Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Abstract

Violence of any kind between humans is nothing new. In the last decades a great interest has been awakened by the study of violence developed in work environments. Variety, temporality and frequency are necessary criteria for diagnosis. Factors related to the organization of work and the work environment could facilitate this type of behavior. Likewise, personality factors of the aggressor and the victim could play a role in the whole process, as well as the type of response of the aggrieved person. For the analysis, three questionnaires will be used, one of personality factors, the LIPT-60, on perception and strategies of workplace harassment and a Spanish adaptation of the MBI conducted by Senabre (2005) for fire services. The sample is composed of 34 firefighters, of which 20 are forest firefighters. Preliminary results suggest that 8.82% of the participants in the study reported that they had the perception that they were being harassed in their work, compared to 91.17% who don’t think that they have this work situation. Affability, age and emotional fatigue do seem to play their role in different ways. Younger professionals seem to be the most vulnerable to suffer this type of behavior, as well as those who are more emotionally exhausted. However, the more affable firefighters, that is, those who are more pleasant and friendly can be less affected by this type of aggression. Another important fact that emerges from this research is that there is a clear trend in these groups to deny any behavior of harassment, so the figures could be higher. Thus, we can conclude that workplace harassment is present in the fire services, being the strategies of job loss of prestige and intimidation manifested the most prevalent in the sample studied, followed by the obstruction of progress. The loss of prestige in the workplace is more frequently used by forest firefighters and the intimidation manifested among structural firefighters. According to the data provided in this study, we can notice that violent behaviors and harassment occur in fire stations, especially when working conditions are more precarious.

Biography

E-mail: jasenabre@sinif.es