Counterproductive Work Behavior Test: Where Do You Cross the Line?
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Never
- Rarely
- Sometimes
- Often
- Very often
- Never
- Rarely
- Sometimes
- Often
- Very often
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Not sure
- Agree
- Strongly agree
Counterproductive Work Behavior Test: Where Do You Cross the Line? - Description and methodology of the test
Most people picture a saboteur when they hear about bad behavior at work, yet the everyday version is quieter: a lunch that runs long, a sharp reply, a colleague left off an email. This counterproductive work behavior test looks at those small acts and the reasons behind them. Researchers call the wider pattern workplace deviance, and almost everyone shows a little of it.
What the test measures
Psychologist Paul Spector and colleagues sort counterproductive behavior by its target, and the results here are split the same way. The first scale covers acts aimed at the organization: stretched breaks, sick days taken while well, looking busy for the boss and treating supplies or equipment as your own. Researchers often file the minutes lost this way under time theft. The second scale covers acts aimed at people: gossip, curt or sarcastic replies, leaving someone out and letting a colleague's work pass as yours. Together they form your headline score from 0 to 100. A third scale stands apart and looks at thinking rather than doing. Albert Bandura described moral disengagement as the set of stories that let decent people act against their own standards, such as everyone does it or the company can afford it.
How it works and how to read your result
You rate statements about your own behavior over recent months, from Never to Very often, and statements about common excuses, from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. A few items are worded the other way round, so answering on autopilot does not shape the outcome. There are no trick questions and no right answers, only a more or less honest picture. Your result shows:
- your counterproductive behavior score from 0 to 100, marked low, moderate or high;
- which side weighs more for you, the company or the people around you;
- how strong your excuses are and whether they run ahead of your actions;
- the specific habits behind the numbers, from cyberloafing to borrowed credit.
The most telling part is often the gap between scales. A low behavior score with strong excuses suggests a brake that is already loose, while the reverse usually signals frustration with the job itself rather than with ethics.
- Robinson, S. L., & Bennett, R. J. (1995). A typology of deviant workplace behaviors: A multidimensional scaling study. Academy of Management Journal, 38(2), 555-572.
- Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (1996). Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), 364-374.
- Bennett, R. J., & Robinson, S. L. (2000). Development of a measure of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3), 349-360.
- Lim, V. K. G. (2002). The IT way of loafing on the job: Cyberloafing, neutralizing and organizational justice. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(5), 675-694.
- Spector, P. E., Fox, S., Penney, L. M., Bruursema, K., Goh, A., & Kessler, S. (2006). The dimensionality of counterproductivity: Are all counterproductive behaviors created equal? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68(3), 446-460.
- Moore, C., Detert, J. R., Treviño, L. K., Baker, V. L., & Mayer, D. M. (2012). Why employees do bad things: Moral disengagement and unethical organizational behavior. Personnel Psychology, 65(1), 1-48.
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