Mobbing

Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace by Noa Davenport, Ruth D. Schwartz and Gail Pursell Elliott, Civil Society Publishing, 2005. 

Workplace Bullying

Mobbing is a workplace group behavior where the victim is emotionally abused until they decide to quit their job. It is also called workplace bullying. A sign that an employee is being mobbed: the employee’s job performance evaluations suddenly plummet. Mobbing differs from the situation of a bad boss, in that the attackers are a group, not an individual. The term bullying usually refers to students who are picked on in schools, while mobbing usually happens at the workplace. Mobbing differs from workplace discrimination in that the victim is not chosen for their gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The victim therefore cannot make a legal case based on anti-discrimination law.

Sweden, the United Kingdom and Canada

Mobbing was originally identified in the 1970s by a physician named Peter-Paul Heinemann who studied Swedish children. It was studied in the workplace in the 1980s by Heinz Leymann. The phenomenon is better known in Scandinavia and Europe than in the United States. In the United Kingdom mobbing  was publicized by a reporter named Andrea Adams. In Canada, mobbing in academia has been investigated by a sociologist named Kenneth Westhues.

Targets of Mobbers

Who is targeted: trusting people, politically naive people, people who are different, people who ask too many questions, and, of course, whistleblowers. 

Motivations of Mobbers

Motivations of mobbers: envy of high-achievers, feeling inadequate around someone who is more competent, insecurity with respect to having ones authority challenged. 

Abusive Behaviors of Mobbing: 

• Curtailing the target’s job responsibilities

• Keeping the target out of the loop

• Excluding the target from decision making

• Coworkers stop talking to the target person

• No eye contact with the target person

• Physical isolation of the target person

• Refusing to give help to the target person

• Portraying the target as being the person at fault (scapegoating).

• Spreading rumors about the target person

• Insulting and humiliation the target person

• Attacking the target’s personal life

• Ridiculing a handicap of the target person

• Asking the target to undergo a psychiatric evaluation

Consequences of Being Mobbed

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),

• hyper-vigilance,

• learned helplessness,

• panic attacks,

• insomnia, 

• suicide attempts,

• cynicism about other people. 

What to do when mobbed: 

• Keep a record (date, time, place, person, act). 

• Ask for directives in writing. 

• Focus your efforts outside the job. 

• Stress relieving activities. 

• Be careful not to take it out on your family.