Interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace has gained significant attention over the past few years. Although interpersonal mistreatment is stress-inducing, little work has been done to examine whether interpersonal mistreatment is a hindrance demand (an obstacle to overcome) or a threat demand (resulting in personal harm or loss), whether differences in categorization exist by gender or race/ethnicity, and if differences in categorization exist, the impact of those differences on individual and organizational outcomes. To examine these questions, we use the Hinkin and Tracey (1999) content validation approach to determine the definitional correspondence and definitional distinctiveness (Colquitt et al. 2019, p. 1243) of our proposed threat demand items that we generated from existing mistreatment measures. We utilize common challenge and hindrance demands as the orbiting constructs. Our results reveal that hindrance demands and threat demands are separate constructs, with interpersonal mistreatment representing threat demands. Our results also reveal that women are significantly more like to rate interpersonal mistreatment as a threat (vs. a hindrance) as compared to men. Implications of these findings are discussed.
