcome relations than that of aggression-inhibition climate-

outcome relations. For example, it might be informative to examine whether civility climate is

linked to both punishment contingency of incivility and reward contingency of civility as

perceived by employees, as well as whether aggression-inhibition climate is only related to their

perceived punishment contingency of aggression; as such, the mechanisms of social influence

suggested by context theory can be explicitly tested in the context of MC. Indeed, in the safety

literature, research has demonstrated a close linkage between supervisors’ contingent rewarding

of safety behavior and safety climate perceived by employees (Zohar, 2000; Zohar & Luria,

2003).

The last plausible explanation for the differential relations of perceived civility and

aggression-inhibition climates with outcomes lies in the potentially different base rates (e.g., Lim

& Lee, 2011; Schat et al., 2006) and different levels of salience of incivility and aggression

occurrence. That is, when there is a lower base rate of physical or nonphysical aggression

relative to incivility, the measure of exposure to aggression tends to have more range restriction

than that of incivility, which could partially account for weaker psychological MC-exposure

relations (e.g., correlations) for either form of aggression than for incivility. Further, relative to

perceived aggression-inhibition climate perceived civility climate might have been more salient

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 35

due to the higher prevalence rate of incivility, which could also explain the found differential

relations.

Furthermore, although findings from the moderator analysis did not offer evidence for the

moderating effect of MC scales’ content deficiency on the magnitude of MC-outcome relations,

they did show that MC scales’ content contamination significantly increased the magnitude of

the psychological MC- mistreatment exposure and psychological MC-strain relations. One

possible explanation for the non-significant effect of content deficiency is its restricted variance

across the number of primary studies available for corresponding regression analysis (see Table

5). We did a close examination of the ratings of scale content deficiency included in the

weighted least squares regression analysis (three regression models), and found that only three to

eleven studies (out of 24-28 studies) used scales with content deficiency issues. As such, content

deficiency does not seem to be a prevalent issue for MC scales used by the majority of studies on

MC.

Regarding the significant accentuating effect of MC scales’ content contamination, there

is at least one explanation that is consistent with Messick’s (1995) discussion about what

constitutes as variance “irrelevant” to the focal construct in the case of content contamination.

Specifically, the contaminating items of some MC scales measure non-MC constructs that have

unique validity in predicting our focal outcomes, or measure a psychological MC construct that

is broader than the intended form of mistreatment. In other words, the MC scales with higher

content contamination tend to measure multiple constructs (psychological MC and others) which

uniquely relate to the same employee outcomes, or measure a broader psychological MC

construct which relate to the focal outcomes more strongly than the intended psychological MC

construct specific to a particular form of mistreatment (e.g., perceived climate of bullying;

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 36

Baillien et al., 2011). For example, as described earlier the CREW civility scale includes items

measuring group cohesion and diversity climate in addition to items measuring civility climate;

as such, CREW scale scores reflect all three constructs mentioned above and tend to relate to

incivility exposure and employee strains more strongly than scores of other civility climate

scales with less or no contamination (i.e., their construct domain mostly or completely focused

on civility climate). Interestingly, MC scales’ content contamination only had a weak

(statistically non-significant) influence on the psychological MC-job attitude relation.

Considering the potentially low statistical power of the pertinent weighted least squares

regression analysis (with only 24 available primary studies), we suggest future research to

continue examining the role of MC scales’ content contamination. In summary, as MC research

moves forward, we contend it is important for future research to employ MC scales with no

content contamination in order to have less biased estimates of focal relations.

Further, our findings suggest that the psychological MC-outcome relations generally had

similar magnitudes across studies using dominant and other climate scales, and across studies

employing cross-sectional and prospective designs. It is reassuring that the estimated population

effect sizes of focal relations seemed to remain robust to potential biases that can be attributed to

the over-representation of dominant climate scales used (i.e., Kessler et al.’s [2008] violence

prevention climate scale and Ottinot’s [2008] perceived workplace civility climate scale).

However, we do want to note one small but significant moderator analysis related to scale type;

that is, the magnitude of the civility climate -job satisfaction relation was statistically lower for

studies using the Ottinot scale than those using other scales (ρ = .50 vs. .59; t(8) = 2.63, p < .05).

Finally, we want to note a few significant differences across studies using cross-sectional

vs. prospective designs. That is, the magnitude of the psychological MC-job attitude relation was

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 37

generally higher for cross-sectional than in prospective studies, which stresses the need for future

research to use more prospective designs in examining the psychological MC-job attitude

relations. Interestingly, the magnitude of the relation between psychological MC and physical

aggression exposure was somewhat higher among prospective studies than that among cross-

sectional studies. It is plausible that it takes time for the contextual effect of psychological MC to

manifest itself in terms of preventing or reducing the physical aggression occurrence rate. We,

recognize, however, that the moderator analysis regarding study design may be under-powered

due to the small number of prospective studies available for most of the subgroup analyses (i.e.,

k = 2 or 3). In order to shed more light on the lasting effects of psychological MC on various

employee and organizational outcomes, we urge scholars in the area of workplace mistreatment

to conduct more studies using prospective designs.

Psychological and Unit-Level MC

We identified three empirical studies that examined unit-level MC’s direct effect on

individual-level variables and/or its potential moderating effect on individual-level relations.

More positive unit-level MC (either in the domain of aggression or incivility) has been shown to

predict better employee job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and affective commitment; Ottinot,

2010), higher employee mistreatment reduction motivation and performance (Chang et al., 2012;

Chang & Golubovich, 2012), fewer employee emotional strains (Chang et al., 2012) and less

exposure to mistreatment (incivility; Ottinot, 2010). Further, Chang and Golubovich’s (2012)

study found certain dimensions of group-level violence prevention climate (e.g., management’s

prevention practices) moderated the relation between employee strains (cognitive failure and

emotional strains) and aggression reduction performance (aggression prevention behavior). For

example, more cognitive failure was related to less aggression prevention behavior only under

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 38

more negative group climate, but not under more positive climate. Thus, we call for more

research to empirically test the cross-level relations between unit-level MC and various

individual-level variables and relations. Only through such multi-level empirical research will we

be able to further understand the social contextual influence of MC on employees’ experiences of

and reactions to mistreatment.

Limitations and Strengths

The present paper has a few limitations that are worth mentioning. First, given only three

available multi-level empirical studies, we were unable to use meta-analytic methods to examine

the role of unit-level MC in the mistreatment-related processes. Although we were able to meta-

analyze the potential contextual effects of psychological MC on presumed outcomes, we do

recognize the focal effect sizes may be inflated due to the measurement of psychological MC as

individual perceptions. Specifically, because the individual ratings of psychological MC can be

influenced by survey respondents’ own experiences of mistreatment, the magnitudes of

correlations between psychological MC and employee outcomes may be inflated (e.g., due to a

common source of measurement). Such a state of research identified by our review, however,

suggests an urgent need for future multi-level studies on MC that measure unit-level MC and

address the limitation of individual psychological MC ratings.

Second, the number of studies on psychological MC might have limited the statistical

power of our categorical moderation analysis and did prevent us from testing some of proposed

moderating effects for certain psychological MC-outcome relations (e.g., inability to include

perceived climate of bullying in moderator analyses). However, the number of studies (k)

available in our study for each level of most moderators (in the range of 3 to 18) is not atypical

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 39

as compared to previously published meta-analytical studies in the literature of workplace

mistreatment (e.g., Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Hershcovis & Barling, 2010).

Third, the present meta-analytical review did not examine the potential moderation

effects of source of mistreatment (e.g., from coworkers or customers) on the relations between

psychological MC and presumed outcomes. Conceivably, many organizations have policies,

procedures and practices in place regarding deterring mistreatment from customers or clients, but

often have few resources available to deter mistreatment between employees or from supervisors

to employees due to the sensitive nature of these sources of mistreatment, which could account

for more salient contextual effects MC has on customer mistreatment than on coworker or

supervisor mistreatment. Future research will be more fruitful by simultaneously examining the

relations between psychological or unit-level MC targeted at different sources of mistreatment

and outcomes related to different sources of mistreatment (e.g., group-level MC specific to

customer incivility relates to exposure to customer incivility).

Last, we did not include behavioral strains or objective physical health as a well-being

outcome in our meta-analytical review because, to the best of our knowledge, there exists only

one study each that respectively investigated behavioral strains and objective physical health as

an outcome. Specifically, Ottinot (2010) included self-reported counterproductive work behavior

(CWB) as an outcome and found among a sample of school teachers that school-level civility

climate was negatively related to CWB, while Leiter et al. (2011) included illness-related

absenteeism as an outcome and found among a sample of healthcare workers that the CREW

intervention (targeted at civility climate and beyond) led to reduced absenteeism in the

intervention group more so than in the control group.

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 40

Directions for Future Research

As informed by the results of our meta-analytic review, we suggest the following

directions for future research. Of most importance, more work needs to be done in

conceptualizing and measuring unit-level MC constructs. As Glick (1985) pointed out,

“Organizational and subunit climate provide the context in which psychological climate may be

understood” (p. 603). Accordingly, both individual- and unit-level MC should be measured and

examined simultaneously in order to enhance our understanding of differential and unique roles

these two sources of contextual influence may have in shaping the mistreatment experiences and

outcomes of employees, groups, and organizations.

Second, given the biasing effect of MC scales’ content contamination on the relations

between MC and mistreatment exposure and employee strains, future research on MC should

employ existing MC scales with no contamination (e.g., Kessler et al., 2008; Spector et al., 2007).

Alternatively, researchers could improve existing MC scales by removing or revising their

contaminating items or by developing new MC scales free of content contamination. Specifically,

one way of reducing existing MC scales’ content contamination is to replace broad terms used in

scale items with terms specific to the type of mistreatment of interest to the scale. For example,

in Ottinot’s (2010) perceived workplace civility climate scale, seven contaminated items can all

be improved by replacing the terms about mistreatment or interpersonal relationships in general

with terms specific to incivility.

Third, much more empirical research on MC is needed in the domain of bullying.

Although we initially identified three eligible studies on perceived climate of bullying, we had to

exclude two from the meta-analyses due to unavailable effect sizes and were only able to include

one single study in the overall analysis (Table 2). Such a low number of empirical studies (three

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 41

in the entire literature) is unfortunate, and we urge scholars interested in studying bullying to

expend much more future effort to investigate the role of climate of bullying in predicting

bullying targets’ exposure and reactions to bullying. Along the same line, we call for more

empirical research on MC specific to forms of mistreatment other than incivility, aggression, and

bullying, especially in light of the fact that no qualified studies were identified via our systematic

literature searches of available databases. Many studies in the literature define and measure

climates specific to certain mistreatment as the prevalence of mistreatment occurrences instead

of policies, procedures and practices for deterring such mistreatment (e.g., hostile climate as

prevalence of hostile/aggressive behavior in work groups; Mawritz, Mayer, Hoobler, Wayne, &

Marinova, 2012). Thus, future research on MC specific to the forms of mistreatment beyond the

present review could significantly further our understandings of the roles MC plays in the

mistreatment processes through conceptualizing and measuring MC in the way we suggest.

Fourth, since we were only able to identify one empirical study on psychological MC and

employee outcomes from the perpetrator’s perspective (Inness et al., 2008), we strongly

recommend that scholars study the perpetrator’s perspective by itself or together with the target’s

perspective, in accordance with prior theoretical work (e.g., Aquino & Lamertz, 2004; O'Leary-

Kelly, Griffin, & Glew, 1996). Lastly, because we identified only three prospective studies on

the topic of psychological MC, we encourage more time-lagged or longitudinal research designs

in future research on mistreatment and MC. We believe that such studies are able to more

rigorously test the causal relations between psychological MC and various presumed employee

and organizational outcomes. For example, Yang and colleagues’ (2012) study used a

longitudinal study to examine whether violence prevention climate led to changes in physical

aggression exposure or aggression exposure led to climate change, and they found evidence for

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 42

the impact of climate on aggression exposure instead of the other way around. Furthermore,

studies using prospective or intervention-based designs should also be better able to investigate

potential indirect effects of MC, such as psychological MC’s indirect effect on employee and

organizational well-being through mistreatment exposure as supported by results from our

supplementary path analysis. For example, Leiter and colleagues’ (2011) intervention study

found evidence that enhanced civility climate (CREW climate in their case) in the intervention

group reduced occurrences of incivility, which then accounted for employees’ improved job

attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and reduced strains (e.g.,

cynicism and absences).

Practical Implications

The present review has some important practical implications. First, our findings on the

potential contextual effects of psychological and unit-level MC may inform future intervention

programs aimed at managing mistreatment issues via changing workplace climate specific to this

domain. Conceivably, such interventions can target not only reducing mistreatment occurrences

but also enhancing employees’ job attitudes and aggression prevention effort. Second, although

more research is needed, our findings seem to suggest that future interventions aimed at

improving MC may generally have stronger benefits on presumed employee and organizational

outcomes if they are designed to focus on civility climate as opposed to aggression-inhibition

climate.

In conclusion, the present paper underscores the roles of MC pertaining to three prevalent

and consequential forms of workplace mistreatment, namely incivility, aggression, and bullying.

More importantly, the psychological MC-outcome relations were generally stronger for civility

climate than for aggression-inhibition climate, and MC scales’ content contamination seems to

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 43

have somewhat accentuated the magnitude of the relations between psychological MC and

mistreatment exposure and employee strains. Further, findings from the present study suggest

that many existing studies focused on psychological MC are cross-sectional and studies focusing

on unit-level MC are sorely lacking. We hope such findings will stimulate more research on both

psychological and unit-level MC that use high-quality MC scales and employ more rigorous

study designs, such as longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs. Organizations may

significantly benefit from findings of more rigorous research on MC as such findings can inform

effective ways of reducing mistreatment occurrences and managing employees’ attitudinal and

behavioral reactions to mistreatment incidents.

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MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 56

Figure 1. Conceptual model of mistreatment climate (MC).

Psychological Climate (MC)

Perceived civility climate

Perceived aggression-inhibition climate

Perceived climate of bullying

Mistreatment Reduction

Performance

Compliance

Participation

Mistreatment Reduction

Motivation

Mistreatment awareness

Mistreatment prevention

motivation

Mistreatment

Reduction Effort

Employee Strains

Emotional strains

Physical strains

Employee Job Attitudes

Organizational commitment

Job satisfaction

Turnover intentions

Employee and

Organizational Well-being

Incivility

Physical aggression

Nonphysical aggression

Bullying

Mistreatment Exposure

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 57

Table 1

Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs

Source Form of

Mistreatment

Type of

Climate

Level of

Theory Definition

Level of

Measurement Measurement Dimensionality

Meterko,

Osatuke,

Mohr,

Warren, &

Dyrenforth,

(2007)

Incivility CREW civility

climate

Individual-

level

Perceptions of workplace

civility within a work

group and across an

organization

Individual-

level

8 items;

Examples: 1) a spirit of

cooperation and teamwork exists

in my work group; 2) this

organization does not tolerate

discrimination

An overall dimension

Ottinot (2008,

2010)

Incivility Workplace

civility climate

Individual-

and unit-

level

Employees' (shared)

perceptions of how

management uses

policies, procedures, and

practices to maintain a

civil workplace

Individual-

and unit-level

12-24 items;

Examples: 1) supervisors has a

low tolerance for disrespectful

behavior among employees; 2)

supervisors discuss with

employees how to improve the

quality of interpersonal treatment

among coworkers

3 dimensions:

1) Intolerance of

incivility by

management;

2) management

responses to incivility;

3) incivility-related

organizational policies

and procedures

Walsh et al.

(2012)

Incivility Workgroup

climate for

civility

Individual-

level

Employee perceptions of

norms supporting

respectful treatment

among workgroup

members

Individual-

level

4 items;

Examples: 1) rude behavior is not

accepted by your coworkers; 2)

your coworkers make sure

everyone in your unit/workgroup

is treated

with respect

An overall dimension

Hegney,

Plank, &

Parker (2003)

Aggression Violence

policy

adequacy

Individual-

level

Perceived adequacy of

anti-violence policy

Individual-

level

1 item: do you feel this policy

(i.e., policy for dealing with

violence from ___) is adequate in

dealing with this issue?

An overall dimension:

Tailored for staff and

non-staff violence

respectively

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 58

Table 1 (Continued)

Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs

Source Form of

Mistreatment

Type of

Climate

Level of

Theory Definition

Level of

Measurement Measurement Dimensionality

Schat (2005) Aggression Organizational

(in)tolerance

of aggression

Individual-

level

A constellation of

organizational climate

elements that influence

organizational members’

perceptions regarding the

extent to which

aggressive behavior is

(in)tolerated —implicitly

or explicitly, in their

organization

Individual-

level

44 items;

Examples: 1) information about

my organization's workplace

aggression policy was

communicated to employees; 2)

my co-workers were concerned

about preventing mean or

aggressive behaviour at work; 3)

my supervisor took steps to deal

with someone who behaved

aggressively in our workplace

3 dimensions:

1) workplace

aggression policy

(enforcement and

communication);

2) coworker

intolerance of

aggression;

3) supervisor

intolerance of

aggression

Spector,

Coulter,

Stockwell, &

Matz (2007);

Chang,

Eatough,

Spector, &

Kessler

(2012)

Aggression Violence

prevention

climate

Individual-

and unit-

level

Employees’ (shared)

perceptions regarding the

extent to which

management emphasizes

control and elimination

of violence and verbal

aggression

Individual-

and unit-level

7 items (Spector et al., 2007);

12-18 items (Kessler et al., 2008);

Examples: 1) my employer

provides adequate

assault/violence prevention

procedures; 2) management

encourages employees to report

physical violence;

3 dimensions:

1) aggression

prevention-related

organizational policies

and procedures; 2)

management responses

and practices;

3) pressure against

prevention

Inness,

LeBlanc, &

Barling

(2008)

Aggression Perceived

organizational

sanctions [of

aggression]

Individual-

level

Employee perceptions

that aggressive behavior

towards others will be

sanctioned by the

organization

Individual-

level

4 items;

Examples: 1) In this organization

there would be negative

consequences for someone who

behaved in a physically

aggressive or threatening manner

towards ______ ; 2) In this

organization an individual would

be sanctioned or reprimanded for

behaving aggressively towards

______

An overall dimension:

Tailored for four types

of social target,

respectively (i.e.,

supervisor,

subordinate, peer, or

service provider)

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 59

Table 1 (Continued)

Conceptualizations and Measurements of Mistreatment Climate Constructs

Source Form of

Mistreatment

Type of

Climate

Level of

Theory Definition

Level of

Measurement Measurement Dimensionality

Mueller &

Tschan

(2011)

Aggression Perceived

prevention of

violence

Individual-

level

An employee's

perception that his or her

employer is committed

to dealing appropriately

with workplace violence

Individual-

level

4 items;

Examples: 1) my employer takes

the necessary measures to prevent

violence in the workplace; 2)

more safety precautions or

preventive measures are needed

urgently (to reverse code).

An overall dimension

Hutchinson,

Dip, Jackson,

Wilkes, &

Vickers

(2008)

Bullying Climate of

bullying

Individual-

level

Workplace climate that

enables or perpetuates

bullying behavior

Individual-

level

24 items;

Examples: 1) you are summoned

to meetings without notice and

intimidated; 2) there is a

hierarchy of bullies who support

each other; 3) regardless of what

they do bullies get promoted

3 dimensions:

1) Misuse of

legitimate

organizational

processes and

procedures;

2) organizational

tolerance and reward

of bullying;

3) informal

organizational

alliances (between

instigators)

Baillen ,

Neyens, & De

Witte (2011)

Bullying Climate of

bullying

Individual-

level

Perceived anti-bullying

policy

Individual-

level

7 items;

Examples: 1) this organisation is

concerned with avoiding and

solving incidents of workplace

bullying. 2) this organization

provides efficient measures to

avoid and solve incidents of

bullying, aggression, or

harassment from colleagues and

superiors.

An overall dimension

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 60

Table 2

Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between Overall MC and Presumed Outcomes

Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q

Mistreatment Reduction Motivation

Overall Mistreatment Climate 5 1463 .42 .51 .10 26.73 .39 .63 .32 .71 3.07

Mistreatment Reduction Performance

Overall Mistreatment Climate 5 1377 .42 .50 .06 52.57 .39 .62 .39 .61 10.61**

Organizational Commitment

Overall Mistreatment Climate 10 6182 .47 .56 .13 7.65 .49 .64 .31 .82 247.11**

Job Satisfaction

Overall Mistreatment Climate 23 9536 .44 .52 .08 26.86 .43 .61 .37 .67 103.20**

Turnover Intentions

Overall Mistreatment Climate 14 3889 -.35 -.42 .08 37.21 -.54 -.30 -.58 -.26 45.04**

Emotional Strains

Overall Mistreatment Climate 20 4777 -.24 -.33 .13 24.49 -.48 -.19 -.59 -.08 96.02**

Anxiety

Overall Mistreatment Climate 13 2645 -.20 -.28 .15 26.18 -.46 -.10 -.58 .02 51.29**

Anger

Overall Mistreatment Climate 12 2854 -.22 -.27 .11 34.42 -.42 -.12 -.48 -.05 37.95**

Depression

Overall Mistreatment Climate 10 1934 -.30 -.40 .11 39.45 -.57 -.23 -.61 -.19 25.55**

Physical Strains

Overall Mistreatment Climate 15 4106 -.20 -.25 .07 50.53 -.39 -.10 -.39 -.11 27.28**

Mistreatment Exposure

Overall Mistreatment Climate 29 88790 -.37 -.42 .06 7.39 -.45 -.38 -.54 -.29 1197.13**

Overall Mistreatment Climate (Without

Warren et al.)28 13195 -.25 -.30 .12 15.73 -.40 -.20 -.54 -.07 246.81**

95% CI 95% CR

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 61

Table 3

Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between Different Types of MC and Presumed Outcomes

Note: For the relation between MC and mistreatment exposure, t-tests were conducted between incivility exposure and each of the two

types of aggression exposure, respectively, as shown by the superscripts of the corresponding t-statistics.

Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )

Organizational Commitment

Civility Climate 6 5317 .49 .59 .12 5.85 .53 .65 .34 .83 203.09** 2.96*(8)

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 4 865 .35 .42 .06 58.34 .28 .56 .30 .54 8.13**

Job Satisfaction

Civility Climate 10 6439 .46 .53 .07 22.03 .46 .61 .40 .67 47.43** 2.94**(23)

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 15 3728 .38 .43 .10 26.42 .31 .55 .23 .64 60.90**

Turnover Intentions

Civility Climate 5 1333 -.33 -.40 .00 100.00 -.53 -.27 -.40 -.40 8.33 -.32(13)

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 10 2819 -.35 -.41 .10 26.12 -.53 -.29 -.61 -.21 40.02**

Emotional Strains

Civility Climate 4 1182 -.33 -.38 .00 100.00 -.50 -.26 -.38 -.38 1.11 -1.60(18)

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 16 3595 -.25 -.32 .15 21.09 -.47 -.16 -.62 -.02 87.87**

Mistreatment Exposure

Civility Climate &

Incivility Exp.1

10 4837 -.36 -.40 .09 19.56 -.49 -.32 -.58 -.23 64.21**

Aggression-Inhibition Climate &

Nonphys. Aggression Exp.2

14 3845 -.20 -.25 .08 45.19 -.40 -.11 -.41 -.09 28.03** -4.21**(22)12

Aggression-Inhibition Climate &

Phys. Aggression Exp.3

17 8373 -.17 -.21 .08 34.61 -.32 -.10 -.37 -.06 50.39** -5.52**(25)13

95% CI 95% CR

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 62

Table 4

Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between MC and Outcomes across Dominant and Other MC Scales

Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )

Job Satisfaction

Civility Climate 10 6439 .46 .53 .07 22.03 .46 .61 .40 .67 47.43**

Climate (Ottinot scale) 6 3846 .44 .50 .04 44.90 .43 .58 .43 .58 24.89** 2.63*(8)

Climate (other scales) 4 2766 .49 .59 .06 28.57 .52 .66 .48 .70 31.17**

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 15 3728 .38 .43 .10 26.42 .31 .55 .23 .64 60.90**

Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 12 3149 .37 .43 .10 25.53 .31 .55 .23 .63 51.16** .14(13)

Climate (other scales) 3 579 .39 .44 .11 30.85 .30 .58 .23 .65 9.77**

Turnover Intentions

Civility Climate 5 1333 -.33 -.40 .00 100.00 -.53 -.27 -.40 -.40 8.33

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 10 2819 -.35 -.41 .10 26.12 -.53 -.29 -.61 -.21 40.02**

Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 7 2015 -.35 -.40 .11 22.02 -.52 -.28 -.62 -.18 32.20** -.69(8)

Climate (other scales) 3 804 -.35 -.44 .07 51.69 -.57 -.31 -.57 -.31 7.88**

Physical Strains

Civility Climate 3 960 -.15 -.18 .05 57.54 -.30 -.05 -.28 -.07 5.33

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 14 3777 -.21 -.26 .07 53.48 -.40 -.11 -.39 -.12 23.47**

Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2775 -.20 -.24 .08 46.56 -.39 -.10 -.40 -.09 18.87** -2.04(12)

Climate (other scales) 4 1002 -.23 -.30 .03 85.14 -.46 -.15 -.37 -.24 4.60

Emotional Strains

Civility Climate 4 1182 -.33 -.38 .00 100.00 -.50 -.26 -.38 -.38 1.11

Aggression-Inhibition Climate 16 3595 -.25 -.32 .15 21.09 -.47 -.16 -.62 -.02 87.87**

Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2181 -.25 -.33 .15 23.08 -.49 -.17 -.62 -.04 56.65** .37(14)

Climate (other scales) 6 1414 -.24 -.30 .16 18.78 -.45 -.15 -.61 .01 34.07**

Mistreatment Exposure

Civility Climate & Incivility Exposure 10 4837 -.36 -.40 .09 19.56 -.49 -.32 -.58 -.23 64.21**

Climate (Ottinot scale) 7 4096 -.36 -.40 .10 14.05 -.48 -.32 -.60 -.21 69.41** .53(8)

Climate (other scales) 3 741 -.36 -.42 .00 100.00 -.54 -.29 -.42 -.42 1.43

Aggression-Inhibition Climate & Nonphy. Aggression Exposure 14 3845 -.20 -.25 .08 45.19 -.40 -.11 -.41 -.09 28.03**

Climate (Kessler et al. scale) 10 2843 -.20 -.24 .09 39.35 -.39 -.10 -.42 -.07 19.98** 1.41(12)

Climate (other scales) 4 1002 -.21 -.28 .00 100.00 -.43 -.13 -.28 -.28 8.00**

Aggression-Inhibition Climate & Physical Aggression Exposure 17 8373 -.17 -.21 .08 34.61 -.32 -.10 -.37 -.06 50.39**

Climate (Kessler et al scale) 11 3019 -.16 -.19 .09 41.65 -.33 -.05 -.36 -.03 24.72** 1.02(15)

Climate (other scales) 6 5354 -.17 -.23 .07 28.42 -.31 -.14 -.36 -.09 42.94**

95% CI 95% CR

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 63

Table 5

Results for Moderating Effects of MC Scales’ Content Deficiency and Contamination on Focal MC-Outcome Relations

Variable k M SD β R2

Psychological MC-exposure relation Measurement deficiency .66 .90 .10

Measurement contamination .25 .31 .40*

Overall model 28 .17

Psychological MC-strain relation

Measurement deficiency .20 .58 -.20

Measurement contamination .20 .30 .43*

Overall model 25 .18

Psychological MC-job attitude relation

Measurement deficiency .42 .78 .33

Measurement contamination .26 .30 .08

Overall model 24 .13

MISTREATMENT CLIMATE 64

Table 6

Meta-Analytic Results for the Bivariate Relations between MC and Presumed Outcomes across Different Study Designs

Presumed Outcomes k N Mean r ρ SDρ %SE Lower Upper Lower Upper Q t (df )

Organizational Commitment

Cross-sectional 7 5522 .49 .59 .12 7.01 .52 .65 .35 .82 176.93** 4.32**(8)

Prospective 3 660 .30 .37 .04 77.03 .22 .52 .29 .45 3.03

Job Satisfaction

Cross-sectional 20 8876 .44 .53 .08 26.08 .44 .61 .38 .67 88.68** 4.02**(21)

Prospective 3 660 .35 .43 .03 81.33 .29 .57 .36 .50 2.49

Turnover Intentions

Cross-sectional 11 3229 -.36 -.43 .09 30.98 -.55 -.31 -.61 -.25 41.40** -2.58*(12)

Prospective 3 660 -.29 -.36 .00 100.00 -.51 -.21 -.36 -.36 .18

Emotional Strains

Cross-sectional 18 4312 -.27 -.34 .14 22.79 -.48 -.19 -.60 -.07 91.52** .46(18)

Prospective 2 465 -.28 -.32 .04 78.22 -.46 -.18 -.39 -.25 4.16**

Physical Strains

Cross-sectional 13 3827 -.20 -.25 .08 43.69 -.39 -.11 -.40 -.09 27.11** .00(13)

Prospective 2 279 -.17 -.25 .00 100.00 -.49 -.01 -.25 -.25 .27

Incivility Exposure

Cross-sectional 8 4280 -.36 -.40 .10 15.62 -.49 -.32 -.60 -.21 69.27** .28(8)

Prospective 2 557 -.34 -.39 .00 100.00 -.52 -.27 -.39 -.39 .17

Physical Aggression Exposure

Cross-Sectional 16 8423 -.16 -.21 .08 31.30 -.31 -.10 -.36 -.05 51.74** -2.50*(16)

Prospective 2 279 -.18 -.26 .00 100.00 -.50 -.03 -.26 -.26 .05

95% CI 95% CR