Development and validation of the Work Conflict Appraisal Scale (WCAS)

Psicothema. 2017 May;29(2):268-274. doi: 10.7334/psicothema2016.174.

Abstract

Background: In the context of cognitive appraisal, the Work Conflict Appraisal Scale (WCAS) was developed to assess work conflict in terms of threat and challenge.

Method: In the first study, the factorial structure of the scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis with a Spanish multi-occupational employee sample (N= 296). In the sec-ond study, we used multi-sampling confirmatory factor analysis (N= 815) to cross-validate the results.

Results: The analyses confirm the validity of the scale and are con-sistent with the tri-dimensional conflict classification. The findings support the distinc-tion between the challenge and threat appraisals of work conflict, highlighting the im-portance of measuring these two types of appraisal separately.

Conclusions: This scale is a valid and reliable instrument to measure conflict appraisal in organizations.

Publication types

  • Validation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Conflict, Psychological*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Interpersonal Relations*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Self Report*
  • Work / psychology*
  • Young Adult