Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us today.
My name is Cathy Cresswell from the Department of Experimental Psychology here at the University of Oxford.
And I'm delighted to welcome you to the latest in our mental wellness series, which is hosted by the Department of Experimental Psychology here.
And hopefully some of you have managed to join us for some of our other sessions.
This today is the last of our sessions for this academic year.
But please do go back and have a look at the other sessions if you haven't had a chance.
They're all on experimental psychology website or on our YouTube channel.
And there's a number of really fantastic sessions there, including topics such as stress and anxiety,
low mood trauma, overcoming problems with sleep and eating.
And today's session will also be is being live streamed on YouTube and can be watched that afterwards as well.
Just one last thing to mention before we get started is that we always try and finish our sessions by ten forty five.
And we'd like to really encourage you to take a little break after the session.
Obviously, the sessions that we're running, do you may raise some difficulties for some people.
They all cover quite sensitive topics. So we would like to really encourage you to take a moment rather than just step into the next part of your day.
So hopefully you'll have at least 15 minutes to give yourself a bit of a breather before you move on to your next activity.
But without further ado, I'd now like to introduce you to Dr Ed Lee,
who's a Wellcome Trust clinical research fellow here in the Oxford Centre for
Anxiety Disorders and Trauma and the Department of Experimental Psychology.
And Dr Lee is also a principal clinical psychologist, and she's going to be talking today about bullying and anxiety.
So thanks so much for joining us, Eleanor. Thank you, Cathy.
I'm delighted to be here today. So I'm going to share my screen.
Talking to you about bullying and anxiety, so relationships are central to our lives, but they're not always easy.
They can be painful and invariably they're complex and nuanced.
So I wanted to begin today thinking through with you what is bullying?
I'm going to present a few scenarios and I want you to decide whether you think this is an example of bullying or not or
if you're not sure and a poll will be showing up on your screen where you can write your I give you answers as we go.
So the first example, someone in your friendship circle tends to speak over you and doesn't invite you to gatherings.
Do you think that's an example of bullying or not? I'm not sure.
So, number two, false rumours about you and someone you dated, a spread on social media.
Do you think this is an example of bullying or not? We're not sure. Number three, a friend calls you a derogatory name in an argument.
And number for someone you work or study with frequently takes the credit for your work.
So we'll just give you a few minutes to give you answers to your answers.
We can end the Paul. OK.
So I'm going to. So here we've got the results through and what we can see is that an.
For the first example, some of your friendships circle tends to speak of you,
the majority thought that this is an example of bullying, but a large proportion.
Forty three percent were unsure for the second, the false rumours being spread,
the majority of you felt quite certain this was bullying to 70 percent. But still nearly 20 percent were unsure.
The third example, a friend calls you a derogatory name and an argument here and fairly evenly split between thinking 40 percent.
This was an example of bullying. Thirty five percent were unsure. And finally, number four, someone taking credit for your work.
The majority of you, 73 percent thought this was an example of bullying, but still 14 percent were unsure.
So I think what this really highlights is that.
Is that it can be quite difficult to know whether a particular incident or behaviour is an example of bullying,
and what's so important is the context and understanding it over time.
So bullying is behaviour by an individual or group that's intended to cause harm to another individual or group.
It's not typically an isolated act, but it's part of a broader pattern of behaviour that's repeated over time.
It usually involves an imbalance of power which makes it difficult for the victim to defend themselves.
And that could be driven by a range of factors.
So physical stature and strength or social status within a group, seniority within the workplace, or the number of people that could be, for example,
that you have a large, larger group of more junior colleagues in a position of power over a more senior member of staff bullying targets,
perceived difference. And that can be perceived in many different ways.
For example, physical appearance, body weight or shape, disability, gender, sexual minority status, race, religion, refugee status to name but a few.
It can be hard to get a handle of how common bullying is because there are so many different methods used to measure it.
But what we seem to see is that amongst young people, about one in six report having being bullied to a distressing level in the previous year.
And in the workplace, about one in 10 report experiencing problematic bullying in the last six to 12 months.
Just ask yourself these questions. Have I ever been or am I currently being bullied or do I know somebody who is or has been bullied in the past?
I think that almost all of us would answer yes to at least one of these questions, which really gives us a feel for how widespread this problem is.
When we think of bullying, what typically first comes to mind is overt bullying,
so this could be verbal Name-Calling using demeaning language, making inappropriate jokes, or it can be physical.
So hitting, hurting.
This kind of bullying is more often used by males and females, and it's more common in children rather than adolescents and adults.
A more subtle form of bullying is what we call relational or social bullying,
and this is where people use aspects of a relationship to cause harm or distress someone else.
So it might be excluding someone from a WhatsApp group in a repeated way, not letting somebody know about the change of time for an important meeting.
This is really powerfully described in a book by Margaret Atwood called CATSA, in which Elaine, the protagonist,
is reflecting back on her early experiences of relationships and a particular relationship with girl called Cordelia.
So I'm just going to read you a short extract.
I'm standing outside the door to Cordelia's room, Cordelia, Grace and Carol inside, they're having a meeting.
The meeting's about me. I'm just not measuring up, although they are giving me every chance I have to do better,
but better at what Purdy and Mary come up the stairs in that armour of being older.
I long to be as old as they are that the only people who have any real power over Cordelia that I can see.
I think of them as my allies or I think they would be my allies if only they knew what even to myself I ameet.
They smile at me, condescending and kind,
and head towards their room to do their toenails and talk about all the things I lean against the wall from behind the door.
Comfy indistinct murmur of voices, of laughter, exclusive and luxurious.
You can come in now, says the voice of Cordelia from inside the room,
I think is extract described so powerfully what it feels like to be socially excluded.
You can also pick up that Cordelia's palette is from her social status within the group,
and Elaine feels that and she wishes she were older in order to redress that power imbalance.
Another really important thing that comes through from this extract is how,
particularly with relational bullying, it can be so hard to pick up from the outside.
So Paddy and Mary don't spot it at all.
But more than that, as a victim, we can know something is wrong, but it can be very hard to articulate what it is.
So for Elaine, she says if only they knew. Knew what?
Even to myself I meet. And related to this, what so often happens is when we're experiencing bullying,
we internalise it or blame ourselves for that behaviour, which makes it even harder to call out.
So for a and she thinks I am not measuring up, although they are giving me every chance.
Reputational bullying is where someone tries to harm someone else by damaging their reputation,
and a good example of this is cyber bullying, where rumours are spread about somebody's.
Bullying can happen anywhere.
Most commonly it happens in the workplace or in the learning environment, but that can spin out into the local community.
And of course, we have cyber bullying.
And there was concern that there'd be an explosion in cyber bullying with the proliferation of social media and smartphones.
But that doesn't seem to have happened. So rates have remained fairly steady, about seven percent.
And we see that bullying and personal bullying online aren't independent.
So by that, I mean that if you're bullied in person, you're more vulnerable to being bullied online.
So this is a sort of slightly flippant and controversial question,
but I think it's important to ask us because these views were held and not too long ago, but does bullying matter?
Do we need to worry about it? Or is bullying just a part of life?
You have to take the rough with the smooth. It helps children deal with the cruelties of the world.
Well, I'm going to hand over and go back to literature to give a feel for the impact of bullying at an individual level.
So this is to piggy a character in the Lord of the Flies,
which is a book about a group of school boys who are left to fend for themselves on a desert island after a plane crash.
And Peggy is being bullied by a dominant member of the group. I'm scared of him, said Peggy, and that's why I know him.
If you're scared of someone, you hate him, but you can't stop thinking about him.
You kid yourself is all right, really. And then when you see him again, it's like asthma, you can't breathe.
This is a bit like a sucker punch, this quote, when I read it,
and it really gives a kind of visceral feel to how frightening it is to be to be bullied,
whether that's physically whether that's in a psychological way.
And in the moment when you're with your bully, it can make you feel like you can't breathe.
But more than that is the ongoing anxiety and worry that plagues people when they are being bullied.
So it's no surprise that true across the lifespan, if we're experiencing bullying, makes feeling it makes us feel anxious.
It can make us feel low and depressed and sometimes even suicidal, and it gets in the way of our day to day lives.
So we know that victims of bullying tend to take more time of study and work and they are often a bit less productive.
So the question then is, is what what about the long term impacts, is the effects of bullying?
Does it continue even after bullying stops? They're going to focus in here on anxiety?
A bit more so.
And this is just this is a study that looked at the experience, the experiencing of bullying and the later presence of anxiety problems in adulthood.
And what was found is an almost linear relationship between bullying earlier on in life as a teenager and experiencing anxiety problems later on,
you might say, well, maybe this is because the kind of people who experience bullying and anxiety also had other problems to begin with,
like anxiety or family difficulties. And these were accounted for in this study.
But the relationship between bullying and anxiety problems persisted and held them.
And this is also found in adulthood.
So people who are experiencing bullying and adulthood experience anxiety up to two years or more after the bullying stops.
So you might then say, if you're feeling very curious, well, maybe it's our genes,
maybe some people are genetically more likely to experiencing bullying and anxiety.
And that's been looked at to by looking at identical twins who share their genetic material to share their home environment.
What was found is that the twins who differed on whether they'd experienced bullying the twin had been bullied,
was about 70 percent more likely to go on to experience a particular kind of anxiety,
social anxiety, which is characterised as being very frightened of being judged by other people and evaluated by other people.
So what's really clear from the research is that being bullied impacts on our well-being,
including our anxiety in the here and now, but also in the longer term.
And for me, that's a really strong red flag that we need to think about and really aggressively targeting bullying and as much as possible.
And that should be at an institutional level, but also at an individual level.
And so what should we do if we witnessed bullying? If we observe, we need to make sure we understand.
We need to make sure that we don't turn a blind eye.
That might, if you feel comfortable and safe, do so involve stepping in when you see it happening,
potentially speaking to the perpetrator and the victim to try to calm things down.
But if that doesn't feel OK, it might be about speaking to the victim later, helping them discover how to find Sam's advice and support.
Or it might be about sharing the information and your concerns to your supervisor, your line manager or someone in your college.
What about if you're being bullied yourself?
The first thing to do is to tell somebody, even if you're not quite sure that what's happening is bullying,
if it doesn't feel right, tell somebody you trust that might be a friend,
a trusted colleague or co-worker or perhaps a harassment adviser at university
who offer confidential and support for people who think they're being bullied.
And secondly, keep a record.
Try and don't worry about categorising or labelling the behaviour, focus on dates, locations and describing what's happening to you.
Thirdly, as far as possible, don't retaliate, it can really escalate the problem.
Renforth, take care of yourself. Surround yourself with people who support you and love you,
try to build an enriching and positive activity in your daily life and there's lots and
lots of fantastic resources in the Web and also through the University of Oxford website.
So but the picture's a little bit more complicated than this,
so we know that that being bullied impacts on our mental health, including making us more sexually anxious.
But what bit me and various of this is done also shows that that the more socially anxious we are,
that makes us more vulnerable to further victimisation, which means that we can get locked in a cycle of bullying and anxiety.
How does that work? Well, I want to just talk you through an example of someone I work with to try to earn a bit more.
So it's honour a young woman with social anxiety who I work with.
And she talked about going to meet friends for coffee. This is something she was desperate to do and wanted to do.
But when she went for the coffee with friends, what happened, she was plagued by a whole range of fearful thought.
I got nothing to say. They're going to say, why did I invite her?
They're going to think I'm a. And so she felt very, very anxious, very self-conscious.
To stop herself messing up and to stop people thinking she was boring and to try to do things to keep yourself safe.
This is what we call safety behaviours.
And what Anna did is to stop herself getting caught up in a conversation which she felt unable to manage, she avoided eye contact.
She looked down. She didn't ask any questions. And she spent most of the time on her phone like this scrolling through social media.
She was held back. She had lots of things she wants to share, but she held back in case they weren't interesting enough.
These behaviours made sense for Anna because she was so convinced she was going to mess up.
But from the outside, with the people having coffee with her, what they saw as someone not looking at her, not looking at them,
not speaking and spending that time on the phone, safety behaviours can send the wrong signal to other people.
In fact, they can send the opposite message to what we intend.
And the problem with that is that if you communicate to someone you're not interested and you don't find them interesting,
that can elicit unfriendly reactions back. People who are low in social confidence can sometimes seek out dominant individuals,
dominant groups in order to have a stamp of approval or social acceptability.
So rather than seeking out friendships based on shared interests or shared values, people are sought out because they're dominant.
And this can be problematic because the bedrock of relations, good relationships, are these shared values.
And also there's an inbuilt power imbalance into the relationship, which can mean that individuals are more vulnerable to being treated poorly.
In addition, if we're learning social in our self-confidence, we can tend to criticise ourselves,
and that means that we can tend to blame ourselves when something is going wrong
in a relationship rather than calling out and questioning that behaviour, which can mean that the behaviour is likely to persist.
So what do we do? How do we break these legs?
Firstly, if you notice someone who has worries in social situations and maybe recognise some of those safety behaviours,
why they're in a situation that you feel relatively comfortable in,
a little bit anxious to do an experiment, drop your safety behaviours, really try to absorb yourself in the conversation,
get out of your head and go with the flow to find out what happened happens.
And you can also try that in work meetings as well. For example.
If perhaps you recognise this idea of being a moth to a flame, ask yourself, what do I look for in a friend?
So I see that those qualities in this group, in this person,
and if the answer is no or you're uncertain what you put more energy into those relationships which are based on shared interests or join groups,
join clubs where you can potentially forge new relationships. If you tend to doubt yourself and tend to blame yourself for things going wrong and
there's something happening in a relationship that makes you feel uncomfortable,
talk about it with somebody you trust, seek their objective view on it.
And perhaps you can ask yourself the question, would you think it was OK if someone acted this way to your friend?
And if the answer is no, then no one should be acting that way towards you by the.
And so we talked a bit about bullying in the past and also bullying in the present.
If you're somebody who has experienced bullying in the past and it's really continuing to haunt you in the present and it's difficult to overcome it,
then I direct you to another talk in our series, which is really fantastic, called Coping with Trauma by Professor Uncles.
And there you might find some helpful advice and guidance on how to kind of put those guys to bed.
And finally, we know a lot about anxiety and we know with a lot of really powerful ways to help people overcome and manage anxiety,
if you are looking for some help to support you with anxiety, and then you might want to start with some self help.
And the overcoming serious is a really fantastic place to start.
That could be either for you or your child or if you want something more active and support from another person,
then you can seek evidence based therapies from the improving access to psychological therapy service,
which you can access through your GP or via a self referral.
Thank you very much. Right, thank you ever so much.
I'm sure people will find it extremely helpful. I'm now going to introduce other panellists to you, so hopefully they'll switch their videos on now.
First of all, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Lucy.
Lucy is associate professor of experimental psychology here in the Department of Experimental Psychology and a fellow of maudlin college.
And I'd also like to introduce you to Dr. Robert Packo's, associate professor of developmental psychology,
again in the Department of Experimental Psychology and a tutorial fellow in new college here in Oxford.
So thank you very much for joining us. And we ask people to submit questions in advance so that we could try to organise
them in ways that we could capture as many people's questions as possible.
So I'm going to go to you, first of all,
see with our first question and another obviously already spoke about some of the different types of bullying that people might experience.
And I suppose one of the things that was raised is actually how difficult it might be to spot bullying when it's happening.
And actually, it might not always feel clear yourself. You might be left a bit uncertain about it.
So there were some questions really about how do we identify bullying?
What are the best ways to to be able to spot it in order to call it out when it's happening?
And thanks, Eleanor, for really excellent talk.
I think this is a really great question, and I was really struck actually by the survey that Eleanor included and how much uncertainty there was.
And I think that reflects exactly what you say,
that some forms of bullying and particularly relational bullying and exclusion are very difficult to spot.
And I want to reiterate a point that Eleanor made, really, if you yourself are wondering whether what you are experiencing counts as bullying,
ask yourself if this was done to another person, to a colleague, would this be acceptable?
Would this be OK? That's that's one very sort of quick and easy way to think.
Actually, this this wouldn't be acceptable in the workplace. There are some key aspects, again, that were highlighted really nicely in the talk.
So bullying is defined as being intentional.
So these are things that if you have the sense that this is done with intent, so if you are being repeatedly left out of group email chains,
if you are repeatedly having work requests denied without good reason,
if you are having experiencing targeted practical jokes, for example, it's occurring repeatedly.
So it's not a not a one off. And you have the sense that this is intentional with the intention to to hurt you.
And then it is very likely that you are experiencing believe that a colleague is experiencing bullying.
So there are different types of bullying and they they vary a little bit both on the setting and also on the power dynamics.
And that's the sort of final point about bullying behaviour. It's this power differential and highlighted again really nicely.
It's not always the obvious power differentials, although in workplace bullying particularly,
it most often is managers bullying employees over 60 percent of the time.
You can have it the other way around and anywhere where the power dynamic shifts.
So if you have a group of people, for example, targeting one person and if you are in a power differential,
which makes it difficult for you to defend themselves yourself, again, that's more likely to be bullying.
I'll hand over to you. Thanks very much, Lisa. And I just wanted to come to you for any additional thoughts on the various types of bullying
that people may experience or witness and any particular thoughts on identifying those.
Thank you very much, Cathy, and thank you, Lucy, and thank you so much, Eleanor, for this inspiring talk.
I don't think I have anything substantial to add to what was already said.
I would just maybe want to point out that as witnesses and as members of a society where bullying occurs,
we have every reason to be frustrated and upset and feel a sense of wanting to take action.
And in the face of it, because in an open, democratic, inclusive society, bullying almost undermines our principles of freedom,
of expression, of social equality, because it's a behaviour which which almost is divisive, where we seek to be inclusive.
It emphasises social hierarchies and inequality where we are trying to overcome these.
So it is something that I wanted to add just to point out the scale of this also to those who are witnessing
bullying and have heard of it and are sort of wondering whether they should do anything at all about it.
Thanks very much, and that actually takes us really nicely onto the next question, which is really about how to respond.
As Elena said, sometimes sort of retaliating may be unhelpful and may sort of fuel the flames.
But obviously it does feel important to respond and so and feels important to respond in a way that's not going to make things worse.
So it'd be great to hear your thoughts about that. You know, how should individuals respond both when they're on the receiving end of bullying
themselves or when they witness it or maybe suspect that they witnessed it?
Robert, can I come to you first on that? Thank you very much, Kathy.
Again, following Elena's inspiring talk, I don't really have anything to add in terms of what the victims of bullying can do.
And I would maybe want to point out on a broader point also how as observers,
we should feel involved in this process of stopping bullying, which is humans on ultra cooperative species.
It's sometimes easy to forget if we turn on the news, but we have thrived and populating the planet by our ability to cooperate.
And it's the fact that we don't use this ability to the best and possible is can really be considered a modern day tragedy.
And so what evolutionary psychologists would point out is that what allows us to cooperate
on a large scale is this idea of reputation management that Allen already alluded to.
So building a cooperative identity, if we scroll through our news feeds on Twitter, on Instagram,
we see individuals who are basically saying, follow me, look at me, read what I post like me and have an interest in me.
And so this is something that we get very invested in.
And so bullying targets an individual's ability to sculpture and nurture this cooperative identity.
So it gets to the very heart of basic fears and anxieties of being excluded if there's a threat to our ability to maintain this identity.
And I just wanted to point this out just to highlight three basic things,
which is that this is not just an anomaly, being bullied and suffering consequences.
It's really an integral part of how we form our identity. So this is something that's extremely serious and that it is up to observers and to a
society to decide what kind of reputation is being nurtured by the bully and by the victim.
So we have every reason to step in and take action.
And finally, as a as a minor point, maybe just to be aware of the fact that with social media, things are scaled up.
So it's a modern day technology that is amplifying psychological mechanisms that evolved in small scale societies.
So being shame's is already bad enough in the face of your family or your neighbours.
But now you scale this up to a more global level and an interconnected level.
And just to be aware of the fact that we're really running into quite serious issues,
if we don't take into account this amplifying effect that social media has and cyber bullying has of being bullied and feeling bullied.
Thank you. But, yeah, important sort of call to action and highlighting the importance of addressing bullying when we see it,
I think if you want to say anything further about, you know,
about how we might respond, that adds to what Eleanor and Roberts have both said, particularly,
I guess, thinking about how we might constructively approach a about their behaviour.
Thank you. I think these are really, really useful points.
On the one hand, if you're within the University of Oxford, like firstly we have harassment procedures which are available on the websites.
If you look at Oxford and bullying and harassment, you'll see a flowchart which is really helpful and it will give you a signpost due to resources,
depending on whether you're a student, for example, or whether you're staff, college or department.
So I would advise you to look there because it's really, really helpful.
And certainly the first step of that is always to to speak up to acknowledge this and.
I you know, ideally, that would be if you feel comfortable, that could be to the person that's targeting you,
but often you may not feel comfortable because of this power differential.
So this is if you yourself are being bullied and that it would be to talk to your line manager,
ideally with records of the behaviours that have been happening, how to address this if it is a person.
And one thing that I think can be really useful, either for the individual or for the manager,
is based on principles of what's known as restorative justice.
And this is bringing people together and having a platform so that people can have a constructive discussion about the situation,
about what's happening,
so that the person that this is happening to feel, heard and supported and can explain the impact that these behaviours are having on them.
And sometimes that can be enough if the person who is targeting them is unaware of the impact that they may be done for,
you know, for certain reason, they may think it's funny or they may not realise quite the impact their behaviours are having.
So that's one approach that can be really useful and that's better done probably in a
structured framework where you have an independent party to to manage this process.
So I think that could be a really, really useful tool and something I want to pick up on from Robert as well.
And I think we all play a role, exactly as Robert says, in society and to be active bystanders, to not let this pass.
It's bullying. Absolutely. You know, highlighting your point exacerbates existing inequalities.
So people who are disadvantaged already for various reasons will have protective characteristics,
are much more likely to experience bullying than be a gaslighted.
Listen to them understand what's happening here, what's happening,
and make sure that you do whatever you can to support them so that they feel they are listened to and the action will happen.
Thanks, Lisa. And actually, you touched on there some university initiatives to address bullying, so that was good to hear about.
That would be great to hear about any other initiatives people might know about.
And I suppose one of the things I wanted to pick up on in relation to what you just said and
thinking about university initiatives relates to the procedures you highlighted earlier.
How often in the workplace it may be a sort of the more senior person, a managerial role who may be the person who is doing the bullying.
However, if they're the people who also are the people, the procedures go through them, then that might create quite a difficult situation.
And somebody referred actually to that, those in power marking their own homework effectively.
So which we have to say a bit more about any other university initiatives it be good to know about,
but also how to manage that situation, that particular situation.
So really good question. So one initiative that the university runs, I think is fantastic is bystander training.
So bullying happens within a culture and a climate where this goes on uncharged, where nothing ever happens,
where there are strong hierarchical values, it's more likely to happen where there are high workloads and stress.
You know, let's let's think about our context here.
You know, hierarchy, stress, workload and power struggles, short term contracts, these things do they are structural factors that can play a role.
So having a whole community take an approach that this is unacceptable through things like bystander training,
which departments can organise and colleges can organise and fire the harassment advisers.
And the university is a really good way of making sure everyone is stepping in.
So that's the sort of structural level thing. What happens if it's your manager that's putting you again on that harassment flowchart?
It does. It does talk about this because that is very difficult. And there are certain people on short term contracts.
You have one clear line manager.
This is a very difficult position to be in and the flowchart will advise you to go to effectively the manager's manager.
So you start ultimately there might be, for example, the head of department. There will be someone in college.
You can also contact the independent harassment advisors through the university and they will
talk you through options available to you and because it's a really awful position to be in.
So I think there's something to do if you yourself are being targeted.
But I would really like to see departments, colleges take on board this sort of whole collective activity to stamp out this kind of behaviour.
Right. Thank you very much.
And coming back to you, Eleanor, I suppose you talked about how the experience of bullying can often contribute to anxiety.
And, you know, it actually is quite a major risk factor.
So when it comes to anxiety, what can departmental heads or line managers do when they become aware of anxiety issues within their.
I think this is such a good point, and to begin with an institution level,
we need to encourage and promote conversations about well-being and mental health.
So we try and there's been huge initiatives to do this,
but to try to strip out the stigma that that does sometimes continue to exist within our institutions.
And then secondly, Chuter supervisors, line managers are in a really sort of unique,
privileged position of having frequent regular contact with staff, with students.
And I think that well-being should be there on the agenda in the meetings.
And you can call it a check in. You can call it work life balance chat, whatever.
But part of having a productive, productive staff member or student is about having someone who's not feeling overly anxious and stressed.
And if you do have someone disclose it or explain that they're experiencing anxiety, then the first thing to do is to thank them and acknowledge it,
because it will have taken them an awfully long time to get there,
to be saying it to someone in a senior position, and then secondly, to be really good at listening and open.
So you want to hear about what's their anxiety like and how is it impacting on
their on their work and on their ability to to work as well as they would like to.
It might then be about developing a shared plan, thinking what could we do together to reduce the impact of the anxiety on their
day to day working life and then making sure that as a supervisor or manager,
you're checking in with that plan so you don't just create a plan and then leave it hanging, but you're reviewing it and you're adjusting as needed.
It may well involve the involvement of occupational health to support that process.
And then you might also think about it on the university website. There's lots of recommendations for like peer to peer mediated support,
so called together all of the counselling service at university or helping someone navigate your referral through to get more active support.
Thanks very much. We've spoken a lot, actually, about awareness raising and the importance for awareness raising,
for mental health and wellbeing generally, and also about belief and having a culture where we could speak about these things freely.
And there was an interesting question really about creating a culture of awareness of bullying and the impact that that may have on on people,
for example, on anxiety.
And I guess this always is always important, isn't it, to think about what might the benefits be of creating a culture of awareness?
But could there be any unintended consequences? Robert, I don't know if you had any thoughts on that.
Thank you very much again, Kathy. Just very brief thoughts in addition to what has already been put so eloquently,
the things we humans thrive at their best in cooperative settings if they are and in
an equal status and position where everyone feels like they are being part of it,
that they're being recognised.
And so the moment that bullying happens in a context where others are watching it becomes almost a moral issue because as bystanders,
we become involved. And one of the things that has worked quite well in our evolutionary past is what's being called moral accountability.
So to create circumstances, to create spaces, opportunities to hold one another accountable, not in an overtly negative or punitive way,
but as was pointed out by Lucy, by a by a check in and meetings and as Alan also pointed out.
So these are very powerful devices that allow us to check in and to acknowledge
the kind of norms that we would like to govern our day to day behaviours.
And so this morning, the hopeful sighed.
And then just as a side effect is to point out that changing the culture is important, but it's, of course, quite removed from taking action.
So a cultural awareness has to go hand in hand with an attitude change that has to result
in some kind of tangible behaviour that then impacts those who are in need of help.
So it is an important part of it. But as Lucy pointed out earlier,
it's about being active bystanders and being committed to to feel involved in this process and doing something about it.
Thank you. And in any time, I'm going to move on to another question that we received.
And I suppose we have talked a lot about, you know,
the power imbalances and we talked about how often it's in the direction of more powerful to less powerful, for example, in the workplace.
But of course, and it was raised by people submitting questions and of course, managers may be on the receiving end.
And so there were some questions about any thoughts about what to do in those
experiences where a manager feels that they're being bullied by a team member.
Absolutely. Can I get to you for that? Yeah, that's absolutely this does happen.
And the same the same sort of processes would be important.
So to to understand what this behaviour be acceptable in another context, to record what's happening so that, you know,
the time and date and examples of who else was present, if other people were present, that so you can document if it's repeated and what's going on.
And then again, just to speak to someone external to the team to get that insight is they're all going to be really important.
Context is everything. And so to understand, you know, we talked about building being an intentional act as well,
and whether so documenting the evidence and having this discussion and understanding
the context can also help to make it more clear whether this is intentional behaviour.
And this is an example where perhaps using these sort of restorative justice techniques to bring people together might be really effective.
And because, again, in this particular situation,
people may be and completely unaware that their behaviour can really impact on the health and well-being of their manager.
Sometimes we only see the you know, the the hierarchical relationship, the fact that they're in a position of power.
And we forget that actually our behaviours harm others. And social exclusion and bullying hurts everyone.
And it hurts that it helps the whole community as well. So I think that would be really important.
And support is there and it's vital that we that we access it and we listen to people.
Thanks very much. And I'm just going to come to you, Eleanor, for the last question,
and I suppose and I think we could probably guess what the answer to this would be based on the conversation so far.
But there were some questions about, you know, from an employee point of view.
And I guess the same applies as students as well. So people who were being appraised by others.
Should you disclose that you've experienced bullying or experiencing problems, anxiety, if you feel that that could negatively impact on,
for example, your job, probation or your assessments as a student, the reference you may receive, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on that.
Thank you. I think this is such a good question,
because the very clear answer is that you cannot be treated differently on the basis of having anxiety or being bullied.
That is victimisation. Having said that, at a personal level, it can feel so very challenging to speak up and it can feel so very frightening.
So there's sometimes a disjoint between the institution and then the individual.
But I would really, really encourage you if you are if it is ongoing bullying, to speak to somebody about it and harassment advises, I would say,
a really great place to start if you haven't got a support network around you, because harassment advisers are not only providing it confidentially,
but they have a really good inside knowledge of the steps and support that's available, because it might be,
for example, that if there is bullying and it's picked up that you're the person who's bullying,
who may be alignment, it doesn't provide the reference, doesn't undertake the appraisal, and that process could be moved to another member of staff.
So I would always encourage talking and sharing concerns as a first step,
even if that's done confidentially before you move through more formal channels.
And I think the other thing just to say is that it's quite an exciting time to be talking about these sorts of experiences and this sort of behaviour,
because I think there is a huge societal shift that's going on in the last few years.
And increasingly we're moving to a place where it is not acceptable to behave badly and get away with it.
And increasingly the support and encouragement for people to stand up and for others to stand with them.
And so I think we are moving in a really exciting direction, thinking about the recent societal movements like me, too, that have happened.
There were also I think there's a real desire to shift our attitudes to bullying.
I support people who've experienced it. Great, thank you very much.
I think that's a great note to end on. Thank you very much to all of our speakers and panellists today.
It's been a really fantastic session. I found it really useful and interesting.
And I am sure that everyone who's joined us has to. I'd like to obviously say a big thank you to all of you who have joined us as well.
Hopefully you've been able to join us for some of the other sessions, but if not, please do go and have a look at our YouTube channel,
which you can find via the Department of Experimental Psychology website, and you'll be able to watch back this session as well.
So please do that and and let others know.
As I mentioned, this is the last session for this academic year, but we'd be really grateful to have your feedback.
So please do let us know how you found this and other sessions that we can think about what might be best for going forward.
And last thing to say is, of course, hopefully you've got to look at now before your next activity.
Please do make the most of it.
Give yourself a little bit of break a break, have a little wander, have a little stretch, have a cup of tea, whatever will work for you.
But thanks ever so much again for joining us. And we hope to see you all again.
See. Good bye.