Workplace bullying and psychological health at work: The mediating role of satisfaction of needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate how exposure to workplace bullying undermines psychological health at work. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study proposes and tests a model in which the experience of workplace bullying predicts poor psychological health at work (higher burnout and lower work engagement) through lack of satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness). The results of this study, conducted among 1179 nurses in Quebec, Canada, provide support for the model. Workplace bullying negatively predicted work engagement through employees' unsatisfied needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Workplace bullying also positively predicted burnout, via lack of satisfaction of employees' need for autonomy. Invariance analysis also confirmed the robustness of the model across gender and job status. Implications for workplace bullying research and managerial practices are discussed. Keywords: workplace bullyingbasic psychological needsburnoutwork engagementself-determination theorypsychological health Acknowledgements This work was facilitated by a scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et Culture to the first author and the financial support of the UQTR Research Chair on Motivation and Occupational Health and a fellowship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé to the second author.