Is Workplace Bullying a Genuine Phenomenon?
Inappropriate behavior can be detrimental (even extremely detrimental) without being rightly described as “bullying.”
by Elizabeth Englander
Jun 03, 2021
4 minutes
The term bullying is now used so broadly that the phenomenon may seem pervasive well beyond adolescence. In Ben Smith’s recent New York Times exposé of WNYC, the subhead notes, “In public radio, there’s either an epidemic of bullying or an epidemic of whining, depending on whom you ask.” Left unasked was a key question: Is workplace bullying, writ large, a genuine phenomenon? The term, traditionally applied to the schoolyard, doesn’t always fit the adult world.
Whenever powerful people wage a campaign of misery against someone with less agency, it can be harmful. Victims of bullying are typically less productive, less happy, and less likely to be
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