The Relationship between Psychological Ownership and Deviant Behavior of Physical Education Teachers

This study examined the relationship between psychological ownership dimensions and deviant behavior of physical education teachers in Bojnourd city. This study was applied in terms of aim and descriptive - correlation in terms of data collection. The statistical population consisted of male and female physical education teachers in Bojnourd city (N=160) and 113 teachers were randomly selected. Psychological Ownership Questionnaire (Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004) and Deviant Behavior Questionnaire (Robinson and Bennett, 2000) were used to collect data. Their reliabilities were determined using the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as 0.89 and 0.88 respectively. Collected data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis (P≥0.01). Results revealed a negative significant relationship between psychological ownership and its dimensions and deviant behavior. Correlation coefficients between organization-based psychological ownership and job-based psychological ownership with deviant behavior were -0.46 and -0.36 respectively. Also, correlation coefficient between psychological ownership and deviant behavior was -0.43. In addition, stepwise regression analysis showed that organization-based psychological ownership was a good predictor of deviant behavior and explained 21% of changes of this variable. Based on these findings, it could be expected that an improvement in psychological ownership leads to a decrease in deviant behaviors.