Slashdot Mirror
The Science of Incivility
An anonymous reader writes: Stress causes health issues — we've known this for years. But what's harder to figure out is what exactly qualifies as stress. It's easy to understand that working as an EMT or police officer can be stressful. But as medical researchers are beginning to learn, minor stress events common to all workplaces eventually add up — the cumulative stress from workplace incivility can have huge consequences for both health and performance. "A study published in 2012 that tracked women for 10 years concluded that stressful jobs increased the risk of a cardiovascular event by 38 percent. ... In [another] study, the experimenter belittled the peer group of the participants, who then performed 33 percent worse on anagram word puzzles and came up with 39 percent fewer creative ideas during a brainstorming task focused on how they might use a brick." Many people brush off efforts to be civil, saying they have too little time, or too much on their mind. But further studies have shown it takes very little — a smile here and there, or the occasional "thank you" — to have surprisingly strong effects on how people are perceived. The article argues that it's worth the effort, given the costs for failure.
FDA bans frowns and criticism citing impact to healthcare costs
And one might want to look at how the nastiness of Internet forums contributes to this as well. What happens when an entire society is constantly bombarded with the kind of crap we see every day?
So next time you decide to post some trolling bullcrap, remember that your behavior does, indeed, have a real effect on the other people involved.
Don't be a dick. It's not that hard and we're all better off.
Love sees no species.
And it's not like the "research paper" (i.e. the New Testament) has been lost to history, like so much other scientific data gets lost. Flawed as it is due to translation errors and redaction, "love one another" and "treat thy neighbor as thyself" hold up pretty well in 2015 AD as well as it did in 1,000,000 BC.
And it's not like he is the only in recorded history or philosophy saying this.
I guess my point is that while it's interesting to have actual data confirming the correlation between office environment and productivity is good to have, we already knew this to be true. Why are funds being wasted on such when there are so many gaping fiscal wounds in the world of education to be filled?
"Words like 'please' and 'thank-you' are like the air in your bicycle tyres -- they cost nothing but make your journey through life much smoother"
I recall being singled out by the leader on a training course many years ago where we had to role play asking someone to do extra work when there was no direct management chain of command -- i.e. persuasion rather than authority. In a room of about 30 people I was the only one who said 'please' during the request and 'thank-you' at the end. I don't think the others were necessarily rude or lacking civility - but that, at the time, 'macho demanding' was all the rage when it came to management.
Honestly - how hard is it to be polite?