Designing Behavioural Instruments for Emerging Constructs: Framing and Validating a Questionnaire to Measure Toxic Amnesia in Organizational Contexts

Organizational research has increasingly documented the presence of toxic leadership, workplace mistreatment, and employee silence. However, limited attention has been given to the psychological processes through which individuals gradually normalize such experiences and continue functioning within harmful systems. This study introduces and operationalizes the concept of toxic amnesia, defined as a behavioural tendency in which individuals cognitively minimize, emotionally suppress, and rationalize harmful organizational experiences over time. The primary objective of this research is to design and validate a behavioural instrument capable of measuring toxic amnesia within organizational contexts.

Adopting a sequential mixed-method approach, the study combined qualitative and quantitative procedures to develop the measurement scale. Initial questionnaire items were generated through an extensive review of literature on toxic leadership, organizational silence, and psychological adaptation to authority, complemented by insights from workplace narratives and exploratory interviews. An initial pool of items was then evaluated by eight subject-matter experts to establish content validity and conceptual alignment. Based on expert feedback and content validity assessment, the instrument was refined and subsequently pilot tested with 70 working professionals from multiple sectors, including corporate organizations, academia, the public sector, and non-governmental organizations.

Exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing were conducted to examine the underlying structure and internal consistency of the instrument. The results indicate a stable multi-dimensional construct comprising four behavioural dimensions: cognitive minimization, emotional suppression, authority rationalization, and normalization conditioning. The scale demonstrated satisfactory reliability and conceptual coherence, supporting its suitability for measuring behavioural patterns associated with toxic amnesia.

By providing the first structured instrument to assess toxic amnesia, this study contributes to the literature on toxic leadership, organizational silence, and authority obedience. The proposed scale offers researchers and practitioners a tool for identifying behavioural mechanisms that may unintentionally sustain unhealthy organizational systems. The findings also open avenues for further empirical investigation into how psychological adaptation to toxic environments influences ethical decision-making and workplace accountability