Workplace Well-being: How to Build Psychologically Healthy Workplaces

10 Respectful Workplaces

Michael P. Leiter¹ and Ashlyn Patterson²

¹ Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada

² University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

Organizations are structured, enduring social environments that people inhabit for much of their waking hours. One channel through which people experience an organization is through day-to-day social encounters with other people. In this chapter, we present a framework for describing how the quality of those interactions influences employees’ experience of themselves, their colleagues, and their organization. We consider both the implications for their emotional well-being and for their productivity and their personal identity. This chapter encompasses both the constructive contribution of respectful encounters and the distressing experience of mistreatment at work. We conclude the chapter by considering the implications for enhancing the psychological health of the workplace.

Respect as a Vital Resource

The opinions of other people matter. Although people may at times have indifference toward how others regard them as in the “I’m not here to make friends” supercut (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0bOw1lqxBc), evidence supports the contention that people care deeply about how others value them (Hogg & Turner, 2011). This concern appears well justified. From an evolutionary perspective, group membership was essential for surviving in the wilderness or contending with a lawless world (Buss, 1991). From this perspective, ...