The Mobbing Encyclopaedia
Bullying; Whistleblowing
Identification of Mobbing Activities
© Heinz Leymann - 12210e
The identification of hostile activities resulted in an understanding
of the structure of the mobbing process. It then became apparent that these
activities, although they were negatively used in such cases, did not
always in themselves, have a purely negative character. They consisted
to a great extent of quite normal interactive behaviors. However, used
frequently and over a long period of time in order to harass, their content
and meaning changes, consequently turning into dangerous communicative
weapons (see case studies). The systematic
use of hostile activities in this type of interaction triggers the development
of a very stereotypical course in the mobbing process.
Because of this conceptualization, a typology of activities could be
developed and subdivided into five categories depending on the effects
they have on the victim. The following shows the results of informal interviews
and heuristic analyses:
In all, 45 different activities used during a mobbing process were identified
(see the LIPT questionnaire and also Leymann, 1992b and
1993b). The list of items has been statistically analyzed using factor
analyses (Niedl, 1995; but also Zapf et
al., 1996) leading to similar categories.
It must, nevertheless, be emphasized, that these activities mainly describe
hostile interactions as they are carried out in northern European countries
(Leymann, 1991a). Studies carried out in Austria (Niedl 1995)
support an earlier hypothesis that still other behaviors may be used in
other cultures, while some of those from the northern European culture
may not be used at all. Knorz and Zapf (1996) published a number
of other behaviors found in the southern part of Germany using qualitative
interviews.
Eventually a questionnaire was developed and tested (LIPT-questionnaire:
Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror).
It has been used in all studies mentioned above, with the exception of
the Norwegian studies, which used a different investigative method.