What is adult bullying?
Adult bullying in the workplace has been extensively studied in Scandinavia (Björkqvist, Österman and Lagerspetz, 1994; Björkqvist, Österman and Hjelt- Bäck, 1994; Einarsen and Raknes, 1991, 1997; Einarsen and Skogstad, 1996; Leymann, 1990, 1996), in Germany and Austria ((Niedl, 1995, 1996; Zapf et al, 1996) and in the UK (Adams, 1992; Crawford, 1997; Lewis, 1999; Quine, 1999; Rayner and Höel, 1997). In an overview of this research, Rayner and Höel (1997) group bullying behaviours into the following categories: • threat to professional status (e.g. belittling opinion, public professional humiliation, accusation regarding lack of effort); • threat to personal standing (e.g. name-calling, insults, intimidation, devaluing with reference to age); • isolation (e.g. preventing access to opportunities, physical or social isolation, withholding of information); • excessive overwork (e.g. undue pressure, impossible deadlines, unnecessary disruptions); • destabilization (e.g. failure to give cre
