The word “mob” is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “to crowd around or into noisily, as from curiosity or hostility” [1] In academia, mobbing is used as a backdoor retaliation strategy for bullies to pressure targets to withdraw their complaints and/or to make biased and usually falsified allegations against targets to put them in the corner. A person may be mobbed or bullied in the workplace by a group composed of co-workers or higher-level ranked people “ganging up” on a target in different ways which include physical and mental manipulations to disgrace the target via humiliation, intimidation, spreading rumors, discrediting, and innuendo behaviors. The ultimate goal of this type of mobbing is often to isolate and force the target to leave the workplace. Although mobbing may exist in any workplace, Due to the nature of competition, hierarchical staff ranking system, and complicated relations among staff, educational institutions such as colleges and universities among various organizations exhibit higher instances of mobbing [2] as one of the toughest and most complex types of bullying.
Academic mobbing develops in three distinct stages; a) indirect negative communication among co-workers, other than the target, b) direct negative communication with the aims of blatant and direct confrontation with the target, and c) formation of a poisonous atmosphere among the entire department or the organization via negative communication. The extent of academic mobbing varies from a personal level to the university level and beyond that all of which will exert negative mental and physical health effects on targets. It should be mentioned that the health risks that are imposed as a consequence of academic mobbing are not only limited to the targets but extents also toward their family members.
Knowing some general useful alleviation steps will assist the academics to mitigate the mobbing effects. Some of the steps that can be taken as a remedy against academic mobbing include; i) acquaintance, ii) vigilance, iii) positive and effective communication, and iv) resilience and resistance against mobbing.
Prof. Mahmoudi (Michigan State University) together with the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University launched a new survey which will help with studying the role of coronavirus pandemic on academic bullying. Here is a link to the survey.
A survivor’s guide to academic bullying came out in Nature Human Behaviour in August [3]. In this paper, the author shares key lessons that targets of academic bullying can employ to protect themselves and fight back.
Yonah Budd held a Straight Talk Live on academic bullying on 17th Oct. 2020. To learn more about Yonah’s thoughts on this, follow his recorder talk in [4].
Leah H. Somerville (a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University) and June Gruber (an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado in Boulder) pinpointed three troubles that women face with in science and provided a remedy to tackle them in their recent letter in Science [5].
#NoAcademicBullying is a hashtag to share, discuss, and follow the cases of academic bullying on Twitter.
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[1] Merriam-Webster, Definition of ‘mob’, (Since 1828).
[2] M. Mahmoudi, Academic bullies leave no trace, Bioimpacts, 9 (2019) 129-130.
[3] M. Mahmoudi, A survivor’s guide to academic bullying, Nature Human Behaviour, (2020).