Hostile Behaviors in the Workplace: Consequences and Reactions of the Victims

Abstract

Mobbing can be defined as a degenerative process, characterized by systematic hostile behaviors acted out for a significant period of time in the workplace, by one or more workers against one or more colleagues, resulting in marginalization or expulsion of victims from their own workplace. The literature on the theme of oppression and mobbing in the working environment, and on the causes that can produce conditions of psychological terrorism in the place of employment can be related to three areas of research. The first, arising from studies of bullying (Brodsky, 1976; Olweus, 1978; Hirigoyen, 2000), maintains that the process of mobbing can be explained by the personality traits of those involved. Being an aggressor rather than a victim would constitute a relatively stable feature of personality. Since longitudinal studies don’t exist on the factors of personality, the dispositional model is shown to be ineffective at explaining whether personality profiles were indeed antecedent to mobbing. The second area of research focuses on the influence of the dynamics of the group in the working contexts (Einarsen, Raknes & Matthiesen, 1994; Leymann, 1996; Vartia, 1996; Zapf, 1999; Einarsen, 2000). The victim of mobbing, in this view, would not be destined to such a role on the base of his/her intrinsic characteristics, but certain social, spontaneous and physiological dynamics would exist in the life of the group, leading to the victim becoming an object of oppression and persecution, according to the scapegoat theory. The scapegoat represents one of the roles that naturally emerges in social groups; it acts as clarifier of the norms of the group and as a catalyst for negative feelings and the explicit aggressiveness shown by the members of the group (Spaltro, 1985). The figure of the scapegoat must therefore, in the abstract, possess different behavioral characteristics from those approved by the group that elicits the oppressive behaviors. The third area of research on the causes of oppressive behaviors, which is of particular interest in recent years, comes back to the principal determinants of the factors of mobbing type situations. Various authors (Einarsen et al., 1994; Leymann, 1996; Zapf, Knorz & Kulla, 1996; Trentini, 2006) have drawn attention to the fact that, in work environments where behaviors are verified as oppressive, elevated levels of conflict of role are also found, dissatisfaction with the organizational climate, scant support from the superior (or a style of authoritarian leadership), and the perception among the workers that they have little opportunity of controlling their own activities. Zapf et al. (1996) has investigated in depth some aspects of the present social climate at work. Mobbing, if carried to an extreme, is a process that has devastating consequences both on the individual who is the victim of it, and on the organizational context in which it originates and develops. The consequences of these hostile behaviors relate to three main diagnostic principles: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Generalized Anxiety Syndrome, and Adaptation Syndrome (Brodsky, 1976; Cassano, Cioni, Perugi & Poli, 1994; Leymann, 1996, 2003; Mikkelsen & Einarsen, 2001; Menelao, Della Porta & Rindonone, 2001; Liefooghe & Mackenzie Davey, 2001; De Risio, 2002). We believe it is important to investigate the relationship between hostile behaviors in the place of employment, their consequences on workers and their relationship with the strategies proposed to deal with them. We also believe it is of particular importance to investigate the relationship between hostile behaviors and their consequences on workers especially in the present circumstances, characterized by boundaryless and protean careers, which imply less support from trade unions and an increase in the risk of health and well-being problems for workers.