Workplace bullying can corrode organisations and wreck individual lives. Research has revealed more and more about effects on victims and the motives of the perpetrators. But bullying is often a performance that demands an audience: you can’t ostracise someone from an empty room, or gossip about them to the wind. So it’s worth looking at the third ingredient in the bullying mix: the bystander. New research in the Journal of Social Psychology takes on this task, looking at the factors that dispose a bystander against bullying victims, and what might encourage them to step in and help.
旁观者。在《社会心理学杂志》上的新研究承担了这项任务,这项研究着眼于处理针对欺凌受害者的旁观者,以及什么可能会鼓励他们介入其中并施于帮助。
工作场所的欺凌会侵蚀组织结构并毁坏个人生活。研究揭示了越来越多的对受害者的影响以及肇事者的动机。但欺凌通常是一个要求观众参与的演出:你不能从一间空房中排斥某人,或对着空气说长道短。所以值得看一看在欺凌组合中的第三个要素:Researchers from the Netherlands-based Open University recruited 161 working adults and presented each with a hypothetical workplace vignette, in which the victim was interrupted, belittled, excluded and gossiped about by a bullying colleague. In one condition, the victim was proactive, daring the bully to criticise them to their face or demanding they cease their behaviour. In another, the victim avoided the situation, by skipping out when the bully entered a room, or by taking sick leave to avoid work entirely.
来自荷兰的研究人员招募了161名有工的成年人,并且向每个人呈现了一个假设的工作情景,在这个情景之中,受害者被欺凌同事干扰、轻视、排和八卦。在一个场景中,受害者是积极大胆的当面斥责他们并要求他们停止他们的行为。在另一个情景中,受害者回避了这个情景,当恶霸进入一个房间时受害者溜之大吉,或以病假来完完全全地避免工作。
The participants were cast as bystanders to these contrasting situations, and Roelie Mulder’s team predicted that they would have a more negative view of the avoidant victims. Stigma research shows that people are less sympathetic to the suffering of others when they perceive they haven’t taken opportunities to improve their situation. Consistent with this, participants said they would feel more anger towards an avoidant victim, and considered them to hold much more responsibility for their predicament. Proactive victims were additionally seen as more self-reliant. So it might appear that proactivity is a good move if you want to get bystanders on-side and willing to help you out.