Nature of anger in the workplace: exploration of relevant variables and their structure
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Abstract
In the workplace, counter productive work behaviors (CWBs) are strongly discouraged. Vardi and Weitz (2004) concluded that counter productive work behaviors are a fairly common occurrence and cost businesses billions of dollars each year. Many of these CWBs are perpetrated by angry or disgruntled employees. When angry employees are identified they can be helped with coping strategies to productively manage their anger, as opposed to engaging in CWBs (Hargrave, Hiatt, Dannenbaum, & Shaffer, 2008). This paper seeks to better equip professionals and researchers with tools to identify these at risk employees. Specifically the Anger Parameters Scales (APS) and the Anger Expressions Scale (AES) have been examined in a workplace sample for the first time. Additionally this study has examined the use of more readily available demographic information to predict at risk persons. The expected factors of the measures in question did not emerge as predicted by the AES. The factor structure of the APS was partially validated as four of the five scales loaded well enough for further analysis. None of these scales could be captured by more available demographic variables. This study also gathered normative data on anger elicitors by means of coding narratives of participants who were asked to describe a typical anger provoking situation.