April 9th, 2009
Bullying’s Fundamental Question
We are a blame-the-victim nation. Part of this is human nature. Cognitive psychology teaches us that when faced with two conflicting internal beliefs when bullying strikes a friend — “I like my co-worker friend” and “Bad things happen only to bad people” — there is a tendency to want to reduce the conflict, the dissonance, by changing one of those beliefs.
The result is that we individuals are more likely to abandon the bond we feel for our friends in order to support the internalized twisted worldview that if tragedy visits someone then that person must have deserved it. Sounds bizarre, right? But this distortion, called the fundamental attribution error, is our tendency to overestimate the role individuals play in their fate.
Under the artificial cover of “toughness” or “responsibility,” we humans rationalize remarkable cruelty perpetrated senselessly against others. Though domestic violence is now criminalized, it is still rampant because of the insipid belief that if a spouse gets battered, the batterer must have rationally acted on the basis of something the battered one made him do. Poppycock!
When we learn that Americans now torture others in violation of all international and moral laws and against our traditions, too many of us justify the torture because we believe that innocents would not be tortured if it was not necessary. This blame-the-victim trend is becoming all too American!
Similarly when we witness a peer being bullied in the workplace, it arouses such negative emotions in us, that too often we make ourselves feel better by ostracizing the victim and ending our historical relationship with him or her. We turn our backs on our fellow human beings out of the selfish desire to not feel empathy for them when we see their pain. Empathy causes us to feel the pain ourselves. The deliberate distancing from others probably explains a growing alienation that drives epidemic levels of depression and social dysfunction in our society.
As a society, we discount or diminish workplace bullying and psychological violence with hollow, dehumanized phrases like “managerial prerogative must be ensured” “don’t interfere with the ability of businesses to be competitive” or “this country was built by mean, aggressive sons of bitches … some people may need a little appropriate bullying in order to do a good job … they are really just wimps.”
For the first decade of the U.S. movement against workplace bullying, we have applied rationality to the irrational process of destructive interpersonal bullying. We appealed to businesses with bottom-line fiscal impact. Bullies are too expensive to keep. Employers did not care. If they are in business ostensibly to make a profit or to sustain quality government services, they should care. However, our experiences on-site with employers as consultants as well as the empirical data we gathered in a series of surveys expose employer indifference to workplace bullying. Without a specific law posing a litigation threat, employers blithely carry on as if bullying never happens, even denying it when it is reported to them.
As for “personal responsibility,” there is a double standard. Victims are responsible, but the bullies-perpetrators never take responsibility. Their explanations are always some form of the target “made me do it.” Weak employers allow the bullying to happen with impunity, without accountability, as if helpless to stop the abuser on their payroll.
According to the 2007 WBI-Zogby poll, in 44% of cases of reported bullying, employers did nothing. (In an additional 18% of cases, they worsened the situation by turning on the victim-complainant.) Rationally, employers can afford to do this because 80% of bullying is legal.
Dr. Gary Namie, WBI
Read part 2: Bullying is Morally Wrong
Tags: morality
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Bullying Tutorials, Social Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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[...] Part 1: The Fundamental Question var addthis_pub = ‘workplacebullyinginstitute’; var addthis_brand = ‘WBI’;var addthis_language = [...]
Of course bullying is morally wrong. Now I’m having a hard time to resist leaving my workplace as I’ve been bullied from new graduates telling me “that’s enough for you” “its our work”, also they make fun of me and laught at me all the time
Was I bullied or did I deserve this form of discipline. My boss complained about my coworkers to me on errors they made, their low performances, and about coworkers she was forced to promote, etc. Being new to my position I was nervous this would happen to me and so I shared this with one person that I thought was my confidante. This person reported me to the boss. Alienation was orchestrated by my supervisor throughout the organization toward me. People would stop and stare at me, ignore me when I greeted them, put me on the spot to answer complicated questions, was assigned to give a presentation to a group of Chief Business Officers (normally not assigned for my position). Asked boss, supervisor and union steward if there was a complaint or something going on that I should know about. Only one told me a coworker was throwing me under the bus. The other two denied anything was going on. When I was at work, I didn’t feel confident and just wanted a retreat from people. I endured this for 4 months until I felt I was crashing emotionally and took a medical leave for two weeks. Upon return it was as if a light switch was turned back on and all those who ostracized me were greeting me as if they had never done any of the above. Seeing my supervisor’s relationship with these people helped me realized she was behind all of it. I was so distraught it has affected my home life with my husband. Although he tried to be supportive, he thought I was imagining all of it. This is the first time employment required a membership in a union. I didn’t complain to HR or the union because I couldn’t get any details from anyone and since the union wasn’t helping me, I didn’t trust going to HR. I would think the union would be my first line of defense, but when that failed and no one could give me answers, I didn’t know who to trust.
We have a standard of operation all employees are supposed to follow that prevents people from cussing, gossiping etc. It seems this applies to only certain people but not to all. It appears administrators are excluded. A one year probation is required for all new employees. I don’t know why they didn’t just terminate me. This organization boasts of a reputation for not firing or terminating employees. Were they trying to make me quit on my own? Is this a form of workplace bullying or did I deserve it. I have an eleven month evaluation coming up. I would be so grateful for a response.
It seems that your boss is obviously threatened by you, and that is not your fault, but their’s.
I mean no disrespect, but, once one is “targeted” by a bully, the writing is on the wall, so to speak.
Once a bully has you in their sights, they will use everything in their arsenal of twisted logic to get rid of you, either by you quitting or by them making sure your position is terminated, by whatever means.
Performance reviews are an arbitrary method of control for maintaining the status quo, nothing more. It is the way in which they can exert power over subordinates, and keep them in their place.
They do not care about your physical or mental health, they are only concerened with removing the perceived threat that you represent.
Do not go to HR, it only makes things worse and adds fuel to the fire, and they probably already informally aware of you from your boss, as a problem.
I went through a very similar experience for four painful years, and the effects of that experience still haunt me three years after I left that dysfunctional environment.
As far as I am concerned, I decided that by playing their game, I would be playing into their hands, and be sucked into their negative vacuum, which is counterproductive to sane human relationships. So, I resigned, and for me resignation was the only option, albiet an expensive one.
Considering the alternatives, I decided that being the person I need to be and not selling out for their paycheck with abuse attached, was what I needed to do. It’s just not worth constantly being abused and suffering adverse emotional and psychological pain at my job, no one deserves to be abused.
If you have been able to document your claims, a court will be more favorable, and unfortunately for many target’s, trying to keep a diary of all of the little things bullies do, can be somewhat overwhelming and daunting, especially while you are being bullied. In hindsight, once I became aware of the real situation at my workplace, the first thing I would have done is get a good lawyer, instead like most target’s, we try to resolve the bully problem amicably, first mistake, bullies aren’t amicable.
The bully is in a protected class; a class with excessive power.
He is not restrained from punishing, firing, exploiting, excluding, misdirecting, assigning, mocking, intimidating, etc.
Perhaps the constitution needs some checks and balances to prevent abuse of excessive power.
Thank God you are here! I was the target of an unmerceless campaign by two employees–one a manager–for 8 years until these employees left this employer. Upon reading material on your website, I see that they used every tactic you have identified.I was vindicated, but only after the bully left the company and it was discovered that the bully committed several (other)violations of company regulations. During that whole time my VP chose to turn a blind eye to all of it. I feel like I barely survived that and have been on anti-depressants for years as a result of these verbal, emotional and character assaults on me. Now, I realize that another similar campaign is underway by someone who is a friend of the original bully. In both cases part of these bullies campaign are trying to claim racism. I cannot and willnot go through all of this again. Thank you for providing a resource, information and tools for targets. In most cases there is no one else to stand up for you, but yourself. We, the targets, are the ones who have to expose the truth, vindicate ourselves and stop the bullying.
Yep, been there, suffered that! You might want to check into your state’s law about recording your bully…. that is what I’ve done (Iowa) and according to the law in Iowa, you can record someone (even on the phone, believe it or not) AS LONG AS you are PART of the conversation (so, yes, you’ll have to say something…. maybe something like, “has anyone ever told you you’re a real a(@%)@#le?
My bully is a high school principal who probably suffers from a Napolean complex (not real tall) and is the perfect example of a real condition called “narcissitic personality”….look it up..maybe your boss is the same!! Bottom line: they cannot be helped because they are a hopeless cause….all they care about is their “image” and I think it must be a real ego booster to “pick on” someone to make themselves feel “almighty”. Well, I’m taking my bully to court, by God, and let’s see how he fairs there!! Tape recordings are the way to go- if it is legal in your state- they are as valuable as a video….maybe even more valuable since you can probe the bully actually SAID the things you KNOW s/he said!!!