The physical and psychological effects of workplace bullying and their relationship to intention to leave: a test of the psychosomatic and disability hypotheses

This paper examined the physical and psychological effects of workplace bullying and their relationship to intention to leave. Participants were 150 undergraduate students who had been employed during the last 12 months. Workplace bullying correlated positively with physical symptoms, negative affect, and with intention to leave the job. Partial Least Squares analyses were used to test two competing models for the relationship between bullying, physical and psychological effects, and intention to leave. The results supported the psychosomatic model (i.e., bullying leads to negative affect which leads to physical health problems, which in turn increase intention to leave) but not the disability hypothesis (i.e., bullying leads to physical health problems which lead to negative affect, which in turn increases intention to leave).