Suggesting abusive management behaviors are justified or that a worker may deserve the treatment is problematic because it puts the onus for correcting these harmful actions on the targets of abuse rather than the perpetrators. Our research suggests it may be perceptual errors on the part of managers that deserve more blame.
To Retain Women, Workplaces Need to Fight Burnout
Pandemic burnout is leading to devastating consequences for women, and it could set gender equality back a generation, sociologist Shelley Correll warns. Coming out of the pandemic is an opportunity to build more equitable workplaces—but only if employers act now. Otherwise, burnout is likely going to either drive women out of the paid workforce entirely or cause them […]
Gender Bias Makes Humor at Work Tricky
Gender and status affect how humor comes across at work, research suggests. The findings show that humor in the workplace can be more challenging for women than for men. Factors include a woman’s perceived status in the office and whether her humor is directed towards other women. The researchers surveyed 92 college students after they read workplace scenarios in […]
To Counter Hate Speech, Push for Empathy?
It’s possible to curb online hate speech by inducing empathy for those affected, research on “counterspeech” finds. In contrast, the use of humor or warnings of possible consequences have little effect, say the researchers. To moderate hateful comments, many social media platforms have developed sophisticated filters. However, these alone are not sufficient to fix the […]
Feeling Old for Your Age May Get You to Help Strangers More
New research finds a link between the concept of “subjective age” and people’s willingness to help strangers. When Jen Park was an adolescent growing up in Korea, she was the oldest child in a family with two working parents. She remembers taking on responsibilities that made her feel older than her peers. “I learned to […]