The phenomenon of incivility and workplace bullying across industries worldwide is pervasive and harms individuals and the organization. It is well researched that the impact on targets of incivility and bullying behaviour is damaging, is often severe, and results in negative consequences for the targets and the organization. Furthermore, within the context of the dark triad, workplace bullies engage in varying levels of psychopathy to the detriment of the target. This chapter is designed to provide readers with a breadth and depth of knowledge related to the prevalence of the bullying phenomenon, predictors of bullying behaviour, psychopathology of the bully, and the psychological impact on targets.
Workplace bullying is a severe, violent, and pervasive issue present across the industry worldwide. Typically defined as interpersonal mistreatment that is more severe than incivility, it is a complex, deliberate, and maladaptive group of harmful actions towards individuals and creates oppressive work environments. Bullying can range from derogatory comments towards a target to social isolation and physical violence. Individuals typically evolve into the perpetrator role due to low self-esteem, dark personality traits, and anger management difficulties. Harassment and abusive incivility by managers and supervisors directed towards employees are associated with severe adverse and long-term outcomes, including psychological trauma, mental health disorders, and in extreme cases, suicide. The prevalence of workplace bullying ranges between 10-20% in multiple domains and cultures. When considering the economic, psychological, and health costs of incivility in the workplace, the epidemic of workplace bullying requires comprehensive prevention, intervention, and postvention strategies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.