science

Perceived psychological contract violation

Perceived psychological contract violation is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Perceived psychological contract violation rather than just read about it. In short: Perceived psychological contract violation (PPCV) is a construct that regards employees’ feelings of disappointment (ranging from minor frustration to betrayal) arising from their belief that their organization has broken its psychological contract of work-related promises, and is generally thought to be the organization's contribution to a negative reciprocity dynamic, as employees tend to perform more poorly to pa…

Key takeaways

Perceived psychological contract violation belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Perceived psychological contract violation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Perceived psychological contract violation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Perceived psychological contract violation (PPCV) is a construct that regards employees’ feelings of disappointment (ranging from minor frustration to betrayal) arising from their belief that their organization has broken its psychological contract of work-related promises, and is generally thought to be the organization's contribution to a negative reciprocity dynamic, as employees tend to perform more poorly to pay back PPCV.

Differentiation from perceived organizational support Both PPCV and perceived organizational support (POS) are based on the norm of reciprocity. Both POS and PPCV are types of social exchanges and therefore involve implicit obligations, rather than economic exchanges, which involve explicit obligations. Perceived organizational support is focused on favorable treatment and the degree to which employees engage in positive reciprocity with the organization, whereas PPCV is focused on unfavorable treatment and the degree to which employees engage in negative reciprocity with the organization.

Recent research David R. Hekman and colleagues in 2009 found that professional employees (e.g. doctors, nurses, lawyers) were less likely to reciprocate PPCV when they strongly identified with the organization and weakly identified with the profession. Such workers' organizational identification and professional identification combined to alter the influence of PPCV on performance behaviors. The results suggested that PPCV had the most negative influence on professional employees' work performance when employees strongly identified with the profession and weakly identified with the organization.

Measurement items PPCV is typically measured with the four-item PPCV scale developed by Robinson & Morrison in 2000. This scale has been recommended by Freese and Chalk (2008) in their critical criteria-based reviews of all the different measures of the psychological contract. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with the following statements on a seven-point scale.

I feel a great deal of anger toward my organization. I feel betrayed by my organization. I feel that my organization has violated the contract between us. I feel extremely frustrated by how I have been treated by my organization. These "contract breach" items are less commonly used:

Almost all the promises made by my organization during my recruitment have been kept so far. I feel that my organization has come through in fulfilling the promises made to me when I was hired. So far my organization has done an excellent job of fulfilling its promises to me. I have not received everything promised to me in exchange for my contributions. My organization has broken many of its promises to me even though I've upheld my side of the deal.

See also Emotional exhaustion Misplaced loyalty Stress

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Perceived psychological contract violation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Perceived psychological contract violation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Perceived psychological contract violation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Perceived psychological contract violation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Perceived psychological contract violation

In research: Perceived psychological contract violation appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Perceived psychological contract violation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Perceived psychological contract violation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Industrial and organizational psychology, Organizational studies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Perceived psychological contract violation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Perceived psychological contract violation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Perceived psychological contract violation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Perceived psychological contract violation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Perceived psychological contract violation in simple terms?

Why does Perceived psychological contract violation matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Perceived psychological contract violation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Perceived psychological contract violation.