Impacts of Workplace Bullying on Staff Psychological Wellness in Institutions of Higher Learning

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a growth in studies reporting negative effects on the health and wellness of targets of bullying at work (Yildirim&Yildirim, 2007: 1450; Vaillancourt, Hymel& McDougall, 2003: 159; Tehrani, 2004: 359).Research by the United Nations-sponsored International Labor Office (Sperry, 2009: 166) reports that the effects of workplace bullying have reached epidemic levels in several countries and that the global cost of such workplace violence is enormous, costing untold millions of dollars in losses from medical expenses, absenteeism, and sick leave (Chappell& Di Martino, 2006: 150). The ILO (Sperry, 2009: 166) also reports that professions that were once regarded as sheltered from workplace bullying and mobbing (e.g., teaching, social services, library services, and health care) are now experiencing increasing acts of such abusiveness in both developed and developing countries (Chappell & Di Martino, 2006: 150). While the organizational costs of workplace bullying are typically measured in financial terms, the costs borne by targets include negative psychological and physical outcomes, aswell as effects of workplace bullying that are employment-related (Einarsen&Mikkelsen, 2003: 134). Workplace bullying has been found to be strongly associated with lowered psychological wellness, increased levels of stress, low self-esteem, anxiety, concentration disorders, chronic fatigue, depression, anger and the experience of psychosomatic symptoms (Einarsen&Mikkelsen, 2003: 134; Vartia, 2003: 67; Niedhammer, David,Degioanni, Drummond & Philip, 2009: 1215). Prolonged exposure to negative acts may also lead individuals to engage in behaviors to cope, such as alcohol use, which has negative effects on health (Richman, Rospenda, Flaherty &Freels, 2001: 360).