Cargando…

How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers

INTRODUCTION: Queues are inherent to service encounters, as it is not always possible to provide service to all clients at the exact moment they request service. Queues involve waiting for a service in a specific place that might also be crowded, they obstruct the client's’ goal of receiving se...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Efrat-Treister, Dorit, Cheshin, Arik, Harari, Dana, Rafaeli, Anat, Agasi, Shira, Moriah, Hadar, Admi, Hanna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6590795/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31233514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218184
_version_ 1783429628390539264
author Efrat-Treister, Dorit
Cheshin, Arik
Harari, Dana
Rafaeli, Anat
Agasi, Shira
Moriah, Hadar
Admi, Hanna
author_facet Efrat-Treister, Dorit
Cheshin, Arik
Harari, Dana
Rafaeli, Anat
Agasi, Shira
Moriah, Hadar
Admi, Hanna
author_sort Efrat-Treister, Dorit
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Queues are inherent to service encounters, as it is not always possible to provide service to all clients at the exact moment they request service. Queues involve waiting for a service in a specific place that might also be crowded, they obstruct the client's’ goal of receiving service, and at times lead clients to mistreat service providers and in extreme cases even attack them violently. We show, in a hospital setting, that perceived predicted future wait and load can buffer the causes of violence towards service staff. METHODS: We combine objective data on crowdedness, reports of violence, and durations of time people waited, with psychological measures of perceived load and perceived future wait, collected from 226 people in the Emergency Department (ED) of a large hospital. Visitors to the ED were recruited as they waited for service. They indicated their perceived load in the ED and their perceived remaining wait for service. This data was then triangulated with objective operational data regarding the actual number of people waiting for service (i.e., crowdedness) and objective data regarding staff calls to security to stop violent accounts. RESULTS: We find that with increased crowdedness, there are more calls to security reporting violence. However, this relationship is moderated by two factors: when people perceive the future wait to be short and when they perceive the load on the system to be high. Moreover, a three-way interaction shows that crowdedness is associated with more incidents of violence, however high perceived load and low perceived future wait are associated with fewer violent incidents. CONCLUSIONS: This paper demonstrates the relationship between crowded queues and violence towards service staff, and suggests two psychological mechanisms for buffering such violence: reducing perceived future wait and elevating perceived load.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6590795
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-65907952019-07-05 How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers Efrat-Treister, Dorit Cheshin, Arik Harari, Dana Rafaeli, Anat Agasi, Shira Moriah, Hadar Admi, Hanna PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Queues are inherent to service encounters, as it is not always possible to provide service to all clients at the exact moment they request service. Queues involve waiting for a service in a specific place that might also be crowded, they obstruct the client's’ goal of receiving service, and at times lead clients to mistreat service providers and in extreme cases even attack them violently. We show, in a hospital setting, that perceived predicted future wait and load can buffer the causes of violence towards service staff. METHODS: We combine objective data on crowdedness, reports of violence, and durations of time people waited, with psychological measures of perceived load and perceived future wait, collected from 226 people in the Emergency Department (ED) of a large hospital. Visitors to the ED were recruited as they waited for service. They indicated their perceived load in the ED and their perceived remaining wait for service. This data was then triangulated with objective operational data regarding the actual number of people waiting for service (i.e., crowdedness) and objective data regarding staff calls to security to stop violent accounts. RESULTS: We find that with increased crowdedness, there are more calls to security reporting violence. However, this relationship is moderated by two factors: when people perceive the future wait to be short and when they perceive the load on the system to be high. Moreover, a three-way interaction shows that crowdedness is associated with more incidents of violence, however high perceived load and low perceived future wait are associated with fewer violent incidents. CONCLUSIONS: This paper demonstrates the relationship between crowded queues and violence towards service staff, and suggests two psychological mechanisms for buffering such violence: reducing perceived future wait and elevating perceived load. Public Library of Science 2019-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6590795/ /pubmed/31233514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218184 Text en © 2019 Efrat-Treister et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Efrat-Treister, Dorit
Cheshin, Arik
Harari, Dana
Rafaeli, Anat
Agasi, Shira
Moriah, Hadar
Admi, Hanna
How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title_full How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title_fullStr How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title_full_unstemmed How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title_short How psychology might alleviate violence in queues: Perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
title_sort how psychology might alleviate violence in queues: perceived future wait and perceived load moderate violence against service providers
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6590795/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31233514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218184
work_keys_str_mv AT efrattreisterdorit howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT cheshinarik howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT hararidana howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT rafaelianat howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT agasishira howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT moriahhadar howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders
AT admihanna howpsychologymightalleviateviolenceinqueuesperceivedfuturewaitandperceivedloadmoderateviolenceagainstserviceproviders