Information about Mobbing

Mobbing is a new term referring to a group behavioural phenomenon in workplaces and a type of animal behaviour. In a different sense, it is a criminal offence in Scotland.

Mobbing

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, the authors claim that mobbing is typically found in work environments that have poorly organized production and/or working methods and incapable or inattentive management and that mobbing victims are usually "exceptional individuals who demonstrated intelligence, competence, creativity, integrity, accomplishment and dedication".^[1]:

Though the English word mob denotes a crowd, often in a destructive or hostile mood, the German and several other European languages have adopted mobbing as a loanword to describe all forms of bullying including that by single persons. The resultant German verb mobben can also be used for physical attacks, calumny against schoolteachers on the internet and intimidation by superiors, with an emphasis on the victims' continuous fear rather than the perpetrators' will to exclude them. The word may thus be a false friend in translation back into English, where mobbing in its primary sense denotes a disorderly gathering by a crowd and in workplace psychology narrowly refers to "ganging up" by others to harass and intimidate an individual.

Antipredatory behavior

Main article: Mobbing behavior

A longer-established technical use of mobbing is in the study of animal behaviour, especially in ornithology, where it refers to the antipredatory mobbing behavior harassing something that represents a threat to them.

From the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, RSPB, website ^[2]:

''Mobbing is a noisy, obvious form of behaviour that birds engage in to defend themselves or their offspring from predators. When a predator is discovered, the birds start to emit alarm calls and fly at the predator, diverting its attention and harassing it. Sometimes they make physical contact. Mobbing usually starts with just one or two birds, but may attract a large number of birds, often of many species. For example, a chorus of different alarm calls coming from the same tree is often a good sign of a roosting owl or a cat.

Mobbing behaviour has been recorded in a wide range of species, but it is particularly well developed in gulls and terns, while crows are amongst the most frequent mobbers. In addition to flying at the predator and emitting alarm calls, some birds, such as fieldfares and gulls, add to the effectiveness by defaecating or even vomiting on the predator with amazing accuracy...

From the book "Mobbing, Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, 2005, page 21"^[3]:

"In the sixties, the eminent Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz used the English term mobbing to describe the behaviour that animals use to scare away a stronger, preying enemy. A number of weaker individuals crowd together and display attacking behavior, such as geese scaring away a fox."

Mobbing in Scots law

Mobbing is also a serious criminal offence in Scotland, relating to public order.

References

See also

• List of books on bullying
• Sham peer review
• Workplace bullying

External links

• Gravois, John Mob Rule, Chronicle of Higher Education
• Leymann, Heinz The Mobbing Encyclopaedia (Heinz Leyman's personal website kept live since his death)
• Shallcross, Linda Workplace Mobbing Australia Australian Workplace Mobbing Website
• Westhues,Kenneth Film Depictions of Ganging UpWesthues Website Workplace Mobbing in Academe
• Westhues,Kenneth Workplace Mobbing in Academe Westhues Academic Mobbing Website