Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (NAQ-R)

1. Abstract

The Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (NAQ-R) represents the international gold standard for measuring exposure to workplace bullying, interpersonal harassment, and psychological victimization within occupational contexts. Developed by Ståle Einarsen, Helge Hoel, and Guy Notelaers, the instrument addresses critical methodological hurdles inherent in self-report victim surveys by employing a strictly behavioral assessment framework. Rather than forcing respondents to subjectively categorize themselves as victims of “bullying”—a term fraught with emotional stigma, varying cultural connotations, and defense-mechanism distortions—the NAQ-R prompts participants to report the objective occurrence and frequency of 22 specific negative interpersonal behaviors over a standardized six-month retrospective window.

Extensive psychometric investigations have established that the NAQ-R is characterized by a stable, multidimensional structure typically captured by three distinct yet correlated underlying factors: Work-Related Bullying (e.g., withholding operational information, unreasonable deadlines, unmanageable workloads), Person-Related Bullying (e.g., social exclusion, personal insults, public humiliation, slander), and Physically Intimidating Bullying (e.g., finger-pointing, invasive non-verbal behaviors, spontaneous shouting, explicit threats). Evaluated along a standardized 5-point frequency scale ranging from 1 (“Never”) to 5 (“Daily”), the scale demonstrates exceptional internal consistency across varied industrial sectors, occupations, and geographic jurisdictions, with composite Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding .90. Furthermore, the NAQ-R displays robust convergent and criterion validity via substantial empirical correlations with depressive symptomatology, job burnout, intention to quit, organizational cynicism, and severe post-traumatic stress indices. The operational utility of the scale spans academic field research, organizational climate monitoring, psychodiagnostic screening in occupational health clinics, and evidence-based forensic assessments in labor litigation.

2. Keywords

Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised, NAQ-R, workplace bullying, psychological harassment, mobbing, occupational stress, counterproductive work behavior, interpersonal conflict, psychometrics, latent factor structure, job strain, organizational health

3. Authors

The NAQ-R was engineered, validated, and iteratively refined by leading scholars associated with the Bergen Bullying Research Group based at the University of Bergen, Norway, in ongoing academic collaboration with organizational psychology specialists in the United Kingdom and Belgium:

• Ståle Einarsen, Ph.D. — Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychosocial Science, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. Head of the Bergen Bullying Research Group. Widely recognized as a foundational figure in the systematic empirical investigation of mobbing and destructive workplace leadership.
• Helge Hoel, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Organizational Psychology, Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom. Internationally acclaimed authority on organizational violence, workplace hostility, and anti-harassment policy evaluation.
• Guy Notelaers, Ph.D. — Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; affiliated researcher with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Methodologist specializing in latent class cluster modeling, occupational exposure thresholds, and advanced psychometric structural modeling.

Correspondence regarding instrument utilization, ongoing research permissions, and diagnostic norm validation is conventionally directed to the Bergen Bullying Research Group, Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Christiesgate 12, N-5015 Bergen, Norway.

4. Purpose

The primary rationale underlying the creation of the Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised is the critical scientific need to decouple the measurement of workplace victimization from the psychological, semantic, and defensive artifacts that plague self-labeling methodologies. Early organizational research into mobbing relied largely on single-item, subjective inquiries such as: “Have you been bullied at work during the past six months?” While administratively simple, this subjective self-labeling approach suffers from profound psychometric limitations. Vulnerable employees experiencing systematic mistreatment often refuse to adopt the socially stigmatizing label of “victim,” leading to substantial false-negative reporting. Conversely, individuals experiencing benign workplace disagreements, constructive supervisory performance feedback, or generalized interpersonal incivility may over-endorse the victim status, leading to problematic false positives. The NAQ-R sidesteps these distortions by never explicitly utilizing the emotionally loaded lexicons of “bullying,” “mobbing,” or “harassment” anywhere within the individual item prompts, presenting respondents with concrete behavioral acts instead.

In occupational health and organizational psychology research, the NAQ-R provides an objective, standardized metric for quantifying the epidemiological prevalence of destructive social environments across organizations, economic sectors, and socio-cultural boundaries. By delineating specific subtypes of negative workplace acts, the instrument enables researchers to trace distinct etiological pathways linking chronic ambient stressors (such as role ambiguity or organizational restructuring) to toxic interpersonal friction and subsequent systemic attrition. Furthermore, the operationalization of behavioral frequency data allows scholars to model bullying not merely as an all-or-nothing phenomenon, but as a graduated continuum ranging from low-level social friction to severe psychological terror.

From an applied diagnostic and clinical perspective, the NAQ-R serves as a rigorous screening and risk-assessment instrument. Occupational health specialists, human resource professionals, and consulting organizational psychologists apply the scale to conduct organizational climate audits, pinpointing department-specific hot spots characterized by abusive supervision or dysfunctional team dynamics. In therapeutic and legal contexts, the scale provides standardized evidence concerning the duration, frequency, and severity of interpersonal mistreatment suffered by an employee, providing objective metrics of exposure that correlate closely with diagnostic symptom inventories for Major Depressive Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

5. Psychological Construct

The overarching construct captured by the NAQ-R is exposure to workplace bullying and psychological harassment. Conceptually, workplace bullying is defined within contemporary occupational psychology as a prolonged process wherein an employee is systematically exposed to repeated, negative, and hostile actions carried out by one or more colleagues, superiors, or subordinates over an extended period (typically defined as at least six months), occurring within an interpersonal context marked by a profound power asymmetry that leaves the targeted individual unable to easily defend themselves. The NAQ-R decomposes this complex macro-construct into three theoretically and statistically distinct behavioral dimensions:

Work-Related Bullying

This dimension encompasses covert and overt behaviors specifically aimed at sabotaging, delegitimizing, or disrupting the targeted employee’s work performance, vocational status, and professional self-efficacy. Rather than attacking the individual’s personal identity directly, perpetrators systematically weaponize standard operational processes to marginalize the target. Specific manifestations measured by items 1, 3, 14, 16, 18, 19, and 21 include:

• Information Sabotage: Withholding vital operational details, communication strings, or project updates, thereby deliberately inducing underperformance or errors.
• Role Degradation: Assigning tasks grossly below the individual’s demonstrated competence, stripping them of key areas of strategic responsibility, and substituting low-status, menial duties.
• Structural Exploitation: Imposing impossible deadlines, assigning unmanageable workloads, establishing excessive surveillance protocols, and actively pressuring the employee to forfeit lawful statutory entitlements such as sick leave, contractual vacation, or expense reimbursements.

Person-Related Bullying

The person-related bullying dimension reflects direct, highly destabilizing interpersonal attacks engineered to undermine the target’s social status, emotional well-being, reputation, and psychological safety. These behaviors are deeply personal and frequently involve ostracism and verbal aggression. Manifested across items 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, and 20, this dimension includes:

• Social Alienation and Ostracism: Deliberate social exclusion, persistent silent treatment, cold-shouldering, and explicit hostile reactions when the target attempts to engage in normal workplace social discourse.
• Reputational Character Assassination: The fabrication and active dissemination of malicious rumors, slanderous gossip, and unwarranted allegations intended to destroy the target’s peer standing.
• Interpersonal Degradation: Subjecting the employee to offensive personal remarks, relentless teasing, sarcastic humiliation, and cruel practical jokes enacted by adversaries.
• Micro-Invalidations and Psychological Attrition: Relentless reminders of historical errors, persistent devaluation of work contributions, and covert suggestions or overt signals that the individual ought to resign.

Physically Intimidating Bullying

The third dimension, represented by items 8, 9, and 22, captures threatening, aggressive, and power-assertive behaviors designed to produce visceral fear, intimidation, and acute distress. While severe physical battery is statistically rare in modern formal organizational settings, threatening non-verbal and proximal behaviors remain potent mechanisms of domination:

• Non-Verbal Intimidation: Aggressive finger-pointing, deliberate physical obstruction of movement pathways, and invasive spatial violations.
• Aggressive Vocal Outbursts: Spontaneous shouting, explosive verbal hostility, and targeted anger displays.
• Physical Threats: Explicit threats of bodily violence, physical abuse, or actual physical hostility directed at the targeted person.

6. Theoretical Framework

The NAQ-R is grounded in a convergence of classical organizational stress theories, interpersonal conflict models, and social dominance dynamics. Central to its formulation is Heinz Leymann’s Mobbing Theory. Leymann conceptualized workplace mobbing as hostile and unethical communication systematically directed by one or more individuals toward an individual, pushing the victim into a helpless and defenseless position through relentless, repeated actions. Leymann highlighted that the clinical and psychological damage does not stem from an isolated negative act, but rather from the high frequency (at least weekly) and extended chronicity (at least six months) of the hostility.

Complementing Leymann’s framework is the Work Environment Hypothesis (Einarsen et al., 1994; Baillien et al., 2009), which posits that workplace bullying is primarily an organizational symptom rooted in systemic psychosocial deficiencies. According to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model, when organizations subject employees to excessive structural demands (e.g., severe workload, role conflict, high job insecurity) while providing inadequate resources (e.g., poor leadership support, low autonomy), the resulting ambient strain elevates organizational friction. In poorly regulated environments, this chronic strain fosters counterproductive work behaviors, which subsequently escalate into targeted interpersonal aggression.

The instrument also integrates core tenets from Social Power Theory and Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory (Hobfoll, 1989). Hobfoll’s model asserts that individuals strive to acquire, protect, and maintain psychological, social, and structural resources. Workplace bullying acts as an aggressive, continuous resource-depletion mechanism. When targets face deliberate information withholding, social isolation, and unrelenting criticism, their cognitive and emotional resources become rapidly exhausted. Concurrently, the inherent power imbalance—whether driven by formal organizational hierarchy or informal social dominance—prevents targets from activating compensatory coping mechanisms, precipitating burnout, severe anxiety, and clinical depression.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the NAQ-R has been thoroughly examined across diverse industries, countries, and occupational cohorts:

• Construct Validity: Factor-analytic examinations have consistently supported the convergent construct validity of the 22-item architecture. The behavioral items map directly onto the theoretically specified domains of interpersonal victimization without relying on contaminated self-perceptions of victimhood.
• Convergent Validity: In the seminal validation study by Einarsen, Hoel, and Notelaers (2009) encompassing a UK sample of over 5,200 employees, NAQ-R scores demonstrated robust, statistically significant positive correlations with standardized measures of psychological distress, somatic complaints, and intention to leave the organization ($r = .35$ to $.52, p < .001$). Furthermore, NAQ-R scores correlated strongly with self-reported experiences of single-item subjective bullying measures, verifying that individuals who self-identify as bullied score significantly higher across all three NAQ-R dimensions than non-bullied counterparts.
• Discriminant Validity: Research confirms that the NAQ-R measures a construct distinct from generalized work stress, task-related conflict, and normative organizational dissatisfaction. While ordinary job stress correlates moderately with work-related bullying items, person-related and physically intimidating bullying factors diverge sharply from routine operational stressors, demonstrating distinct regression paths when predicting organizational health outcomes.
• Criterion and Predictive Validity: Longitudinal studies demonstrate that baseline exposure to negative acts as measured by the NAQ-R prospectively predicts subsequent psychiatric morbidity, elevated rates of physician-certified long-term sickness absence, and psychotropic medication usage over follow-up periods ranging from one to five years.

8. Reliability

The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the NAQ-R have been comprehensively demonstrated across multiple independent investigations worldwide:

• Internal Consistency: Across extensive validation cohorts, the total 22-item NAQ-R scale consistently produces a Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficient exceeding .90. In the original UK standardization dataset ($N = 5,288$), Einarsen et al. (2009) documented an overall scale reliability of $lpha = .90$. Subscale reliabilities similarly demonstrate robust internal consistency: the Person-Related Bullying subscale typically yields $lpha$ values between .84 and .89; the Work-Related Bullying subscale ranges between .75 and .84; and the shorter Physically Intimidating Bullying subscale typically exhibits $lpha$ coefficients between .66 and .78 (which is expected given its brief 3-item composition).
• Composite Reliability: Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling frameworks yield composite reliability values (Raykov’s rho / McDonald’s $\omega$) above .92 for the global construct, verifying that measurement error remains minimal across the latent dimensions.
• Test-Retest Stability: Longitudinal panels evaluating test-retest stability across intervals ranging from three weeks to six months show stable intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) between .65 and .82 in stable organizational environments, demonstrating excellent temporal stability while retaining necessary sensitivity to changes in organizational intervention conditions.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent architecture of the NAQ-R has been extensively scrutinized using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA):

• Exploratory Factor Analysis: Principal axis factoring with oblique rotations (such as Promax and Oblimin) consistently reveals a stable three-factor solution accounting for between 45% and 58% of the total variance across diverse occupational samples. Factor 1 captures person-oriented negative acts; Factor 2 captures operational and work-sabotage behaviors; and Factor 3 captures physical intimidation and overt hostility. Item loadings across their designated primary factors consistently exceed .45, with cross-loadings rarely exceeding .25.
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis & Fit Indices: Confirmatory factor models testing the three-factor structure against alternative one-factor (unidimensional) and two-factor configurations have repeatedly demonstrated superior model fit. Typical fit indices documented across large empirical datasets (e.g., Einarsen et al., 2009; Giorgi et al., 2015) consistently satisfy rigorous structural criteria:
  • Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Consistently ranges between .042 and .055, confirming low residual error.
  • Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Ranges between .93 and .97, indicating robust fit relative to baseline models.
  • Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Typically spans .92 to .96.
  • Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Remains low, typically below .045.
• Latent Class Cluster Analysis: Beyond traditional factor structures, advanced latent class modeling pioneered by Notelaers and colleagues demonstrates that the NAQ-R successfully classifies respondents into distinct exposure profiles (e.g., “not bullied,” “occasionally targeted,” “work-related exposure only,” and “severely victimized”), confirming the diagnostic precision of the underlying scoring framework.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational characteristics and scoring architecture of the NAQ-R are summarized below:

• Test Type: Standardized self-report psychometric behavioral inventory.
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or online digital survey instrument.
• Item Count: 22 items describing distinct negative workplace behaviors.
• Response Format: Standardized 5-point Likert frequency scale based on experiences over the preceding six months:
  • 1 = Never
  • 2 = Now and then
  • 3 = Monthly
  • 4 = Weekly
  • 5 = Daily
• Dimensional Scoring Allocation:
  • Work-Related Bullying (7 items): Items 1, 3, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21.
  • Person-Related Bullying (12 items): Items 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20.
  • Physically Intimidating Bullying (3 items): Items 8, 9, 22.
• Scoring Rules: Total exposure scores can be computed as a composite sum score (ranging from 22 to 110) or as a mean item response score (ranging from 1.00 to 5.00). Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum across the corresponding items. No items are reverse scored. In operational epidemiology, Leymann’s operational criterion classifies individuals experiencing at least one negative act on a weekly or daily basis over a six-month duration as victims of workplace bullying.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The revised version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire was formally published and validated in 2009 by Ståle Einarsen, Helge Hoel, and Guy Notelaers, following earlier iterations originally developed during the 1990s by the Bergen Bullying Research Group.

Licensing and Academic Usage Terms: The NAQ-R is copyrighted intellectual property owned by the Bergen Bullying Research Group, Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway. The instrument is generally made available free of charge for purely academic, non-commercial research projects, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertations, subject to prior registration and formal permission from the copyright holders. Commercial applications—such as corporate organizational audits, human resources consulting, management risk profiling, or legal assessments—require formal licensing agreements, commercial permissions, and payment of professional fees determined by the authors. Researchers and practitioners must request authorization prior to deployment via the official channels of the Bergen Bullying Research Group.

12. References

The following publications document the conceptual foundations, validation studies, and psychometric metrics of the NAQ-R:

• Baillien, E., Neyens, I., De Witte, H., & De Cuyper, N. (2009). A model of the relationship between work environment, counterproductive work behaviour and workplace bullying: A qualitative study. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 18(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320802159595
• Einarsen, S., & Raknes, B. I. (1997). Harassment in the workplace and the victimization of men. Violence and Victims, 12(3), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.12.3.247
• Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., & Notelaers, G. (2009). Measuring exposure to bullying and harassment at work: Validity, factor structure and psychometric properties of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 18(1), 24–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320802619290
• Giorgi, G., Leon-Perez, J. M., & Arenas, A. (2015). Are employers bullying their employees? A cross-cultural study on the relationship between leadership style and workplace bullying. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(9), 10321–10337. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120910321
• Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44(3), 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513
• Leymann, H. (1996). The content and development of mobbing at work. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 5(2), 165–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594329608414853
• Notelaers, G., & Einarsen, S. (2013). The construction and validation of the short-negative acts questionnaire. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 22(4), 463–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2012.690558
• Notelaers, G., Einarsen, S., De Witte, H., & Vermunt, J. K. (2006). Measuring exposure to bullying at work: The validity and advantages of the latent class cluster approach. Work & Stress, 20(4), 289–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370601071594

13. Items of the Scale