According to Dr Jennifer Loh, a senior lecturer and organisational psychologist at Edith Cowan University, and one of the study’s authors, ‘You can look at bullying as the far end of incivility, on a spectrum. Bullying is very obvious. But what about more subtle forms of incivility – general gossip, people rolling their eyes at your suggestions, or making derogatory comments? These things are subtle, but have very nasty consequences. We wanted to look at that.’
After asking 317 individuals at various organisations what kinds of workplace incivility they had experienced, and how they reacted to it, Loh and her colleagues found that the victims’ gender had a role to play in how the situations played out. ‘One of the things that came out is that women were subjected to more workplace incivility,’ said Loh. ‘But interestingly, they not only put up with it, but worked harder in the face of it.’ On the other hand, if men were treated badly they tended to slack off.
The researchers came up with various explanations as to why this may occur. Loh surmised that women brought up to be more passive in the face of mistreatment, and to care more about what other people think, and so may decide to put their heads down and impress mean bosses. Another explanation put forward is that women are commonly lower down in a company’s hierarchy, and so may not be in a position of power to kick up a fuss over the incivility shown to them.
Loh said, ‘Women were far more likely to give people the benefit of the doubt. They might interpret incivility as just someone having a bad day.’ However, she noted that this doesn’t mean managers should bully their female employees to get better results. ‘It doesn’t work that way,’ she said. ‘If your organisation is perceived to be an uncivil one, where people are mistreated, that sets the culture. It becomes hostile. People there aren’t happy. It’s important to realise that if you treat people with disrespect, in the end, the company’s reputation will suffer, and those talented people will leave companies that don’t show them human courtesy. You can’t bully women into doing more work.’