[HN Gopher] Exploring supervisors' two-faced response to their p...
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Exploring supervisors' two-faced response to their past abusive
behavior
Author : rustoo
Score : 85 points
Date : 2020-12-05 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
| skim_milk wrote:
| Cool to see a study like this, but of course it's not meant to be
| a ground-breaking new discovery. It's well-studied that abusive,
| grandiose people are people with intense anxiety that are very
| difficult to heal because of their grandiosity (see narcissists)
|
| There are so many studies on this topic all trying to find the
| right words hoping to finally convince us: anxious/grandiose
| people will never change inside (without years-long therapy),
| they will only change their tactics once they've been found out.
| So if this happens in a work environment fire them immediately
| once discovered, or leave your company if you can't fire them -
| you will _not_ find a way to fix these people or learn how to
| cope with them yourself _just do it_.
|
| Rewrote the first paragraph since it sucked.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| So fire people with mental illness, once it's "discovered"? You
| say that like it's some monstrous character fault.
|
| Conflict in the workplace happens, including things that crop
| up due to people's neuroses. You'd have to fire most people.
|
| I agree you should distance from anyone that appears dishonest
| or abusive, but that has nothing to do with mental illness.
| People that just do it to get what they want are if anything
| worse.
| skim_milk wrote:
| I have edited the comment to be sure no one interprets it as
| I am attacking them. The point is to fire narcissistic-type
| workplace abusers because their personality and behavior is
| resilient to change as this study, and nearly all studies,
| show. The workplace will be much better.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > anxious/grandiose people will never change inside (without
| years-long therapy)... I'm not talking about anxiety like a
| normal person normally experiences (you)
|
| But writing comments on the Internet is these people's therapy.
| enkid wrote:
| I've never seen these studies claiming anxious people tend to
| be immoral in their behaviors at work. Do you have a link? My
| personal intuition is that "grandiose" and "anxious" people are
| quite distinct groups with very distinct behaviors.
| rurban wrote:
| I have an anxious manager in my organization, and he is the
| best manager by far. No immoralities, a bit too much yes-
| saying, but also occasional no's.
|
| The anxiety could be treated fairly easily I heard, but he
| didn't do it so far. Narcissists are the problematic ones,
| not anxious ones.
| skim_milk wrote:
| >anxious people tend to be immoral in their behaviors at work
|
| I'm not claiming that
|
| >My personal intuition is that "grandiose" and "anxious"
| people are quite distinct groups with very distinct behaviors
|
| This is correct. But I was trying to refer to the link
| between grandiosity and depression _when anxiety is the
| underlying cause_ (which I really didn 't need to bring up in
| the original comment, don't know why I wrote that). I mainly
| had this book in mind when I was typing my comment https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist)#Th... which
| was I guess the first book to link grandiosity and depression
| if you want to look into that.
| ownagefool wrote:
| There's probably an overlap, i.e. your dickhead boss probably
| has a bunch of reasons being immoral is the greater good,
| lesser evil, or ends justifies the means.
|
| Of course, some people seem to just be dicks with nary a care
| in the world, but in my experience, most openly anxious folks
| are nice. They tend to be too anxious not to be.
|
| Personally, I guess I'm an anxious person _sometimes_ ( can
| panic attack but tend to forget about it if I don't think
| about it ) and it doesn't make me act dishonest or an
| asshole. Not even saying I've never been an asshole, but
| stabbing someone in the back just isn't my style and goes
| against my working class Scottish stoic upbringing. As does
| being openly anxious, it's not something I tell folks.
| bigbubba wrote:
| A policy of firing people with anxiety issues seems
| particularly cruel, almost designed to _vindicate_ their
| feelings of anxiety.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _anxious /grandiose_
|
| You mean narcissistic? Anxiety gives people panic attacks when
| they see a water glass too close to the edge of a table, I
| think you're talking about grandiose narcissism. It fits your
| description of "crippling shame and fear, combined with
| grandiosity."
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Anxiety can cause many behaviors. Not everyone reacts the
| same when they're freaking out. I don't think it necessarily
| manifests in singular intense "events".
|
| People can be generally be on edge and scared all day. This
| can cause relationship problems. Some men have trouble
| expressing emotions beyond anger.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Symptoms of anxiety disorders do not include lying,
| manipulating, or abuse. You're pathologizing shitty behavior
| when the truth is that some people do bad things for reasons
| that have nothing to do with mental illness.
| skim_milk wrote:
| I'm trying to establish the link between shitty behavior and
| intense anxiety - which I assume most people in the mental
| health world would agree that intense feelings of anxiety
| underlie most bad behavior. I'm not saying if you've ever
| felt anxious you need to take all the drugs.
|
| But this type of intense anxiety, from which most workplace
| abuses manifest, cannot be easily healed. So if you see
| abuses at your company, fire the offender or leave. Don't let
| HR think they can simply heal the abuser it won't happen as
| every study has shown.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is a common myth about abuse. Abusers act they way
| they do because their behavior gets them what they want,
| not because they're driven to abuse by mental illness. Some
| abusers would like you to believe that, however, because it
| shifts the blame for their behavior away from them and
| ultimately gets them what they want.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I don't think this is really true. Stuff I've read from
| psychologists say the opposite. It's actually really
| controversial, and people are debating what role therapy
| should play in abuse cases.
|
| I don't think a link to mental illness is even really
| disputed anymore. They've actually started screening
| people out of traditional programs, due to mental illness
| and drug addiction in criminal abuse cases. I'm trying to
| say away from the hairy politics here, as it can get
| quite heated.
| hitekker wrote:
| > most people in the mental health world would agree that
| intense feelings of anxiety underlie most bad behavior
|
| That is a huge assumption to make, without any supporting
| evidence.
|
| > But intense anxiety, from which most workplace abuses
| manifest..
|
| I agree with the GP. You can't pseudo-intellectually
| rationalize _all_ malice as mental illness.
| skim_milk wrote:
| Ok. I _believe_ if you abuse your workers, you are
| unhealthy, you cannot be healed easily by HR, and I will
| fire you /not work for you (this paper is evidence of
| that this belief is scientific truth, but let's just say
| it's a belief). I _believe_ if you avoid abusive people
| in life and at work you will live a happier life. I guess
| I will have to make a religion out of avoiding abusive
| people so I can 't be criticized for it?
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| It's interesting, I couldn't find anything in the symptom
| list, but I was reading something about men and anxiety.
|
| I've seen some speculation by physiologists that anxiety is
| often unrecognized in men, because it often causes anger.
| People just think they're dealing with another angry man, but
| it's really a manifestation of someone who's scared, and only
| has limited ways to express it.
|
| Of course this doesn't excuse any bad behavior. It seems
| highly likely to me that much of this bad behavior is caused
| by mental illness. Yet, we insist against this, because of
| mores regarding personal responsibility.
| thomasahle wrote:
| > You're pathologizing shitty behavior when the truth is that
| some people do bad things for reasons that have nothing to do
| with mental illness.
|
| You should be able to pathologize people without it taking
| away their personal responsibility. Otherwise nobody would
| have responsibility in a deterministic world.
| andi999 wrote:
| Why fire them? Put them in sales.
| confidantlake wrote:
| >So, anxious people (depressed or grandiose) feel they have to
| lie, manipulate, abuse to stay where they are at
|
| As someone who has anxiety and knows several people with
| anxiety, this has not been my experience at all. Like I am
| probably in a lower paying job than I should be despite my
| performance because I am too anxious to ask for a raise or
| interview around. I am not good enough socially to manipulate
| people, if I had those skills I would probably not be anxious.
| I have learned at a very young age to treat people very well
| because I need long term relationships, I can't quickly charm
| someone new if destroy my current relationships. My anxiety
| makes my sensitive not just to criticism but toward the
| feelings of others. Some anxious people are assholes just like
| some charming people are. But most are just normal people
| trying to play the hand they were dealt.
| skim_milk wrote:
| I don't know why I wrote the first paragraph, I was groggy
| and I can't comprehend what I was thinking originally. The
| point I was trying to make is that lay people cannot heal
| intense anxiety, and workplace abuses are evidence of that
| intense anxiety. So HR should always immediately fire
| workplace abusers simply on the fact that the abuser cannot
| be healed by HR and they will not improve despite their best
| efforts, which seems to be the conclusion that all the
| scientific papers on abusers are trying to help us go
| towards. I had an abusive boss in the past and their intense
| anxiety/insecurity/whatever you call it is maddening.
| eska wrote:
| You're not actually responding to what people are saying to
| you.
|
| You: 1. anxiety causes people to manipulate, lie, etc. 2.
| anxiety cannot be cured quickly => it's best to fire them
| instead of trying to "heal" them.
|
| Others to you: no, anxiety does not (necessarily) cause
| people to manipulate, lie, etc., so your conclusion is
| wrong.
|
| You're just repeating yourself..
| Gupie wrote:
| He is not saying that people with anxiety are abusive he
| is saying that abusive people are often have anxiety,
| i.e. a subset of anxious people try to cope with their
| anxiety by being grandiose and abusing.
| [deleted]
| hitekker wrote:
| "Faking nice" over "making nice" is pretty common in online
| communities too.
|
| 1) A person-turned-abuser sees an opportunity to abuse an
| undeserving bystander.
|
| 2) The abuser takes it, using polite-sounding, civil language as
| a smokescreen.
|
| 3) Some commenters will point out the malice in the abuser's
| tone.
|
| 4) The abuser furiously spams the thread, claiming clear & good
| intentions. The abuser may even pretend to apologize to the
| abused.
|
| 5) Months later, the abuser only remembers "both sides were
| wrong" or the abused "kind of deserved it"
|
| The relevant quote is "Propriety is the least of all laws, but
| the most obeyed." If a person offends the group's vague sense of
| manners, that person risks being condemned and ostracized. But if
| a person can cloak their action under a thin veneer of
| respectability (propriety), they can do quite a bit, even harm a
| fellow human being, without being detected.
| eplanit wrote:
| "moral cleansing theory and impression management and
| construction theory" ??
|
| I'm more worried about these than a jerk boss.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I haven't heard these terms before and I am paywalled from the
| actual study, but my first reaction is to view them with
| suspicion since the level of academic rigor in these fields
| seems very low in general. And yes they do end up having an
| impact on all of society when their conclusions are popularized
| and amplified by activists ultimately. So the caution is
| warranted.
| tokai wrote:
| Could you elaborate? You're more worried about three academic
| theories/frameworks existing than having a jerk of a boss?
| tertius wrote:
| One affects society of successful. The other only affects a
| small amount of people.
| glutamate wrote:
| Anyone with full text access?
| _Microft wrote:
| You might appeal to Alexandra, patron saint of the paywalled
| scientist?
| andi999 wrote:
| It would be really great if there were something like a hub
| for science. Wondering how one would call it if it were to
| exist.
| clankyclanker wrote:
| It would act like some sort of telescope that would allow
| one to view academic papers. I assume it would be called
| "Science Hubble." </humor>
| djohnston wrote:
| She is an under-appreciated pioneer for human knowledge.
| Veen wrote:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.st/doi/10.1111/peps....
| glutamate wrote:
| Thank you, that works.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| That only has the front page for me?
| Kenji wrote:
| Thank Alexandra Elbakyan for free access to information whose
| collection was largely publicly funded. A true warrior for
| justice.
|
| https://sci-hub.se//https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1...
| studius wrote:
| "First, we provide insights regarding how supervisors respond
| to their own abusive behaviors, which allows organizations to
| better address its consequences. By exploring how abusive
| behavior impacts the supervisor him/herself, we help to
| identify potential "blind spots" in how abuse can promote (or
| inhibit) other behaviors. Specifically, we find that symbolized
| moral identity is a key characteristic that prompts abusive
| episodes to impact image concerns and subsequent impression
| management behaviors. Thus, organizations might consider
| offering ethics trainings to help supervisors monitor their
| symbolized moral identity when it comes to mistreating
| subordinates. Such trainings have been shown to impact
| individuals' other forms of moral perceptions (Reynolds, 2008).
| Similarly, other scholars have advocated for employees to
| develop their self-monitoring and political skills being that
| they are critical when it comes to favorable impression
| management tactics (Bolino et al., 2016), suggesting a valuable
| focus on symbolized moral identity. In this way, these
| trainings may help supervisors become more aware of the impacts
| of their behavior for their image which, as indicated by our
| findings, may lead to some degree of reparatory behavior -
| albeit inauthentic reparatory behaviors.
|
| Second, our findings have implications for the selection of
| organizational supervisors. That is, organizations that place
| greater emphasis on authenticity regarding leadership or
| organizational climate (George et al., 2007) would benefit from
| our findings, particularly when it comes to supervisor
| selection. Specifically, we find that supervisors who endorse
| less of a symbolized moral identity are less likely to have
| image concerns and thus less prone to engage in impression
| management tactics that may be perceived as inauthentic
| following abusive episodes (Eastman, 1994). Thus, it behooves
| organizations that want to develop highly authentic supervisors
| or organizational climates to seek to hire supervisors that are
| lower (or at least not higher) on symbolized moral identity.
|
| Third, prior research indicates that engaging in daily
| impression management tactics comes with a personal cost to the
| actor. Specifically, impression management tactics have been
| linked to greater subsequent daily cognitive depletion,
| exhaustion, anxiety, work-family conflict, and sleep (Klotz et
| al., 2018; Wagner et al., 2014), while potentially being
| deceptive to the supervisor themselves (Conger, 1990).
| Supervisors who engage in abusive episodes not only experience
| greater daily image concerns, but in attempting to resolve
| those concerns with daily impression management tactics, are
| likely to generate greater personal exhaustion, anxiety, and
| work-to-family hardships (Wagner et al., 2014). While it would
| be most beneficial for organizations to integrate training
| initiatives that aid supervisors to develop better
| interpersonal and leadership skills as a means of curtailing
| abusive episodes in the first place (Tepper, 2000), it would
| also be advantageous for organizations to provide support for
| leaders that have engaged in abusive episodes to more
| effectively cope with the image concerns they experience as a
| result of mistreating their employees. Further, providing
| training to supervisors on the implications of their behavior--
| moral or image-- may prove to be a fruitful path forward for
| practitioners. Recent research has highlighted the value of
| self-reflection for supervisors (Lanaj et al., 2019) as a means
| of fostering improved behaviors; encouraging such reflection
| may help supervisors to more genuinely respond to their past
| behavior, rather than engage in surface-level, image-focused
| behaviors.
|
| Finally, Eastman (1994) indicates that impression management
| tactics are received unfavorably when perceived as insincere or
| there are ulterior motives for the behaviors (see also Harris
| et al., 2007; Leary, 1996). Our study shows that prior-day
| abusive episodes precede next-day ingratiation,
| exemplification, and self-promotion behaviors. Given the
| temporal proximity of abusive and impression management
| behaviors, third-parties (e.g., subordinates, the focal
| supervisor's direct supervisor) may view next-day impression
| management behaviors as insincere or owing to ulterior motives
| of the supervisor trying to repair his/her damaged image as a
| result of his/her prior day abusive behaviors. Indeed, our
| emphasis on within-person variation on such impression
| management behaviors underscores this point; within-person
| variation on impression management behaviors, by deviating from
| the supervisor's typical impression management behaviors, may
| warrant additional attributions of insincerity. This lack of
| attributed sincerity can undermine the effectiveness of the
| impression management tactics (Eastman, 1994; Leary, 1996) or
| erode the supervisor's relationships with others (Kim et al.,
| 2018). Thus, supervisors who engage in any form of abusive
| episodes would benefit by being cognizant that their impression
| management approaches intended to repair their image concerns
| may be interpersonally costly. In other words, impression
| management behaviors should be employed with caution given the
| potential downsides of those behaviors (Bolino et al., 2016).
| Instead, managers may find value in employing more genuine
| forms of reparative behaviors, rather than impression
| management behaviors, following episodes of abusive behavior."
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| https://sci-hub.se/downloads/2020-09-26/cb/10.1111@peps.1242...
| studius wrote:
| Summary:
|
| * Figure out a good way not to hire a 2-faced asshole, because it
| ain't easy to fix.
|
| * Making someone change their normal behavior may deplete their
| energy in the short-term, and they'll come off as fake. So, if
| you're after that, go full on Pygmalion, and give it some time to
| set in; some crap two-week HR course won't cut it.
|
| * Be yourself. It's less work and you'll come off as more real.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Be yourself is terrible advice! Be yourself unless you're a
| dick, in which case seriously consider being someone else.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| There is an old saying:
|
| "Be yourself. But always be your _better_ self. "
|
| People are complex, with many facets. Sometimes they act one
| way, sometimes they act another, and both of those can be
| true to the good, flawed, and inconsistent being that we are.
| We have better sides, and they are just as a part of
| ourselves as our flawed sides.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Be yourself is a good advice even if you are a dick. Maybe
| not good for you persobally but for everyone else so they
| know early they should steer clear of you and never get
| attached to you.
| treeman79 wrote:
| There are certainly groups were People are uncomfortable
| unless everyone is a dick.
| nullsense wrote:
| Some people are just terrible and they can't fake being
| otherwise.
| wolco2 wrote:
| Be who you want to become.
| ytwySXpMbS wrote:
| I think it's more important to accept who you are. Just
| pretending isn't going to change anything, maybe deep
| mental health therapy can change you in some ways, but just
| pretending is exhausting and people will be able to tell.
| warent wrote:
| It is very important to accept who you are, and you can
| simultaneously accept who you are capable of becoming
| because that is equally who you are.
|
| For example, if you feel deep inside that you want to be
| an athlete, well that's a part of who you are, even if
| you're obese. You can embrace that by working toward
| becoming an athlete. Start living like an athlete in ways
| that you can.
|
| In corporate situations this is a lot less ambiguous,
| where if you want to be promoted then you have to do the
| work of at least 1 rank above yourself before you're
| officially at that level.
|
| If you feel like you're pretending and it's exhausting,
| then it either means you're not being true to yourself
| (you're not meant to become that) or you're suffering
| from imposter syndrome.
| warent wrote:
| I'm not 100% certain but I think often times people who are
| the biggest assholes are usually that way precisely because
| they're afraid of being themselves
| roenxi wrote:
| Fairly simple example, but assuming a little bit of nature
| in the nature vs. nurture argument there are probably a
| fair number of men out there who get a real kick out of
| being violent. I encourage them not to 'be yourself' except
| in some very specific circumstances.
|
| A much better strategy than 'be yourself' is 'try to
| understand why other people think you are wrong'. That is a
| strategy that can improve over time. 'Be yourself'
| literally locks in whatever mistakes a person is already
| making.
|
| Not going to judge anyone who goes with 'be yourself' but
| let the record show it is a bad way to approach life unless
| a body is _very lucky_ in who their self is.
| tertius wrote:
| Do you really believe 'be yourself' is a suggestion to be
| a jerk if you are a jerk?
|
| Jerks don't have a problem being jerks in my
| experience...
| roenxi wrote:
| > Do you really believe 'be yourself' is a suggestion to
| be a jerk if you are a jerk?
|
| It is advice. There is a real risk that advice is going
| to be taken litearlly
|
| If "be yourself" is a metaphor of some sort that means
| "assess if your personality needs change and then change
| it if you are a jerk" then that needs to be what people
| say in the first place. And realistically even then
| 'jerk' is too abstract. This is advice that requires
| psychic powers to interpret and as such is bad advice.
| refulgentis wrote:
| As someone who was occasionally afflicted by this for a
| while...yes, 1000x yes. My outcomes in complicated
| situations building over long time spans has completely
| changed the last year or two because now I choose to be an
| _incremental_ asshole.
|
| i.e. I speak up much earlier than I used to, when I thought
| it'd be 'mean', preventing things from deviating so far
| from my comfort zone that eventually I need to address
| everything I was uncomfortable with, all at once.
| tertius wrote:
| Yes, don't let people step on you from day 1. Boundaries.
|
| It's hard, you just want it to be a small infraction and
| then everything will be fine in the future.
|
| That's rare. At least it is in my experience.
| integrate-this wrote:
| What paper did you read? It wasn't the one that was linked
| which stated the opposite of what you just said.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Why is this upvoted, is HN literally a slot machine?
|
| It's garbage.
|
| A 3 weeks, self evaluated survey for amazon vouchers for ~100
| people? It's a great student thesis, but it's not science.
|
| The journal article reads like it's actually written to be
| confusing. Why do we think that's acceptable?
|
| What is the game here, people don't like supervisors so you write
| an article that make them look bad, so the media creates spam
| around you, they get clicks from the masses and you make money
| while everyone gets dumber.
|
| Out of interest does anyone have a link to the actual
| questionnaire used? So we can actually evaluate the claim.
| cbhl wrote:
| It looks like the survey surveyed 100 supervisors; that would
| be more difficult to do independently than just surveying 100
| rank-and-file employees. (The alternative would be to run this
| inside a FANG or similarly large company, and then try to get
| permission through the formal process to get a paper or book
| published.)
| db48x wrote:
| There is a large random component, and also a large popularity
| component.
| motoboi wrote:
| This seems to be part of the debate about Timnit Gebru exit
| from Google.
| aaron695 wrote:
| And Timnit Gebru would be the evil supervisor I assume?
|
| Timnit Gebru is a bad person, but this article is a strange
| segway.
|
| "Moral cleansing" is a made up term with no meaning for
| instance. It's used to confuse people, these industries have
| evolved similarly to how GPT-3 has evolved. You short circuit
| peoples brains so they can't evaluate what's being said.
| chmod775 wrote:
| I was going to post pretty much this.
|
| Makes you wonder whether it's hidden behind a paywall for a
| reason.
|
| I'm sure those paywalls are also hiding a lot of actually
| decent science, but it appears that just as many rely on them
| to hide their sloppy research.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2020-12-05 23:00 UTC)