This is a type of quantitative research that involves studying in detail the behaviour of each of a small number of participants. The approach examines functional relationships between baseline and experimental conditions over time within individual subjects (Timothy J. Lewis, 2013). It involves assessing some factor (dependent variable) repeatedly over under standard conditions then introducing some intervention (independent variable) and observe how and if the dependent variable changes. Observations are done before during and after the introduction of an intervention.
My SSRD is about subject Hosea a bully at work, I want to establish if the behavior is due to underlying psychological issues, home or work environment and those are changed, how it’s going to affect the behavior.
Hosea is a 33 year old Finance manager at a multinational company in Africa; he is divorced with no kids. He was raised with his mother single handedly since he was a tender age of 5 years. Even though his job has a lot a pressure, Hosea likes what he does. However he is constantly finding himself in situations where he is reported for having acted aggressively during a conflict, radiating insulting remarks to his colleagues and his juniors complain that he devaluates their work and effort, sometimes threatening them. This might have caused Hosea to be dreaded by colleagues, he doesn’t have friends at work and is at the verge of being of suspended by the Human Resource manager. However, he was wondering if he can control or reduce this aggressive behavior because he wants to save his job. He also aims to be more approachable and have colleagues interact with him like the rest and hopes to improve his social life a work because it is where he spends most of his time and he is passionate about his job.
Work Place Bullying
Research has proven that almost 75% of employees surveyed had been affected by workplace bullying. The 2017 US Workplace Bullying Survey showed that almost 60% US workers are affected by it (Agarwal, 2018) According to the Safety & Health Assessment and Research for Prevention (SHARP) bullying report (SHARP’s Researchers and scientists, 2016) workplace bullying is described as repeated, perverse actions of individuals (or a group) aimed at towards an employee (or a group of employees), with intentions to humiliate, or which create a risk to the health or safety of the employee(s). The term work place bullying also referred to interpersonal hostility that is intentional, repeated and sufficiently severe to harm the victim’s wellbeing or economic status (Namie, 2003) this is often driven by perpetrator’s need to be in control undermining interests of others. Workplace bullying doesn’t concern common disagreements at work, irregular loud argument, or simply having a bad day; neither does it involve interpersonally difficult aspects of work, such as giving a fair and honest evaluation to an underperforming employee (Yamada, 2008). (Mental Health America, 2012) indicated that approximately two out of every five people have been bullied at work.
Over 80 per cent of bullies are bosses, some are co-workers and a marginal number bully the higher-ups in an organization (Carter & Vandersteen, 2014). It would be convenient to categorize all bullies as psychopaths and begin focusing on rehabilitating individuals. Nevertheless, merely a small fraction of bullies (approximately 4 percent according to the American Psychiatric Association) could have genuinely disordered personalities-antisocial or narcissistic but most are just controlling competitors who exploit their cooperative targets (Namie, 2003)
The bullying can be categorized into:
- The Screaming mimi – the one that creates toxic environment at the workplace with mood swings and unpredictable displays of anger
- The constant Critic – the one that likes complaining about people’s incompetence and makes up targets’ errors just to put them down; probably to hide his/her deficiencies and insecurities
- The Two-Headed Snake – the one that disparages the reputation of targets to boost their own self-image could be through spreading rumors to turn coworkers against the target
- The Gatekeeper- obsessed with control, this one can literally allocate resources n such a way to ensure target’s failure
According to (Carter & Vandersteen, 2014) office bullies are likely to be lacking in confidence, demonstrate poor interpersonal skills and have little empathy for others. Their behavior is often fear-driven; they are scared of losing, of being rejected by others, of failing, or of being found to be inadequate. They turn this insecurity outward, finding satisfaction in dominating others and in their ability to attack and diminish the capable people around them. Furthermore, an article from Psychology Today indicates that bullies lack prosocial behavior, are untroubled by anxiety, and do not understand others’ feelings. They misread the intentions of others, often imputing hostility in neutral situations. They typically see themselves quite positively. Those who chronically bully have strained relationships with parents and peers.
Workplace bullying often believe that the main reason why people engage in workplace bullying is because they’re just bullies. Another belief is that bullies pick on others because of their own low self-esteem; researchers have found that perpetrators of negative workplace behaviors tend to report lower core self evaluations (Hershcovis, Reich, & Niven, 2015). A number of evidences show perpetrators exhibit common, typically negative, personality traits such as narcissism, trait anger vengefulness and trait anxiety. Such people are also more likely to have a history of being targeted with bullying (Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2009). Further, the common belief and lower organization-based self-esteem
A number of strategies and remedies for dealing with the problem of workplace bullying and victimization are also identified in the literature. Strategies range from legislative change (Overall, 1995) to job redesign (AFS, 1993). Other strategies include confronting the perpetrator (Adams, 1992); taking a community approach to the problem (Byrne, 1994); and training and accrediting staff to deal with the problem (Crabb, 1995). Rayner and Hoel (1997) suggest that those identified as “bullies” also need to be heard
According to (Jordan & Sheehan, 2000) an organizational culture where interim gains are valued over the means used to achieve those gains will augment the climate for bullying. They argue that in researching the phenomenon of bullying, it is essential to account for affective variables as well as the behavioral outcomes in making sense of bullying. Conclusively recent research findings bear the notion that bullying will still flourish in stressful working environments and as a result contributes in identifying existing conditions to counteract the development of bullying at workplaces (Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2009)
Values are the principles, critical and important normative suppositions that bring about morality for individuals in relationships with others (Bandura, 1991). The moral development of a person refers to how they develop the skills in the ways they understands, manage and adhere to the moral expectations of his/her culture (Brighi, Gianesini, & Melotti, 2014)
Bullying is a problem that surpasses culture. Despite the fact that the individual characteristics and dynamics that cause social value and power may vary across cultures and countries, the abuse of power to harass or control others is consistently observed (Bullying: Cross-Cultural Consistency, 2006).
Both peaceful and violent social interactions could be understood through the sensitive and detailed revelation of the values that shape behavior in different social settings (Brighi, Gianesini, & Melotti, 2014). Altruistic and aggressive behaviors are multi-determined by individual characteristics, different influences and circumstances which usually join (Staub, 1994). Researchers have often neglected to acknowledge the crucial relation between culture and moral reasoning in the studies of aggression. Therefore, the literature is limited when it comes to the extent to which the relationship between personal characteristic such as value orientations influences either aggressive behavior.
Factors such as role ambiguity, high demands, poor leadership, and perceived injustice influence the likelihood of bullying. Ensuring role clarity and having reasonable workloads as well as training supportive leadership with the use of mediation during conflicts can help reduce work place bullying. If organizations implement policies that ensure just decisions, behaviors and outcomes and provide coping resources to deal with pressure, stress and psychological factors; that would help reduce the occurrence of workplace aggression and bullying. Counseling always offered to victims and rarely to perpetrators of bullying, I believe the method can help reduce those incidences
The dependent varable was Hosea’s bullying behavior and since the subject had been identified, the next step was to establish a baseline by collecting data on evident and reported incidences of bullying by Hosea was collected every work day for two weeks. This was done though interviews of colleagues (primary data) and as well as looking at existing filed reports on Hosea. A questionnaire was provided for him to fill accordingly in order to assess his personal experience at the work place as well as family background. Four more people from the department were sampled to fill the same questionnaire; one above him, two peers, one subordinate. The human resource associate also filled a questionnaire on work place bullying assessment.
The independent variable were work load and Counseling At this time the company already had in place anti-bullying policies and the human resource associate had had a talk with him a week earlier. There was then an introduction of a counselor (intervention phase) who was able to have a chat with him regarding work and also assess his psychiatric symptoms. Hosea reported to be having too much pressure at work with high expectation of delivery yet the team assigned to him is not always up to task.
There was an introduction of two independent variables one by one. The first intervention was reduction of work load deliveries for the department and data on evident and reported incidences of bullying by Hosea was gathered. After that, work load went back to normal for week and same data was gathered. The second intervention was to get Hosea have a two sessions with a counselor who talked to him on stress management and with a few tips on good leadership. After these, data was gathered on evident and reported incidences of bullying by Hosea every work day for that week. For the subsequent days till date, it has been business as usual same work load but Hosea continued with session
Single system research designs describe their features through schematic codes. There is A, B and C; An A refers to a baseline phase, a period where reliable and valid data are gathered in a systematic manner that over a period of time in the absence of a particular intervention. A B refers to another phase when the same reliable and valid data are collected in a similar manner like in an A phase, but during a period of time when a particular intervention is implemented. A C could refer to a still different phase involving a differing intervention or program.
In this study I used A-B-A-C-CB where I gathered data over a period of two weeks where there was no intervention at all. Then introduced the first intervention was to reduce work load specifically for the subject Hosea and gathered data for a week. The following 4th week the intervention was withdrawn, Hosea’s duties were assigned back to him and I gathered the same data in a similar way. At week 5, the second intervention was introduced which was to have a counselor have a chat with Hosea and initiate sessions for stress management and people skills when dealing with the rest of the departmental team. Data was collected in the same manner for a period of one week. The following week as the sessions continued with the counselor the workload was then reassigned to his peers. Similarly the data was collected as before and that marked the end of the study
With the first intervention of reducing workload, the number of times Hosea typically bullied his colleagues reduced to 5 incidences as compared to the previous week which was at 8. The intervention could have worked to some extent. Despite the fact that the research suggests that the long term health of any workplace is not sustainable where high workloads continues, few companies are continuously considering ways to correct that work-life balance. Actually, companies are still downsizing therefore leaving less people to do the same (or more) work; furthermore in some workplaces, loyalty, contribution and commitment may be equated to working long hours (Bryant-Smith, 2008)Therefore the downsizing having been outlined by Human resource associate could be straining the midlevel managers like Hosea.
A research done by the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester established that people in the middle hierarchy suffer the most social stress. The researchers stated middle management groups who usually faced conflicts in their social and work lives recorded greatest level of stress hormones (Osh, 2015) So relieving Hosea of some duties and responsibilities might have lessened his level of aggressiveness and sense of urgency that probably causes him to handle peers with no patience nor empathy.
When the workload was handed back to him at week 4, the number of incidences increased; this is most likely because there was so much to be delivered. 3 out 4 of the reported incidents indicated that Hosea demeaned peer through sarcasm, screaming at them. Research into coping strategies by Hartley, et al. (1991) suggest that employees under stress are initially more likely to attempt to deal with their situation by the adoption of negative coping strategies (Jordan & Sheehan, 2000) This means he probably doesn’t have proper stress management/ coping mechanisms when there is pressure and end up just loosing it on others.
When the second intervention was introduced, bringing in a counselor to have a talk with him during his breaks, there was a slight decrease in the number of incidences of bullying reported; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that was wholly the effect of counseling because it takes a number of sessions for one’s behavior to change. But he was advised on stress management and leadership skills and its evident that the regulation of emotions that contribute to bullying will result in a reduction in the incidence and severity of bullying. If managers understood the implications of their actions on others and were able to empathize with them, then they may be less likely to use bullying as a tactic (Jordan & Sheehan, 2000)
