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PREFERENTIAL MISTREATMENT: HOW RACE MODRATES THE RELATION BETWEEN DISPOSITIONAL AGGRESSIVENESS, ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR AND PERCEIVED VICTIMIZATION IN ORGANIZATIONS KARL AQUINO Department of Business Administration College of Business and Economics University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 WILLIAM H. BOMMER Georgia State University INTRODUCTION Organizational researchers have become increasingly aware that many employees experience being hurt, offended, or unjustly treated by one or more co-workers. In general, this research has emphasized how the characteristics or motives of perpetrators (e.g., Ashforth, 1994), along with situational factors (Robinson & OLeary-Kelly, 1999), explain the occurrence of harmful behaviors directed by one co-worker against another. We suggest that a more complete explanation of harmful work behaviors should consider victim characteristics. Our theoretical arguments are based on the concept of victim precipitation, a well-developed perspective in criminal victimology. The main tenet of victim precipitation models is that people sometimes become targets of others harmful actions because they exhibit certain characteristics or behavioral tendencies that make them appear as vulnerable or deserving targets for mistreatment. We explore the relationship between three types of victim characteristics and perceived victimization. The first variable is dispositional aggressiveness, a trait that has been shown to affect a persons propensity to behave in a confrontational or provocative manner in social situations (Buss, 1961; Hammock & Richardson, 1992). Based on the victim precipitation model, we expect such behaviors to invite retaliation from others, thus leading aggressive persons to report higher levels of perceived victimization than those who are less aggressive. The second variable is organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Based on the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) we predict that an employee who exhibits OCBs should be less likely to provoke negative treatment than one who withholds these behaviors. Finally, the third variable is race, a demographic characteristic that has been shown to influence how observers perceive and interpret another persons behavior. We hypothesize that rather than being directly related to perceived victimization, race moderates the effects of aggressiveness and OCBs. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES We define victimization as the individuals self-perception of having been exposed either momentarily or repeatedly to injurious actions emanating from one or more other persons. Studies using

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a victim precipitation argument have identified several common characteristics of victims. The Characteristics of Victims A study by Olweus (1978) found that some victims of childhood bullying are chosen as targets by their peers because they are perceived as being highly aggressive, threatening, or irritating. Olweus (1978) labeled these children provocative victims. Research on adults corroborates Olweuss (1978) observations by showing that aggressive persons are more likely to become victims of violent crime (e.g., Felson & Steadman, 1983) and to become involved in more interpersonal conflicts than those who are less aggressive (Terhune, 1970). Based on these studies, we propose that aggressive persons are more likely to become frequent targets of retaliatory actions in response to these behaviors than those who are less aggressive. This should lead them to report high levels of perceived victimization. The following hypothesis tests this reasoning: Hypothesis 1: Dispositional aggressiveness is positively related to perceived victimization. If exhibiting provocative behavior can make a person more vulnerable to others harmful actions, an employee may become less vulnerable by exhibiting positive social behaviors. Moreover, by performing positive behaviors, it is possible that highly aggressive employees may be able to deflect co-workers attention from any provocative or threatening behaviors they may occasionally display. We examine both possibilities by testing the relation between OCBs and perceived victimization. OCB and Perceived Victimization Bateman and Organ (1983) proposed the term organizational citizenship behavior to denote those organizationally beneficial behaviors and gestures that can neither be enforced on the basis of formal role obligations nor elicited by contractual guarantee of recompense. Three types of citizenship identified by Organ (1988) sportsmanship, courtesy, and altruism were of primary interest in this study. We theorize that by exhibiting high levels of sportsmanship, courtesy, and altruism, employees can enhance their relations with co-workers. As a result, they will be viewed as being less deserving targets for mistreatment. In contrast, employees who fail to exhibit these citizenship behaviors (i.e., they constantly complain, show indifference to the needs or interests of others, or never offer to help others in need) are more likely to become frequent targets of mistreatment. The reason being that they will be perceived as uncooperative, discourteous, or as threatening others social identities with their persistent criticism. When people violate norms of courtesy, or are harshly critical of others, observers are likely to retaliate against the violator because intention seems more apparent (Baumeister, et al., 1996). Thus, we hypothesize the following: Hypothesis 2: The performance of organizational citizenship behavior is negatively related to perceived victimization.

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The relation between aggressiveness and perceived victimization predicted in Hypothesis 1 is not perfect. This is to be expected because employees who are aggressive do not inevitably become targets of others harmful actions. One reason is that they are able to effectively suppress their aggressive impulses during social encounters or they may be able to get away with occasional displays of provocative or threatening behavior without eliciting negative responses from others by exhibiting high levels of prosocial behavior. If the performance of OCBs confers such idiosyncratic credits (Hollander, 1958) upon employees, then engaging in citizenship behaviors may attenuate the relation between an aggressive disposition and perceived victimization. H3 tests this argument: Hypothesis 3: The positive relationship between aggressiveness and perceived victimization is weaker for employees who exhibit high levels of citizenship behavior compared to those who exhibit low levels of citizenship behavior. The Moderating Effects of Race Information about an employees race may be used to stereotype that person negatively, or to adjust ones behavior to conform to different expectations for social interaction. Since people prefer simple explanations for behavior to more complex ones (Weiner, 1995), it is not surprising that social categories like race are used as a ready basis for making inferences about the intent and causes of others behavior (Devine, 1989). Thus, we hypothesize that an employees vulnerability to victimization as a function of aggressiveness and OCBs are influenced by whether that person is African American or white. Extending our earlier argument that aggressive persons are more likely to exhibit provocative and confrontational behaviors over a range of social situations, we hypothesize that they are more likely become targets of harmful action in response to these behaviors if they are African American rather than white. The reason being that their behavior will be perceived as more hostile and threatening if they are African American rather than white (Duncan, 1976; Sagar & Schofield, 1980). The following hypothesis tests this prediction: Hypothesis 4: Race will moderate the relationship between aggressiveness and perceived victimization such that the positive relationship between this trait and perceived victimization is stronger for African-Americans than for whites . Similarly, an employees failure to exhibit positive behaviors like OCB may have different consequences for African Americans. Kanter (1977) has argued that people who have traditionally occupied positions of power have a marked preference for minority group members who demonstrate outward conformity and preserve the comfort zones of those around them (Kanter, 1977). If similar attitudes prevail in organizations, and among groups other than whites, then some injurious actions directed against African Americans who are poor citizens may reflect coworkers attempts enforce certain standards of extra-role behavior upon persons who would otherwise fail to meet them. This argument suggests that while injurious actions are more likely to be directed against poor citizens than good ones, African Americans will be more vulnerable to such actions than whites. The following hypothesis tests this argument:

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Hypothesis 5: Race will moderate the relationship between citizenship and perceived victimization such that the negative relation between OCB and perceived victimization is stronger for whites than for African-Americans. In addition to the two-way interactions presented above, we argue that there are reasonable theoretical grounds for testing a three-way interaction involving aggressiveness, race, and OCB. If it is true that observers interpret the behaviors of African-Americans differently than those of whites, then it is plausible that the mitigating effects of OCB on the relation between aggressiveness and perceived victimization predicted in Hypothesis 3 are most likely to occur when the employee is white: Hypothesis 6: The performance of OCB will weaken the negative relationship between aggressiveness and perceived victimization for white employees, but not for African American employees. METHOD Sample The population of employees at the company was 720. Of the population, 636 employees responded to the survey. Performance ratings and measures of organizational citizenship behavior were collected from the immediate supervisors of 538 (85 percent) of these respondents. Usable data on all study variables were obtained from 460 employees. Measures The measures used in this study were obtained from three sources. Employees provided selfreports of perceived victimization, aggressiveness, neuroticism, gender, age, and company tenure. We reviewed company EEO records to collect data on respondents race. Supervisors provided data on overall performance and OCBs. Perceived victimization. We used ten perceived victimization items from a study by Aquino, et al. (1999). We excluded four items from the original instrument because company representatives indicated that these were extremely low base rate behaviors across the locations. We summed the victimization items to produce a perceived victimization scale (=.83). Aggressiveness. We used the Physical Aggression subscale of the Buss and Perry (1992) Aggression Questionnaire to measure this construct. Responses to the items were summed to produce a scale score ( =.77). Race. We used company EEO records to identify each employees race. We eliminated seven employees from the sample whose race was reported as Hispanic to reduce interpretational confounding. This variable was dummy coded with African Americans serving as the reference category (0=African American, 1=white). Organizational citizenship behavior. We focus on interpersonally-oriented forms of OCBs (OCBI). Consequently, we conceptualized OCB as a higher-order construct encompassing courtesy, sportsmanship, and altruism. We formed a 12-item scale consisting of items from Podsakoff and MacKenzies (1989) courtesy, sportsmanship, and altruism subscales to measure the higher order OCBI construct. This 12-item scale had an internal-consistency reliability of .90.

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Control variables. We controlled for several variables that might be related to perceived victimization, but that were not of direct interest in our study. We controlled for neuroticism, age, gender, company tenure, and employee performance. RESULTS We used hierarchical regression to test Hypotheses 1-6. We entered the control variables in the first step, followed by the predictor variables in step 2. The two- and three-way interactions among aggressiveness, OCB, and race were entered in steps 3 and 4. These findings support Hypotheses 1 and 2, respectively, and are consistent with the predictions of the victim precipitation model. Table 1 also reveals that white employees reported being victimized less frequently than African Americans. Inspection of the beta weights showed that the race X aggressiveness interaction was significant (=-.13, p <.01). We performed separate regressions in groups comprised of white (N=282) and African American (N=171) respondents. As predicted in Hypothesis 4, the relationship between aggressiveness and perceived victimization was stronger for African Americans (= .29, p <.001) than for whites (= .10, n.s.). The race x OCB interaction term was significant (= -.12, p <.01). A follow up exploration of the interactions form revealed that the negative relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and perceived victimization was stronger for whites (= -.26, p <.001) than for AfricanAmericans (= -.02, n.s.). This relationship supports Hypothesis 5. The two-way interaction posited in Hypothesis 3 was not supported. The three-way interaction explained significant additional variance in perceived victimization (R2 =.02, p<.001). The results of the split plots indicated that for employees who were high in aggressiveness, OCB was associated with lower levels of perceived victimization for whites (= -.34, p<.01) but not for African Americans. (=.08, n.s.). For employees who were low in aggressiveness, however, OCBs were not significantly related to perceived victimization for either whites (= -.13, n.s.) or African-Americans (= -.26, n.s.). The pattern of these relationships is consistent with Hypothesis 6. DISCUSSION The overall pattern of findings clearly showed that employee characteristics (demographic, dispositional, and behavioral) predict the reported treatment they receive from co-workers. Our data also indicate that the relation between race and perceived victimization is more complex than main effect model suggests. This study makes several new contributions to the emerging literature on harmful workplace behaviors. First, it extends the work of Aquino and his colleagues (Aquino, et al., 1999) by identifying different predictors of perceived victimization and showing how they interact. It also provides support for their assertion that having low status in organizations can accentuate the relation between individual characteristics and perceived victimization. Whereas their study focused on status based on hierarchical position, the status variable of importance in our study was race. In both studies, the pattern of results showed that having low status (i.e., occupying a low level in the organization or being African American) appears to make one more vulnerable to being victimized, and more so if one also has certain characteristics that may be related to provocative social behavior.

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Table 1 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Perceived Victimization

Independent Variables Step 1 Neuroticism Job Tenure Male Overall Performance R 2 Step 2 White Aggressiveness OCB R 2 Step 3 White x Aggressiveness White x OCB OCB x Aggressiveness R 2 Step 4 White x Aggressiveness x OCB R 2 Model R2 Adjusted Model R2 Model 1 t .27 5.87*** .07 1.35 .06 1.37 -.06 -1.30 .13*** Model 2 t .19 3.93*** .08 1.59 .04 .83 .09 1.51 -.13 -2.83** .17 3.49*** -.17 -3.00** .07*** Model 3 t .18 .08 .05 .07 3.92*** 1.56 1.04 1.25 Model 4 t .18 .07 .05 .07 3.84*** 1.44 1.06 1.32

-.13 -2.82** .17 3.42*** -.14 -2.50* -.13 -2.91** -.12 -2.70** .00 -.04 .02**

-.16 -3.43*** .17 3.57*** -.16 -2.83** -.14 -3.14** -.11 -2.42* .04 .82 -.15 -3.22*** .02** .23 .21

.13 .12

.20 .18

.22 .20

Note: (N = 453). *p<05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

A second contribution of the study is that it recasts the frequently studied concept of OCBs. Historically, OCBs have been viewed as outcomes of other attitudinal and/or dispositional variables (Organ & Ryan, 1995). In response to recent please in the OCB literature (cf., Organ & Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie, 1997), we examined a possible consequence of organizational citizenship. Our data suggest that while OCBs may be defined as being discretionary, there are possible consequences associated with not engaging in the behaviors. Even further, the interaction between race and OCB suggests that the outcomes of OCB may be differential for people of different races. This discovery adds to the growing body of literature suggesting OCB represents an important classification of behaviors by which employees can advance their own interests (cf., Allen & Rush, 1998; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). A few straightforward courses of action for managers emerge from the results. For one, they show that race continues to be an important variable for understanding how employees interpret the organizational environment. If there is fidelity between employee self-reports of victimization and objective reality, then race may also affect how employees are actually treated by those around them. Accordingly, despite the many advances made by minorities in over the last 30 years, managers should not presume that the 21st century workplace will be free of racial bias. References available from the authors.

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