Bullying More Harmful Than Sexual Harassment
Workplace bullying is more damaging to employees than sexual harassment, according to a recently released report.
Employees subjected to putdowns, persistent criticism, and unnatural remarks suffer graver consequences than victims of workplace sexual harassment, especially as work settings become more attuned to helping sex harassment victims, said Sandy Hershovis, PhD, the report’s lead author.
His findings were presented the Seventh International Conference on Work, Stress and Health in Washington, D.C., which was co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association.
"I think the assumption going in would for sure have been that sexual harassment was going to have worse outcomes than workplace aggression just because of the moral taint associated with sexual harassment," said Hershovis, according to the Canadian Press.
Both bullying and sexual harassment produce harmful work settings, but workplace aggression has more harmful consequences, noted Hershovis and the study’s co-author Julian Barling, PhD.Employees who suffer bullying, for example, were more likely to leave their jobs. They were also less satisfied with their jobs and had more fractious relationships with their superiors than victims of sexual harassment, the study pointed out. Additionally, victims of aggression reported more stress and heightened levels of anger.
Hershovis and Barling looked at 110 studies performed over 21 years to compare bullying and sexual harassment. Of the 128 samples they used, 46 subjects had experienced sexual harassment, 86 had experienced workplace aggression, and six people had endured both. Bullying is also more subtle, the authors noted, while sexual harassment has been the recent target of more scrutiny and legislation. ''It's illegal, so they can sue the company,” Hershovis told the Canadian Press. “They can report, they can try to grieve it if they have a union. There are a number of ways that they can try to respond to this negative behavior, whereas workplace aggression really doesn't have that available.''
