Aggression diverges in space, like circles on water. It is hard to imagine what scale an insulting remark thrown in the hearts can acquire. We understand why victims of rough attitudes at work become authoritarian parents and how this affects children.
When people are rude to colleagues or treat them disrespectfully, they are unlikely to realize that the children of colleagues suffer from this. Women who face rough attitudes at work choose a more strict and even authoritarian parenting model. According to a study presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, this approach to parenting can negatively affect children.
“The results of the study show that women are more likely to be victims of workplace harassment,” said Dr. Angela Dionisi of Carleton University. “We have found that mistreatment at work interferes with good mother-child relationships at home. As a result, children become indirect victims of aggression.”
Bad treatment is a manifestation of rudeness, neglect, rudeness and everything that in one way or another violates the norms of respectful business communication.
The result of maltreatment at work extends far beyond the workplace
Such behavior is evidence of a lack of concern for others, said Dr. Catherine Dupre, co-author of the study. It includes: ignoring, disparaging remarks, appropriating the results of someone else’s work, shifting responsibility for your mistakes to colleagues, ignoring or excluding someone from the team or social circle.
“Based on a large body of empirical evidence, we see that the outcome of maltreatment at work extends far beyond the workplace and leads to serious consequences,” says Dupree. “People who are victims of bullying colleagues put in less effort and are less interested in good results, experience increased stress, become distracted, and their ability to analyze information and make decisions deteriorates.”
To better understand how aggression is carried home from the workplace, the researchers conducted an online survey among 146 working mothers and their husbands. The women were asked if they had experienced rough treatment at work, and then if they felt like good parents. Spouses were asked to describe what approach their wives take in parenting: strict and authoritarian or soft and liberal. A significant association was found between negative work experiences and the manifestation of authoritarian parenting methods. No association with liberal methods was found.
The results of the study explain the emergence of such a chain: rough treatment at work makes women feel like not good enough mothers, which entails the need for controlling parental behavior.
Authoritarian parents are prone to high expectations, they are sure that children must unconditionally follow the established rules. According to Dupre, this parental behavior is characterized by a lack of contact and connection with children, there is little or no care, and every mistake is severely punished. These relationships are characterized by excessive control, the overwhelming role of discipline.
“In the course of the study, we found that an authoritarian approach to raising children is one of the most negative scenarios for parental behavior. There are many long-term consequences associated with it: later on, the child will associate submissiveness and success with love, reproduce aggressive behavior outside the home, experience fear and embarrassment around other people, have difficulty socializing due to a lack of social skills, suffer from depression and anxiety and face the problem of self-control,” says Catherine Dupre.
One of the most intriguing conclusions the researchers came to concerns the magnitude of the negative effects of maltreatment at work, especially given that, unlike more overt aggression and violence, rude behavior is considered only a slight deviation from the norm.
Researchers hope companies will take aggressive behavior more seriously
“Many believe that this form of disrespectful behavior has little effect on anything. Yes, it’s unpleasant, unsettling, but in the end it all comes down to the fact that one of the colleagues acquires a bad reputation, that’s all. However, according to the results of the study, such implicit rude behavior erodes someone’s self-confidence as a parent day after day, and then damages that person’s child, ”says Dionisi.
The researchers expressed the hope that, thanks to the collected evidence base, the link between work and parent-child relationships will become more clear. Perhaps companies will be able to take such a seemingly insignificant deviation from the norms of respectful behavior more seriously.
“We have learned a lot about the nature and extent of maltreatment at work, how damaging it is to maternal behavior, how severely it affects family well-being and parenting patterns. Awareness of the side effect of such treatment should influence decision-making in companies to whom to support, ”concluded Dionisi.
Source: www.apa.org