Psychological reasons witnesses of workplace harassment don't speak up - Business Insider

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Workplace harassment and abuse are hugely under-reported, and the problems are only made worse by the fact witnesses hardly ever speak up

— has shown witnesses of harassment hardly ever speak up. Spot cofounder Julia Shaw told Business Insider some of the psychological reasons for their silence and how it makes the hugely under-reported problem of harassment even worse.

Witnesses cited many reasons why they didn't go to HR. The top one, at 34% of participants, was being worried about the consequences. Following that, 29% said they didn't want to intervene. She added people risk being blamed and shamed as well as losing their jobs and careers if they go up against someone more powerful than them.

Krantz said she felt like she had nobody to turn to within her company. There was no HR department in the UK office, and people seemed more likely to ignore the situation rather than try to help, she said. Krantz made a formal complaint in November 2018 after she had left the company, only to be told her claims were unfounded. In an email, seen by Business Insider, she was told by the data privacy and security director that her manager "acted appropriately and was motivated by genuine concern for your wellbeing" in removing her from the office. She was also told the comments were not "disseminated more broadly" and that her "complaints in this regard are unfounded.

"You get this sort of seeping of this negative toxic information and toxic situation throughout the organization and sometimes even outside and beyond the organisation, possibly to new recruits, possibly to the industry more generally," she said. "And this is has a potentially tremendously negative effect on the culture as a whole."

Humans are also prone to the belief that they are good people, she said. This means we don't like to consider that we've chosen to work somewhere people are harassed and abused, and are more likely to diminish or dismiss anything we see that challenges that view.

 

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Yeah because it's called shutting the fuck up and getting the job done. If everyone was focused on filing complaints for every form of harassment they suffer literally nothing would get done except harassment and filing of harassment reports. You want society to function or not?

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