Relationship between Perceived Workplace ...

Indian Journal of Community Psychology, 2014, 10(1),162-177

ISSN-0974-2719

Relationship between Perceived Workplace Harassment, Mental Health Status and Job Satisfaction of Male and Female Civil Police Constables Mahesh Kumar Maurya* and Manisha Agarwal**

The purpose of the study was to investigate the patterns of relationships between perceived workplace harassment, mental health status and job satisfaction among male and female civil police. The study was conducted on 118 civil police employees (59 male and 59 female) in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Participants’ responses were obtained on questionnaires which measured perceived workplace harassment (Berdahl and Moore, 2006), psychological well-being and psychological distress (PD) (Heubeck & Neill, 2000) and job satisfaction (Dantzker (1993). Data were statistically analyzed for examining the hypothesized relationships between the variables among the male and female samples. Results indicated that not-man-enough harassment, traditional sexual harassment and psychological wellbeing were significantly different among the male and female civil police personnel. However, ethnic harassment, psychological distress and job satisfaction were not significantly different among these two groups. Hierarchical regression analysis for examining the mediating effect of mental health status dimension showed that among male police personnel psychological wellbeing exercised suppressor effects on the prediction of job satisfaction by the factor ‘not-man-enough harassment’ while among female police personnel, psychological wellbeing exercised suppressor effects on the prediction of job satisfaction by the factor ‘traditional sexual harassment’. Psychological distress exercised suppressor effects on the prediction of job satisfaction by the factor ‘traditional sexual harassment’ only among male participants. The findings have significant implications for enhancing the job satisfaction among male and female police personnel so as to maximize their performance. Keywords: Perceived Workplace Harassment, Psychological Wellbeing, Psychological Distress, Job Satisfaction.

INTRODUCTION Perceived Workplace Harassment: Bureaucratic characteristics of police organizations have been identified as a major source of stress for employees in police organizations. Due to the bureaucratic nature of police organizations, rules and a distinct chain of command, individual input at the workplace is often reduced to a minimal level ( Coman & *Research Scholar, ** Professor, Department of Psychology, F.S.S., BHU, Varanasi, India

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Workplace Harassment, Mental Health Status and Job Satisfaction

Evan, 1991). Golembieuski and Kim (1991) have argued that the quasimilitary nature of police organizations tends to breed alienation among police officers. This is especially problematic as police officers are required to exercise considerable discretion while being tightly controlled by a plethora of administrative rules surrounding their work. Previous literature reveals that female police officers are likely to encounter higher levels of harassment, overt hostility, and other negative social interactions on the job compared to their male counterparts (Deaux & Ullman, 1983; Balkin, 1988; Martin, 1990). A common explanation for this maltreatment of female officers is that police organizational culture, in general, is adversarial toward them. Moreover, the negative side of police work may bear its mark more on female police officers than their male counterparts. Wexler and Logan (1983) revealed that the source of stress mentioned were negative attitudes of male officers, training, exposure to tragedy and trouble, group blame and rumors. Sexual harassment (SH) is a universal phenomenon in all contemporary societies where gender power is unequally distributed. The extent of SH however may vary depending on the nature of the organization and the culture within which the behavior occurs. In more developed societies such behavior is less tolerated whereas in the less developed countries such behavior may be more latent and is rarely the subject of studies. SH is widely recognized as social problem because of its negative impact to individuals, organizations and societies. At the individuals levels those being sexually harassed have “decreased job satisfaction, lower organization commitment, withdrawal from work, ill physical and mental health and even symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Willness, C.R., Steel, P., & Lee, K. 2007; Gershon, 2009). At the organizational level SH is destructive in term of productivity and performance (Willness et al., 2007). At the societal level the negative impact of SH extents to those who are indirectly exposed to it (Glomb, T., Richman, W., Hulin, C., Drasgow, F., Schneider, K., & Fitzgerald, L.,1997) and in turn creates a fearful atmosphere for female employees. There are evidences that SH in police force in Australia ,UK, USA and elsewhere is pervasive (Brown & Heidensohn, 2000; Vanstone,2001; Collins, 2004). SH is differently articulated and interpreted in different societies and so researches on SH in the western context may not be generalizable to other societies (Willness et al .,2007). Police work is a most stressful occupation. The sources associated with stress in police work are well documented by scholars and practioners (Curse & Rubin,1973; Ni He et al.,2002; McCarty et al, 2007). Major sources of police stress that are frequently highlighted in the literature thus, include stress from the work environment, availability of peer support and trust, social and family influence, bureaucratic characteristics of police organization and accessibility of coping mechanism. © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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Mahesh Kumar Maurya and Manisha Agarwal

Brown (1998) found in his study that when women police and civilian personnel were asked about their exposure to various forms of sexual harassment, policewomen were more likely than civilian women to experience sexual harassment from male police officers. More police women than civilian women reported hearing generalized sexual comments about women's physical appearance; hearing explicit jokes; hearing comments about their own physical appearance; being pestered for unwanted dates; being touched, stroked or pinched or been subjected to serious sexual assault. Haarr and Morash (2004) found that in the USA, African American women were subjected to higher levels of sexual harassment than were white women. Except for combined racial and gender harassment, for instance a claim that a woman was hired only because she was a female minority, the qualitative analysis did not reveal any clear pattern of differences in the types of harassment for minority and majority groups. The t-tests to compare white and minority women on levels of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion showed a significant difference only for gender harassment, and the mean was slightly higher for white women although the difference was statistically significant. Scott, Bisset, Chillingworth, and Crispin (2006) reported that male subjects thought that a hypothetical case of sexual harassment was less serious than female subjects did, irrespective of the sex of the victim. Male subjects made stronger judgements about the victim and significantly more subjects in the neutral condition thought victim was a female. The study found that overall 70 percent of women officers experienced some forms of sexual harassment directed at them personally at least once(44 percent experienced this sometime or often). In a study reported by Brown and Heidensohn (1996) on an international sample of policemen, 79 percent of British respondents (n=171) indicated having had a personal experiences of sexual harassment (36 percent declaring this to have occurred sometimes or often). More women in the study indicated their experience of sexual harassment had occurred rarely although results were not statistically significantly different. 28 percent of women in the study felt they had an unequal chance of promotion compared with policemen. Berdahl and Moore (2006) conducted a study on 238 employed respondents. Of the respondents, 88 (23 women) were employees from the male-dominated plants and 150 (15 men) were employees from the female-dominated centers. Respondents from non-European backgrounds (Asians, Caribbeans, Africans, Latin Americans, Aboriginals, Arabs, and Pacific Islanders) were therefore grouped into an “ethnic minority” category (N= 123), and those of European descent were grouped into an “ethnic majority/White” category (N = 115). According to this classification, there were 35 minority men, 88 minority women, 46 white men, and 69 white women. They reported that minority women were © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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significantly more harassed than minority men, majority women, and majority men when both ethnic and sexual harassment were combined into an overall measure of harassment. Somavade and Morash (2008) collected data on 117 female law enforcement officers in the USA in Police department to examine the sexual harassment experiences of US policewomen by using the Sexual Experience Questionnaire (SEQ) and asking them to describe incidents in which male colleagues’ behavior made them uncomfortable. They tried to identify areas of discomfort and patterns of response in the context of current harassment policies. Participants were especially concerned about male colleagues’ view that women could not “do the job”. Sexual harassment policies and the integration of women into work groups with men influenced how women viewed and reacted to discomforting behaviors. Jokes and remarks signifying “in” or “out” of the police workgroup were reported. Many policewomen felt that the behaviors of joking and sharing sexually explicit materials were tolerable in the work group, in part because they were part of the group and they could influence men to stop if they wanted to. Yet, the men still produced a work environment where sexual harassment occurred. Mental health in police organizations: There are many problems associated with the work environment in police organization. The world health organization defines the concept of mental health as, “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” Singh and Sen Gupta (1989) gave six indices of mentally healthy person namely, adjustment, emotional stability, intelligence, autonomy, securityinsecurity, activity-level. Mental health thus involves a continuous process of adjustment through optimum use of one’s potentialities rather than a static condition. Mental health of police employees may be influenced by a number of work environmental factors such as sexual harassment, leadership style, stressful condition of the work, peer group support, family influence, and accessibility of coping mechanism. Morash & Haar (2006) conducted a large-sampled exploratory study, examining the workplace problems that were hypothesized to predict stress. Lack of influence over work activities and bias against ones racial, gender, or ethnic group stood out as important predictors of stress after controls were introduced for demographic variables. Women in police service experience tremendous stress. In a survey conducted on police personnel serving in Gujarat by Patel (2006) it was found that around 65 percent women working in police were under tremendous work pressures and stress, which was badly affecting their family life. Erratic and long working hours were the main reason of stress resulting in manifestation of anger on their spouses and children. The sample under study consisted of group of constables, ASI’s PSI’s. Reason for joining the police force © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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for majority of the women was unemployment, financial needs and government job. Only for 2 percent of the surveyed women, wish to serve the masses was the motive. According to the researcher motivating factor behind joining the police force had impact on the stress experienced by the women. An important source of police stress concerns the availability and choice of coping mechanisms adopted by male and female police officers in order to reduce their stress. Although coping literature is receptive with varied definitions of the concept of coping, most researchers agree that only the conscious use of cognitive or behavioral strategy that is intended to reduce perceived stress or improve a persons resources to deal with stress reflects the coping process (Anshel, 2000; Kurtz,2009). PTSD, depression and suicidal tendency were reported to be higher in police than in other municipal workers (Violantee, 2008). Sleep disorders were highly prevalent in police officers. Sleep disorders affects physical health, emotional wellbeing, mental abilities and performance (Rajratnam, 2007). Some recent studies associate lack of sleep with serious health problems such as an increased risk of depression, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The major source of stress identified in police work is thus, associated with the unique work environment of police officers. Not surprisingly, the death of a partner or having to take a life (killing someone) in the line of duty is typically among the top stressors identified by officers (Coman & Evans, 1991; Violanti & Aron, 1993). Another element of stress often mentioned in the literature include making violent arrests involved in police work and are commonly considered to be the leading sources of both psychological and physical stress among law enforcement officers. When male police officers need to de-stress they might trade war stories but when female trade war stories, they could be questioned. So it may become a male- only way of managing stress (Kurtz, 2009). Moreover, if the person is sexually harassed it decreases job satisfaction, organizational commitment, physical and mental health and lowers productivity and performance of the employee. Security of female police employees, negative attitude of male officers, rumors is a very prominent source of stress among female police officers. Therefore, both the internal organizational culture and external work environment are much less favorable to female officers. Job satisfaction: Mental health may be related with job satisfaction of employees in all organizations. Locke and lathan (1976) gave a comprehensive definition of job satisfaction as pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones’ job or job experience. Job satisfaction is a result of employees perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important. According to Mitchell and Lasan, (1987) it is generally recognized in the organizational behavior field that job satisfaction is the most © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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important and frequently studied attitude. Mehra, Prasad and Arora (2005) identified the stresses in police forces and its impact on job dissatisfaction. The data and information was collected through presentations, discussions and case studies by respective police forces in India. Records of posting, leave, training, strength were studied. Case studies of the suicides and fatal violence by force personnel in the last five years were also collected. They found that the causes of dissatisfaction are excessive workload, prolonged duty hours, denial of leave, bad treatment by superiors/peers, poor living conditions. In a study by Miller, Mire and Kim (2009) participants included all sworn officers (235) a medium-sized police department in the southern United States. Of the 235 Sworn police officers, 87 returned (37%) usable surveys. The sample consisted of mostly male 80 (92%) female 7 (8%) police officers. Gender differences were analogous with much of the previous literature. No significant relationships were found with regard to job satisfaction. Abolbi, Avosola and Omole (2010) conducted a study on a sample of 119 participants. From the sample 79 respondents (66.4%) are males, 40 respondents (31.9%) are female. This data were collected on Nigerian Police employees. They reported that gender did not exercise a significant influence on job satisfaction. Objective: (1) To Examine the differences in the levels of perceived workplace harassment, mental health status and job satisfaction of male and female police constables, considering the differences in the nature of the duties of the two groups of police personnel. (2) To investigate the nature of the relationship between the perceived workplace harassment dimensions and mental health of police personnel with the job satisfaction among male and female employees in civil police organization. Hypotheses: Considering the fact that female employees are in a minority in the police organizations, it was expected that: 1. There would be significant differences in the levels of: (a) age, experience and salary of the male and female civil police personnel (b) Female police employees would perceive more workplace harassment dimensions (not-man-enough-harassment, traditional sexual harassment and ethnic harassment) than their male counterparts. (c) Psychological wellbeing would be higher among male police employees than their female counterparts. (d) There would be no significant difference between male and female on psychological distress. © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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(e) Job satisfaction would be higher among male police employees than their female counterparts. 2. Perception of dimensions of perceived workplace harassment would negatively predict job satisfaction of both male and female employees. 3. The psychological well-being of male and female police personnel would positively predict job satisfaction among the two groups while psychological distress would negatively predict job satisfaction in both the groups. 4. Further, the mental health status in terms of psychological wellbeing was likely to mediate the nature of the relationship between perceived levels of dimensions of the perceived workplace harassment and job satisfaction among both male and female employees. METHOD Sample: The present study was conducted on a sample of 118 Civil Police employees, 59 male and 59 female. The data were collected on the police organization in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Mean age of the sample in the civil police organization was 39.28 years, experience mean of the participants is 15.89 years and mean salary of the participants was Rs. 21616/p.m. The minimum age of participants in the sample in the civil police organization was 21 years and maximum age was 60 years. The minimum experience of the participants was 1 year and maximum experience of the participants was 40 years. Measures and Procedure: Measuring instruments utilized in the study consisted of: Perceived workplace harassment scale: developed by Berdahl and Moore (2006). The scale for measuring perceived workplace harassment scale contained 14 items and assessed workplace harassment on three dimensions, namely not-manenough-harassment, traditional sexual harassment and ethnic harassment. The reliability coefficient of the scale on the first dimension ‘not-man-enough-harassment’ was .72, traditional sexual harassment .82 and ethnic harassment .78.The original scale which was in English, was translated in Hindi to suit the Indian work environment conditions of civil police. The reliability coefficient of the total scale was .88. Among the mental health status dimensions, well-being was assessed on the dimensions of psychological distress (PD) and psychological wellbeing (PWB). (Heubeck & Neill, 2000). Chronbach alpha of the psychological distress scale was .86 and that of psychological wellbeing scale was .90. © Community Psychology Association of India, 2014

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Job satisfaction was measured by 22 items scale adapted from the scale reported by Dantzker (1993). The items are written in a Likert- style formate using a scale of one (1) to (5), (1=extremely dissatisfied and 5=extremely satisfied) where respondents are asked, “How satisfied are you with …”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale in the current study was .92. Three items were used for getting information about the participants’ age, salary and number of years served in the police force. RESULTS The data obtained was analyzed for testing the hypothesized patterns of relationships among the variables understudy through computation of the‘t’ test, inter-correlations among variables and hierarchical regression analysis. The Results has been presented in tables 1, 2, 3 and 4. Table1: Mean, S.D., t-Value for Demographic Variables, Perceived Workplace Harasssment, Psychological Wellbeing, Psychological Distress and Job Satisfaction. Variable Male(N=59) Female(N=59) t Level of Significance Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Demographic Variables Age 42.14 11.08 36.44 9.24 3.03** .003 Experience 19.81 11.57 11.98 8.99 4.10*** .000 Salary 24385 7376.13 18847 5610.38 4.59*** .000 Perceived Workplace Harassment Not-ManEnough 12.14 4.85 13.86 4.59 1.98* .050 Harassment Traditional 4.16*** .000 Sexual 6.68 3.18 9.67 4.49 Harassment Ethnic 1.36 .176 10.27 4.71 11.49 5.06 Harassment Mental Health Psychological 26.35 10.32 31.69 9.52 Wellbeing 2.92** .004 Psychological .35 .727 26.43 9.27 27.03 9.44 Distress Job Satisfaction Job .67 .502 63.62 16.44 65.79 18.55 Satisfaction ***p< .001 level, **p< .01 level, *p