Animals possess various antipredator behaviours to reduce their risk of predation. Whereas most prey make considerable effort to avoid their predators, sometimes individuals approach and mob ...predators as a group. Among the types of predators that elicit mobbing, raptors such as hawks and owls are one of the more consistent targets. We conducted playback experiments to investigate the strength of mobbing behaviour according to the perceived risk associated with either predator dangerousness or local predation pressure. We first determined whether mobbing is specific to dangerous predators or more broadly directed at predatory species. We experimentally investigated whether prey can discriminate the level of dangerousness of two owl species. Our results indicate that prey adjusted the strength of their mobbing behaviour according to the perceived risk: passerine birds mobbed the Eurasian pygmy owl, Glaucidium passerinum (i.e. a dangerous predator) but not the boreal owl, Aegolius funereus (i.e. a far less dangerous species). Second, we compared mobbing behaviour in similar habitats differing in predation pressure (with or without pygmy owls). Working on identical bird communities, we revealed that mobbing varied in relation to the local presence of the predator. Where the pygmy owl was absent, calls of this dangerous predator failed to elicit mobbing among passerine birds although they responded strongly to a playback of a mobbing chorus. This study provides experimental evidence that intense predation increases the expression of cooperative mobbing in passerine birds.
•Birds sometimes respond to predators by mobbing instead of fleeing.•We tested the effect of predation risk on mobbing intensity using playback stimuli.•We showed that mobbing intensity varied with predator dangerousness.•Mobbing intensity also varied according to the local occurrence of the predator.
Invisible at Work Robinson, Sandra L.; O’Reilly, Jane; Wang, Wei
Journal of management,
01/2013, Volume:
39, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article offers a review, integration, and extension of the literature relevant to ostracism in organizations. We first seek to add conceptual clarity to ostracism, by reviewing existing ...definitions and developing a cohesive one, identifying the key features of workplace ostracism, and distinguishing it from existing organizational constructs. Next, we develop a broad model of ostracism in organizations. This model serves to integrate the relevant findings related to ostracism in organizations and to extend our theorizing about it. We take a decidedly organizational focus, proposing organizationally relevant factors that may cause different types of ostracism, moderate the experience of ostracism at work, and moderate the reactions of targets. We hope this article will provide a good foundation for organizational scholars interested in studying ostracism by providing a framework of prior literature and directions for future study.
El principio de convencionalidad adoptado por México el 10 de junio de 2011 fue el elemento clave para lograr aceptar los derechos humanos y la protección de los instrumentos internacionales a favor ...de los ciudadanos y de los trabajadores en particular por parte del Estado mexicano. La reforma primordial fue la del artículo 1º de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos; en este se concreta la ampliación del conjunto de derechos, por lo que comprende cuatro características obligatorias generales en materia de derechos humanos: respetar, proteger, garantizar y promover. Además, el artículo 1º constitucional, en su último párrafo, establece el derecho a la no discriminación. El propósito fundamental de las reformas aprobadas fue colocar a la persona en el centro de todo ejercicio del poder público. Para lograrlo, se implementó todo el actuar del poder público en México a un nuevo parámetro de regularidad constitucional formado por derechos humanos de fuente nacional e internacional.
The current investigation hypothesized and tested latent bully/victim traits for physical, verbal, or relational bullying/victimization, both cyber and traditional behaviors. Data were collected from ...1,356 German students who attended Grades 5 to 10: 48.4% males, 49.3% females from eight different schools in Northern Germany. Based on two samples for cross-validation (Ntraining set = 525, Nvalidation set = 525), study findings provided strong evidence of adequate model fit, both for traditional and cyber behaviors. Consistent with the current state of knowledge, bullying and victimization latent traits highly associated, more so for cyber behaviors than traditional ones. Thus, both the theoretical plausibility as well as statistical evidence support the application of latent modeling to these behaviors. Further research is needed to replicate the applied measurement models proposed in this work and to reveal moderators or measurement invariance across diverse populations. Nevertheless, the current evidence substantiates the importance of the application of a latent modeling approach to overcome known psychometric challenges of reliability and validity in bullying research.
Research in the field of workplace aggression has rapidly developed in the last two decades, and with this growth has come an abundance of overlapping constructs that fall under the broad rubric of ...workplace aggression. While researchers have conceptually distinguished these constructs, it is unclear whether this proliferation of constructs is adding appreciably to our knowledge, or whether it is constraining the questions we ask. In this paper, I consider five example constructs (i.e., abusive supervision, bullying, incivility, social undermining, and interpersonal conflict) and argue that the manner in which we have differentiated these (and other) aggression constructs does not add appreciably to our knowledge of workplace aggression. I then provide supplementary meta-analytic evidence to show that there is not a predictable pattern of outcomes from these constructs, and propose a restructuring of the manner in which we conceptualize workplace aggression.
Mobbing is a behaviour whose aim is to underestimate and degrade other human beings by means of malevolent language and obscure cruel acts, which gradually per functioning and d physical health - , ...2005). Well-being at work refers to all aspects of employees' workplace life, from how they feel, what their working environment is like, safety at work including physical and psychological safety, job satisfaction, involvement in work and the position they have in the organization. The research problem refers to the examination of the connection between the perception of mobbing and the well-being at work of employees. Individuals who perceive mobbing as present in the organization and who are exposed to this type of stress, have impaired well-being. According to earlier findings, mobbing significantly affects the well-being of individuals at work in a way that impairs it, whereby they experience various psychological disturbances and are thrown out of work activities, because they stop adequately performing work tasks. Also, people who experience mobbing have a decline on motivation, work efficiency, a drop in the feeling of fulfillment, loss of trust, they complain of fatigue and feelings of anger and frustration. Two measurement instruments were used in the research: the mobbing perception scale and the Work Well-being Scale - WBWS, which have satisfactory measurement characteristics. The survey was conducted via an anonymous internet questionnaire, and a representative sample of employees in Bosnia and Herzegovina was used (n=273). The data thus obtained indicates that, statistically, the perception of mobbing is significantly negatively related to well-being (rho=-.382, p<.01), and its two aspects: positive affects (rho=-.531, p<.01), a feeling of fulfillment (rho=-.337, p<.01), and positively related to the negative effects aspect (rho=.592, p<.01), which confirms both the starting hypothesis and its sub-hypotheses. The perception of mobbing in the workplace negatively affects the well-being at work, i.e. higher levels of subjective perception of mobbing go hand in hand with lower levels of well-being at work. Furthermore, higher levels of the perception of mobbing are accompanied with lower levels of positive affects and feeling of fulfillment, and higher levels of negative affects. Although the consequences of mobbing are felt, to the greatest extent, on an individual level, there are inevitable negative consequences on the organizational level as well. As mobbing has a negative effect on the well-being at work of an individual, it also adversely affects the work and results of the entire organization.
Although almost all employees have heard of or witnessed colleagues being mistreated, we have an incomplete understanding of how employees perceive and respond to such events. In previous research ...scholars established that observer emotions can be congruent with victim emotions, but we examine observer schadenfreude, an incongruent emotion that is also prevalent in organizations. Based on appraisal theories of emotion, we propose a process model of schadenfreude emergence and development: initial schadenfreude occurs when observers appraise mistreatment incidents as relevant and conducive to their goals; this initial feeling evolves into either righteous or ambivalent schadenfreude, depending on observers' secondary appraisals of victim deservingness. We also address the implications of schadenfreude for observer behavior and the moderating effects of observers' moral foundations and organizational civility climate. Our model extends current knowledge about observer reactions and helps us understand the persistence and pervasiveness of workplace mistreatment.
In this inductive study, we shift the focus of stigma research inside organizational boundaries by examining its relationship with organizational identity. To do so, we draw on the case of Keystone, ...a social enterprise in the East of England that became stigmatized after it initiated a program of support for a group of migrants in its community. Keystone's stigmatization precipitated a crisis of organizational identity. We examine how the identity crisis unfolded, focusing on the forms of identity work that Keystone's leaders enacted in response in order to reframe the meaning that organizational members attached to the stigma. Interestingly, we show not only that the internal effects of stigmatization on identity can be managed, but also that they may facilitate unexpected positive outcomes for organizations.
When responding to a conspecific call, especially when mobbing a predator, receivers rely on acoustic cues produced by callers. Variation in calls, either gradual or discrete, can inform potential ...mobbers about the situation. Great tits use a combinatorial call made of frequency-modulated elements (FMEs) and D notes. The gradual properties of the D notes change when facing different situations (e.g., different predators). We tested the relative effect of the number of D notes per call or the number of calls per minute on the behaviour of great tits with a playback experiment on free-ranging tits. Great tits did not change their approach behaviour depending on the treatments broadcast. However, they increased their vigilance level with an increased number of D notes in the total sequence. We propose that great tits can consider the overall amount of D notes as a form of information about the predator being mobbed. In addition, an increased number of D notes did not modify the approach behaviour but modified the vigilance behaviour, possibly indicating that great tits process the complete FME-D call as a whole mobbing unit rather than the simple sum of a vigilance call (FME) and a recruitment call (D notes). Our study sheds new light on the coding system of great tits when mobbing a predator and, more generally, how animals can combine simple syntactic rules and gradual variations when communicating.
Significance statement
Information transfer when communicating about a predator is well described, particularly when mobbing a predator. However, it is unclear which specific variable(s) receivers rely on when adapting their response. Here, we test whether great tits adapt their response when the number of calls per minute and/or the number of notes per call is increased. Our results indicate that great tits rely on the overall number of notes in a calling sequence as a proxy for urgency. We also propose that the combinatorial call they use when mobbing is considered a whole rather than the simple sum of its constituents. Understanding how information transfer occurs in birds using combinatorial calls instead of simple note repetition adds to the current insights about compositional syntax in animals.
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