Relationship Between Changes in Workplace Bullying Status and the Reporting of Personality Characteristics.

OBJECTIVE: To examine whether a shift in work-related bullying status, from being non-bullied to being bullied or vice versa, was associated with changes in reporting of personality characteristics.

METHODS: Data on bullying and personality (neuroticism, extraversion, and sense of coherence) were collected in three waves approximately 2 years apart (N = 4947). Using a within-subjects design, personality change scores that followed altered bullying status were evaluated with one-sample t tests. Sensitivity analyses targeted depressive symptoms.

RESULTS: Shifts from non-bullied to frequently bullied were associated with increased neuroticism or decreased sense of coherence manageability scores. Shifts from bullied to non-bullied were associated with decreasing neuroticism and increasing extraversion scores, or increasing sense of coherence meaningfulness and comprehensibility scores. Excluding depressive cases had minor effects.

CONCLUSIONS: Bullying seems to some extent to affect personality scale scores, which thus seem sensitive to environmental and social circumstances.