Loneliness and Bullying in the Workplace

Marc Dussault^1, and Éric Frenette²

¹Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada

²Université Laval, Canada

Cite this paper:
Marc Dussault and Éric Frenette. Loneliness and Bullying in the Workplace. American Journal of Applied Psychology. 2014; 2(4):94-98. doi: 10.12691/ajap-2-4-3

Abstract

This study assesses the relationship between workplace loneliness and bullying. French versions of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (DeGrâce, Joshi, & Pelletier, 1933) and the Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (Einarsen, Hoel, &Notelaers, 2009)were administered to a sample of 153 French-Canadian workers. Results show that the feeling of isolation was positively related to work-related bullying. Moreover, the feeling of relational connectedness was strongly and negatively related to work-related bullying, person-related bullying, and physically intimidating bullying. Conversely, the feeling of collective connectedness was not related to any forms of bullying. This study is innovative in that it accounts for feelings of workplace loneliness in relation to the three-factor structure of the Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised.

Keywords:
loneliness at work professional isolation workplace bullying

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