Study: Rude work behavior hurts job performances

A destructive form of secondhand rudeness has been discovered by a University of Florida study, which concludes that employees who are not the intended targets of abusive workplace remarks still suffer from their effects.

Simply observing discourteous behavior erodes fellow employees' ability to think creatively, solve problems, be good team players and even goes so far as to make them harbor deep, dark and destructive thoughts, said Amir Erez, a University of Florida management professor. His study, with Christine Porath, a management professor at the University of Southern California, appears in the May edition of the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

"Managers should be very concerned because the negative consequences of rudeness on the job are not limited to the person who happens to be the victim," he said. "If five other people are watching, the effects are going to spill over into the rest of the organization."

The noticeable increase in workplace incivility affects the bottom line by lowering productivity, Mr. Erez said.

"As the modern workplace has become more sophisticated, it places increasing importance on complex and creative thought," he said.

"Employees are expected to be more flexible and think outside the box, and the consequences of rude behavior stand to take an increasing toll."

Because it is unexpected and threatening, demeaning treatment triggers a flood of negative emotions that make it difficult to think of anything else, whether one is a victim or bystander, Mr. Erez said. This interferes with cognitive processes, resulting in forgetfulness, poor decision-making, setting inappropriate priorities and taking longer to do one's job, he said.

Witnessing acts of rudeness also makes people less likely to help their co-workers, which is of concern with the shift to teamwork and emphasis on group cooperation, Mr. Erez said.

"Since almost 90 percent of major organizations have some form of team structure and so many types of jobs require close interaction with people, it definitely has an effect," he said. "Even an isolated incidence of rude behavior by a 'bad apple' stands to influence observers and 'spoil the barrel.' "

In the UF study, researchers set up three scenarios to examine the effects of rude behavior on a series of brainstorming tasks, which included solving anagrams and finding creative uses for a brick. The subjects were 222 students enrolled in required courses at UF and the University of Southern California.

One set of participants observed a fellow student arrive seven minutes late to the experiment, apologize and explain that a class across campus ran late. In response, the experimenter unleashed a barrage of criticism about him being irresponsible and unfit to hold a job in the "real world." A control group saw only a student being dismissed for being too late.

The second scenario was similar to the first except that it tested whether witnesses' performance would suffer as a result of rude treatment toward a peer, someone who had no direct authority over them.

In this study, participants observed a student criticize someone who took his time filling out a form, asking if he was stupid and if he could not see he was holding everyone else up.

Both scenarios also examined helping behaviors by asking participants if they would be willing to help the researcher by volunteering for a second study.

Compared with the control group, the students who witnessed someone being treated rudely were not only less willing to volunteer but also solved fewer anagrams, recalled less information and found less creative uses for a brick. Many even showed destructive tendencies, misspelling the anagram "demure" as "murder" and stating that a brick could be used as a weapon to "kill people," "beat people up," "trip someone" and "throw through a window."

Mr. Erez said he was shocked by the findings. "Considering the sheer numbers of people who witness daily acts of incivility, if rudeness primes them to think in an aggressive and hostile manner, it could take a devastating toll on organizations and society at large," he said.

Robert Sutton, a Stanford University professor of management science and engineering and author of the book "The No Asshole Rule," praised the research. "This rigorous and creative study suggests that mean-spirited employees not only do damage to their intended victims, the poison spreads to everyone who sees — and perhaps even hears about — their abusive actions," he said.