{"id":5811,"date":"2021-12-09T20:33:15","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T20:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/psychology\/the-12-types-of-mobbing-or-workplace-harassment-and-their-characteristics\/"},"modified":"2021-12-09T20:33:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T20:33:15","slug":"the-12-types-of-mobbing-or-workplace-harassment-and-their-characteristics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/psychology\/the-12-types-of-mobbing-or-workplace-harassment-and-their-characteristics\/","title":{"rendered":"The 12 types of mobbing or workplace harassment (and their characteristics)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p>Bullying is, by definition, <strong>the act of repeatedly stalking a victim and undermining his individual freedom as a person<\/strong> and negatively and seriously altering the development of his life.  Thus, a stalker develops toxic behaviors towards the harassed, with attitudes that are repeated over time and using his power to exert control over this victim.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, harassment is common in the society we live in and it can be expressed in many different ways: sexual harassment, bullying, psychological harassment, cyberbullying, racial harassment, property harassment, police harassment, social harassment and, of course, Workplace Harassment.  That form of harassment that takes place in the context of a work environment.<\/p>\n<p>Also known as mobbing, workplace harassment is a reality that, according to figures corresponding to the European Union, 9% of workers suffer to a greater or lesser extent.  That is to say, <strong>almost 1 in 10 workers is a victim of workplace harassment<\/strong>, having to live with toxic stalking attitudes throughout their workday, thus being a very serious problem both for the emotional integrity of the victim and for the company itself.<\/p>\n<p>But is mobbing or workplace harassment always expressed in the same way?  No. Not much less.  And, in fact, the diversity of ways in which it manifests itself is one of the main problems to eradicate it.  Therefore, in today's article and with the help of the most prestigious publications on this subject, we are going to analyze all the different types of mobbing, analyzing their most important characteristics.<\/p>\n<h2>What kinds of mobbing exist in the world of work?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Harassment at work, also known as mobbing because of its anglicism, consists of the action of stalking a person in their work environment<\/strong>.  The harasser (or harassers) produces fear, despises, discourages or exercises unwarranted psychological violence on an employee inside or outside of work that occurs for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>The perpetrators can be the victim's colleagues, superiors or subordinates, who perceives the work as an environment of hostility where she is harassed, being able, in the most serious cases, to consider suicide.  And it is well known that this workplace harassment is behind many cases in which a person decides to take their own life.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, bullies begin to stalk the victim so that, either because they consider it a threat to their interests or because they simply see it as a nuisance, they leave work.  But unfortunately what it results in is anxiety, stress, loss of self-esteem, belief that one is inferior, emotional insecurity, insomnia, etc., on the part of the victim.<\/p>\n<p>But beyond this general definition, the truth is that, as we have said, <strong>mobbing can take on many different faces<\/strong>.  Depending on the exact context in which it occurs, the relationship between stalker and victim and the objective that these stalkers have, there are different kinds of workplace harassment or mobbing that we are going to analyze in depth below.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Horizontal mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Horizontal mobbing is one that occurs in the context of the same hierarchy within the company.  That is, the victim and the harasser are in the same hierarchical rank, so they are partners.  Thus, it is about <strong>workplace harassment that occurs between coworkers<\/strong> and, generally, it is the most devastating for the victim not only because he lives with them, but because normally the partners get together to harass a single victim.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it is out of enmity, out of revenge for something that has happened, for perceiving that a worker is weak, for the spread of rumors, to force him to accept a group decision or for many varied causes, a colleague (or colleagues) begins to harass to the victim.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"\"><picture>\n<\/picture><figcaption>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>2. Upward vertical mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Vertical ascending mobbing is one in which a company employee is harassed by workers of a lower hierarchical rank in the company.  That is, the victim is higher in the business hierarchy than the stalker or stalkers.  In other words, <strong>subordinates psychologically attack a superior<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is, surely, the least common form of workplace harassment since there is generally fear that this superior will retaliate, but there are times when several colleagues get together to get one of their bosses, whom they consider incapable of dealing with your responsibilities, be replaced.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Downward vertical mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Downward vertical mobbing is one in which <strong>a superior harasses one or more of his subordinates<\/strong>.  That is, an employee with a higher hierarchical rank makes use of his power and his privileged situation to abuse a lower-ranking worker who is in his charge.  It is, along with horizontal, one of the most common forms of workplace harassment.  The superior usually uses this route to get one of his subordinates to leave the company.<\/p>\n<h3>4. Kinky mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Perverse mobbing is that form of workplace harassment in which <strong>the stalker has no specific reason to harass the victim<\/strong>.  Thus, it occurs simply because an employee with pathological and manipulative personality traits \u201ctakes it\u201d with someone from the company.  It is a very negative form of harassment since as it is not motivated by work objectives, it cannot be solved by implementing specific work dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>The stalker is a very manipulative person who exerts his hostility on the victim without leaving witnesses to it, so in a group context, he does not give signs or signals that he is harassing someone.  The only solution, when it is detected (something that is difficult since the victim is usually afraid to confess the situation), is the dismissal of the harasser.<\/p>\n<h3>5. Strategic mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Strategic mobbing is a form of bottom-up workplace harassment that is part of the company's own program.  Thus, it has an institutional origin, being part of <strong>the company's strategy for a certain subordinate worker to leave the job of their own free will<\/strong>.  In other words, superiors begin to harass a victim so that she terminates her contract and leaves the company without having to fire her, as this would imply paying compensation.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"\"><picture>\n<\/picture><figcaption>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>6. Management mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Management or leadership mobbing is a form of workplace harassment that is also part of the company's strategy, but in this case not for a worker to terminate their contract, but <strong>to increase the productivity of a team<\/strong>.  The superiors consider that the threats and the fear are good management strategies to have submissive workers and that they comply with the production.<\/p>\n<h3>7. Disciplinary mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Disciplinary mobbing is a form of workplace harassment that <strong>it is exercised as \"exemplary punishment\"<\/strong>.  That is, a superior or superiors harass an employee to punish a behavior or to warn that they should be submissive to the decisions of those above, while also serving to make their colleagues fear that it will happen to them.  In this way, with this disciplinary mobbing a work environment is created where no one dares to question decisions or oppose them.<\/p>\n<h3>8. Discriminatory mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Discriminatory mobbing is one that <strong>has, in discrimination, its origin<\/strong>.  That is, the reason that a superior or a colleague harasses a victim is discriminatory attitudes due to their ethnicity, culture, age, sex, religion, political ideology, orientation, sexual, etc.  Therefore, it is not motivated by any work reason, but simply because the harasser discriminates against someone from the company because of their physical or cultural condition.<\/p>\n<h3>9. Psychological mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Psychological mobbing is the most common form of workplace harassment since <strong>it is based on toxic attitudes that do not amount to physical violence<\/strong>.  Threats, voiding, insults, humiliations, practical jokes, emotional abuse, etc.  Everything that is harassing but without actually attacking, is part of psychological mobbing, which ends up being tremendously destructive to the mental health of the victim.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"\"><picture>\n<\/picture><figcaption>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>10. Physical mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>And although psychological harassment is the most common workplace bullying, there are times when mobbing can lead to physical violence, with attacks by the stalker.  It is not usual since one of the most common characteristics of mobbing is that it pretends to be insidious, without giving too many signs of its existence.  But in certain occasions, this <strong>Workplace harassment can manifest itself with physical attacks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>11. Cybermobbing<\/h3>\n<p>By cybermobbing we understand all those <strong>forms of workplace harassment that occur through the Internet<\/strong>.  There may or may not be harassment in the workplace, but there is harassment from company chats or social media.  Generally, the victim's colleagues launch humiliation campaigns, laugh at the victim, send him harassing messages, make him void by messaging groups, etc.<\/p>\n<h3>12. Power mobbing<\/h3>\n<p>Power mobbing is that form of vertical downward harassment in which the stalker makes use of his privileged position in the company to stalk his victim.  He uses his economic, social and labor power to toxicly control one or more of his employees, but <strong>without there being any motivation beyond demonstrating their superiority<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"kk-star-ratings kksr-auto kksr-align-center kksr-valign-bottom\"\n    data-payload='{&quot;align&quot;:&quot;center&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;5811&quot;,&quot;slug&quot;:&quot;default&quot;,&quot;valign&quot;:&quot;bottom&quot;,&quot;ignore&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;reference&quot;:&quot;auto&quot;,&quot;class&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;count&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;legendonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;readonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;score&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;starsonly&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;best&quot;:&quot;5&quot;,&quot;gap&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;greet&quot;:&quot;Rate this post&quot;,&quot;legend&quot;:&quot;0\\\/5 - (0 votes)&quot;,&quot;size&quot;:&quot;24&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;The 12 types of mobbing or workplace harassment (and their characteristics)&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;_legend&quot;:&quot;{score}\\\/{best} - ({count} {votes})&quot;,&quot;font_factor&quot;:&quot;1.25&quot;}'>\n            \n<div class=\"kksr-stars\">\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-inactive\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"1\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"2\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"3\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"4\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"5\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n<div class=\"kksr-stars-active\" style=\"width: 0px;\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" style=\"padding-right: 4px\">\n            \n\n<div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 24px; height: 24px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n                \n\n<div class=\"kksr-legend\" style=\"font-size: 19.2px;\">\n            <span class=\"kksr-muted\">Rate this post<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bullying is, by definition, the act of repeatedly stalking a victim and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enorcerna.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}