- Email: [email protected]
Speaking of Workplace Bullying
SPEAKING
OF
WORKPLACE BULLYING
LAURA COX DZUREC, PHD, PMHCNS-BC⁎
AND
GAIL E. BROMLEY, PHD, CNS†
Despite the increasing frequency of its reported incidence, especially in health care practice and education settings, workplace bullying seems to defy victims' clear understanding of its effects on them personally and to challenge their ability to provide cogent explanations about those effects to others. Especially, when it is subtle, as is the case in much of workplace bullying, the experience is emotionally confusing to its victims, and its inherent behaviors often seem absurd to those who have not lived through them firsthand. Moreover, the outwardly innocuous behaviors of subtle workplace bullying can yield long-term disorder for victims' coworkers and for employing organizations. Aptly capturing the mechanism of operation of workplace bullying, the concept of catastrophization may provide language to support understanding of victims' personal experiences of subtle workplace bullying and support administrators in recognizing bullying's paradoxical and long-term effects. (Index words: Administration; Occupational health; Quality; Workplace incivility) J Prof Nurs 28:247–254, 2012. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
T
HE ESCALATING OCCURRENCE of workplace bullying worldwide is well documented (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011; Johnson, 2009; Liefooghe & Davey, 2001; Mistry & Latoo, 2009; Salin, 2003, 2008, 2009), involving peers bullying peers, and supervisors and subordinates bullying each other. As early as 1992, Adams noted that “bullying at work is claimed to be a more crippling and devastating problem for employees than all other work-related stress put together” (Einarsen, 1999, p. 17). Yet, because it seems so out of place among adults who have come to the workplace with intent to work, workplace bullying does not lend itself to clear and open discussion, especially when bullies' tactics are subtle. The behaviors involved in subtle workplace bullying— eye rolling, tongue clucking, and emotional dismissal, for example—are largely understated, not readily amenable to recognition on the parts of victims (Randle, 2003) or to reprimand on the parts of supervisors (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Those who have lived through subtle workplace bullying often struggle with the emotional response that its typically private, interpersonal acts exact (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Victims themselves may not even recognize that they are being bullied (MacIntosh, Wuest, Gray, & Aldous, 2010) until the process has gone on for some time.
⁎Dean and Professor, Kent State University College of Nursing, Kent, OH. †Associate Dean, Kent State University College of Nursing, Kent, OH. Address correspondence to Dr. Dzurec: Kent State University College of Nursing. P.O. Box 5190. Kent, Ohio 44240. E-mail: [email protected] 8755-7223/12/$ - see front matter
Putting words to the experience of subtle workplace bullying is difficult (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008), as it makes little sense from the perspective of the victim or from the perspective of those to whom the bullying might be reported (Jennifer, Cowie, & Ananidou, 2003). Discreet and interpersonal in nature, subtle workplace bullying is a difficult topic to comprehend, as victims process the experiences for themselves, and to explain, as they report their unexplainable devastating experiences to supervisors. The purpose of this article was to suggest language to support discussion of subtle workplace bullying for the purposes of understanding and explaining the experience. The authors' review of relevant literature, findings from their 2011 study conducted to measure victim responses to workplace bullying, and participant comments from meeting presentations (Bromley & Dzurec, 2010) suggest the significance of the concept of “catastrophization” (Sullivan, Bishop, & Pivik, 1995) to express the mechanism of operation of subtle workplace bullying and to categorize its inherently understated and damaging behaviors. The notion of catastrophization may give voice to those speaking of workplace bullying.
Putting Words to the Experience Work is a significant aspect of day-to-day life for individuals throughout the world. The organizations within which work generally occurs are inherently social, representing places of extensive interrelationship of self and others (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006). Workplaces typically provide clear expectations for employee productivity, but expectations regarding employees' interpersonal interactions are less transparent. In addition, as
Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 28, No. 4 (July–August), 2012: pp 247–254 © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
247 doi:10.1016/j.profnurs.2012.01.004
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workplaces have become increasingly complex, in terms of staffing, resources, communication, and intricacy of work, they have become increasingly subject to the occurrence of complex and troublesome interpersonal dynamics (Lewis & Orford, 2005). In cases where troublesome interpersonal dynamics are clear-cut, as in situations of violence or harassment, for example, rules and regulations exist by which to recognize and address them (Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). As forms of intimidation, violence and harassment are apparent. Bullying is also a form of intimidation. When it is physical and direct, bullying can be addressed through the same sorts of regulations that apply to violence or harassment. However, because much of workplace bullying represents a bully's largely hidden intention to gain power and cause victim harm through repeated, controlled communication acts (Quine, 2003), it passes “under the radar” (Brannan, 2007) in many organizations. Moreover, unlike violence and harassment, which have readily documentable effects on their victims, subtle workplace bullying has no immediately notable effect. It appears on the surface to be silly, at best. In actual fact, however, even in its subtlety, workplace bullying results in significant long-term physical and emotional effects for its victims (Johnson, 2009; MacIntosh, O'Donnell, Wuest, & Merritt-Gray, 2011) and in decreased productivity for the workplaces within which it occurs (Arnetz, & Arnetz, 2001; Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003; Einarsen et al., 2011; McKay, Huberman-Arnold, Fratzl, & Thomas, 2008). Workplace bullying represents a debasement of the interrelationship of self and others in the workplace. When asked, victims of subtle bullying can provide accounts of exactly what happened in those situations. For example, they can note, “she always rolls her eyes at me in meetings” or “she makes fun of me in public.” Victims are far more hard-pressed though to capture the significance of what happened to them—to process it, to recognize its meaning to them, and to convey its objective meaning to others. Without language that supports clear communication about subtle workplace bullying, victims appear, rather than put-upon, socially deviant (MacIntosh et al., 2010), unable to manage or understand social interactions effectively or to handle communication with difficult others. One participant in the authors' 2011 study of nursing faculty (n = 102 responses to the qualitative component of the institutional review boardapproved study) characterized the outcome of her report of subtle workplace bullying. She noted that in response to her report of being bullied, her supervisor said she “doubted that what I experienced was actually bullying and dismissed it as a ‘female thing,’ women not able to get along.” As the obscure acts of subtle bullying continue without active description, they become, over time, globally acceptable within workplaces (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Another participant in the authors' recent study demonstrated the tolerance administrators, over time, come to afford subtle workplace bullying; on reporting the
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experience, she noted that her supervisor responded, “She is just like that…try to ignore (it).” Because it is readily overlooked and thereby covertly sanctioned, subtle bullying in the workplace, even in its obscurity, becomes quickly recognized as a mechanism one can (and should) use to get ahead. As bullying continues, the “victim becomes the ‘lightning conductor’ for tensions that exist within the group itself” (Jennifer et al., 2003, p. 490). The terms toxic (McKay, HubermanArnold, Fratzl, & Thomas, 2008) and employee abusive (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008) have been used to describe organizations within which workplace bullying has gone on unabated and grown over time, organizations within which people treat each other badly as a matter of course (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Health care organizations—both clinical and educational—appear to be especially vulnerable to workplace bullying (Abe & Henley, 2010; Allan, Cowie, & Smith, 2009; Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2006; Quine, 2003; Randle, 2003), as a function of their organizational complexity and the complexity of the work of their employees. In toxic organizations, work culture and organizational productivity are particularly affected (Corney, 2008; Harvey, Heames, Richey, & Leonard, 2006; Johnson, 2009; Lutgen-Sandvik, 2008; Vega & Comer, 2005). Finding words to structure discussion of workplace bullying supports sensitive analysis of its true significance in the workplace. Toward that goal, catastrophization (Sullivan et al., 1995), a concept from the chronic pain literature, may offer an opening to support both personal understanding and objective explanation of subtle workplace bullying behaviors.
The Phenomenon of Catastrophization Catastrophization is a cognitive and affective response that has been studied for its implications in influencing patients' responses to pain for more than 20 years. Catastrophization is defined as an “exaggerated negative orientation toward noxious stimuli” (Sullivan et al., 1995, p. 524) enacted by some individuals who experience chronic pain as a function of their emotional makeup (Patterson, 2004; Sullivan et al., 1995; Sullivan, Tripp, & Santor, 2000). The goal of catastrophizing in dealing with chronic pain is to “maximize proximity or to solicit assistance or empathic responses from others” (Sullivan et al., 2000, p. 60). The sense of control and enhanced interpersonal affiliation (Lackner & Gurtman, 2004, 2005) resulting from catastrophization may serve to mediate distress responses to pain (Keefe et al., 1987; Sullivan et al., 1995), resulting in its becoming selfreinforcing. Catastrophizers tend to develop stable beliefs about the high threat value of pain (Chaves & Brown, 1987; Spanos, Radtke-Bodorik, Ferguson, & Jones, 1979; Sullivan et al., 1995), and they may be emotionally wired (Patterson, 2004) to engage in catastrophizing behaviors. Catastrophizing involves magnification and rumination about the threat of pain and becoming helpless to deal with it. Although the mechanism of action for
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catastrophization in pain is not fully understood (Edwards et al., 2008), it almost certainly involves cognition, emotion, and significant interpersonal components (Edwards et al., 2008; Lackner & Gurtman, 2004, 2005; Pincus & Gurtman, 1995; Sullivan et al., 1995). Lackner and Gurtman found strong correlations between catastrophizing and interpersonal problems among participants in two studies, even when they controlled for the influence of distress symptoms. Further, they noted that “pain catastrophizers” had an interpersonal style that “demanded support and caretaking” (p. 597). Patterson (2004) cited five factors that perpetuate chronic pain's impact, factors especially likely to describe those who demonstrate catastrophizing characteristics. The factors—emotional distress, a focus on physical distress, conviction that a cure is necessarily physical, the presence of psychological rewards for not getting better, and disuse of the body part involved with the pain—are consistent with the rumination, magnification, and helplessness of catastrophization. Catastrophization has been identified as one of the most important determinants of pain-related outcomes, short and long term (Edwards et al., 2008). Although it enhances social support through relationship, it does little to help individuals deal physically with the pain those who use it are experiencing.
Quantifying Catastrophization Sullivan et al. (1995) developed a 13-item instrument— the Pain Catastrophizing Scale—to formally assess and quantify the processes of catastrophization reported in a wide body of literature. Building on their review of that literature, those investigators engaged a study sample of 127 men and 302 women, college students, whose mean age was 20.1 years (SD = 5.1 years) to determine whether the three nonoverlapping factors described in the literature—rumination, magnification, and helplessness— did, in fact, characterize catastrophization. Using principal components analysis with oblique rotation, Sullivan et al. found support, as they anticipated, for the threedimensional model of catastrophizing. The rumination factor accounted for 41% of the total variance in respondents' reported thoughts and feelings related to pain and distress; magnification accounted for 10%; and helplessness accounted for 8%. For women, the occurrence of catastrophization was higher than for men, as the investigators also had anticipated on initiating their study. Sullivan et al. (1995) defined rumination as thinking and anxiety about wanting the pain to stop, inability to stop thinking about it, and focusing on the pain. They defined magnification as wondering about the future—if the pain will get worse, if something serious will happen—and as linking the pain experienced in the study, itself, with other painful experiences. They defined helplessness as a sense of feeling as if one could not go on, noting the severity of the pain, a sense that there is nothing that could be done for it, and
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feeling overwhelmed. Although these factors describe chronic pain catastrophizers' behavior, they also reflect the sorts of feelings reported by participants in the authors' recent study (full findings reported elsewhere) and in numerous published studies of workplace bullying by investigators worldwide.
Relevance of Catastrophization to Physical and Bullying Pain Physical pain and the interpersonal pain of bullying both represent discomfort: Both are ongoing; both interfere with day-to-day activity; and both may signal that there is an underlying problem that should be addressed. Like victims of chronic pain, victims of bullying may be neurologically wired to engage with the pain of bullying (Einarsen, 1999; Einarsen, Hoel, & Notelaers, 2009; Matthiesen & Einarsen, 2001), and it appears that in both chronic pain and subtle bullying situations, victims demonstrate “a tendency to increase attentional focus on pain-related thoughts” (Sullivan et al., 1995, p. 525). Bodily discomfort drives the threat of physical pain; interpersonal discomfort drives the threat of subtle workplace bullying pain. However, not everyone who is assailed by pain becomes a victim. The numerous kinds of pain that researchers cited previously in this article all suggest that those who do catastrophize in response to pain become its victims. This is not to say that they are “bad” people. They simply are vulnerable in terms of their abilities to respond to the threat of physical pain. Similarly, not everyone who is assailed by subtle workplace bullying becomes a victim. The authors contend that those who catastrophize in response to the subtle tactics of workplace bullying become its victims. They are not bad people; they simply are vulnerable in terms of their abilities to respond to the interpersonal communications bullies employ. The notion of catastrophization helps to provide a structure for understanding victimization equally well as a response to subtle workplace bullying as it does to physical pain. The interpersonal discomfort of subtle workplace bullying and the relevance of the notion of catastrophization to that discomfort are the focus of the remainder of this article.
Catastrophization in Workplace Bullying “Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation” (Angela Carter, n.d.). We argue that catatrophizers' unique response to bullies' language is the origin for their rumination, magnification, and helpless rejoinders to bullying behavior. Workplace bullying is a dyadic process, requiring the simultaneous interaction of a dispatcher, a bully, and a recipient (i.e., the victim). Without a recipient, who will knowingly or unknowingly assume the role of victim, taking on a “victim mentality” (Horzepa, 2011), bullying will necessarily stop. The authors argue that catastrophization is the essence of bullying because it engages both the bully and
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the victim in a mutual process of rumination, magnification, and helplessness. As Harris (1967) noted, all communication is established through complementary interchanges, with each participant encouraging the other in rather specific roles to establish what Berne (1964) defined as “transactions.” Transactions are “the unit(s) of social intercourse” (Berne, 1964, p. 29) that are made up of language that includes verbal and nonverbal components. Nonverbal aspects of communication such as facial expression, eye contact, smiles or frowns, and body language are so important to establishing meaning that in nonspoken venues like e-mail, nonverbal cues are added through emoticons such as ☺ and ☹; parenthetical phrases like (sigh); and CAPITALIZATION, WHICH SUGGESTS THAT I'M YELLING. When language is expressed verbally, it includes an essential aspect known as prosody, or pattern of intonation, that helps to convey the intent of the speaker. Prosody helps listeners to make judgments about a speaker's meaning (Kitigawa & Fodor, 2006) and provides a context through which listeners identify the character of the social relationship implied in their interaction (Maynard, 2003). Interestingly, it is the nonverbal components of language, not the words themselves, that convey the majority of meaning to listeners (Mehrabian & Ferris, 1967; Watzlawick, BeavinBavelas, & Jackson, 1967). Similarly, it is the nonverbal aspects of bullies' language that present the threat to their potential victims and that serve as the vehicle for perpetuating its catastrophizing nature. Through their nonverbal and prosodic aspects, bullies' communications project an aura of supreme self-confidence that almost certainly is a misrepresentation; more accurately, the aura is a cover for the pain of a relatively unstable self-esteem, a “pseudoself” (Kerr, 1988, p. 43). Often unsure of their own personal boundaries and social skills, bullies rely heavily on input from others for maintenance of sense of self (Einarsen et al., 2009). To remain psychologically “whole,” bullies seek to engage vulnerable others through behaviors such as “belittling, professional humiliation, and failure to acknowledge good work” (Randle, 2003, p. 399). The complex and convoluted connotations and implications inferred through a bully's tone of voice and body language leave targeted victims feeling confused, demeaned, afraid, and strangely committed to the bullying interaction. In other words, those connotations and implications set the stage for a victim's rumination about what the bully meant, magnification of its significance, and sense of helplessness in response to its confusing gestalt. In fact, in a successful bullying situation, targeted victims find that although they would like to walk away, they cannot. As one participant in our study noted, It is uncomfortable to be around individuals that are incivil (sic) and having to do activities with them was not my idea of resolution. These individuals have made it so I have to devote time to strategies to not let their behavior bother me.
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Consistent with data summarized in numerous published reports, data like these from the authors' 2011 study suggest that those who become bullies' victims do, in fact, ruminate about the bullying, magnify its actual and potential consequences, and tend toward a pattern of helplessness that further encourages the bully. Hutchinson et al. (2006) succinctly defined what happens for bullies' victims, noting that for them, “a state of psychic alienation occurs in which the disenfranchised internalise (sic) their oppression and support rather than resist it” (pp. 119–120). The work of those investigators summarizes the findings presented in paper after paper, describing the effects of workplace bullying on its victims (see, e.g., Baillien, Neyens, DeWitte, & DeCuyper, 2009; Dzurec, Bromley, Dunton, & Phillips, under review; Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003; Gini & Pozzoli, 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2006; Johnson, 2009). In nearly all interpersonal situations, listeners are required to make out-of-context judgments (Kitigawa & Fodor, 2006) about the meaning intended by speakers when words, their accompanying nonverbal behaviors, and speaker prosody do not match. This mismatch, couched in the transactional, complementary nature of communication, is especially pronounced in bullying because it is fundamental to catastrophization and thus to the perpetuation of bullying. For example, a bullying employee might berate a targeted victim publicly and then note in a calm, ingratiating voice, “I'm only trying to help you.” The victim might remain silent or might express shock or hurt at the bully's allegations, behaving as if he or she deserved the treatment (and the supposed helping efforts) proffered by the bully. “Systematic distortion” (Lyon, 2006) of communications through bullying transactions is intentional on the part of the bully, planned to ensure a position of relative power. That distortion is successful as long as the targeted victim enacts his or her necessarily reciprocal role in the communication process, succumbing to the confusion of the catastrophization process through ongoing rumination, magnification, and helplessness about it. In short, bullies' emotionally laden pronouncements, especially when they are delivered with the stirring, one– two punch certainty that bullies typically employ in their language prosody, encourage doubt about the workplace and its employees through their catastrophizing intent. They yield angst and confusion among those vulnerable to the catastrophizing pronouncements and help to ensure that the bully's self-proclaimed position is beyond question or reproach. Through a subtle display of power, bullies attempt to draw wanted others close while distancing those who are unwanted (Baillien & DeWitte, 2009). It is in response to the angst produced that victims engage in catastrophization, ruminating about what the bully said or did to them, magnifying the possible effect of the bullying communication and behaviors, and typically rendering themselves helpless to do anything about changing the behavior—even as they talk to coworkers about the bullying experience (Corney, 2008; Einarsen
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et al., 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2006). Victims' ongoing engagement with their bully counterparts reflects characteristics typical of bullying victims—dependency, emotionality, and dependence on relationships (Graham, Unruh, & Jennings, 1991). By virtue of the support received from well-meaning colleagues, victims achieve a secondary gain that serves to reinforce victim beliefs and behaviors.
Implications of Bullying Catastrophization for the Broader Workplace Workplace bullying, especially when it is subtle, is not openly discussed in workplaces(Beale & Hoel, 2010; Brannan, 2007; Crawford, 1999; Ferris et al., 2007), in large part as a function of its communicational obscurity. Moreover, McKay et al. (2008) noted that the notion of bullying or “incivility” (p. 78), as it is often euphemistically denoted, is increasingly difficult to address in the workplace, in large part because of the simultaneous complexity of individual employees and the surreptitious nature of professional bullying. Through formal documents, such as contracts, bylaws, and policies, work-related processes derive formal legitimacy (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008). The subjective, essentially unexpressible behaviors of workplace bullying are far less effectively controlled or managed through those formal mechanisms. Seemingly innocuous, the subtle interpersonal dynamics of a workplace bully are not readily amenable to clear observation, much less to reprimand. As Rayner and Cooper (1997) asked, “Bullies who are shouters and screamers are reasonably easy to identify, but what about the subtle bully who sets up their staff to fail by withholding or manipulating information, springing meetings on them, physically isolating them from the tools to do their job, or engaging in micromanagement?” (p. 211). Through the formlessness imposed by catastrophization, subtle bullying exacts its intent broadly within organizations, and ultimately, its bland, interpersonal processes can affect an entire organization, ravaging employee morale (MacIntosh et al., 2011) and worker productivity and even compromising organizational revenues (Einarsen et al., 2011). The ongoing “causal chain” (Zapf, 1999, p. 70) of stable and dyadic, but dysfunctional, interpersonal communications enacted through the one-to-one catastrophization of workplace bullying implicates others in the organization over time (Jennifer et al., 2003; Lewis & Orford, 2005) as plays of power are repeated throughout the organization. Peers are readily triangulated into workplace bullying as bystanders recognize the benefits of the power gained through subtle bullying and as organization equilibrium shifts to restabilize around bullying dysfunction. “Triangles are forever. Once the emotional circuitry of a triangle is in place, it usually outlives the people who participate in it” (Kerr, 1988, p. 53). Environments failing to recognize this triangulation—especially when it is driven in part by the rapid change that is characteristic of many organizations today—tacitly support bullying,
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often providing “necessary antecedents (e.g. perceived power imbalances, low perceived costs, and dissatisfaction and frustration), motivating structures or incentives (e.g. internal competition, reward systems, and expected benefits), and precipitating processes or triggering circumstances (e.g. downsizing and restructuring, organizational changes, changes in the composition of the work group)” (Salin, 2003, p. 1213) that perpetuate a bullying-supportive context. As they are triangulated in the catastrophization of bullying, the bully, the targeted victim, and the involved coworkers become unable to deal rationally with the bullying behaviors confronting them, and workplaces can become “employee abusive” (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008, p. 304). Fear of litigation, among other anxieties, often prevents organization officials from recognizing and from addressing workplace bullying, especially when it is subtle (Beale & Hoel, 2010). As a fourth respondent in the authors' recent study noted regarding a supervisor's response to her report of workplace bullying, the administrator did nothing about (it). Stated that there was a history of this nurse taking air out of tires of previous supervisors and this manager did not want to get involved. Stated she was a “good nurse.
Intervening in Workplace Bullying Through recognizing the process of catastrophization at work, administrators may be supported in recognizing the gestalt of workplace bullying, putting the seemingly innocuous behaviors of bullies and the seemingly overblown responses of victims into an interrelational framework that helps to make sense of the process, and accepting the reports presented to them as needing proactive intervention. This recognition is an important first step in addressing workplace bullying; to date, that recognition has challenged administrators internationally (Einarsen et al., 2011; Healthy Workplace Bill, n.d.; Salin, 2009). Attending to catastrophization as a direct response to the threats of bullying, administrators can reframe victim complaints as distress signals rather than as reflections of victims' inadequate social skills. From this standpoint, they are well positioned to establish programs, for example, using available instructional formats (see, e.g., Duffy, 2009; Latham, Hogan, & Ringl, 2008, and Workplace bullying and destructive behavior, 2011), and/or to work with personnel in human resources to provide active support to employees. Attention to the subtleties of workplace bullying, catastrophizaion will support bullying victims in their search for relief; will build environments that are employee friendly; and almost certainly will contribute to organizations' bottom lines, as employees can focus on the work they are doing rather than on avoidance of strange, interpersonal impasses. Without doubt, the roles of adminstrators bullying containment are not simple or short term; more
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accurately, their roles are equally as complex as is the catastrophization of workplace bullying itself. Administrators' roles entail ongoing willingness to state clear expectations regarding employees' interpersonal interactions; to recognize how through triangulation, bullies can make interpersonal use of victims; to listen with open minds to employee complaints of being bullied; to refuse to make judgments without full data about any bullying situation presented to them; and to encourage open discussion of the sorts of activities that constitute workplace bullying. In short, administrators' roles encompass appropriate and ongoing vigilance for the kinds of subtleties that establish potential bully/victim hierarchies. If they do less, administrators actually serve to support workplace bullying, with the consequence that their employees and their organizations will suffer as a result. Catastrophization-related behaviors have been called among the most important contributors to pain outcomes in both the short and long term (Edwards et al., 2008). Characterizing the process of catastrophization as a “tendency to focus on and exaggerate the threat value of painful stimuli and negatively evaluate…(one's) own ability to deal with pain,” Keefe et al. (2003, p. 2) effectively and intentionally captured the experiences of some individuals to pain; simultaneously, they may inadvertently have captured the experience of some individuals to workplace bullying, especially when that bullying is subtle. The notion of catastrophization may serve well to put workplace bullying into a context that will give voice to workers, administrators, and researchers who have been frustrated in speaking of workplace bullying and enhance bullying victims' openness to helpful interventions. Such language might be especially important in health care workplaces where workplace bullying is noted to be particularly prevalent. Although further research is required to study how best to use the notion of catastrophization to inform individuals and organizations about the personal and organizational effects of workplace bullying, initial analyses demonstrate the relevance of the concept to actively supporting interpersonal and organizational efforts in speaking of workplace bullying and possibly to limiting its long-term effects. Creating and conveying the meaning of ideas through language are essential and defining features of human beings. Through language, an idea “becomes an object for us” (Strasser, 1985, p. 33), not just something that I, personally, have experienced. Catastrophization serves to provide language to support conceptualization of the processes of workplace bullying.
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Watzlawick, P., Beavin-Bavelas, J., & Jackson, D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication—A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. New York: Norton. Workplace bullying and destructive behavior: What everyone needs to know. Report # 87-2-2011. Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. Retrieved 7/16/11 from http://www.lni.wa.gov/safety/research/ files/bullying.pdf. Zapf, D. (1999). Organizational, workgroup related and personal causes of mobbing/bullying at work. International Journal of Manpower, 20, 70–84.
OF
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LAURA COX DZUREC, PHD, PMHCNS-BC⁎
AND
GAIL E. BROMLEY, PHD, CNS†
Despite the increasing frequency of its reported incidence, especially in health care practice and education settings, workplace bullying seems to defy victims' clear understanding of its effects on them personally and to challenge their ability to provide cogent explanations about those effects to others. Especially, when it is subtle, as is the case in much of workplace bullying, the experience is emotionally confusing to its victims, and its inherent behaviors often seem absurd to those who have not lived through them firsthand. Moreover, the outwardly innocuous behaviors of subtle workplace bullying can yield long-term disorder for victims' coworkers and for employing organizations. Aptly capturing the mechanism of operation of workplace bullying, the concept of catastrophization may provide language to support understanding of victims' personal experiences of subtle workplace bullying and support administrators in recognizing bullying's paradoxical and long-term effects. (Index words: Administration; Occupational health; Quality; Workplace incivility) J Prof Nurs 28:247–254, 2012. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
T
HE ESCALATING OCCURRENCE of workplace bullying worldwide is well documented (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011; Johnson, 2009; Liefooghe & Davey, 2001; Mistry & Latoo, 2009; Salin, 2003, 2008, 2009), involving peers bullying peers, and supervisors and subordinates bullying each other. As early as 1992, Adams noted that “bullying at work is claimed to be a more crippling and devastating problem for employees than all other work-related stress put together” (Einarsen, 1999, p. 17). Yet, because it seems so out of place among adults who have come to the workplace with intent to work, workplace bullying does not lend itself to clear and open discussion, especially when bullies' tactics are subtle. The behaviors involved in subtle workplace bullying— eye rolling, tongue clucking, and emotional dismissal, for example—are largely understated, not readily amenable to recognition on the parts of victims (Randle, 2003) or to reprimand on the parts of supervisors (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Those who have lived through subtle workplace bullying often struggle with the emotional response that its typically private, interpersonal acts exact (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Victims themselves may not even recognize that they are being bullied (MacIntosh, Wuest, Gray, & Aldous, 2010) until the process has gone on for some time.
⁎Dean and Professor, Kent State University College of Nursing, Kent, OH. †Associate Dean, Kent State University College of Nursing, Kent, OH. Address correspondence to Dr. Dzurec: Kent State University College of Nursing. P.O. Box 5190. Kent, Ohio 44240. E-mail: [email protected] 8755-7223/12/$ - see front matter
Putting words to the experience of subtle workplace bullying is difficult (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008), as it makes little sense from the perspective of the victim or from the perspective of those to whom the bullying might be reported (Jennifer, Cowie, & Ananidou, 2003). Discreet and interpersonal in nature, subtle workplace bullying is a difficult topic to comprehend, as victims process the experiences for themselves, and to explain, as they report their unexplainable devastating experiences to supervisors. The purpose of this article was to suggest language to support discussion of subtle workplace bullying for the purposes of understanding and explaining the experience. The authors' review of relevant literature, findings from their 2011 study conducted to measure victim responses to workplace bullying, and participant comments from meeting presentations (Bromley & Dzurec, 2010) suggest the significance of the concept of “catastrophization” (Sullivan, Bishop, & Pivik, 1995) to express the mechanism of operation of subtle workplace bullying and to categorize its inherently understated and damaging behaviors. The notion of catastrophization may give voice to those speaking of workplace bullying.
Putting Words to the Experience Work is a significant aspect of day-to-day life for individuals throughout the world. The organizations within which work generally occurs are inherently social, representing places of extensive interrelationship of self and others (Cartwright & Holmes, 2006). Workplaces typically provide clear expectations for employee productivity, but expectations regarding employees' interpersonal interactions are less transparent. In addition, as
Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 28, No. 4 (July–August), 2012: pp 247–254 © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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workplaces have become increasingly complex, in terms of staffing, resources, communication, and intricacy of work, they have become increasingly subject to the occurrence of complex and troublesome interpersonal dynamics (Lewis & Orford, 2005). In cases where troublesome interpersonal dynamics are clear-cut, as in situations of violence or harassment, for example, rules and regulations exist by which to recognize and address them (Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). As forms of intimidation, violence and harassment are apparent. Bullying is also a form of intimidation. When it is physical and direct, bullying can be addressed through the same sorts of regulations that apply to violence or harassment. However, because much of workplace bullying represents a bully's largely hidden intention to gain power and cause victim harm through repeated, controlled communication acts (Quine, 2003), it passes “under the radar” (Brannan, 2007) in many organizations. Moreover, unlike violence and harassment, which have readily documentable effects on their victims, subtle workplace bullying has no immediately notable effect. It appears on the surface to be silly, at best. In actual fact, however, even in its subtlety, workplace bullying results in significant long-term physical and emotional effects for its victims (Johnson, 2009; MacIntosh, O'Donnell, Wuest, & Merritt-Gray, 2011) and in decreased productivity for the workplaces within which it occurs (Arnetz, & Arnetz, 2001; Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003; Einarsen et al., 2011; McKay, Huberman-Arnold, Fratzl, & Thomas, 2008). Workplace bullying represents a debasement of the interrelationship of self and others in the workplace. When asked, victims of subtle bullying can provide accounts of exactly what happened in those situations. For example, they can note, “she always rolls her eyes at me in meetings” or “she makes fun of me in public.” Victims are far more hard-pressed though to capture the significance of what happened to them—to process it, to recognize its meaning to them, and to convey its objective meaning to others. Without language that supports clear communication about subtle workplace bullying, victims appear, rather than put-upon, socially deviant (MacIntosh et al., 2010), unable to manage or understand social interactions effectively or to handle communication with difficult others. One participant in the authors' 2011 study of nursing faculty (n = 102 responses to the qualitative component of the institutional review boardapproved study) characterized the outcome of her report of subtle workplace bullying. She noted that in response to her report of being bullied, her supervisor said she “doubted that what I experienced was actually bullying and dismissed it as a ‘female thing,’ women not able to get along.” As the obscure acts of subtle bullying continue without active description, they become, over time, globally acceptable within workplaces (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Another participant in the authors' recent study demonstrated the tolerance administrators, over time, come to afford subtle workplace bullying; on reporting the
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experience, she noted that her supervisor responded, “She is just like that…try to ignore (it).” Because it is readily overlooked and thereby covertly sanctioned, subtle bullying in the workplace, even in its obscurity, becomes quickly recognized as a mechanism one can (and should) use to get ahead. As bullying continues, the “victim becomes the ‘lightning conductor’ for tensions that exist within the group itself” (Jennifer et al., 2003, p. 490). The terms toxic (McKay, HubermanArnold, Fratzl, & Thomas, 2008) and employee abusive (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008) have been used to describe organizations within which workplace bullying has gone on unabated and grown over time, organizations within which people treat each other badly as a matter of course (Lewis & Orford, 2005). Health care organizations—both clinical and educational—appear to be especially vulnerable to workplace bullying (Abe & Henley, 2010; Allan, Cowie, & Smith, 2009; Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2006; Quine, 2003; Randle, 2003), as a function of their organizational complexity and the complexity of the work of their employees. In toxic organizations, work culture and organizational productivity are particularly affected (Corney, 2008; Harvey, Heames, Richey, & Leonard, 2006; Johnson, 2009; Lutgen-Sandvik, 2008; Vega & Comer, 2005). Finding words to structure discussion of workplace bullying supports sensitive analysis of its true significance in the workplace. Toward that goal, catastrophization (Sullivan et al., 1995), a concept from the chronic pain literature, may offer an opening to support both personal understanding and objective explanation of subtle workplace bullying behaviors.
The Phenomenon of Catastrophization Catastrophization is a cognitive and affective response that has been studied for its implications in influencing patients' responses to pain for more than 20 years. Catastrophization is defined as an “exaggerated negative orientation toward noxious stimuli” (Sullivan et al., 1995, p. 524) enacted by some individuals who experience chronic pain as a function of their emotional makeup (Patterson, 2004; Sullivan et al., 1995; Sullivan, Tripp, & Santor, 2000). The goal of catastrophizing in dealing with chronic pain is to “maximize proximity or to solicit assistance or empathic responses from others” (Sullivan et al., 2000, p. 60). The sense of control and enhanced interpersonal affiliation (Lackner & Gurtman, 2004, 2005) resulting from catastrophization may serve to mediate distress responses to pain (Keefe et al., 1987; Sullivan et al., 1995), resulting in its becoming selfreinforcing. Catastrophizers tend to develop stable beliefs about the high threat value of pain (Chaves & Brown, 1987; Spanos, Radtke-Bodorik, Ferguson, & Jones, 1979; Sullivan et al., 1995), and they may be emotionally wired (Patterson, 2004) to engage in catastrophizing behaviors. Catastrophizing involves magnification and rumination about the threat of pain and becoming helpless to deal with it. Although the mechanism of action for
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catastrophization in pain is not fully understood (Edwards et al., 2008), it almost certainly involves cognition, emotion, and significant interpersonal components (Edwards et al., 2008; Lackner & Gurtman, 2004, 2005; Pincus & Gurtman, 1995; Sullivan et al., 1995). Lackner and Gurtman found strong correlations between catastrophizing and interpersonal problems among participants in two studies, even when they controlled for the influence of distress symptoms. Further, they noted that “pain catastrophizers” had an interpersonal style that “demanded support and caretaking” (p. 597). Patterson (2004) cited five factors that perpetuate chronic pain's impact, factors especially likely to describe those who demonstrate catastrophizing characteristics. The factors—emotional distress, a focus on physical distress, conviction that a cure is necessarily physical, the presence of psychological rewards for not getting better, and disuse of the body part involved with the pain—are consistent with the rumination, magnification, and helplessness of catastrophization. Catastrophization has been identified as one of the most important determinants of pain-related outcomes, short and long term (Edwards et al., 2008). Although it enhances social support through relationship, it does little to help individuals deal physically with the pain those who use it are experiencing.
Quantifying Catastrophization Sullivan et al. (1995) developed a 13-item instrument— the Pain Catastrophizing Scale—to formally assess and quantify the processes of catastrophization reported in a wide body of literature. Building on their review of that literature, those investigators engaged a study sample of 127 men and 302 women, college students, whose mean age was 20.1 years (SD = 5.1 years) to determine whether the three nonoverlapping factors described in the literature—rumination, magnification, and helplessness— did, in fact, characterize catastrophization. Using principal components analysis with oblique rotation, Sullivan et al. found support, as they anticipated, for the threedimensional model of catastrophizing. The rumination factor accounted for 41% of the total variance in respondents' reported thoughts and feelings related to pain and distress; magnification accounted for 10%; and helplessness accounted for 8%. For women, the occurrence of catastrophization was higher than for men, as the investigators also had anticipated on initiating their study. Sullivan et al. (1995) defined rumination as thinking and anxiety about wanting the pain to stop, inability to stop thinking about it, and focusing on the pain. They defined magnification as wondering about the future—if the pain will get worse, if something serious will happen—and as linking the pain experienced in the study, itself, with other painful experiences. They defined helplessness as a sense of feeling as if one could not go on, noting the severity of the pain, a sense that there is nothing that could be done for it, and
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feeling overwhelmed. Although these factors describe chronic pain catastrophizers' behavior, they also reflect the sorts of feelings reported by participants in the authors' recent study (full findings reported elsewhere) and in numerous published studies of workplace bullying by investigators worldwide.
Relevance of Catastrophization to Physical and Bullying Pain Physical pain and the interpersonal pain of bullying both represent discomfort: Both are ongoing; both interfere with day-to-day activity; and both may signal that there is an underlying problem that should be addressed. Like victims of chronic pain, victims of bullying may be neurologically wired to engage with the pain of bullying (Einarsen, 1999; Einarsen, Hoel, & Notelaers, 2009; Matthiesen & Einarsen, 2001), and it appears that in both chronic pain and subtle bullying situations, victims demonstrate “a tendency to increase attentional focus on pain-related thoughts” (Sullivan et al., 1995, p. 525). Bodily discomfort drives the threat of physical pain; interpersonal discomfort drives the threat of subtle workplace bullying pain. However, not everyone who is assailed by pain becomes a victim. The numerous kinds of pain that researchers cited previously in this article all suggest that those who do catastrophize in response to pain become its victims. This is not to say that they are “bad” people. They simply are vulnerable in terms of their abilities to respond to the threat of physical pain. Similarly, not everyone who is assailed by subtle workplace bullying becomes a victim. The authors contend that those who catastrophize in response to the subtle tactics of workplace bullying become its victims. They are not bad people; they simply are vulnerable in terms of their abilities to respond to the interpersonal communications bullies employ. The notion of catastrophization helps to provide a structure for understanding victimization equally well as a response to subtle workplace bullying as it does to physical pain. The interpersonal discomfort of subtle workplace bullying and the relevance of the notion of catastrophization to that discomfort are the focus of the remainder of this article.
Catastrophization in Workplace Bullying “Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation” (Angela Carter, n.d.). We argue that catatrophizers' unique response to bullies' language is the origin for their rumination, magnification, and helpless rejoinders to bullying behavior. Workplace bullying is a dyadic process, requiring the simultaneous interaction of a dispatcher, a bully, and a recipient (i.e., the victim). Without a recipient, who will knowingly or unknowingly assume the role of victim, taking on a “victim mentality” (Horzepa, 2011), bullying will necessarily stop. The authors argue that catastrophization is the essence of bullying because it engages both the bully and
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the victim in a mutual process of rumination, magnification, and helplessness. As Harris (1967) noted, all communication is established through complementary interchanges, with each participant encouraging the other in rather specific roles to establish what Berne (1964) defined as “transactions.” Transactions are “the unit(s) of social intercourse” (Berne, 1964, p. 29) that are made up of language that includes verbal and nonverbal components. Nonverbal aspects of communication such as facial expression, eye contact, smiles or frowns, and body language are so important to establishing meaning that in nonspoken venues like e-mail, nonverbal cues are added through emoticons such as ☺ and ☹; parenthetical phrases like (sigh); and CAPITALIZATION, WHICH SUGGESTS THAT I'M YELLING. When language is expressed verbally, it includes an essential aspect known as prosody, or pattern of intonation, that helps to convey the intent of the speaker. Prosody helps listeners to make judgments about a speaker's meaning (Kitigawa & Fodor, 2006) and provides a context through which listeners identify the character of the social relationship implied in their interaction (Maynard, 2003). Interestingly, it is the nonverbal components of language, not the words themselves, that convey the majority of meaning to listeners (Mehrabian & Ferris, 1967; Watzlawick, BeavinBavelas, & Jackson, 1967). Similarly, it is the nonverbal aspects of bullies' language that present the threat to their potential victims and that serve as the vehicle for perpetuating its catastrophizing nature. Through their nonverbal and prosodic aspects, bullies' communications project an aura of supreme self-confidence that almost certainly is a misrepresentation; more accurately, the aura is a cover for the pain of a relatively unstable self-esteem, a “pseudoself” (Kerr, 1988, p. 43). Often unsure of their own personal boundaries and social skills, bullies rely heavily on input from others for maintenance of sense of self (Einarsen et al., 2009). To remain psychologically “whole,” bullies seek to engage vulnerable others through behaviors such as “belittling, professional humiliation, and failure to acknowledge good work” (Randle, 2003, p. 399). The complex and convoluted connotations and implications inferred through a bully's tone of voice and body language leave targeted victims feeling confused, demeaned, afraid, and strangely committed to the bullying interaction. In other words, those connotations and implications set the stage for a victim's rumination about what the bully meant, magnification of its significance, and sense of helplessness in response to its confusing gestalt. In fact, in a successful bullying situation, targeted victims find that although they would like to walk away, they cannot. As one participant in our study noted, It is uncomfortable to be around individuals that are incivil (sic) and having to do activities with them was not my idea of resolution. These individuals have made it so I have to devote time to strategies to not let their behavior bother me.
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Consistent with data summarized in numerous published reports, data like these from the authors' 2011 study suggest that those who become bullies' victims do, in fact, ruminate about the bullying, magnify its actual and potential consequences, and tend toward a pattern of helplessness that further encourages the bully. Hutchinson et al. (2006) succinctly defined what happens for bullies' victims, noting that for them, “a state of psychic alienation occurs in which the disenfranchised internalise (sic) their oppression and support rather than resist it” (pp. 119–120). The work of those investigators summarizes the findings presented in paper after paper, describing the effects of workplace bullying on its victims (see, e.g., Baillien, Neyens, DeWitte, & DeCuyper, 2009; Dzurec, Bromley, Dunton, & Phillips, under review; Einarsen & Mikkelsen, 2003; Gini & Pozzoli, 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2006; Johnson, 2009). In nearly all interpersonal situations, listeners are required to make out-of-context judgments (Kitigawa & Fodor, 2006) about the meaning intended by speakers when words, their accompanying nonverbal behaviors, and speaker prosody do not match. This mismatch, couched in the transactional, complementary nature of communication, is especially pronounced in bullying because it is fundamental to catastrophization and thus to the perpetuation of bullying. For example, a bullying employee might berate a targeted victim publicly and then note in a calm, ingratiating voice, “I'm only trying to help you.” The victim might remain silent or might express shock or hurt at the bully's allegations, behaving as if he or she deserved the treatment (and the supposed helping efforts) proffered by the bully. “Systematic distortion” (Lyon, 2006) of communications through bullying transactions is intentional on the part of the bully, planned to ensure a position of relative power. That distortion is successful as long as the targeted victim enacts his or her necessarily reciprocal role in the communication process, succumbing to the confusion of the catastrophization process through ongoing rumination, magnification, and helplessness about it. In short, bullies' emotionally laden pronouncements, especially when they are delivered with the stirring, one– two punch certainty that bullies typically employ in their language prosody, encourage doubt about the workplace and its employees through their catastrophizing intent. They yield angst and confusion among those vulnerable to the catastrophizing pronouncements and help to ensure that the bully's self-proclaimed position is beyond question or reproach. Through a subtle display of power, bullies attempt to draw wanted others close while distancing those who are unwanted (Baillien & DeWitte, 2009). It is in response to the angst produced that victims engage in catastrophization, ruminating about what the bully said or did to them, magnifying the possible effect of the bullying communication and behaviors, and typically rendering themselves helpless to do anything about changing the behavior—even as they talk to coworkers about the bullying experience (Corney, 2008; Einarsen
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et al., 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2006). Victims' ongoing engagement with their bully counterparts reflects characteristics typical of bullying victims—dependency, emotionality, and dependence on relationships (Graham, Unruh, & Jennings, 1991). By virtue of the support received from well-meaning colleagues, victims achieve a secondary gain that serves to reinforce victim beliefs and behaviors.
Implications of Bullying Catastrophization for the Broader Workplace Workplace bullying, especially when it is subtle, is not openly discussed in workplaces(Beale & Hoel, 2010; Brannan, 2007; Crawford, 1999; Ferris et al., 2007), in large part as a function of its communicational obscurity. Moreover, McKay et al. (2008) noted that the notion of bullying or “incivility” (p. 78), as it is often euphemistically denoted, is increasingly difficult to address in the workplace, in large part because of the simultaneous complexity of individual employees and the surreptitious nature of professional bullying. Through formal documents, such as contracts, bylaws, and policies, work-related processes derive formal legitimacy (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008). The subjective, essentially unexpressible behaviors of workplace bullying are far less effectively controlled or managed through those formal mechanisms. Seemingly innocuous, the subtle interpersonal dynamics of a workplace bully are not readily amenable to clear observation, much less to reprimand. As Rayner and Cooper (1997) asked, “Bullies who are shouters and screamers are reasonably easy to identify, but what about the subtle bully who sets up their staff to fail by withholding or manipulating information, springing meetings on them, physically isolating them from the tools to do their job, or engaging in micromanagement?” (p. 211). Through the formlessness imposed by catastrophization, subtle bullying exacts its intent broadly within organizations, and ultimately, its bland, interpersonal processes can affect an entire organization, ravaging employee morale (MacIntosh et al., 2011) and worker productivity and even compromising organizational revenues (Einarsen et al., 2011). The ongoing “causal chain” (Zapf, 1999, p. 70) of stable and dyadic, but dysfunctional, interpersonal communications enacted through the one-to-one catastrophization of workplace bullying implicates others in the organization over time (Jennifer et al., 2003; Lewis & Orford, 2005) as plays of power are repeated throughout the organization. Peers are readily triangulated into workplace bullying as bystanders recognize the benefits of the power gained through subtle bullying and as organization equilibrium shifts to restabilize around bullying dysfunction. “Triangles are forever. Once the emotional circuitry of a triangle is in place, it usually outlives the people who participate in it” (Kerr, 1988, p. 53). Environments failing to recognize this triangulation—especially when it is driven in part by the rapid change that is characteristic of many organizations today—tacitly support bullying,
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often providing “necessary antecedents (e.g. perceived power imbalances, low perceived costs, and dissatisfaction and frustration), motivating structures or incentives (e.g. internal competition, reward systems, and expected benefits), and precipitating processes or triggering circumstances (e.g. downsizing and restructuring, organizational changes, changes in the composition of the work group)” (Salin, 2003, p. 1213) that perpetuate a bullying-supportive context. As they are triangulated in the catastrophization of bullying, the bully, the targeted victim, and the involved coworkers become unable to deal rationally with the bullying behaviors confronting them, and workplaces can become “employee abusive” (Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008, p. 304). Fear of litigation, among other anxieties, often prevents organization officials from recognizing and from addressing workplace bullying, especially when it is subtle (Beale & Hoel, 2010). As a fourth respondent in the authors' recent study noted regarding a supervisor's response to her report of workplace bullying, the administrator did nothing about (it). Stated that there was a history of this nurse taking air out of tires of previous supervisors and this manager did not want to get involved. Stated she was a “good nurse.
Intervening in Workplace Bullying Through recognizing the process of catastrophization at work, administrators may be supported in recognizing the gestalt of workplace bullying, putting the seemingly innocuous behaviors of bullies and the seemingly overblown responses of victims into an interrelational framework that helps to make sense of the process, and accepting the reports presented to them as needing proactive intervention. This recognition is an important first step in addressing workplace bullying; to date, that recognition has challenged administrators internationally (Einarsen et al., 2011; Healthy Workplace Bill, n.d.; Salin, 2009). Attending to catastrophization as a direct response to the threats of bullying, administrators can reframe victim complaints as distress signals rather than as reflections of victims' inadequate social skills. From this standpoint, they are well positioned to establish programs, for example, using available instructional formats (see, e.g., Duffy, 2009; Latham, Hogan, & Ringl, 2008, and Workplace bullying and destructive behavior, 2011), and/or to work with personnel in human resources to provide active support to employees. Attention to the subtleties of workplace bullying, catastrophizaion will support bullying victims in their search for relief; will build environments that are employee friendly; and almost certainly will contribute to organizations' bottom lines, as employees can focus on the work they are doing rather than on avoidance of strange, interpersonal impasses. Without doubt, the roles of adminstrators bullying containment are not simple or short term; more
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accurately, their roles are equally as complex as is the catastrophization of workplace bullying itself. Administrators' roles entail ongoing willingness to state clear expectations regarding employees' interpersonal interactions; to recognize how through triangulation, bullies can make interpersonal use of victims; to listen with open minds to employee complaints of being bullied; to refuse to make judgments without full data about any bullying situation presented to them; and to encourage open discussion of the sorts of activities that constitute workplace bullying. In short, administrators' roles encompass appropriate and ongoing vigilance for the kinds of subtleties that establish potential bully/victim hierarchies. If they do less, administrators actually serve to support workplace bullying, with the consequence that their employees and their organizations will suffer as a result. Catastrophization-related behaviors have been called among the most important contributors to pain outcomes in both the short and long term (Edwards et al., 2008). Characterizing the process of catastrophization as a “tendency to focus on and exaggerate the threat value of painful stimuli and negatively evaluate…(one's) own ability to deal with pain,” Keefe et al. (2003, p. 2) effectively and intentionally captured the experiences of some individuals to pain; simultaneously, they may inadvertently have captured the experience of some individuals to workplace bullying, especially when that bullying is subtle. The notion of catastrophization may serve well to put workplace bullying into a context that will give voice to workers, administrators, and researchers who have been frustrated in speaking of workplace bullying and enhance bullying victims' openness to helpful interventions. Such language might be especially important in health care workplaces where workplace bullying is noted to be particularly prevalent. Although further research is required to study how best to use the notion of catastrophization to inform individuals and organizations about the personal and organizational effects of workplace bullying, initial analyses demonstrate the relevance of the concept to actively supporting interpersonal and organizational efforts in speaking of workplace bullying and possibly to limiting its long-term effects. Creating and conveying the meaning of ideas through language are essential and defining features of human beings. Through language, an idea “becomes an object for us” (Strasser, 1985, p. 33), not just something that I, personally, have experienced. Catastrophization serves to provide language to support conceptualization of the processes of workplace bullying.
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