…[The dean] definitely had specific, like superficial reasons why she didn’t like people that didn’t necessarily seem to me to have anything to do with the job – like, how people dressed or how they wore their hair, or you know, whether they had a little extra weight on them or not. You know, it was that kind of level of junior high school stuff. – Collection development librarian (Participant, Academic Librarian Low-Morale Experience study)
There was this, like, gang of – it’s this clique. It’s like junior-high mean girls clique. You know, where all the perks would go to certain people. A favoritism group. Favored by the dean. The golden people who were – everything would go to them…It’s the popular kids. – Female reference and instruction librarian (Participant, Academic Librarian Low-Morale Experience study)
There was a big culture of mean girls there. I had been in their favor for a while and then when I got friendly with other people on staff, they cast me out. The reason that I fell out of their good graces was because I started becoming friendly with the people in [another campus department]. And at one point, I was going out to lunch with the mean girls. and they started trash talking somebody. And I spoke up for that person, and I said, ‘You don’t have to talk about her like that. You don’t have to say that-she’s done nothing to you.’ And from that point on, I mean, they, they definitely gave me [a hard time], you know, ‘Oh,… you work for them now, you don’t work with us anymore. You’re not part of our department.’ I mean, they were relentless. And from that point on, I was no longer in their good graces, and that’s when they really started to ramp up the abuse. – Female subject specialist (Participant, Leaving Low-Morale Experience study)
… I found at this library that those people hated me, or it felt like they did. But they didn’t know me. And then there was lots of things that I-where I was told like, “Oh, you shouldn’t talk to blah, blah, blah, they’re the worst. – Female reference librarian (Participant, Leaving Low-Morale Experience study)
The person that took over the library was very, very dysfunctional herself. And the library, you know, nobody got along with anybody except for her and a clique that she belonged to- and the people in the clique were hostile. So she befriended people that were hostile-so that they wouldn’t become hostile to her, but they were hostile to everybody else. And it was a really awful environment. And she was primarily responsible for that. – Female administrator (Participant, Leaving the Low-Morale Experience study)
A frequently reported occurrence in low-morale experiences is exposure to “mean girls” treatment. The formal term for mean girls is relational aggression, which Crick and Grotpeter succinctly define as “harming others through purposeful manipulation and damage of their peer relations” (1995, p. 711). In their study, which focuses on children, they offer behaviors that caused serious injury to friendships and feelings of belonging within social groups:
- angrily retaliating against a child by excluding her from one’s play group;
- purposefully withdrawing friendship or acceptance in order to hurt or control the child; and
- spreading rumors about the child so that peers will reject her
(Crick & Grotpeter, 1995, p. 711)
You can see reflections of these behaviors in the data at the beginning of this post. Additionally, the data show how relational aggression feeds other toxic behaviors that are signals of organizational dysfunction, including mobbing, malicious gossiping, and favoritism. When we consider low-morale experience Impact Factors, Insidiousness, Contagion, and Uncertainty & Mistrust are also outcomes of relational aggression as people recognize a gradual rise in social exclusion tactics, adopt (or witness others adopt) abusive behaviors to avoid the wrath of known abusers, and/or begin to question how and when to build confident relationships with their co-workers. Although the employees are all adults, participants often describe the relational aggression behaviors as child- or adolescent-like (e.g., “junior-high,” “popular kids,” and directly, “mean girls”).
There is no one thing that signals the start of relational aggression – the low-morale experience studies’ data show that it can be initialized through other peoples’ perceptions or past social experiences, jump-started by perceived slights, or as a methodology of control/expectations for compliance or supplication. Another study participant describes the how mean girls behavior both embodies and engenders feelings of emotional instability for both the abuser and victim (note: participant’s references to child-/adolescent-like behavior are bolded):
It always started out as like some sort of moodiness, and you know, some days [my assigned mentor] would be friendly, some days she wouldn’t be friendly – she would, you know, just- I keep saying it’s like normal, like girl stuff, which is probably why I was able to deal it for quite some time. It was, you know, if you went to lunch without her, she made a big fuss- but she would go to lunch without you, just stuff like that. …Like, honestly- seventh grade frenemy girl bullying. We went to a conference, and there were times she would chat with me at the conference, and then there was other times she would blatantly walk by me ‘cause she was talking with someone else and like, blatantly ignore me…it sounds petty sometimes when you look at individual incidents, but when you put them all together, it’s very impactful. – Female public services librarian (Academic Librarian Low Morale study participant)
Crick and Grotpeter note that children who are gendered female are more likely to engage in relational aggression; additionally, they report that aggressors are significantly more disliked. The authors also describe the chicken-egg conundrum between relational aggression, how aggressors may experience dislike, and how these experiences of dislike inform and influence their aggressive behavior:
It is possible that engaging in relationally aggressive behaviors, because of their aversive nature, leads to being disliked by peers…However, it is also conceivable that rejection by one’s peers may precede relational aggression. For example, a rejected child may attempt to harm peers relationships with others in an effort to compensate (or retaliate) for her own lack of success in those relationships (1995, p. 720).
This finding is a reminder that whether in-group/out-group negative behaviors are a result of nature, environment, or experience, organizations should consider and apply trauma-informed planning and responses to clarify responsibilities, surface/implement accountability, address harm, and reduce/eradicate abuse and neglect in our workplaces.
Resources for Countering Relational Aggression
- How to Deal with Mean Girls Professionally and Personally – Stefanie Marrone
- Mean Girls at work: How to stay professional when things get personal by Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster
- Taming the Mean Girls at Work: 11 empowering tips – Not Salmon
Was/Is “mean girls” part of your low-morale experience? How did you respond? If you’re facing or recovering from relational aggression in your workplace and seeking individualized support, contact me for a Renewals Coaching consultation.
Works Cited
Crick, N.R. & Grotpeter, J.K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66(3): 710 – 722. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1131945
