Individuals with a more senior level of job authority have higher levels of interpersonal conflict according to new research out of the University of Toronto.
The study conducted by Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and Sarah Reid, a PhD candidate, involved data from a 2005 sample of 1,785 working adults in the United States. This is the first study of a nationally representative sample that documents the link between power and conflict in the workplace across a broad cross-section of jobs and sectors.
"We show that a highly desired attribute of the job—authority—comes with some interpersonal costs, but those costs aren't distributed equally across key social groups," said Schieman.
The study found that:
-- Workers with higher levels of job authority report significantly higher levels of exposure to interpersonal conflict from all sources at work;
-- Men with authority report more conflict than similarly-positioned women;
-- Younger workers with power report the highest level of conflict with others in the workplace.
The study findings are published in the August edition of the journal Work and Occupations.
Source: University of Toronto
Related stories:
Psychologist studies ways to improve soldiers' work-life relationship
The U.S. military provides its members with policies to help balance their work and family commitments. But a researcher at Kansas State University has found that simply providing programs might not be enough to maintain a supreme equilibrium.
Ameobas: Keeping it in the family
Starving "social amoebae" called
Dictyostelium discoideum seek the support of "kin" when they form multi-cellular organisms made up of dead stalks and living spores, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University in Houston in a report that appears online today in the open-access journal
Public Library of Science Biology.
When it comes to what's for dinner, baboon society is no democracy
In decisions about where to eat, baboons don't all have an equal say, according to a report in the November 20th issue of
Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Rather, most baboons in a group will follow their leader to a dining spot of his choosing, even if it means a considerably more meager meal for themselves than they could have had otherwise.
Survey shows significant education discrepancies among second generation immigrants in the Netherlands
No less than one quarter of second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands drops out of school. This is the most alarming result of a recent survey conducted among the second generation of Turkish and Moroccan descent in the two largest Dutch cities – Amsterdam and Rotterdam. However, this is only one side to the story as the survey report also shows that other second generation immigrants are doing extremely well, with a third continuing to higher education. How can these immense discrepancies in educational performance among second generation immigrants be explained?
Gulf War research panel finds 1 in 4 veterans suffers from illness caused by toxic exposure
At least one in four of the 697,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness, a condition caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug administered to protect troops against nerve gas, and no effective treatments have yet been found, a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans concludes in a landmark report released Monday.
Critics push FDA to hasten decision on safety of plastics chemical
Scientists for the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that they would go back and consider studies that they previously ignored to determine if bisphenol A is safe in baby bottles and other products, which could take years.
Researchers investigate impact of stress on police officers' physical and mental health
Policing is dangerous work, and the danger lurks not on the streets alone. The pressures of law enforcement put officers at risk for high blood pressure, insomnia, increased levels of destructive stress hormones, heart problems, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide, University at Buffalo researchers have found through a decade of studies of police officers.
UCLA study of satellite imagery casts doubt on surge's success in Baghdad
By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained.