What is the motivation for bullying?

[Libby1987]

Reading more of these stories of group bullying of a single targeted nurse, I both find it incredible to believe the viciousness described and wonder why a group of nurses would be motivated to drive out another nurse in that violent manner versus going to mgmt with legitimate complaints of their performance.

[Farawyn]

Think about impressionable adolescent girls. Are they really being bullied when their appearance is critiqued? No. Society is helping them improve their appearance so that they can become attractive.

Okay, I'll bite.

FAIL.

[LibbyNurse]

Google "sociopath/apath/empath triad, very enlightening stuff related to all kinds of bullying.

• Sociopath — the one with the personality disorder.
  
• Empath — an individual who is highly perceptive, insightful and sensitive to another's emotions.
  
• Apath — someone who is apathetic and likely to do the sociopath's bidding.
  

This threesome is required for a sociopathic transaction to be effective and it usually unfolds something like this: On seeing the sociopath say or do something underhanded, the empath is forced to make a stand. The empath challenges the sociopath, who throws others off the scent by shifting the blame to the empath. The empath becomes an object of abuse when the apath corroborates the sociopath's perspective. Ultimately, the situation usually ends badly for the empath, and sometimes also for the apath (if his conscience comes back to haunt him or subsequently he becomes an object of abuse himself). The sociopath often gets off scot-free and can continue to abuse with impunit

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

I don't know why, but I know it happens. I do think it has something to do with being self-loathing (on the part of the bully) and this behavior somehow makes them feel better...although I have no idea why it would.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

I have seen this over and over, an experienced nurse harassed and chased away from a dysfunctional unit that does not follow standards of care.

The motivation is that the highly competent new employee is seen as a threat to their perceived status or even their jobs.

Then there is the brutal hazing of the inexperienced nurse just to make him or her look foolish and the motivation is to make themselves look indispensable.

I firmly believe that subpar nurses are mainly the ones who engage in this immature low class behavior and that the weakest links are the biggest bullies.

Agreed!!!

[AutumnApple]

One of the biggest misconceptions out there is: Staff splitting is something patients do.

Patients do it, a few too many of them actually, but the behavior and the term is not exclusive to them alone.

I heard the term well before I was in nursing school. I worked at restaurants as a hostess. A couple of my friends were trying to break into restaurant management. They went to leadership workshops and weekend "management skills focus" camps. They brought up the term frequently.

Think of the usual staff splitting patient and ask yourself "why?". Chances are, the nurses who bully coworkers have the same motivations, just from another point of view.

I believe that fear plays a major role in it as well too. We are fear based creatures during times of stress. Nursing can certainly be stressful, so it goes to follow that nursing tests our emotional maturity. We get stressed, our fear based behaviors try to come out and show themselves. Unfortunately, being a nurse doesn't make us immune to poor coping (although many will have you believe it does).

We fear not being accepted by our peers. The idea of making a mistake that leads to a poor outcome looms over us. The economy does nothing for making us feel secure in our jobs. All this stress causes some to do things that help them feel better in the short term. So, things like bullying, to them, makes sense. Lo g term is a different story.

I've been around long enough to see some of the bullies and other not so upstanding nurses meet the end of the road. It's never a pretty conclusion for them. I don't want to feel the way they did. So I don't do the things they did.

It's that simple IMO. The greatest and most important stand I can take against bullying and other things is to refuse to participate.

[LV3677]

I found in previous work environments that nurses who bullied were those who were insecure. The person they chose to bully was someone who had something the nurse was envious of- looks, weight, smarts, youth, etc. These nurses were often unhappy in their personal lives and brought their anger to work.

A nurse I worked with once said that if there's a reason why you don't like someone then self reflection was needed, because sometimes you identify within that person a weakness you see in yourself or a strength you wish you had, and you don't like it.

[Libby1987]

I think understanding possible underlying causes or motivation is relevant.

I think about things like the Stanford Prison Experiment where someone drawn to do good turns bad and wonder how the very acknowledged stressful and exhausting environments can bring out negative coping.

I also think the very nature of insecurity that comes with being overfaced with today's acuities and workload can have the opposite effect and break someone down and shatter their tolerance for anything perceived as unsupportive.

[AutumnApple]

I was bullied at one of my jobs, so much so that I had to take a leave of absence. Then after things simmered down, I found a job somewhere else, and the lead bully was upset that I didn't tell her where I got the job. Crazy.

Seriously!?

She inferred that she wanted to know where you went, as if she wanted to follow you or check if she had some friends there?

See, some people just need a life. A nice PFA filed against her would have been just the right wake up call. Even if she was only joking, would have made not appreciating the humor very clear.

[Dogen]

The old saw that bullies are all insecure is, unfortunately, not always true. It's not untrue, either. Bullies are most often unhappy, but not necessarily insecure. Surveys of workplaces find that bullying is more common in high stress environments, and where there's a hierarchy or unstable power dynamic. It's also more common in organizations where leadership is absent, permissive, disengaged, or ineffectual.

Initially, bullying is usually subtle. Snarky comments, unfair assignments, and other things that could be explained away or denied. It increases over time as the perpetrators experience no push back, which is why management is a significant factor. There's also some evidence that people who are shy or avoid conflict are more likely to experience bullying at work, which may be why new nurses get it more often - they're less likely to want to rock the boat.

Nursing isn't unique in this. Bullying is found in essentially any environment that meets the criteria (high stress, weak management, low consequences, hierarchies, etc), it just so happens that these environments seem to be relatively common in healthcare for some reason. If you want to read the above written in ten times as many words (but with citations and a fun Norwegian accent), you can check out this paper on the subject.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

The old saw that bullies are all insecure is, unfortunately, not always true. It's also more common in organizations where leadership is absent, permissive, disengaged, or ineffectual. ..............

It increases over time as the perpetrators experience no push back, which is why management is a significant factor. There's also some evidence that people who are shy or avoid conflict are more likely to experience bullying at work, which may be why new nurses get it more often - they're less likely to want to rock the boat............

Nursing isn't unique in this.

I liked your entire post but had to highlight these parts.

[OCNRN63, RN]

Seriously!?

She inferred that she wanted to know where you went, as if she wanted to follow you or check if she had some friends there?

See, some people just need a life. A nice PFA filed against her would have been just the right wake up call. Even if she was only joking, would have made not appreciating the humor very clear.

Yes, she did want to know, and I was genuinely concerned that she might try to scuttle my plans for the new job. She actually went so far as to walk around acting like she was the injured party, not I. I was so glad to get out of there.

[Dogen]

I liked your entire post but had to highlight these parts.

Haha, thanks. What was it about the new nurses part you liked?