Workplace Bullying Institute

The Workplace Bullying Institute
2007 U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey

6. Tactics of Bullies

6a.) Bullies can be cruelly innovative. They often vary their tactics hour to hour, day to day. So, survey respondents were asked to choose any or all families of tactics from the list provided.

Question: Please describe the forms of mistreatment (Choose all that apply).

Responses:
Verbal abuse (shouting, swearing, name calling, malicious sarcasm, threats to safety, etc.), (53.3) 53%
Behaviors/actions (public or private that were threatening, intimidating, humiliating, hostile, offensive, inappropriately cruel conduct, etc.) (52.5) 53%
Abuse of authority (underserved evaluations, denial of advancement, stealing credit, tarnished reputation, arbitrary instructions, unsafe assignments, etc.) (46.9) 47%
Interference with work performance (sabotage, undermining, ensuring failure, etc.) (45.4) 45%
Destruction of workplace relationships (among co-workers, bosses, or customers) (30.2) 30%
Other (5.4) 5%
Not sure, 0.5%

Other responses: (Number in parentheses denotes frequency of similar response.) Sexual harassment, inappropriate contact/conduct/favors (39); Slander, lying, misrepresentation, false accusation (20); Physical assault, battery, fighting (12); Reduced income, denying benefits (11); Fired, terminated employment without cause (10); Invasion of privacy, email abuse, identity theft (6); All of the above (6); Threaten job loss (5); Passive-aggressive, perform no work, incompetent (5); Religious prejudice/discrimination (4); Racial prejudice/discrimination (4); Age prejudice/discrimination (4); Gender prejudice/discrimination (3); Disregarded product inspection criteria (2); Union (2); Disability discrimination (2); Theft, took lunch money (2); Property damage, arson (2)
One each: Alcohol created unsafe work environment; Headhunting; Illegal drugs planted in target's vehicle; Subverted OSHA regulations

Slight gender differences surfaced. Men targets were more likely than women targets to experience verbal abuse (60.1% vs. 48.1%); women targets were sabotaged more frequently (47.1% vs. 43.1%). Women bullies more frequently than men engaged in sabotage (53.7% vs. 39.9%) and abuse of authority (50.2% vs. 44.7%); men bullies were more frequently verbally abusive than women bullies (57.5% vs. 47.1%).

6b.) Why does bullying happen? The preferred explanations focus on personality, the bully's and the target's. It's the American culture firmly rooted in individualism and myopia about invisible factors that have little to do with the players in the bullying drama. The overall result is:
56% because of the bully's personality, 20% because of the target, only 14% because of the system, the work environment run by the employer

Question: Why was the target mistreated? Primarily because of ... ?

Responses:
Some aspect of the TARGET'S personality, (12.8) 13%
The TARGET'S unacceptable level of performance, 7%

Some aspect of the HARASSER'S personality, (56.3) 56%

The tolerance for, or admiration of, aggression in that particular workplace, (8.6) 9%
Orders or suggestions from senior managers or executives or owners, (5.7) 6%
Not sure, (9.7) 10%

Systemic causes of bullying include whether or not hyperaggression is rewarded by promotions or forbidden. Survey respondents, however, only credited these types of factors with 14% responsibility.

The 20% responsibility attributed to the target is lower than the bully's responsibility (56%). There is still a tendency, however, to blame the victim somewhat for her or his fate, much like what was historically done for victims of domestic violence. The 20% could also reflect a societal desire to define bullying as a form of conflict with shared responsibility by the two parties. But with incidents of psychological violence such as bullying, we do not make that assumption. Society realizes that perpetrators determine who is targeted, when, and by what method, and for how long. Control is unilaterally vested in the aggressor. And so it is with bullying.

There were gender differences in the attribution of responsibility for bullying. Survey respondents held men more than women bullied targets more responsible for their fate (24.4% vs. 16.1%). When the bully was a woman, her negative personality was given more weight as a causal factor than when the bully was a man (62.4% vs. 52.1%). Also the blame was shifted to systemic factors (see above) that were assigned more responsibility when the bully was a man than when the bully was a woman (16.9% vs. 10.3%).