Tuesday, June 16, 2020

The largest group of bullies of women were female peers, who rarely bullied male peers, while male peers bullied both genders about equally

An exploration of gender and workplace bullying in New Zealand. Dianne Gardner, Maree Roche, Tim Bentley, Helena Cooper-Thomas, Bevan Catley, Stephen Teo, Linda Trenberth. International Journal of Manpower, June 4 2020. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJM-02-2019-0067/full/html

Abstract
Purpose: Workplace bullying involves a power imbalance, and despite laws in New Zealand which prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender, women remain under-represented in top-level roles. The aim of the study was to examine whether gender and role (managerial/non-managerial) were related to the bullying experienced by women and men.

Design/methodology/approach: An online survey collected data from 991 (41%) men and 1,421 (59%) women. The survey provided a definition of bullying and asked participants whether they had been bullied at work. If they replied yes, then follow-up questions asked for the gender and role of the perpetrator.

Findings: Women were more likely than men to self-identify as having been bullied. Male employers, senior managers, middle managers, supervisor and peers bullied men and women about equally, whereas women bullied women far more than they bullied men. The largest group of bullies of women were female peers, who rarely bullied male peers, while male peers bullied both genders about equally. Female clients bullied female staff but almost never male staff; male clients bullied both men and women but the numbers were small.

Research limitations/implications: These data relied on self-report, and people may be reluctant to identify themselves as targets or may not recognize that the negative behaviours they have been facing amount to bullying. Qualitative data can help explore these issues from societal, organizational and policy perspectives.

Practical implications: While men and women may differ in how often they recognize or admit to having been bullied, the gendered nature of power in the workplace is well established and reinforced in the findings here. It is clear that organizational leaders, both male and female, need to understand gender and power imbalance and act as role models. Currently, the authors’ findings show that the behaviour of at least some of those at the top of New Zealand organizations needs to improve.

Social implications: The problem of bullying at work will not be easy to solve. The solutions lie, not with “fixing” individuals via training, stress management and well-being programmes but with effective systems, procedures, policies and leadership that recognize the power dynamics at work.

Originality/value: Little is known at present about the relationships between gender and bullying behaviour. The paper focusses on who bullies whom in the workplace and finds that men tend to bully both men and women while women tend to bully women. Importantly, the authors’ works suggest that instead of structural and organizational measures to manage bullying, greater initiatives to manage bullying need to consider how gender and power dynamics interact at work.


Emotional intelligence was ranked somewhat more desirable than cognitive intelligence; those who reduced their ratings of desirability for the very intelligent did so due to compatibility concerns & social skill concerns

The costs of being exceptionally intelligent: Compatibility and interpersonal skill concerns. Gilles E. Gignac, Zoe M.V. Callis. Intelligence, Volume 81, July–August 2020, 101465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2020.101465

Highlights
• The 90th IQ percentile (IQ ≈ 120) was rated the most desirable in a partner.
• There was a decrease in rated desirability from the 90th to the 99th IQ percentiles.
• People expressed compatibility concerns (≈60%) and social skill concerns (≈40%)
• By comparison, no decrease in desirability from the 90th to the 99th EI percentiles.
• EI was ranked somewhat more desirable than cognitive intelligence.

Abstract: People tend to rate exceptional levels of IQ (99th percentile) as less attractive than high levels of IQ (90th percentile), and it remains to be determined why. Furthermore, the desirability of emotional intelligence (EI) in a prospective partner has yet to be investigated. Finally, we sought to determine whether individual differences in self-assessed and objectively measured IQ/EI correlated with desirability ratings of IQ/EI in a prospective partner. Based on a general community sample (N = 236) and an undergraduate sample (N = 220), we found that the association between rated desirability and the IQ/EI level of a prospective partner exhibited a threshold effect at the 90th IQ/EI percentile. Furthermore, a statistically significant decrease in rated desirability between the 90th to the 99th percentiles was observed for IQ, but not for EI. We found that participants who reduced their ratings of desirability between the 90th and 99th IQ percentiles did so due to compatibility concerns (≈60%) and social skill concerns (≈40%). We also found that self-assessed IQ and objectively measured IQ correlated positively with desirability ratings at the 90th IQ percentile, and self-assessed EI (but not objectively measured EI) with desirability ratings at the 90th EI percentile. Finally, we found that, on average, people ranked/rated EI to be somewhat more desirable than IQ. We interpreted the results as consistent with compatibility theory, active assortative mating for intelligence, and the possibility that many people subscribe to the stereotype that exceptionally intelligent people suffer from interpersonal skill difficulties.


Rolf Degen summarizing: People don't ascribe greater free will to morally "bad" actions, but to all actions that violate norms, even if they are praiseworthy or strange

Monroe, A. E., & Ysidron, D. W. (2020). Not so motivated after all? Three replication attempts and a theoretical challenge to a morally motivated belief in free will. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Jun 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000788

Free will is often appraised as a necessary input to for holding others morally or legally responsible for misdeeds. Recently, however, Clark and colleagues (2014) argued for the opposite causal relationship. They assert that moral judgments and the desire to punish motivate people’s belief in free will. Three replication experiments (Studies 1–2b) attempt to reproduce these findings. Additionally, a novel experiment (Study 3) tests a theoretical challenge derived from attribution theory, which suggests that immoral behaviors do not uniquely influence free will judgments. Instead, our nonviolation model argues that norm deviations of any kind—good, bad, or strange—cause people to attribute more free will to agents. Across replication experiments we found no consistent evidence for the claim that witnessing immoral behavior causes people to increase their general belief in free will. By contrast, we replicated the finding that people attribute more free will to agents who behave immorally compared to a neutral control (Studies 2a and 3). Finally, our novel experiment demonstrated broad support for our norm-violation account, suggesting that people’s willingness to attribute free will to others is malleable, but not because people are motivated to blame. Instead, this experiment shows that attributions of free will are best explained by people’s expectations for norm adherence, and when these expectations are violated, people infer that an agent expressed their free will to do so.







Morality Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Unpacking the Neurocognitive Basis of the “anomalous-is-bad

Workman, Clifford I., Stacey Humphries, Franziska Hartung, Geoffrey Aguirre, Joe Kable, and Anjan Chatterjee. 2020. “Morality Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Unpacking the Neurocognitive Basis of the “anomalous-is-bad” Stereotype.” PsyArXiv. June 10. doi:10.31234/osf.io/mz75u

Abstract: Are people with flawed faces regarded as having flawed moral characters? An “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype is hypothesized to facilitate biases towards people with facial anomalies (e.g., scars), although whether and how these biases affect behavior and brain functioning remain open questions. We replicated previously reported negative character evaluations made about individuals with facial anomalies, and further identified explicit biases directed against them as a group. People with anomalous faces were subjected to less prosociality from those participants highest in socioeconomic status. In amygdala, selective neural responding to anomalous faces—sensitive to beauty and disgust, but not explained by salience or arousal—correlated with stronger just world beliefs (i.e., people get what they deserve), less dispositional empathic concern, and less prosociality towards people with facial anomalies. Characterizing the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype across and between levels of organization—i.e., attitudes, behavior, and brain–can reveal underappreciated psychological burdens shouldered by people who look different.