Personality traits of bullies as a contributory factor in workplace bullying: An exploratory study

This paper examines the relationship between personality characteristics - as indexed by the ICES Personality Inventory (Bartram, 1994; 1998) and the IBS Clinical Inventory (Mauger, Adkinson, Zoss, Firestone & Hook, 1980) - and bullying behavior. Although it proved to be difficult to obtain a large enough sample of bullies, the findings indicated that bullies are aggressive, hostile, and extraverted and independent. Furthermore, bullies are egocentric, selfish, and show little concern for the opinions of others. High levels of aggressiveness, assertiveness, competitiveness and independence are traits that are also associated with leadership.