The aim of this paper is to examine the workplace mistreatment andto analyze factors that affect the degree of discrepancy between actual and 'ideal' (i.e.desired) responses. Two-hundred and seventeen employees at a Amsham pvt ltd reported their actual and ideal responses to mistreatment.The most common responses involved passive and social support-seeking strategies.Respondents generally wished they could have been more assertive. The size of thediscrepancy between actual and ideal responses

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... mistreatment was predicted bythe perceived severity of the behavior, the coping strategy chosen and a differencein organizational status and gender between the perpetrator and the target ofmistreatment. While our findings show that status differences were associated witha larger discrepancy regardless of the direction of the status differences, our resultsindicate that the mechanisms behind the discrepancy differed. Despite being a relativelyhigh status population, employees at a prestigious university responded more passively to mistreatment than desired, primarily due to situational constraints. Because the reasons for this discrepancy were often structural (i.e. based on organizational or social status structures), this research highlights the need for organizations to address mistreatment proactively, even in the absence of formal complaints.