Rejection, Exclusion, and Harassment at Work and in Schools

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In recent years, the phenomenon of social exclusion and harassment has been studied with increasing intensity in two different literatures, referred to as “mobbing at the worksite” or “bullying at school,” respectively. This paper reviews research in each field and integrates the separate literatures. A comparison of definitions and operationalizations as well as empirical data on prevalence and moderating conditions demonstrates far-reaching parallels in the two phenomena. However, the predominantly descriptive research on bullying focuses on the offender (bully), whereas the mobbing discussion stresses the work environment. An integration reveals that a more comprehensive picture of harassment requires both perspectives to be taken into account. More elaborated evidence on mediating mechanisms can be found in a further field of research, i.e., on social status among peers, which has received little attention in either mobbing or bullying research. These studies demonstrate the strong impact of features of the victim (e.g., certain social cognitive styles and social competence) and the group (in particular, individual-group misfit) on an individual's social status. Finally, conceptual considerations with regard to definitions and processes of bullying/mobbing are discussed.