The Behavioral Economics of Bullying at Work

People sabotage, exploit their power, and issue threats. In short, people bully. Bullying actions may be subtle, hidden, and somehow part of the work culture". Employees do so for various reasons such as taking credit by devious means, gaining power, or removing competitors for positions and bonuses. For the victims of bullying, these actions can have serious consequences for their professional careers and put them under emotional, social, and mental stress. Moreover, bullying can harm companies since people do not want to work in uncooperative work environments and are less motivated to perform. Bullying in the workplace is prevalent. While objective numbers are difficult to obtain and vary across studies, surveys suggest that in Western societies between 10% (Europe) and 17% (United States) of employees have been subject to workplace bullying. Therefore, we must learn more about it. I am a behavioral/experimental economist. My field specializes in analyzing behavior in economic contexts. How do we do that? Imagine human beings with many knotted mixed color wires inside them. They can reconnect and alter their form when the environment changes. These different wires determine actions and decisions. In behavioral economics, we unknot these wires, find the wires that influence behavior, and how they alter when the environment changes. We use a toolkit that is specifically made to take the wires apart. One of our main tools is called laboratory experiments. Here, we break down the situation that we want to analyze to its most essential elements. Then, we take these essential elements and vary one of those elements; only one at a time. By this very controlled variation of only one element, we can find out if this element affects someone elses actions. Moreover, we take concepts from other sciences into account when explaining behavior, e.g., from psychology. In my project, I use such concepts as well as the toolkit from experimental economics. I want to shed light on the actual numbers of bullying at the workplace with an innovative survey method that is suitable to detect delicate behavior. Moreover, I will design and run laboratory experiments to find out more about the elements of bullying and their consequences on victims and firms. A focus will also be on differences between womens and mens behavior. If the combined evidence aligns coherently, then we are much more confident about what drives workplace bullying and how to tackle it. Last but not least, I will develop tools that prevent bullying based on the preceding evidence. I will test those in actual firms to examine if these are effective to prevent and reduce bullying. Unknotting the wires of workplace bullying may be important to develop powerful tools to establish workplaces in which men and women face fair career chances.

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