{"id":19450,"date":"2020-01-28T00:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T00:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19450"},"modified":"2020-01-29T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T13:22:08","slug":"is-workplace-rudeness-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/is-workplace-rudeness-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Is workplace rudeness on the rise?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shannon G. Taylor<\/a>, University of Central Florida<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to look hard to see uncivil behavior these days, whether in political discourse<\/a>, in college classrooms<\/a> or on airplanes<\/a>. One study found<\/a> that rudeness is even contagious, like the common cold.<\/p>\n

The workplace, where my research is focused, is hardly immune from this so-called incivility epidemic<\/a>. Past surveys suggest<\/a> virtually all workers experience rude or uncivil behavior, while over half report being treated badly at least once a week. And some researchers have claimed it\u2019s pervasive<\/a> and getting worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But is it really? I\u2019ve spent the past decade<\/a> studying workplace rudeness and other forms of mistreatment. While I do believe it\u2019s a significant problem, it\u2019s hardly an epidemic.<\/p>\n

The rise of rudeness?<\/h2>\n

First let\u2019s consider whether workplace incivility is on the rise.<\/p>\n

That is, are employees actually more likely to be interrupted, made fun of, addressed unprofessionally, demeaned or excluded at work?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, I examined data from the General Social Survey<\/a>, which has been gathering data on hundreds of trends in American attitudes, behaviors and attributes since 1972. It\u2019s administered by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n

I looked at an item that\u2019s been included every four years since 2002: \u201cI am treated with respect at work.\u201d Participants answer on a scale of 1, or strongly agree, to 4, or strongly disagree.<\/p>\n

In 2002, the average score was 1.69, meaning workers generally agreed they were treated with respect. In 2018, that rose to 1.76, meaning a few more people disagreed with this statement than in the past. A statistician would call that significant, but on a scale of 1 to 4 it\u2019s a pretty tiny change.<\/p>\n