Social Intelligence and the Explanation of Workplace Abuse

Abstract

Bullying in the workplace by management-level supervisors and executives has been well documented in the literature; however, bullying of employees by their associates is often less noticeable, even stealth, and has been understudied. This article presents a theoretical model that draws from the literature of clinical psychology and recent research in neuroscience to identify and describe the four different roles played in employee workplace colleague abuse. These roles include (1) the leader of the abuse, (2) the targeted employee, (3) members of the mob who bully the targeted employee under the direction of the abuse leader, and (4) participants in a whisper campaign. To understand the motivations of employees who intentionally cause an associate distress or illness, it is necessary to understand these distinct roles.

Introduction

Workplace abuse has been described as behaviors directed at an employee, with the intent to harm him or her. It negatively affects the person’s work and occurs regularly, over a period of time (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011). In those individuals targeted for abuse, cross-sectional studies report depression, difficulty sleeping, and symptoms of burnout (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012). In terms of consequences for employers, these behaviors have been associated with employee absenteeism, illness, legal and medical costs, early retirement, and general workplace instability (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010). Boddy, Miles, Sanyal, and Hartog (2015) find that employees in bullying situations tended to arrive late for work, leave early, and take longer breaks.

It seems obvious that bullying behavior in the workplace not only affects the mental and physical health of a targeted individual employee, but also threatens the stability and productivity of other employees, at a significant economic cost to the employer, in terms of workman’s compensation, lowered morale, and employee turnover (Aubé & Rousseau, 2014; Houschman, O’Reilly, Robinson, & Wolff, 2012; Mawritz et al., 2012). It is imperative to better understand how this kind of damage is inflicted in the workplace, to ameliorate it. This article proposes a theoretical model, drawn from recent research in neuroscience and from relevant discussions in clinical psychology, that identify the various members of a bullying mob and their motives for participation in workplace abuse.

Neuroscientists concerned with the nature of social intelligence, or what is referred to as empathic capacity, find that it is normally distributed in the general population (Baron-Cohen, 2011). The literature concerned with this research suggests that those who will engage in bullying or abusing a fellow employee are found at the extreme lower end of this distribution, while targeted employees are found at the higher end (Namie & Namie, 2009). When the discussions presented by clinical psychologists are reviewed, the various roles played by participants in workplace abuse become clear.

The following discussion presents an explanatory account that suggests that workplace bullying does not occur as a response to normal difficulties in social interactions, nor does it have to involve public displays of aggression and obvious bullying behaviors. The harm visited on a competent employee is the result of a zero-empathy organizer who directs stealth attacks, with an intention to increase the target’s stress, reduce their social status, and create the conditions for their possible exit from the workplace.

Social Intelligence

An explanation of the nature of coordinated employee abuse begins with a fundamental biological fact that explains how a person could find pleasure and satisfaction in causing distress and anguish to a workplace associate, to the extent that he or she becomes physically ill, resigns, or, in extreme cases, commits suicide (Nielsen, Nielsen, Notelaers, & Einarsen, 2015). Neuroscientists distinguish between (a) general intelligence, which consists of reasoning and memory, and (b) social intelligence, or empathic capacity, which gives us compassion and a conscience. These two forms of intelligence are supported in different areas of the brain (Lieberman, 2013). General intelligence is located on the lateral surface of the brain, while social intelligence is found on the medial or midline region. Given that the two intelligences are supported by distinct brain areas, it is possible, for example, that a person could be high in one form of intelligence and low in the other, or high or low in both.

Employees with high social intelligence, that is, highly empathic individuals, more easily understand what other people are thinking and their intentions, what neuroscientists refer to as mindreading or mentalizing. Some employees are better than others at understanding or interpreting the comments or intentions of those with whom they interact. They are also better at understanding the emotional states of others, a skill referred to as affect matching. Lieberman also includes empathic motivation, the impetus to assist another in distress or to recognize another’s success, as a third characteristic of highly empathic people.

An important point for the study of workplace abuse is that individuals at the extreme lower end of the distribution of social intelligence have no conscience and are incapable of experiencing shame or remorse. This means that there are no limits on their behavior, beyond that of self-protection. It should be recognized that the presence or absence of a conscience is an important division in the human population, one that is more important in understanding the differences in people we encounter than is general intelligence, race, or gender (Stout, 2005). This division is especially important in understanding workplace abuse. The idea of a lack of a conscience, or significantly below average social intelligence, is fundamental to understanding all forms of human cruelty (Baron-Cohen, 2011). Individuals in any corporation or social institution should not assume that their workplace is free of individuals with no conscience, those who have no limits on their behavior. On average, there is one zero-empathy individual in every group of 25 (Stout, 2005).

A benefit of this research is that the terminological issue of how to refer to these zero-empathy individuals is simplified, at least for purposes of understanding workplace abuse. Babiak and Hare (2006) conceptually distinguish psychopathy, sociopathy, and antisocial personality disorder (APD). They posit psychopathy as biologically based, but sociopathy as a learned condition. Stout considers sociopaths as having no conscience and, consequently, having no limits on their behavior, other than avoiding a context that would reduce their ability to do what they please and feel no responsibility or obligation to anyone except themselves. Boddy preferred the term psychopath (Boddy, 2005, 2011a, 2011b). There seems to be little agreement on the definitions of these terms in the literature.

For clinical diagnoses of individuals and their treatment, the various classifications of these disorders are important, but for an explanation of workplace abuse, the classification of zero-empathy allows us to understand the basic physiological nature of employees who attack other employees, with the intent to cause them serious harm. These individuals lack the biological underpinnings of what makes us social creatures (Lieberman, 2013). They are found most commonly in positions that give them unsupervised control over a small group of somewhat vulnerable individuals, where they can behave as they wish, without accountability (Stout, 2005) and (Babiak & Hare, 2006). Both Lieberman and Baron-Cohen report that zero-empathy individuals are characterized by schadenfreude, the German word for enjoying the pain or distress experienced by others.

As Stout (2005) observes, these individuals are unable to process emotional experience, except when this experience can be coldly intellectual. Although it is not possible to scan the brains of employees thought to be of zero empathy and who enjoy inflicting pain on others, the reality is that in principle these problem employees are identifiable, which means that these analyses are related to an objective reality, not simply opinions about someone’s behavior.

Leaders of Abuse

At the extreme lower end of the social intelligence distribution, we find individuals with zero social intelligence who are capable of extremely negative treatment of others. At the positive end of this distribution are those characterized by a hypersensitivity to the mental and emotional states of other people. When zero-empathy employees first enter the workplace, they sort other employees into four categories: (1) those who are competent and productive; (2) those who can be induced to take part in the abuse of a targeted employee; (3) those who are attracted to, and find enjoyment in gossip about coworkers; and (4) those who are irrelevant to their plans and methods. Individuals targeted for abuse are those who stand out as more respected, intelligent, popular, competent, or attractive (Stout, 2005). The presence of these employees in the workplace is offensive to zero-empathy employees, which leads them to seek what Stout refers to as existential vengeance. By hypothesis, employees targeted for abuse are those at the higher end of the social intelligence curve. Conscientious, and well-liked, they are generally concerned when someone else is in pain or distress. Within any group, these employees will have a slightly higher social status.

Anyone whose behavior is not limited by a conscience learns early in life that when individuals lose friends, for whatever reason, it is significantly distressing for them. Considerable research supports the fact that the three greatest sources of stress are (a) low social status, (b) lack of friends, and (c) childhood stress (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). If the employees targeted for abuse can be made to feel rejection by their associates, they will experience despair that can lead to anguish and depression. A secondary objective is to reduce the amount and quality of the employee’s work, so that they are passed over for recognitions or special assignments. The unrecognized superiority of the zero-empathy employee is demonstrated to everyone, when it is seen that these respected employees can be reduced in status and shown to be less than others think. In their ability to bring down more socially desirable individuals and productive workers, they prove their power over all others, which, as it turns out, is remarkably easy to accomplish.

Members of the Mob

The leaders of workplace abuse surround themselves with employees who are either somewhat insecure in their positions, or who are themselves without a conscience (McGregor & McGregor, 2013; Stout, 2005). Literature that describes mobbing reveals multiple participants in the abuse of an employee (Davenport, Schwartz, & Elliott, 1999; Duffy & Sperry, 2012). The clinical literature describes the motivation of individuals who will participate in the infliction of harm on a fellow employee and reports that these individuals can be organized and directed by a leader, which is consistent with the basic account of workplace abuse (Babiak & Hare, 2006). These are persons who are apathetic and willing to follow a leader who can protect them, because they lack self-confidence and tend to avoid conflict (McGregor & McGregor, 2013). Employees new to the job may find that they are poorly prepared for, or dislike the tasks required of them. These employees are readily identified by the leader of the abuse.

In situations where employees are subjected to explicit evaluations, these individuals may seek protection by joining the leader, with the belief that this person is in control of the workplace. They may also see the power of the leader, referred to by Babiak and Hare (2006) as a puppetmaster, and fear becoming a target themselves (Maarit & Vartia, 2001; Namie & Lutgen-Sandvik, 2010). The McGregors further hypothesize that some of these individuals may bear a grudge, be jealous or angry, or feel let down in some way by the person receiving the abuse. They become followers in employment situations that afford the zero-empathy employee undersupervised control over others, especially those who seek a parasitic lifestyle (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Stout, 2005).

People have a basic sensitivity to their relative standing in a group, which is a powerful motivator of their behavior (Wohlforth, 2009). When individuals lose friends and experience lowered status, the stress the zero-empathy employee wants to create is achieved. Those targeted experience even greater stress when they can no longer enjoy exercising their skills and competence in the workplace. This occupational stress is incomprehensible to the abuse leaders, because the workplace for them is a field of play, a place where they can demonstrate their superior powers to themselves and others. With no conscience, they find no pride in doing something well; they will never be seen as hard workers, because their attention and energies are directed elsewhere. They stand to gain in social status if the targeted person is driven from the workplace or is discredited.

Low social status individuals who reject participation in the abuse leader’s activities may have already achieved compensation in the form of resource exchange, by engaging in other institutional activities in which they see themselves as having a higher status. Examples of such exchanges might involve increased participation in church activities, community groups, family relationships, sports, or recreational pastimes. In these activities, individuals can prove they are valued by others, evidence sought to fortify their own value as a person (Henry, 2007).

Participants in a Whisper Campaign

A method of employee abuse more effective than bullying is removing an employee’s friends and lowering his or her social status with a whisper campaign. Zero-empathy employees are alert for, and intensely cultivate, those employees who will enthusiastically participate in gossiping. Determining how employees respond to gossip is part of the zero-empathy employee’s initial sorting process mentioned earlier. Those found to be eager listeners or contributors become active participants in the campaign against a targeted individual. The whisper campaign is an endless activity; the abuser’s schadenfreude from gossip is pursued any time another person will listen. This is similar to the saturation technique used in advertising, and eventually seems to influence, perhaps subliminally, many employees’ views of the targeted individual. Babiak and Hare (2006) warn that an employee’s reputation can be destroyed without his or her awareness that anyone would have doubts about the employee’s character or competence. The victim of a whisper campaign can be reenvisioned as a “problem employee,” without their knowledge.

Content for the campaign is obtained in two basic ways. Negative comment fishing is the technique of initiating a conversation with a targeted employee and then mentioning another employee’s name. The zero-empathy employee will make negative comments about that employee, hoping to entice the targeted employee to follow the lead and say something negative also. The targeted employee may respond with an innocuous comment or nod in agreement about a tangential matter. The other employee is then told of what was said and who said it. Note that the zero-empathy employee is in no way inhibited from enhancing what was said by the targeted employee.

Other effective techniques for demeaning a colleague might include the creation of a derogatory name for the person targeted for removal. These may include, but are not limited to, negative descriptors of physical appearance or behavior that implies the target is deficient in some way or does not fit within the values of the workplace, and is thus deserving of scorn. Abuse leaders usually float a derogatory name within the group to see who will embrace it enthusiastically. A person can become vilified simply by the zero-empathy employee’s repeated use of an unflattering label.

A source of stress beyond those mentioned by Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) is the devastation competent persons experience when they observe incompetent employees rewarded or recognized as a part of their compensation for mob membership. They also experience great stress when they observe respected former colleagues obediently following the demands of a puppetmaster. Other employees, who are currently not being bullied, live in fear of being the next target, and report higher stress levels and intentions to leave than nonexposed workers (Emdad, Alipour, Hagberg, & Jensen, 2012). These situations are especially troubling when local political maneuverings are given a higher priority than the services and products provided to customers or clients. On a strictly humanitarian level, this deterioration of workplace atmosphere and harm to competent individuals should be of concern, but there is a financial cost to companies as well. A study by Fattori et al. (2015) estimated the economic cost of bullying to employers in terms of losses in productivity as upward from 15%.

When incompetent employees become members of a mob, the quality of their work often deteriorates even further. Under the protection of the zero-empathy employee, even the feeblest of striving seems unnecessary. More serious is the decline in work quality of the targeted employee, who is often driven into depression by mobbing activities. Other employees who observe this diminishing of quality throughout their workplace also experience increased stress, which has an impact on job satisfaction and the quality of their work. Boddy (2011) found that 26% of the bullying was explained by 1% of the work population. One percent of the employees in a company can emotionally and healthwise impact a quarter of the employees. The work of many others may be affected as they sense the anguish of their fellow workers. (Namie & Namie, 2009)

While a business, corporation, or any institution, may not be destroyed by employees with no conscience and their minions, their presence most assuredly means the institution or organization is underperforming its potential. As noted, researchers estimate the percentage of these individuals in the population at one in 25, but as Babiak and Hare (2006) suggest, they will control a number of other employees. When participants in the whisper campaign are included in the abuse mobs, a high percentage of the workforce could be involved in the abuse of the better employees.

In a Forbes interview (Asghar, 2013), Martha Stout observed that having a sociopath as an employee can be expensive, in terms of its eventual cost to an organization. Zero-empathy employees may be immune from organizational discipline because they have control of a significant group of employees. Moreover, they may also protect their followers from discipline, which means that they also do not have to perform to retain their positions, and the overall quality of the work product declines significantly. Employees who readily support the leader’s activities may not reveal antisocial attitudes, but neither do they display moral character or professional responsibility.

Consequences for Targeted Employees

Targeted employees are empathic individuals, who are, by nature, constant monitors of how they are perceived by those with whom they interact. This renders them more vulnerable than average to the devastation of these attacks (Namie & Namie, 2009). They may wonder whether those who participate in their mobbing sensed a judgment that they were weak employees, and that this judgment has somehow been recognized by the attackers. The targeted employees may attempt to show members of the mob that they do not feel superior to them or want them to experience any distress, which only reassures zero-empathy leaders that their destructive plan is working.

Employees who are targeted experience anxiety and distress because of their elevated blood levels of cortisol, the fight or flight hormone, and may interpret this response as a sign of personal weakness. Holding themselves to high standards of performance, they experience a lowered self-confidence, because their reaction seems to be excessive. Interpreting anxiety as personal weakness can lead them to assume responsibility for their loss of friends and lowered social status. When efforts to appease attackers fail, they withdraw from as many forms of contact as are possible in a work situation.

We know that targets of abuse may suffer long-term impairments with regard to their occupational careers, their mental well-being, self-esteem, and physical health. Some individuals require various forms of therapy to reenter the job market (Namie & Lutgen-Sandvik, 2010). Asking for more involvement by the psychiatric community, Kemp (2014) also notes that targets often need psychiatric treatment and that these attacks can have a lifelong impact. He also observes that supervisory personnel generally have difficulty identifying workplace abuse.

There are reports that sustained exposure to these workplace attacks leads to high blood pressure and increased risk of coronary heart disease. With continued exposure to this kind of treatment, increased levels of cortisol may cause panic attacks. In the extreme, attacked employees experience end-state anxiety, which is emotional paralysis; the person is disabled and cannot perform the most basic of tasks (Namie & Namie, 2009). As the level of stress for the targeted employee increases, thinking and memory are also impaired. Stress may cause a shift in memory from more flexible cognitive thinking to the more rigid habitual memory (Sabrina, Marcel, & Wolf, 2005). This suggests that targeted employees engaged in creative activities may become weaker problem-solvers than before, though this change may not be observable.

At the first signs of emotional discomfort, an abused employee should take some defensive action (Temin, 2010). Continued bullying by abusers over weeks and months cannot be endured without significant emotional damage. An abused employee should avoid thoughts of reactive aggression, which is a common response from individuals who feel they have low social status (Henry, 2007). These responses will provide new content for the whisper campaign, and those who observe these actions will be drawn to agree with the abusers’ comments about the targeted employee’s stability. The empathic capacity that makes the abused employee a valuable employee is also the characteristic that makes the employee more vulnerable to the efforts of his or her attackers, and gives the attacker a greater sense of personal power.

By design, many colleagues will not recognize the abuse taking place, with respect to desirable employees (Babiak & Hare, 2006), but they will recognize their abilities and competence. When they falsely learn, by means of the whisper campaign, that the targeted employee believes he or she is better, more important, or more valuable than everyone else, the noninvolved employees may believe the gossip and develop some disdain for the targeted person. Some may be relieved to know that the individual is not so perfect after all.

At a critical point, the targeted employee’s levels of cortisol may increase to the point where there is an impairment of judgment and behavior. This, in turn, provides credibility for the zero-empathy employee’s constant negative comments. Original doubters may begin to think the criticism is legitimate. Once again, the disbelief that an employee in their midst could intentionally visit this kind of evil on a colleague protects the zero-empathy employee and renders more effective the abuse of a good employee. When these highly empathic and productive targeted employees are rejected and defamed by those who obviously have no commitment to the organization, the situation becomes unbearable for them. Worse still is the discovery that the employee’s former friends are part of the abusive mob. Zero-empathy mob leaders know that a former friend who has become an abuser is especially devastating to a targeted employee.

Note that overt, hostile, and heated bullying will call attention to itself as behavior that is markedly deviant from normal employee-to-employee interaction. But the subtle day-by-day distancing of former friends from a targeted employee is much more devastating than being addressed in a hostile manner by angry colleagues. Although bullying is a device frequently used, the sole focus on this behavior misses the numerous subtle aspects of abuse. Moreover, employees may fear that if they report abuse, they will be seen as overreacting. They may also be aware of the resentment toward them by other employees, who regard their popularity as the result of some sort of manipulation. Having low social intelligence, these employees cannot comprehend what it is about the abused employee that is so valued by others, and may not be unhappy to see the targeted employee in distress.

More productive and desirable employees will be the first to leave, because they have more employment options than their peers and will more quickly and directly grasp the intentions of the zero-empathy employees and the mob members with whom they work. Their departure is seen by those who remain as a clear demonstration of the power of the abusers. Employees who cannot leave, for whatever reason, provide the greatest pleasure for the zero-empathy leaders, because this allows them the social status of master of the workplace.

Members of the mob may, in private, explain to targeted employees that if they would act differently, they would be better accepted. This is intended, of course, to make the targets feel that it is their fault that they are being rejected—an abusive technique sometimes referred to as gaslighting. Undermining self-confidence is an effective device for increasing anxiety. If other employees see the target as emotionally broken down, but without knowledge of the mobbing going on, the target will experience an even greater distancing from peers, which of course escalates anxiety levels.

The most troubling aspect of these attacks is not the joy some find in hurting others; some people are wired for creating distress in those with whom they interact. When it becomes clear to targeted employees that they are under an attack in which their former friends are actively and enthusiastically participating, they believe either that the insecurity of employees with whom they work and who participate in the mobbing must be greater than they thought, or that the supposed friendships were forced and inauthentic all along.

There is one additional torment visited upon the targeted employees. Neuroscientists report that there exists what they refer to as the default network. When we are unoccupied for even a few seconds with a task or problem, the default network takes our minds to other people (Lieberman, 2013). Neuroscientists think that this network makes us more social, in that we learn about other people in small episodes during the day. For a targeted employee, the default network adds to the distress of being mobbed, because their thoughts are of their tormentors, former friends, and associates. When people are experiencing abuse by their associates, it is these individuals to which the default network turns, and serves to cycle thinking over and over on the instances of bullying.

Eventually, they may experience panic attacks, which at times will be detected by others. If they abruptly leave a meeting, this is observed with glee by the zero-empathy employee. When someone under attack cannot leave a position or if there is no other source of relief, depression’s end state is realized. In this state of emotional paralysis, employees find it difficult to function in the workplace or anywhere else. Physical illness may follow, and whatever the consequences of the abuse on targeted employees, their families will also experience collateral damage.

Davia Temin (2010), a workplace consultant, urges those caught in these workplace situations to trust their instincts, if they suspect that a sociopath has infiltrated the company. She encourages affected persons to keep records, including taped conversations, if allowed in their states, and to keep all emails that may pertain to abuse of any kind. Temin also counsels targets to defend themselves with the truth, and not to let a lie go unchallenged. Sooner, rather than later, she suggests that affected persons leave the company, as it often takes justice in these situations a long time to win out. It is better to leave with one’s physical and mental abilities intact than to wait too long. Finally, Temin urges employees to support each other in the workplace, to the extent this is possible. Good people rarely recognize evil, as this kind of behavior is incomprehensible to them. Under these circumstances, the friendship of those who stay rational in these situations is vital.

Help for affected individuals is available on a number of websites, including the Workplace Bullying Institute (2017), which offers self-help advice and personal coaching for individuals targeted for workplace abuse. They also collect and coordinate research associated with workplace bullying worldwide, and promote legislative advocacy on behalf of a safe and positive work environment.

Further Research

Moving forward in the attempt to mitigate the destructiveness of sociopaths in the workplace will require studies that develop more highly sophisticated and accurate screening tools for use in the hiring practice. Surveys that identify effective methods of approaching HR for help in situations that suggest sociopathic activity and those that document legal arguments successful in prosecuting those who have been so identified would also be valuable. Similar surveys could helpfully identify and share ways that workplace colleagues and unions provide support for victims of sociopathic assault.

Summary

This article proposes the study of workplace abuse by means of a theoretical model drawn from recent research in neuroscience, and from the psychological literature concerned with individuals who intentionally harm those with whom they associate. The proposed explanation of this abuse identifies the employees targeted for abuse as competent and respected individuals in the workplace. These persons are selected by one or more zero-empathy individuals who intentionally cause distress and anxiety in their targeted associates. Lacking a conscience, they enjoy inflicting pain on better qualified employees and gain satisfaction from the power they are able to demonstrate in bringing down a well-regarded colleague. Leaders of these attacks select other weaker employees to assist in the bullying of the targeted employee. They, in turn, join in on the abuse, either out of fear or because they have something to gain in being associated with a power source that will protect them, in return for their loyalty. Members of the whisper campaign are low-empathy employees who enjoy discussing the pain and misfortunes of their fellow employees. Those targeted are urged to recognize when this kind of abuse is occurring, to resist self-blame, and to leave the situation, if at all possible.