Neuroscience
Seeing one person be rude to another can stunt a person's creativity, impair their mental performance and make them less likely to be civil themselves. Christine Porath and Amir Erez, who made this finding, say it has profound implications for the workplace, where rudeness has been described by some as a modern epidemic.
Across three studies, Porath and Erez recruited undergrad students to take part in what they were led to believe was an investigation into personality and task performance. Porath and Erez contrived situations in their lab so that the student participants witnessed either a researcher be rude to a student for turning up late, or one student be rude to another student for taking so long over a consent form.
Witnessing an act of rudeness, whether committed by a researcher or student, led the participants to solve fewer anagrams, come up with fewer uses for a brick (and to come up with more aggressive uses!), made them less likely to offer to participate in another study, and lowered their mood.
A third study showed that the harmful effects of witnessing rudeness were greater when students were enrolled in a collaborative group task, compared with when they were enrolled in a competitive group task where they had something to gain from the rudeness victim's ordeal. Although the harmful effects were lower in the competitive scenario, they were still present.
Porath and Erez said this is the first study to their knowledge that has investigated the direct effects of merely witnessing rudeness as opposed to being the target of rudeness. Future research is needed to explore the mechanisms by which witnessing rudeness leads to the harmful outcomes reported here.
"The conclusion that rudeness may not be contained within the instigator-target dyad and that it affects performance is theoretically and practically significant because it implies that the organisational functioning and climate could be affected by isolated rude incidents," the researchers said.
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Porath, C., & Erez, A. (2009). Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces onlookers’ performance on routine and creative tasks Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109 (1), 29-44 DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.01.003
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Your Sense That Rudeness Is On The Increase Is Probably Just Another Self-serving Bias
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Neuroscience
The harm caused by witnessing rudeness
Seeing one person be rude to another can stunt a person's creativity, impair their mental performance and make them less likely to be civil themselves. Christine Porath and Amir Erez, who made this finding, say it has profound implications for the workplace, where rudeness has been described by some as a modern epidemic.Across three studies, Porath and Erez recruited undergrad students to take part in what they were led to believe was an investigation into personality and task performance. Porath and Erez contrived situations in their lab so that the student participants witnessed either a researcher be rude to a student for turning up late, or one student be rude to another student for taking so long over a consent form.
Witnessing an act of rudeness, whether committed by a researcher or student, led the participants to solve fewer anagrams, come up with fewer uses for a brick (and to come up with more aggressive uses!), made them less likely to offer to participate in another study, and lowered their mood.
A third study showed that the harmful effects of witnessing rudeness were greater when students were enrolled in a collaborative group task, compared with when they were enrolled in a competitive group task where they had something to gain from the rudeness victim's ordeal. Although the harmful effects were lower in the competitive scenario, they were still present.
Porath and Erez said this is the first study to their knowledge that has investigated the direct effects of merely witnessing rudeness as opposed to being the target of rudeness. Future research is needed to explore the mechanisms by which witnessing rudeness leads to the harmful outcomes reported here.
"The conclusion that rudeness may not be contained within the instigator-target dyad and that it affects performance is theoretically and practically significant because it implies that the organisational functioning and climate could be affected by isolated rude incidents," the researchers said.
_________________________________
Porath, C., & Erez, A. (2009). Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces onlookers’ performance on routine and creative tasks Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109 (1), 29-44 DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.01.003Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Your Sense That Rudeness Is On The Increase Is Probably Just Another Self-serving Bias
Lots of us seem to think that other people are getting ruder, at least judged on countless US and British news columns and opinion polls. Are we really in the midst of a unusual plague of incivility? It seems unlikely given that most eras make the same...
- “just Try To Ignore It”: How Neurotic People Respond To Extreme Rudeness At Work
We’ve all experienced rudeness at work; at the time it’s offensive and can harm our creativity, but it bears even darker fruits in the long-term, as repeated exposure is associated with depression, anxiety and psychological distress. How do people...
- Witnessing School Bullying Carries Its Own Psychological Risks
We hear a lot about the harmful consequences to children of seeing their parents argue or watching violence on TV, but very little about the potential harm of witnessing school bullying. But now Ian Rivers and colleagues have published findings suggesting...
- The Surprising Benefits Of Time Pressure At Work
The modern office job has made struggling jugglers of us all. Emailing, phoning, writing, accounting, project-swapping, browsing, not to mention snacking, and day-dreaming, all at once. It helps to have the self-discipline to focus on one task at a time,...
- A Misogynistic Workplace Is Bad For Male Employees Too
Witnessing the harassment or uncivil treatment of women at work is bad not only for female employees, but for the productivity of the whole organisation. That’s according to Kathi Miner-Rubino and Lilia Cortina in America, who surveyed 871 female and...