Mobbing Experience Research Articles

Relationship between Organizational Mobbing and Silence Behavior among Teachers

This study mainly aims to investigate the correlation between teachers’ exposure to mobbing in their workplaces and their display of the act of silence. This study is based on a survey design where data from 312 teachers were collected and analyzed using correlation and regression analyses. Specifically, “The Structure and Dimensions of Workplace Violence Scale (SDWVS)” was used to measure the teachers’ exposure to mobbing, and the “Workers Silence Behavior Scale (WSBS)” was used to determine the workers’ level of silence. The findings of the research show that teachers are exposed to Mobbing Against Communication (MAC) and display the Silence Based on Self- Production and Fear (SBSF) behavior the most. There were significant correlations between all sub-dimensions of the mobbing scale and those of the silence scale. There is a significant, positive relationship between the behaviors of mobbing and silence. Teachers’ silence behaviors may change depending on the type of mobbing. According to the study results, it is worth noting that “ mobbing experiences can predict silence behavior.

The Public: Its Concept and New Effects in the Internet and Multimedia Societies

This paper begins with an overview of the origins and development of ancient direct participatory “democracy” and a related concept of the “public.” Through the Roman “res publica” and the “homo publicus” and much later the Magna Carta and the English tradition of participatory rights, as well as the French “division of powers” and the French Revolution and Kant’s “public usage of reason,” a rather modern concept of the “public” in representative modern democracies developed in the Enlightenment and materialized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In social and political philosophy there was a noticeable impact of “the public” and “public life” in debates, formal constitutions and their philosophical and pragmatic foundations. Dewey’s lectures on “The Public and its Problems” already emphasized the impact and the growth of communication technologies for “the public,” publicity, political and social life. Habermas diagnosed a “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” from a pragmatic social philosophical point of view, although he did not really take up Dewey’s diagnoses and predictions of the role of media and communication technologies. The same is true for Gerhardt’s study The Public: The Political Form of Consciousness (2012). With the pervasive impact of digital communication and media technologies there has occurred another structural transformation of the public sphere and the concept of the public. Instant global multimedia communication certainly has largely positive effects, fostering social as well as individal freedom and even revolutionary changes. But there are also the widespread experiences of individual and group mobbing, “shitstorms,” cyber-crimes, electronic spying and data-mining, etc. The structure (the concept and reality) of the public has lately been and is currently rapidly changing again—due to the electronic information revolution.

Risk of psychiatric and neurological diseases in patients with workplace mobbing experience in Germany: a retrospective database analysis.

Introduction: The number of mobbing experiences recorded has increased during recent years and it has now been established as global phenomenon among the working population. The goal of our study was to analyze the incidence of certain neurologic and psychiatric diseases as a consequence of mobbing as compared with a control group and to examine the possible influence of previous diseases that occurred within one year before the first mobbing documentation on the incidence of mobbing.Material & methods: We used a large database (IMS® Disease Analyzer, Germany) to collect data from general practitioners in Germany from 01/2003 until 12/2012. Based on age, gender, and health insurance, patients with experience of mobbing were matched with a control group of patients who had not reported workplace mobbing and who were being treated by the same physicians. At first, diseases that occurred within one year before the bullying experience took place (“index date”) were noted and compared to a control group of similar composition in terms of gender, age, and health insurance. Subsequently, the prevalence of depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, and sleep disorders following experiences of mobbing were determined. After adjustment to take into account the odds of bullying, the ratios of these diseases were assessed using a logistic regression model.Results: The study population consisted of n=2,625 patients and n=2,625 controls, of which 33% were men. The number of cases of bullying documented rose continuously from 2003 to 2011 and remained high in 2012. Those who would later become victims of mobbing demonstrated a considerably higher prevalence of diseases in general – these diseases were not confined to the neurologic-psychiatric spectrum. Following experiences of bullying, depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, and sleep disorders were significantly more prevalent than in the control group (for all, p<0.05). Similarly, odds ratios (OR) representing the risk of suffering from diseases were higher in affected patients, with the highest value (4.28) for depression and the lowest value for sleep disorders (OR=2.4).Conclusion: Those who will later become the victims of bullying are more prone to suffer from diseases in general, even before this experience of mobbing has occurred, which underlines the importance of supporting (chronically) ill patients to protect them against bullying. Sequelae of mobbing include, in particular, diseases from the neurologic-psychiatric spectrum.

Beyond Bullies and Victims: Using Case Story Analysis and Freirean Insight to Address Academic Mobbing

Khoo (2010) defines academic mobbing as “a non-violent, sophisticated, ‘ganging up’ behaviour adopted by academicians to ‘wear and tear’ a colleague down emotionally through unjustified accusation, humiliation, general harassment and emotional abuse” (p. 61). Academic mobbing involves the cultivation of norms that reinforce a sense of belonging that is explicitly connected with a concomitant consciousness – and validation – of “othering.” While the behaviors associated with academic mobbing must be identified and addressed, without focusing on the underlying cultural contexts, the problem will not be resolved. Case story analysis offers the potential to examine and ameliorate academic mobbing in ways that complicate the roles of participants and provide a safe means of investigating causal forces without essentializing (or revealing) identities. This article offers an explanation of case story analysis, particularly as it applies to academic mobbing. The analysis will be coupled with “on the ground” experiences of academic mobbing and conclude with the possibilities of using case story analysis as a means of reculturing, with the ultimate aim of creating workplaces that reflect principles of social justice.

PMH2 - Risk of Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases in Patients with Workspace Mobbing Experience in Germany: A Retrospective Database Analysis

PMH2 - Risk of Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases in Patients with Workspace Mobbing Experience in Germany: A Retrospective Database Analysis

Sind Mobbingbetroffene eine besondere Patientengruppe in der psychosomatischen Rehabilitation?

Between 50 and 90% of patients in psychosomatic rehabilitation are affected by occupational problems and misdirected stress. The patients often find themselves in a vicious circle in which occupational problems lead to the development of mental illnesses before a background of lacking compensation possibilities and positive resources. Besides, mobbing can be understood as a special form of occupational stress, whereas in former studies, no differences in the magnitude of mental strain were discovered in comparison with rehabilitants who were in a psychosomatic remedial treatment. Patients who are in psychosomatic remedial treatment and are norm-aberrantly limited in their occupational efficiency and patients who are affected by mobbing in the job show a higher psychosocial strain than other patients in treatment whose occupational efficiency is not limited. Do mobbing victims more frequently receive a recommendation that measures to strengthen their working life participation be considered? A total of 189 patients were handed out a questionnaire at the beginning of their remedial treatment comprised of questions regarding their mobbing experiences, the IRES-3, the SCL-27, the Fatigue-Scale, the Incongruity questionnaire and the VDS-scale. The sample was split up into a group whose occupational efficiency was limited, a group affected by mobbing, and a group who had no efficiency limitations. 72.6% were clearly limited in their occupational efficiency. 27.4% felt neither affected in their occupational efficiency nor due to mobbing. 21% of the sample as a whole were affected by mobbing. Patients limited in their occupational efficiency differed neither from patients whose efficiency was unlimited, nor from those who were affected by mobbing. On the other hand, mobbing victims differed in all symptom scales evaluated from patients who had no occupational efficiency limitations. Also the scales on personality styles were substantially increased compared to this group. With mobbing victims it was recommended more often that the possibilities for working life participation measures should be checked. Patients in psychosomatic rehabilitation are strongly affected by occupational limitations and have a huge need for counselling and support. Therapy concepts should pick up the occupational problems at hand in a differentiated manner, with job-oriented linked-up rehabilitation being recommended. The increased mental strain of mobbing victims must always be borne in mind.

Measuring mobbing experiences of academic nurses: Development of a mobbing scale

The aims of this study were to develop a mobbing scale for academic nurses and to determine their mobbing experiences. Data were collected between January and June 2006 with a 60-item mobbing scale and a questionnaire composed of 6 questions concerning demographics and 10 questions regarding nurses' opinions about mobbing. For the Mobbing Scale for Academic Nurses, the content validity index was 88%, item-to-total correlations ranged from .41 to .73, Cronbach alpha was .97, and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .72. Barlett's test yielded quite significant results (chi2= 7905.47, p = .000). The scale was composed of eight subscales. One fifth of the academic nurses experienced mobbing, and there was evidence of mobbing at university nursing schools. The mobbing scale for academic nurses can be used to collect reliable and accurate data about mobbing experienced by academic nurses. If there is mobbing in nursing faculties and schools, appropriate precautions should be taken to protect people against mobbing, and a safe and comfortable atmosphere must be created in nursing faculties and schools.

Acquisition of Predator Information By Active and Passive Mobbers in Ring-Billed Gull Colonies

AbstractMobbing flocks of ring-billed gulls consisted to two groups: individuals whose nests were near to and threatened by the predator (active mobbers) and others from more distant parts of the colony (passive mobbers). This study examined whether either group can learn about the predator from their mobbing experience. The active mobbers quickly habituated to a human intruder near their nests when the intruder was inactive and empty-handed. Conversely, the gulls responded with a greater flock size and flight distance and fewer swoops when the intruder was holding an adult gull. These response patterns persisted even after the adult gull was removed and the human intruder reappeared alone. When the human intruder held a chick, the gulls approached more closely and swooped more than when the intruder held an adult gull. To examine whether passive mobbers learned anything about the human intruder during the earlier tests, the intruder (now empty-handed) moved to a new location 50 m away and repeated the test. The gulls at these sites, also were significantly less wary than naive gulls of the human intruder following tests in which the intruder was empty-handed, and more wary following tests in which the intruder held an adult gull. Because the earlier test sites were situated so that they could not be seen from the ground at the 50 m sites, a gull at the latter sites could only have learned details about the intruder if it or some of its neighbors had become mobbers. Gulls whose nests were 100 m from an owl model or human intruder learned less about it than gulls at 50 m: perhaps because fewer gulls became passive mobbers as the distance between them and the owl or intruder increased. Costs of becoming a passive mobber include an energetic and time cost and some risk of personal injury due to mid-air collisions with other gulls. The number of passive mobbers increased on breezy days perhaps because strong updrafts on those days reduced the energetic costs of flight within the colonies (and hence of being a mobber). These results support the hypothesis that the gulls' predator-attraction behavior allows them to learn about predators from watching predator-conspecific interactions. The opportunity to witness such interactions and learn about predators may be an important secondary benefit of coloniality for these birds.