Work Bully Victims Struggle with Dangerous Stress

Work Bully Victims Struggle with Dangerous Stress
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
January 12, 2012
If you spend your workday avoiding an abusive
boss, tiptoeing around co-workers who talk
behind your back, or eating lunch alone because
you've been ostracized from your cubicle mates,
you may be the victim of workplace bullying.
New research suggests that you're not alone,
especially if you're struggling to cope.
Employees with abusive bosses often deal with
the situation in ways that inadvertently make
them feel worse, according to a new study
Bullying at work can cause serious stress.
CREDIT: NotarYES, Shutterstock
published in the International Journal of Stress
Management. That's bad news, as research
suggests that workplace abuse is linked to stress
— and stress is linked to a laundry list of mental and physical ailments, including higher body
weight and heart disease.
In at least one extreme case, workplace bullying has even been linked to suicide, much as
schoolyard bullying has been linked to a rash of suicides among young people.
Bullying is "a form of abuse which carries tremendous health harm," said Gary Namie, a social
psychologist who directs the Workplace Bullying Institute. "That's how you distinguish it from
tough management or any of the other cutesy ways people use to diminish it."
Struggle to cope
Namie was not involved in the new study, which surveyed nearly 500 employees about how they
dealt with abusive supervision. Abusive supervisors are bosses who humiliate and insult their
employees, never let them forget their mistakes, break promises and isolate employees from
other co-workers, study author Dana Yagil of the University of Haifa in Israel told LiveScience.
About 13 to 14 percent of Americans work under an abusive supervisor, Yagil said. Her study on
Israeli workers found that abused employees tend to cope by avoiding their bosses, seeking
support from co-workers and trying to reassure themselves. As useful as those strategies might
sound, however, they actually made employees feel worse.
"It is understandable that employees wish to reduce the amount of their contact with an abusive
boss to the minimum, but the strategies they use actually further increase their stress instead of
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reducing it," Yagil said. "This may happen because these strategies are associated with a sense of
weakness and perpetuate the employee's fear of the supervisor."
Tragic consequences
Avoiding a workplace bully might seem easier than avoiding a school bully, given that
employees can quit their jobs. But workers get caught in a cycle of stress, Namie said. An online
survey of targeted workers by the WBI found that they put up with the abuse for an average of
22 months.
The stress of the bullying may itself lead to bad decision-making, Namie said. A 2009 study in
the journal Science found that stressed-out rats fail to adapt to changes in their environment. A
portion of the stressed rats' brains, the dorsomedial striatum, actually shrunk compared with that
region in relaxed rats. The findings suggest that stress may actually re-wire the brain, creating a
decision-making rut. The same may occur in bullied workers, Namie said.
"This is why a person can't make quality decisions," he said. "They can't even consider
alternatives. Just like a battered spouse, they don't even perceive alternatives to their situations
when they're stressed and depressed and under attack."
Sometimes this cycle ends with tragedy. Namie works as an expert legal witness on bullying. In
one upcoming case, he said, a woman put up with daily barrages of screaming abuse from her
boss for a year. By the end, she was working 18-hour days, trying to shield the employees under
her from her boss' tyranny, Namie said. Finally, she and several of her co-workers put together a
25-page complaint to human resources. Nothing happened, until she was called in for a meeting
with senior management. The woman knew she would be fired for making the complaint, Namie
said.
"Rather than allowing herself to be terminated, she bought a pistol, went to work, left three
suicide notes, and she took her own life at work," he said.
"She was like that rat stuck in a rut," he added. "She didn't see any alternative at that point."
Why bullying happens
While all workplace-bullying cases are not so extreme, it does seem to be a common problem,
said Sandy Herschcovis, a professor of business administration at the University of Manitoba
who studies workplace aggression. Between 70 and 80 percent of Americans report rudeness and
incivility at work, Herschcovis told LiveScience. Fewer are systematically bullied, she said, but
the best estimate puts the number at about 41 percent of American workers having been
psychologically harassed at work at some point.
Hierarchical organizations such as the military tend to have higher rates of bullying, Herschcovis
said, as do places where the environment is highly competitive.
"Definitely the organizational context contributes," Herschcovis said.
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The personality of the bully is often key, with some research suggesting that childhood bullies
become bullies as adults, she said. Targets of bullying are often socially anxious, have low selfesteem, or have personality traits such as narcissism, Herschcovis said. "We don't want to blame
the victim, but we recognize this more and more as a relationship" between the bully and the
target, she said.
Little research has been done on how to deal with abusive bosses or bullying co-workers. In mild
cases, where a boss may not realize how their behavior is coming across, direct confrontation
might work, Yagil said. One research-based program that seems to have potential is called the
Civility, Respect and Engagement at Work project, Herschcovis said. That program has been
shown to improve workplace civility, reduce cynicism and improve job satisfaction and trust
among employees, she said. The program has employees discuss rudeness and incivility in their
workplace and make plans to improve.
For workers experiencing bullying, Herschcovis recommended reporting specific behavior to
higher-ups, as well as examining one's own behavior. Sometimes victims inadvertently
contribute to the bullying relationship, she said. Namie cautioned that victims should proceed
with care, however, as there are no anti-bullying workplace laws on the books in the U.S.
"HR [human resources] has no power or clout to make senior management stop," Namie said.
"Without the laws, they're not mandated to make policies, and without the mandate, they don’t
know what to do."
Since 2003, 21 states have introduced some version of anti-bullying bills, but none have yet
passed. Twelve states have legislation pending in 2012, according to healthyworkplacebill.org.
In the meantime, Herschcovis and her colleagues have found that bystanders in the workplace
are usually sympathetic to the victim rather than the bully.
"Outside parties are most likely to want to intervene, and to be in a position to intervene,"
Herschcovis said. The trick, she added, will be to find ways to encourage co-workers to stand up
for one another.
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow
LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on
Facebook.
Source: http://www.livescience.com/17872-workplace-bullying-stress.html
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