Bullying Happens Everywhere and To All Kinds of People

The online sample for the US Hostile Workplace Survey 2000 was completed by individuals from a variety of employers:

- 35% corporate employers
- 33% government (vs. 12% of the national workforce)
- 13% small or family-run businesses
- 19% non-profit organizations

The data about education refute a popular notion held by critics that Targets are somehow uneducated or unskilled, so that status somehow "justifies"mistreatment. In reality, 63% of Targets had a college degree or some college, 17% had graduate degrees and 4% were PhDs, MDs or lawyers. Couple these demographic data with the second most frequent reason given for being targeted for bullying ‚ the bully envied the technical competence of the Target ‚ and the myth of the low caliber Target is shattered.

The significant positive correlation between education level and traumatization (described in detail in the Health section) may at first seem counterintuitive (r = .149, p=.007). But in cases where education leads to greater skill or greater ethicality or greater passion and commitment to work, it can actually make the person more vulnerable to abuse.

For only 1% of Targets, the bully committed a single act of misconduct. That is, for 99% of the respondents, bullying is a repeated series of incidents. For the majority (62%), bullying was also ongoing when they completed the questionnaire.

Average exposure to bullying for everyone was16.5 months. Men report a significantly longer average exposure (18.38 months) than women (15.74 months) (t = 2.26, p=.02). This could be explained by women more willing to take action and seek help sooner. It could be that men are more tolerant of the accompanying shame and more frozen into inaction by it or generally less willing to seek help for the embarassing dilemma.

The majority of Targets reported no history of being bullied before at work (67%). Neither had they been previously traumatized (62% had not), either at work or in another way. However, they were not the only ones targeted at work for harassment by the same bully. 77% of the bullies harassed others at work. This rate rises to 88% for Targets who work in government.

Targets for whom the bullying had stopped (the 38% subgroup of the entire sample), explained what made it stop:

- 11% transferred but kept their jobs with the same employer
- 38% left voluntarily for self-preservation
- 44% were expelled in a way controlled by the employer

That means 82% actually lost their jobs simply because a bully came into their lives.

Why Me

The bully's motivation was explored in a simple question -- "what caused the bullying?" The top five reasons (with accompanying percentages reported on the checklist provided in the survey) were:

1. Target refused to be subservient, resisted control (58%)
2. Bully envied Target's competence in the work to be done (56%)
3. Bully envied Target's social skills, being liked, positive attitude (49%)
4. Ethical Target behavior, whistleblower was retaliated against (46%)
5. The cruel personality of the bully (42%)

Read some comments about the rationale for being bullied as written by Targets themselves.

Bullying ("Status-Blind Harassment") vs. Illegal Discrimination

In the majority of cases (62%), neither the bully nor Target enjoyed "protected class status." The status could be based on gender, race, ethnic origin, religion, age, or disability. This meant that the mistreatment endured by the Target was not legally actionable with respect to a hostile work environment since illegal discriminatory conduct could not be claimed.

The bully was a protected class member in 15% of situations. Anecdotal evidence from telephone coaching suggests that these are the bullies who control their employer by using threats of anti-discriminatory litigation to protect themselves from investigations or termination.

Only 8% of Targets had protected class status when the bully did not. These individuals could complain about civil rights violations and pursue litigation and have to be taken seriously (to essentially "play their Title VII card"). An additional 15% of Targets share protected class status with their attacker. For them, there is no legal remedy based on race or gender. Depending on how these two frequencies are considered, it can be said that bullying is 12 or 4 times more prevalent than illegal discrimination, which garners all the legal and corporate attention.

We prefer the more conservative claim that bullying is 4 times more prevalent. This statistic matches the frequency reported in the University of Illinois at Chicago study by Richman et al. (1999, Amer. J. of Public Health) that contrasted sexual harassment with "generalized workplace abuse."

Note: Bullying is also more complex than simple discrimination. For instance, when an employee files an informal or formal EEO complaint, the retaliation that certainly follows cannot be so clearly identified as discriminatory. Retaliation is driven by the rage felt by the bully whose secretive misconduct was made public. It is simple cruelty at this point, not based on gender, race or age. The sequence of mistreatment-reporting-retaliation is found in most cases of bullying. They are nearly inseparable. Care must be taken to identify the onset of the hostility to better understand the causal relationships involved. Unfortunately, nearly all complaint systems focus solely on the most recent act as if the misconduct is not part of a prolonged campaign of hostility over time.

Seeking Help and Healing

Remarkably, despite the emotional devastation experienced by many Targets (56% had been diagnosed with a psychological injury) (see Health section for details), few (37%) visited a private mental health professional outside the employers' employee assistance program.

Another myth is that employees are "sue crazy" or "frivolously" litigious. However, only 37% of Targets ever consulted an attorney. Fewer still (19%) actually filed a legal complaint. There seems to be little truth to the critic's complaint that harassed employees are "tortifying the workplace."

Targets were asked what factors helped the healing process, to enable them to continue their lives as they had enjoyed prior to the bully's invasion into their worklife. The top six factors (with percentages) were as follows:

1. self-determination, personal resolve, emotional strength (63%)
2. love from family (60%)
3. personal faith (50%)
4. friends away from work (49%)
5. deciding to fight back (47%)
6. separation from the perpetrator (46%)

In the aftermath of bullying, experienced by 38% of the Target respondents, 21% reported a worklife completely free of bullying, while 18% were less troubled by the now infrequent experience of bullying. The 61% who said they were still plagued by bullying in answer to the question about freedom from bullying corresponds to the 62% who said that their bullying was still ongoing in the question that asked what made it stop.

© 2000, Gary Namie. Use without permission prohibited.