Bullying & Harassment of Adults

A Resource for Employees, Organisations & Others

Jacqueline Mansell

• Publisher: FCM Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780995629677
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Bullying and harassment is not only a problem for those immediately affected by the experience but also for wider society. Bullying and harassment has a negative impact upon individuals but also has consequences for the economy, productivity, moral and wellbeing. Acquiescence to bullying and harassment sets the bar for all citizens, from the young to the old.

Bullying and Harassment of Adults is not a legal handbook or a procedural guide but is a book about behaviour and its consequences. Published as an easy to use format this book is divided into distinct sections which eases you through key areas relating to the bullying and harassment of adults:

• Understanding human behaviour
• Seeing the bigger picture. The relationship between prejudice and discrimination with harassment and bullying. Creating awareness that bullying and harassment are on a continuum of behaviours
• Recognising how harassment and bullying is manifested
• Making sense of being bullied and harassed
• Overcoming the experience of bullying and harassment

The handbook is useful for:

• Individuals who have experienced or are going through the experience of bullying and harassment, to help increase insight about what was/is happening
• Those who are providing support to someone who is being bullied or harassed in order to increase understanding of what the individual is going through
• Organisations and others to recognise the moral issues and wider implications of bullying and harassment and its insidious nature in eroding a culture of respect

Part One. Understanding
Human Behaviour

We are a sum
of multiple identities

The facts and figures surrounding incidence of bullying, harassment and discrimination often reduce individuals to a single identity but adults are a complex sum of many identities related for example to:

• Position/role in the family
• Position/role in the community
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Occupation
• Employment status
• Hobbies
• Interests
• Cultural values, standards and traditions
• Gender
• Marital status
• Religion
• Beliefs
• Values
• Abilities
• Tastes and preferences
• Able bodied / differently abled
• Origin and background
• Ancestry
• Heritage
• The desire for personal change

If you permutated any of the list shown above with the addition of your own unique characteristics and identities, it can be seen that that none of us is limited by the boundaries and labels of a single identity.

The mantle of identities that combine to envelop and create adults is probably immeasurable. We are a collection of multiple identities.

A general overview of the
factors that influence
behaviour

Behaviour is controlled and moderated due to a combination of many factors:

• Our human biology
• Mental state/capacity
• Our social world/experiences
• Motivating and restraining influences
• Group behaviours and the ‘evidence of the crowd’
• Our own sense and strength of moral agency (personal control in regulating and managing our own behaviour in a way that is ethical, right and humane)

• Our Human Biology. Some relevant aspects of the biological dimension
  • The effects of chemical stimulants for example, alcohol or non-prescribed drugs
  • The ‘Selfish Gene’ (survival of the fittest & competitiveness)
  • Hormonal changes & imbalances (For example, levels of Testosterone in both men and women)

• Our Mental State/Capacity. Some relevant aspects related to the mental component:
  • Level & types of intelligence – may not understand the consequences of actions
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Empathy - may lack the mental capacity to see how things are for other people
  • Ability to contextualise, comprehend and rationalise

• Some examples of social/experiential factors:
  • Upbringing/learned behaviour.
  • Social class
  • Race
  • Religion
  • Sexuality
  • Marital status
  • Generational aspect and where an individual is on the timeline in relation to others.
  • Travel
  • Life experiences. For example, may have experienced conflict and war
  • Culture. For example, as a consequence of nationality, region, community, neighbourhood
  • Experience, type and level of education
  • Experience of work. For example
    Position at work
    Level of autonomy
  • Travel
  • Life experiences. For example, may have experienced conflict and war

Factors that have a
motivating effect upon
behaviour

These are some factors related to those conditions that have a general motivating role:

• The timing of events
• The circumstances or situation in which events take place
• Beliefs:
  • Beliefs are those opinions and convictions held to be true or real even without proof.
  • People hold beliefs about the world and about themselves. For example, politics and religion
• Habits:
  • Are largely formed as a result of past experience
  • Become routine behaviour over time
  • Are often carried out without conscious awareness, to the point that people are sometimes unaware that they have formed a habit or find it difficult to break the habit
• Learned behaviour:
  • This is behaviour where we have the insight to apply something learned to new situations.
  • Learned behaviour may also provide us with a reward. For example: Our behaviour provides pleasure or satisfies a need.
  • The reward may also be the removal of negative circumstances such as mitigating against loneliness, fear of ‘losing face’ or fear of ‘being on the outside’ and not being part of a group (which, for example, is why people subject themselves to initiation ceremonies)
  • Conversely, learned behaviour can help in avoiding ‘punishment’. For example: a fear of failure may prevent action or a fear of the consequences (punishment/pain). (The avoidance of punishment can be observed when people are driving, it is why traffic cameras slow us down).
• Factors related to satisfying biological and intrinsic needs (as identified by the psychologist Abraham Maslow who wrote A Theory of Human Motivation) This is behaviour in response to the environment and to meet our human needs. For example, to:
  • Satisfy our basic needs such as keeping a roof over our head or having food to eat
  • Protect ourselves from threats, physical attack and danger
  • Maintain our sense of belonging. We may desire or seek out affection, friendship or love or have the need to feel a sense of connection to others by being part of a group. (In doing this we may ensure that we ‘don’t rock the boat’, ‘go along with the crowd’ or try to avoid ridicule or negative attention)
  • Gain the esteem of other people (In doing this some people might ‘put others down’ manipulate others or misuse power)
  • Achieve our highest potential
  • Meet the needs that go beyond our own self-interest which includes achieving truth and justice (described by Maslow as ‘Meta Needs’)

• The ‘Evidence of the Crowd’
  People may be motivated by ‘The Evidence of the Crowd’ which means that behaviour and ideas are shaped and moderated by the behaviours of oth...

Table of contents

• Introduction Resilience: A Choice for Everyday Living
• About To the Point
• Part One. Understanding Human Behaviour We are a sum of multiple identities
• Part Two. Seeing a bigger picture Prejudice and Stereotyping
• Part Three. Recognising Harassment & Bullying Definitions and differences
• Part Four. Understanding those who bully and harass and their wider impact Those who are disposed to bullying and harassment
• Part Five. Making sense of being bullied and harassed Those who are vulnerable to bullying and harassment
• Part Six. Overcoming the experience of being bullied and harassed Taking action Reclaiming your power
• About the Author