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

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 crossvalidate 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 importance of measuring these two types of appraisal separately. Conclusions: This scale is a valid and reliable instrument to measure conflict appraisal in organizations.