Mobbing - The moral harassment at work or social places

Despite the youth of the term, more and more researchers are studying it and are concerned with defining and limiting it. It seems more than justified to start with a brief description that Heinz Leymann makes at the beginning of his book “the persecution au travail”, since thanks and around him almost all the studies on mobbing have revolved up to now:

“Everything begins with a complaint with a partner, a hierarchical superior or a subordinate. Sometimes, even all part of an unspoken disagreement. Unpleasant words, hurtful allusions … Very quickly the victim is isolated. Everyone ignores their presence, they do not address it. They make him feel that he has no place in that group, that he is no longer welcome. Prejudices arise, develop and soon everyone agrees: the victim bothers; if we mistreat her, it is for her own good, so we attack her more and more … so much so that finally the arbitration of the personnel service or the company delegate is required. Most of the time what they pursue is to get rid of the person who causes and gives problems. So, we get rid of it … “

It was in 1984 when he described the phenomenon. He understands mobbing “the chaining of hostile behavior systematically directed by one or several individuals towards a third party (the victim), which, because the harassment implies an asymmetry of power (of any kind), is pushed into abandonment and dominated by the activities of the mobbing The actions occur at least once a week and in a minimum period of six months. Due to the high frequency and long duration of hostile behavior, the result is a considerable mental, psychosomatic and social misery “(we understand the workplace as a context). While everything begins with a conflict, Leymann continues, the difference between it and moral harassment does not lie in what is done or how it is done, but in the frequency and duration of what is done, as well as in the existing asymmetry. between the two parties. Other authors do not coincide with it in part of its definition (frequency and duration delimitation), although we will take the Swedish one as valid.

Another contribution to highlight is that of Hirigoyen, who emphasizes that the intentional nature of the trauma aggravates its impact.

The most important characteristics that we have to take into account to delimit a phenomenon of mobbing are the following:

• Duration and frequency of acts against victims.
• Consequences or reaction of the victim, including his perceived power in relation to the harasser.
• Type of moral harassment (which I will describe extensively later).
• The intention of the harasser. The objective is not the working conditions of the victim, but to destabilize him in all aspects, as a human being

What is not moral harassment, that is, mobbing

Harassment behaviors do not occur exclusively for reasons directly related to the performance of work or your organization, but have their origin in interpersonal relationships that are established in any company between different individuals.

Moral harassment and stress

It may be company policy to demand from the worker an extraordinary effort that will lead to stress; but it can not be considered moral harassment. Although moral harassment does generate great stress in the person, but it is due to personal relationships and not to the demands of work.

Moral harassment and tyranny of the chiefs

There may be mistreatment of the management or certain bosses towards the employees, but while the procedures of moral harassment are hidden, the violence of these tyrants is in plain view of all and practically all workers receive the same treatment.

False allegations of moral harassment:

• • Paranoia: the risk of false allegation of moral harassment comes, first of all, from the paranoid, who find in it a credible support to their sense of persecution. Unlike the true victim, the person with paranoid traits will not try to make the situation evolve into an agreement, but will seek to maintain the victim-stalker he has chosen for as long as possible. Another important difference is the general tone of your complaint; the real victims doubt, they ask about their own reactions and they look for solutions to reestablish their dignity. Paranoids do not doubt, affirm and accuse.

• • The reversal of perversity: the false allegations of moral harassment are also the specialty of individuals who try so, in an underhand manner, to disqualify someone, in turn attracting the sympathy of the group and leading them to mourn for their fate.

Causes of mobbing

• Organizational

• • Scapegoat syndrome: when problems begin to exist and the integrity of the group is jeopardized, the search for a guilty (innocent) to be able to accuse, safeguards the union of the members
  • Business strategy with the objective of “getting rid” of a member; after the harassment the subject usually decides to leave the organization voluntarily; in this way they will not have to compensate

• Stalker Personnel

• • Desire for power
  • Fear that the victim will displace or achieve objectives that he is not willing to achieve.
  • Jealousy, envy of any aspect of the life of the harassed

Types of moral harassment

Upward Harassment:

A person who holds a higher hierarchical rank in the organization is attacked by one or more of his subordinates. It usually occurs when a person from abroad, with a higher rank, joins the company, and their methods are not accepted by the workers under their direction, or because that position was coveted by some of them.

Horizontal harassment

 Here, a worker is harassed by a partner with the same hierarchical level, who does not have an officially superior position, but who is psychological or situational.

Descending harassment

situation in which the person holding power emits contemptuous behavior, false accusations and even insults (all behaviors that can occur in a phenomenon of moral harassment will be described below) to stand out against their subordinates, to maintain a hierarchical position or it is simply a business strategy.

Here is an example of moral and mental harrasment of a male at Transform Gym Palsikar fitness center.

Phases of moral harassment at work: phases of mobbing

By constituting a problem that takes place over a period of time, it is possible to distinguish different stages in its evolution. Most authors describe the Leymann study as the main model; So, next I will show the evolution proposed by the Swedish:

In this phase the victim can not believe what is happening to him, and can even deny the evidence of passivity, denial or avoidance (or, why not, active collaboration) of the phenomenon by the rest of the group to which he belongs .

1. Conflict phase: in any organization, the existence of conflicts is something to be expected, either for reasons of work organization (in a company there are people and groups whose objectives and interests are frequently faced), or because of interpersonal problems (behaviors, attitudes, forms of relationship, lifestyles … of the workers can be of various kinds, there being the possibility that frictions may originate); some may become chronic, and although we are not talking about mobbing itself, it is the breeding ground that anticipates the second phase.
2. Mobbing or stigmatization phase: here we are talking about mobbing itself. The harasser implements a series of behaviors in a systematic way and for a long time, with the aim of stigmatizing the victim. Note that these behaviors, seen in isolation, do not have to pose a threat, and are even common; what makes them, in fact, a powerful instrument of harassment are, without doubt, their frequency and duration (and the function they fulfill).
3. Intervention phase from the company: sooner or later, the employer (represented by a member of the hierarchy, the personnel service or by a company delegate), must intervene.

After having long suffered harassment, the victim is much weaker and his mental balance may seem (or is in fact) altered. Instead of looking for causes in mobbing, employers (like most people) often commit what in Social Psychology is called “fundamental attribution error”, which is to ignore the context in which the person is and To deduce that the cause of his discomfort is due to a stable feature of his personality (paranoia, conflictive character, catastrophic interpretation of trivial facts …), in order to put a label that makes him responsible for events.

4. Incorrect diagnosis: it is likely that, if the victim seeks the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist, there is a risk that these professionals underestimate the weight of the situation itself, due to their poor training with respect to psychosocial problems in the workplace. In addition, they tend (as was the case with entrepreneurs in the third phase) to rely on an alteration of the victim’s personality or coping patterns, which means that the harassed person feels even more responsible for what happens, and ends up assuming definitely that she is the problem.
5. Exclusion: in this period the worker makes long periods of leave compatible, or is definitively excluded from the labor world. The methods used are:
   • Distance the victim and reduce their influence: isolate him or her definitively in the company or in the Public Administration, if this is the case.
   • Successive transfers: continually changing position.
   • Labor withdrawal
   • Dismissals with compensation, or disability: two ways to end the employment relationship, and thus solve the “problem”.

Characteristic behaviors in mobbing

Mobbing is a complex process that involves, in most cases, a series of behaviors that we have to know, but not before insisting that, in isolation, most of them would not cease to be a common fact of everyday life. each. Therefore, the behaviors that I describe below turn into moral harassment due to their frequency, continuity and the functionality that they hide, but they are not harassment in themselves, the margin of the aforementioned variables. Next, I define the main defining behaviors of moral harassment:

A. To deprive the victim of any possibility of expression. It is about altering the usual communication procedures. The aggressor controls the rules and channels of the same, interpreting this in his own way any expression of the person subject to harassment, and turning it against him:

• The hierarchical superior prevents the victim from expressing himself.
• The victim is constantly interrupted.
• The partners prevent him from expressing himself.
• The comrades shout at him and attack with violent words.
• Criticize the victim’s work.
• Criticize your private life
• Terrorize the victim with phone calls.
• Threatening him verbally
• Threaten him in writing.
• Reject contact with her (avoid eye contact, rejection gestures …).
• Ignore their presence, for example, by addressing exclusively to third parties.

B. Isolate the victim from their environment:

• Do not talk to him
• Do not let her speak to you.
• Give him a job that isolates him from his colleagues.
• Prohibit colleagues from speaking to you.
• Denying the victim’s physical presence.

C. Activities aimed at discrediting the victim or preventing him from maintaining his social or work reputation:

• Attack or slander him
• Throw or spread rumors about her.
• Mock her, ridicule her.
• Pretend she is a mental illness.
• Try to force him to pass a psychiatric exam.
• Mock any defect you have.
• Imitate how he goes, his voice, gestures … to ridicule him.
• Attack your political ideas or religious beliefs.
• Laugh at your private life
• Mock your origins, nationality.
• Forcing him to do humiliating work.
• Judge the victim’s work unfairly and with the intention of hurting him.
• Question him, reject his decisions.
• Injure him in obscene, degrading terms.
• Sexual harassment through gestures or propositions.

D. Activities aimed at reducing the victim’s occupation and employability, through professional discrediting:

• Do not entrust him with any task.
• Deprive him of any occupation and ensure that he does not find one for himself.
• Forcing him to perform useless and / or absurd tasks.
• Charge him with tasks far inferior to his competences.
• Give new tasks incessantly.
• Make him do humiliating jobs.
• Entrust him tasks that require a qualification superior to his competences, to discredit him.

E. Activities that compromise the physical and psychological health of the victim:

• Forcing him to do dangerous or harmful work for his health.
• Threatening him physically, as a warning.
• Aggress physically but without seriousness.
• Voluntarily incurring expenses with the intention of harming you.
• Cause damage to your home or workplace.
• Sexually assault the victim.

Profile of the harasser

Although there are no characteristics common to all profiles, when the causes of harassment are more personal than business, some of the following conditions usually occur:

• People who do not tolerate in others a way of doing things different from what they consider appropriate. The superior with different points of view does not accept what is wrong for him, responding accordingly.
• People unable to tolerate the stress to which they are subjected, with which they exert the same pressure they feel on others. As they humiliate them, they humiliate too; this way you can blame the system and not take any responsibility.
• People who use the sensation of power as an anxiolytic and to counteract or justify their social isolation.
• Narcissistic personality disorder
• Paranoid personality disorder

Profile of the victim

The first thing that I have to emphasize here, is that anyone can be a victim of moral harassment. No one is safe, as the complex combination of factors that occur show us that simply the variables of a work environment can encourage us to point fingers.

In spite of everything, several studies show that there are certain people who, due to their personal characteristics, are more vulnerable, which makes it easier for the circumstances to manifest against them. From the current investigations we deduce that the features that presented a high number of victims are the following:

• Authenticity: people who pursue self-realization and self-knowledge, even at the expense of their own comfort
• Innocence: employees who have a relative inability to perceive in depth the intentions of others.
• Efficiency and success: bright, effective and hardworking people
• Differentiation: workers of race, sex, appearance, ideology, appearance … different from the group in general.
• Employees who denounce fraudulent or illegal maneuvers in the workplace.

Consequences of mobbing

Before discussing consequences, we must mention that there are certain variables that can aggravate or mitigate the impact; among them we highlight:

• Social support (better prognosis if there is a solid social support)
• Degree of perceived control (perception of one’s coping skills in front of the situation, self-efficacy).
• Degree of predictability of attacks; the greater the unpredictability, the greater the impact of the aggression.

The most common consequences after an episode of mobbing are the following:

Personal consequences:

• • Short term:

• • • Emotional: anxiety, sadness
    • Cognitive: deficit in attention, concentration and memory
    • Physiological: somatization
    • Behavioral: isolation, aggressiveness, loss of reinforcers

• • In the medium term:

• • • Depressive picture: learned helplessness
    • Post-traumatic stress disorder

• • Long-term:

• • • Changes in personality: behavior / habit / personality: generalization to other vital areas

Consequences in the labor context

• • Bad weather and work environment
  • Affectation of quality and quantity of work
  • Interference in information and communication circuits
  • Descent of creativity and innovation
  • Loss of motivation
  • Disregard for customer satisfaction
  • Increased absenteeism and sick leave
  • Significant increase in visits to the medical service
  • Higher chance of accidents
    • by neglect
    • by negligence

Family consequences

• Upset in family relationships
• Aggressiveness and irritability
• Loss of enthusiasm and interest in common projects
• Abandonment or displacement of responsibilities and family commitments
• Medical and psychological treatments among members of the family system
• Affectation of affectivity and sexual desire
• Marital separation
• Economic instability (possible loss of employment, reduction of pay in periods of IT, disbursement of psychological therapy, attorney’s fees …)

Social and community consequences

• Loss of workforce and active population
• Increase in economic spending dedicated to sick leave and / or retirements and disabilities
• Increase in the economic budget and the stress of health resources
• Increase in the general population of the negative attributions of the effects of work.

Also refer: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/workplace-bullying-violence-harassment-and-bullying-fact-sheet