Bullying in the workplace

Workplace bullying remains a subject of great interest to researchers and practitioners, given how common it is and how heavily it weighs on workers’ well-being and on organizational effectiveness. According to the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey by Eurofound, in 2021 12.5% of workers in the European Union experienced some form of adverse social behavior at work.

This phenomenon, which includes verbal criticism or direct personal attacks meant to deliberately humiliate or belittle others, leads individuals to question their sense of self and their own worth in an environment they perceive as threatening. Workplace bullying causes psychological and physical distress, damaging both the mental and the physical health of the people involved, and it also has a negative effect on employees’ family lives. A meta-analysis of 66 independent samples, covering more than 77,000 workers (Nielsen and Einarsen, 2012), confirms the association between exposure to bullying and health problems; longitudinal studies point to a link with later mental health problems. These effects then show up as low efficiency and poorer quality of work, with considerable costs to the organization in financial terms and in terms of growth.

Specific studies have mainly used a social psychology approach to analyze the impact of bullying on its victims, highlighting in particular the role of anxiety. Anxiety is defined as the formation of complex emotional responses, such as inner unease and physical discomfort, which can impair an individual’s task performance and explain the negative consequences of workplace bullying.

A study conducted in Malaysia (Chan and colleagues, BMC Public Health, 2019) brought out a counterintuitive finding: workers with higher incomes reported higher levels of bullying than those with lower incomes. This suggests that workplace bullying is not exclusively a matter of low socioeconomic status. Indeed, the regression analysis showed significant associations between being bullied and being female, having a high individual income, and showing signs of stress.

Preventing rather than managing

Another study, a systematic review of 68 studies (Farley and colleagues, Work & Stress, 2023), found that more than half of the moderation tests were non-significant, underscoring the priority of primary interventions aimed at preventing bullying from arising rather than managing it reactively. The research indicates that a psychosocial safety climate within an organization attenuates the impact of bullying but, above all, can prevent it. Establishing a psychosocial safety climate, through clear anti-bullying policies, job roles designed to minimize conflict and ambiguity, and effective conflict resolution procedures, can prevent bullying from occurring and mitigate its harmful effects.

Organizational and social factors as effective moderators

Unlike personal factors, social and organizational factors emerge as more consistent moderators of the effects of bullying. This suggests that secondary interventions aimed at increasing an individual’s capacity to cope with bullying will be less effective than those that act at the level of the organizational unit or of the whole organization. Support from coworkers also proves to be a significant protective factor, which highlights the importance of fostering positive interpersonal relationships, even in the era of virtual work.

Individual factors

A 2019 study, designed to explore the interaction between work environment factors and individual dispositions in the context of workplace bullying, sheds new light on how specific personality traits may influence the relationship between role conflict and exposure to bullying behaviors (Reknes, Einarsen, Gjerstad, and Nielsen, Frontiers in Psychology, 2019).

Workplace bullying, defined as systematic exposure to unwanted behaviors from one or more coworkers, emerges as a process that escalates gradually, pushing the victim into an inferior position with little chance of defending themselves. The problem can have many origins, but two main hypotheses have historically been considered: the “individual-dispositions hypothesis,” which emphasizes personal characteristics as precursors of bullying, and the “work-environment hypothesis,” which holds that the work context and its stressors have the potential to generate bullying. The meta-analysis of workplace harassment by Bowling and Beehr (2006) had already indicated that both environmental factors and individual differences potentially contribute to it.

Recent interest has focused on examining these factors together, investigating how individual dispositions may moderate the effect of stressors on exposure to bullying. In particular, this study examined the moderating effect of dispositional affect, such as anxiety, anger, and positive and negative affect, on the relationship between role conflict and bullying.

The results suggest that the link between role conflict and bullying is particularly strong for those with high levels of anger, anxiety, and a negative disposition. This finding underlines the importance of considering not only environmental aspects but also individual dispositions in understanding and addressing workplace bullying. Individuals with these traits may perceive role conflict as more threatening, potentially aggravating the dynamics of bullying through negative reactions that others may interpret as provocative.

Understanding how personal characteristics interact with work stressors to influence exposure to bullying opens the way to more effective interventions.

Role conflict and workplace bullying

Role conflict occurs when there are contradictory or incompatible expectations about the functions of a job role, generating stress and frustration in workers. Role conflict makes aggressive and bullying behaviors more likely.

Contrary to expectations, positive affect did not attenuate the impact of role conflict on exposure to bullying, which suggests that, whatever their affective disposition, all employees are at risk of being bullied when role conflict is present.

In practical terms, these results highlight the importance of managerial interventions aimed at reducing role conflict, for example through conflict management training and the establishment of effective communication channels. They also underscore the need to recognize individual differences in how people handle role conflict and in their vulnerability to bullying, and to promote an inclusive and supportive work environment.

It is essential to stress the importance of preventive approaches and targeted interventions that take into account both organizational dynamics and individual characteristics, in order to create safer and more respectful workplaces. A thorough understanding of these factors is crucial to developing effective strategies against workplace bullying, and so to contributing to employees’ well-being and to organizational productivity.