Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can (...) create toxic working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed. Bullying has always been part of the human condition; history is rife with references to abuse of power and unnecessary or excessive force. The classic bully story is of Joseph and his brothers, a tale of envy and hostility. The refinement of bullying to include various forms of legally defined social harassment is a relatively late phenomenon, however, dating to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the United States, bullying is not illegal, whereas it is illegal in many other countries. Bullying is not about benign teasing, nor does it include the off-color jokes, racial slurs, or unwelcome advances that are the hallmarks of legally defined harassment. Workplace bullying is the pattern of destructive and generally deliberate demeaning of co-workers or subordinates that reminds us of the activities of the schoolyard bully. Unlike the schoolyard bully, however, the workplace bully is an adult, usually (but not always) aware of the impact of his or her behavior on others. Bullying in the workplace, often tacitly accepted by the organizational leadership, can create an environment of psychological threat that diminishes corporate productivity and inhibits individual and group commitment. The two examples that follow will help to clarify the difference between harassment and bullying. (shrink)

Teaching ethics poses a dilemma for professors of business. First, they have little or no formal training in ethics. Second, they have established ethical values that they may not want to impose upon their students. What is needed is a well-recognized, yet non-sectarian model to facilitate the clarification of ethical questions. Gestalt theory offers such a framework. Four Gestalt principles facilitate ethical clarification and another four Gestalt principles anesthetize ethical clarification. This article examines each principle, illustrates that principle through current (...) business examples, and offers exercises for developing each principle. (shrink)

Workplace bullying is a significant issue confronting the nursing profession. Bullying in nursing is frequently described in terms of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour or ‘horizontal violence’. It is proposed that the use of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour theory has fostered only a partial understanding of the phenomenon in nursing. It is suggested that the continued use of ‘oppressed group’ behaviour as the major means for understanding bullying in nursing places a flawed emphasis on bullying as a phenomenon that (...) exists only among nurses, rather than considering it within the broader organisational context. The work of Foucault and the ‘circuits of power’ model proposed by Clegg are used to provide an alternative understanding of the operation of power within organisations and therefore another way to conceive bullying in the nursing workforce. (shrink)

Peter Carruthers has recently argued for a surprising conditional: if a global workspace theory of phenomenal consciousness is both correct and fully reductive, then there are no substantive facts to discover about phenomenal consciousness in nonhuman animals. I present two problems for this conditional. First, it rests on an odd double-standard about the ordinary concept of phenomenal consciousness: its intuitive non-gradability is taken to be unchallengeable by future scientific developments, whereas its intuitive determinacy is predicted to fall by the (...) wayside. Second, it relies on dismissing, prematurely, the live empirical possibility that phenomenal consciousness may be linked to a core global broadcast mechanism that is shared by a wide range of animals. Future developments in the science of consciousness may lead us to reconsider the non-gradability of phenomenal consciousness, but they are unlikely to lead us to accept that there are no facts to discover outside the paradigm case of a healthy adult human. (shrink)

To examine whether high moral reasoning competence of adolescents is associated with low levels of bullying, and to understand whether moral disengagement mediates or moderates this relationship, 925 German children ranging from 11 to 17 years of age (M = 14.18, S = 1.21) completed questionnaires on moral reasoning competence and moral disengagement in surveys at three different schools. The children were classified according to their bullying role, based on a peer- nomination procedure. Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed (...) that moral reasoning competence negatively predicted whether a student took an aggressive role. Moral disengagement partially mediated this relationship. Corresponding effects for defenders and outsiders were not found. These results extend previous findings about the effect of moral reasoning on bullying in primary school. The implications for the prevention of bullying are discussed. (shrink)

Recent studies show that the current punitive approach to bullying, in the form of zero-tolerance policies, is ineffective in reducing bullying and school violence. Despite this significant finding, anti-bullying legislation is increasing. The authors argue that these policies are not only ineffective but that they are also unjust, harmful, and stigmatizing. They advocate a broader integrative approach to bullying programs that includes both victims and bullies.

Bullying is a serious problem in today’s workplace, in that, a large percentage of employees have either been bullied or knows someone who has. There are a variety of ethical concerns dealing with bullying—that is, courses of action to manage the bullying contain serious ethical/legal concerns. The inadequacies of legal protections for bullying in the U.S. workplace also compound the approaches available to deal ethically with bullying. While Schumann (2001, Human Resource Management Review 11, 93–111) (...) does not explicitly examine bullying, the five moral principles that he advocates can be applied to judge the ethics of bullying in the workplace. A possible limitation of this model is that, it is designed to be normative (judgmental), and while it does take into consideration the relationships among the victim, the perpetrator, the groups in the organization, and the organization itself in judging the ethics of bullying, it does not explicitly consider the process by which bullying might develop and persist. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of this process, Nijhof and Rietdijk (1999, Journal of Business Ethics 20(1), 39–50)) suggest applying an A–B–C (antecedents, behaviors, and consequences) model to help understand the dynamics of bullying in the workplace. Formal propositions are offered to guide both academics and practitioners to an enriched understanding of the ethics of workplace bullying. (shrink)

The subject of consciousness, long shunned by mainstream psychology and the scientific community, has over the last two decades become a legitimate topic of scientific research. One of the most thorough attempts to formulate a theory of consciousness has come from Bernard Baars, a psychologist working at the Wright Institute. Baars proposes that consciousness is the result of a Global Workspace in the brain that distributes information to the huge number of parallel unconscious processors that form the rest of (...) the brain. This paper critiques the central hypothesis of Baars' theory of consciousness. (shrink)

Despite a vast amount of research into school bullying and the widespread implementation of anti-bullying policies and programs, large numbers of students continue to report that they are routinely subjected to bullying by their peers. In this theoretical article, I argue that part of the problem is that there has been a lack of critical discussion of the theoretical foundations upon which such studies are based. Drawing on recent theoretical contributions within the field of school bullying, (...) the work of anthropologist James C. Scott, and the work of philosophers Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I take particular issue with the notion of power that has long been a foundational pillar of bullying definitions. Utilizing a Foucauldian understanding of power, I argue that rather than focusing on the power imbalance involved in bullying relations, focus instead needs to shift onto the role that bullying plays in power relations. Reimagining Agamben’s figure of homo sacer as a victim of school bullying, I consider the ways in which some individuals are reduced to bare life and forced into a state of exception whereby social laws are no longer deemed applicable. The article concludes with a discussion of how this state of exception might be challenged. (shrink)

Workplace bullying has been recognized as a major occupational stressor since the mid 1980s. A number of different terms have been used to describe it, including employee abuse, emotional abuse, mistreatment and neglect at work, mobbing, and harassment. In the United Kingdom, a number of reports from trades unions illustrating the pain, psychological distress, physical illness, and career damage suffered by the victims of bullying first drew attention to the issue. However, academic interest in the issue began only (...) recently, and there are still few empirical studies. The most systematic research comes from Scandinavia, where there is strong public awareness and antibullying legislation. (shrink)

Bullying and violence pose widespread problems for contemporary society. In this paper, special attention is given to violence against pupils with SN. The empirical research analyses perceptions of peer violence according to differing roles in relation to violent acts among pupils with and without SN, regarding gender and age. We used the School Bullying Scales measuring instrument, translated and adapted for Slovenia. The main findings of the research are as follows: there is no statistically significant difference between pupils (...) with and without SN in terms of the different roles of peer violence in regular Slovenian primary schools. Among specific subgroups of children with SN, pupils with long-term illnesses were statistically significantly less often observers of violent acts compared to other groups of pupils with SN. (shrink)

The complex global business environment has created a host of problems for managers, none of which is more difficult to address than bullying in the workplace. The rapid rate of change and the everincreasing complexity of organizational environments of business throughout the world have increased the opportunity for bullying to occur more frequently. This article addresses the foundations of bullying by examining the nature' (i.e., bullying behavior influenced by the innate genetic make-up of an individual) and (...) the nurture' (i.e., individuals learn to be bullies and environments allow the behavior to perpetuate) arguments for the occurrence of bullying behavior. In addition, guidelines are presented for managers in global organizations to use in assessing and monitoring bullying activities in global organizations. (shrink)

School bullying also referred to as peer victimization is considered extremely harmful for all parties involved. It has been recognised as an important issue in Polish schools. This article presents the first stage of a project financed by the National Centre of Research and Development and includes the results of qualitative research conducted in groups of middle-school students, middle-school teachers and psychologists. The results highlight several factors leading to the exclusion from the dominant peer group. The results also indicate (...) that although students are aware of the consequences of bullying and excluding behaviours, they do not implement this knowledge when explaining their own excluding actions. All results are discussed in terms of designing and implementing a data-based programme which would effectively mitigate excluding behaviours during middle-school transition. (shrink)

AimUnderstanding interrelations between the factors predicting students’ aggressive behavior is a priority for bullying-prevention programs. Our study explores two possible mechanisms linking school disciplinary structure and students’ aggression. We test students’ moral disengagement and bullying by teachers as mediational pathways from school authoritative discipline to students’ aggressive behavior.MethodsWe used a regionally representative sample of 213 schools that participated in a school climate survey in Kaluga Oblast (a federal subject of Russia) in 2019. The analytical sample contained the anonymous (...) responses of 16,809 students from grades 6–9 (12–15 years old); 51% of the respondents were girls. The analytical procedure consisted of structural equation modeling (SEM), which was implemented in Mplus 8.7.ResultsThe mediation model fit the data well, suggesting that the clarity and fairness of school rules negatively predicted peer aggression, while student moral disengagement and bullying by teachers independently and partially mediated this association.ConclusionWe confirm that authoritative school climate, characterized by a clear and fair disciplinary structure, is associated with a decrease in bullying. Novel result is the evidence for mediating mechanisms and the influence of teachers’ aggression on students’ behavior. Prevention programs designed to increase the fairness and consistency of school rules, eliminate bullying and humiliation from teachers, and decrease students’ moral disengagement may reduce violence and victimization at school. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that a person’s experience of having been bullied as a child can hold transformative potentiality. This means that childhood exposure to bullying can both produce negative effects and provide fuel for transformative intention and actions. By exploring two separate narratives, I demonstrate how these individuals’ different ways of handling past incidents are entangled with both present and future, as well as how they are closely connected to both the specific situations and contexts in which (...) the person lives and his/her movements across such situations and contexts. The concept of dynamic effectuality is introduced to describe this phenomenon. Furthermore, I claim that, by analysing the dynamic effectuality of individuals’ past experiences with bullying and their present adult lives, certain processes can be found – including revenge, transformative intention and collective transformative actions. (shrink)

In his rich and provocative paper, Peter Carruthers announces two related theses: (a) a positive thesis that “central cognition is sensory based, depending on the activation and deployment of sensory images of various sorts” (Carruthers 2013) and (b) a negative thesis that the “central mind does not contain any workspace within which goals, decisions, intentions, or non-sensory judgments can be active” (Carruthers 2013). These are striking claims suggesting that a natural view about cognition, namely that explicit theoretical reasoning involves (...) direct operations over beliefs, is wrong. Our beliefs, on this natural view, interact with each other to yield new beliefs. If Carruthers is right, beliefs have only an indirect or mediated influence in cognition with sensory states playing the direct role. I think it an important feature of Carruthers’ discussion that he draws support from work on the neural circuits and mechanisms that subserve these processes. In what follows, I want to regis. (shrink)

This article reports on empirical research that establishes strong, positive, and significant correlations between the ethical issues of bullying and unfair supervision in the workplace and the presence of Corporate Psychopaths. The main measure for bullying is identified as being the witnessing of the unfavorable treatment of others at work. Unfair supervision was measured by perceptions that an employee's supervisor was unfair and showed little interest in the feelings of subordinates. This article discusses the theoretical links between psychopathy (...) and bullying and notes that little empirical evidence confirms the connection in management research. The sample of 346 Australian senior white collar workers used in the research is described as is the measure of behavior for identifying psychopaths. The findings are then presented and discussed showing that when Corporate Psychopaths are present in a work environment, the level of bullying is significantly greater than when they are not present. Further, that when Corporate Psychopaths are present, supervisors are strongly perceived as being unfair to employees and disinterested in their feelings. This article concludes that around 26% of bullying is accounted for by 1% of the employee population, those who are Corporate Psychopaths. (shrink)

There has been increased interest in the “dark side” of organizational behavior in recent decades. Workplace bullying, in particular, has received growing attention in the social sciences literature. However, this literature has lacked an integrated approach. More specifically, few studies have investigated causes at levels beyond the individual, such as the group or organization. Extending victim precipitation theory, we present a conceptual model of workplace bullying incorporating factors at the individual-, dyadic-, group-, and organizational-levels. Based on our theoretical (...) model, a number of propositions are offered which emphasize an interactionist, multi-level approach. This approach provides a valuable stepping stone and framework to guide future empirical research. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The subject of bullying has received widespread academic attention, going back to pioneering studies in the 1970s. However, work in this area has tended to take a gender-neutral/male perspective that does not distinguish between male and female bullying. While retaining a dialogue with generalist literature on the subject, this article seeks to highlight the theoretical and political-social relevance of gender-specific and intersectional approaches when exploring the question of bullying between adolescent girls. Based on the study _Il bullismo (...) femminile a scuola. Un’indagine intersezionale mixed-method_ (Female bullying at school, an intersectional, mixed-method study) – conducted in medium-sized and large cities in northern, central and southern Italy – it proposes a theoretical-analytical framework in which to consider the phenomenon of female bullying in Italian schools. (shrink)

Our aim in this reply is to defend Global Workspace theory (GWT) from the challenge of Block's article. We argue that Block's article relies on an outdated and imprecise concept of access, and perpetuates a common misunderstanding of GWT that conflates the global workspace with working memory. In the light of the relevant clarifications, Block's conclusion turns out to be unwarranted, and the basic tenets of GWT emerge unscathed.

Workplace bullying is defined as repeated, malicious, and health-endangering mistreatment of an employee by one or more other employees. Workplace bullying has been associated with negative outcomes for the individual being bullied and for the organization in which such actions take place. This paper explains the nature, frequency, and costs of workplace bullying in the context of organizational culture, ethical culture, and organizational moral development. We also propose ways that organizations can and should deal with this increasingly (...) common behavior. (shrink)

Since the early 1990s, increasing attention has been paid to the impact of workplace bullying on employees’ well-being and job attitudes. However, the relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction remains unclear. This study aims to shed light on the nature of the bullying-job satisfaction relationship in the Italian context. As expected, the results revealed a U-shape curvilinear relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction after controlling for demographic variables. In contrast to the curvilinear model, the (...) results support a negative linear relationship between workplace bullying and psychological well-being, in which higher exposure to negative acts at work is associated with diminished well-being. In addition, gender and job position significantly predicted mental health scores where men and managers reported a better psychological well-being than women, blue-collar, and white-collar employees. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed according to these results. (shrink)

A serious difficulty for theories of consciousness is to go beyond mere correlation between physical processes and experience. Currently, neural workspace and sensorimotor contingency theories are two of the most promising approaches to make any headway here. This paper explores the relation between these two sets of theories. Workspace theories build on large-scale activity within the brain. Sensorimotor theories include external processes in their explanations, stressing the sensorimotor contingencies that arise from our interaction with the environment. Despite the (...) basic differences, we argue that workspace- and sensorimotor theories are complementary rather than competitive. By combining these theories, a number of problems that hamper them individually may be overcome and their strengths combined: Workspace theories have more to offer for explaining how there can be consciousness in the first place, while sensorimotor theories are strong in making sense of the specific phenomenal character of experiences. (shrink)

Inappropriate behaviors in peer review may involve bullying and can have negative effects on authors and the dissemination of knowledge. In this paper, we have discussed the causes, forms, harms, and potential mitigation measures of bullying in peer review. We call for attention to these behaviors and advocate for future research within a reasonable framework.

Surprisingly, Dennett and Baars have no real quarrel with each other, despite the fact that Dennett wants to escape from the Theatre of Consciousness and Baars is happy to stay there. Both believe that consciousness has structures that can be analysed, and is not just ‘the mysterious glow that no one but me can see’ described by Chalmers and Searle. Both acknowledge that their theories of consciousness are only metaphors, and there is no conflict in saying that Consciousness is both (...) like a theatre and like a series of multiple drafts. And both Dennett and Baars would agree that Consciousness seems to be like a theatre. Their main disagreement is how deep the similarity goes, and whether the similarity is more misleading than useful. There are other scientific controversies that could probably be dissolved by such an ecumenical attitude: there is no paradox in saying that an electron is both like a wave and like a particle, or that thought is both like a language in the head and like a connectionist network. But a non-aggression pact of this sort does not absolve us from enumerating the ways in which each of these metaphors does and does not map onto its object. And as this enumeration continues, it is likely to make one of these metaphors seem more plausible than the other. (shrink)

This study aimed to analyze the levels of personal aggression and victimization, ethnic-cultural aggression and victimization, self-esteem, empathy, social skills and gender in adolescents as potential predictors of bullying in Spain and Ecuador. The wide pluricultural sample comprised Secondary Education students from both countries (N = 25190, average age = 13.92, SD = 1.306; NSpain = 14437; NEcuador = 10753), who took part in the study by filling in a self-report. The results revealed that predictive models of bullying (...) for both countries explain 50-70% of variance. A transnational predictive pattern of personal victimization can be observed based on the levels of ethnic-cultural victimization, ethnic-cultural aggression, personal aggression, self-deprecation and affective empathy. A transnational predictive pattern of personal aggression is evidenced depending on the levels of ethnic-cultural aggression, personal victimization, self-deprecation, ethnic-cultural victimization and the fact of being female. We concluded that bullying can largely be predicted by involvement in ethnic-cultural discrimination. These results are discussed, and educational inferences are drawn for prevention. (shrink)

Workplace bullying is a reality in organizations. Employees’ experiences of workplace bullying can produce their voice that intends to challenge the status quo at work and can damage their physical health. This study examines the effects of workplace bullying on employee voice and physical health issues and considers individuals’ emotional reactions as a critical mechanism operating between workplace bullying and its consequences in workplace situations. Emotional exhaustion mediates the influence of workplace bullying on employee voice (...) and damaged health. Data for 694 employees from a large Taiwanese retail organization revealed that workplace bullying relates to its outcomes at work. The findings of this study show that emotional exhaustion is a critical mechanism between workplace bullying and its consequences, i.e., employee voice and health issues. A time-lag study design is applied to reduce common method bias. (shrink)

In the target article, Baars has offered both a theory of consciousness and a strategy for scientifically testing the theory. This commentary is intended as an addendum. I'd like to suggest implementing global workspace agents as both an additional strategy toward scientific testing, and as a means of fleshing out the theory.

Notwithstanding universities’ many laudable aims, incidents of serious bullying, academic harassment and sexual harassment in academic settings are reported with increasing regularity globally. However, the human rights violations involved in bullying and academic harassment have not received attention by the literature. In this article, we pierce the veil of silence surrounding university environments and provide a systematic account of the breaches of international and European human rights law involved in academic bullying and harassment. By adopting a socio-legal (...) lens, we shed light onto such practices and tactics, the breaches of specific human rights and norms and the reluctance of states and regulators to intervene in what is perceived to be universities’ ‘sovereign’ sphere of jurisdiction in order to prevent human rights’ violations and to protect the victims of human rights abuse. We call for a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach to tackle academic bullying and harassment, and make a number of institutional and policy recommendations to ensure universities’ compliance with human rights standards and the effective protection of academics under attack. (shrink)

Bullying is acknowledged by scientists as a considerable and still unresolved problem in sport. By triggering stress-related emotions, they determine the behavior of those experiencing bullying and cause various negative effects on their physical and mental health. However, in the presence of the tenacious trend in sports “to put one’s own house in order,” athletes, coaches, teams, and sports organizations themselves often do not emphasize bullying or state that they do not encounter the problem at all, and (...) adheres to the belief that athletes may use negative emotions instrumentally in order to perform tasks given to them more effectively. The aim of this research was to reveal the determinants of the internal environment of sports organizations, causing trends of bullying in organized sport. To achieve the research aim, a qualitative research paradigm was chosen. The empirical study involved eight coaches working in organized sport in Lithuania. The survey was conducted using the semi-structured interview method. Data were analyzed employing inductive content analysis. The presented research results encompass the transcriptions of interviews, which are conceptually divided into three main categories revealing coaches’ opinion on trends of bullying in organized sport, related to the sports organization’s internal environment. Categories identified during the study can be equated to interrelated levels of model of Organizational behavior. The micro level-interrelationships; the mezzo level-sports professionals’ behavior; and the macro level-management of interrelationships. These results revealed which determinants of the sports organization’s internal environment can be favorable for emergence of bullying and its dynamics in both interrelationships among athletes and interrelationships between athletes and coaches. And these trends of bullying, revealed on the basis of the responses of coaches involved in the study, allow us to see harmful principles of coaching, bullying-promoting traditions of team/group leadership, existing in sport, and to predict how this may effect both the athlete himself, his environment and attractiveness of the sporting activity itself. (shrink)

Young adolescents’ online bullying behavior has raised a significant amount of academic attention. Nevertheless, little is known about the social context in which such negative actions occur. The present paper addresses this issue and examines how the patterns of traditional bullying and cyberbullying are related, and how electronic forms of bullying can be linked to the social context at school. To address these questions, social network analysis was applied to examine the networks of social interactions and (...) class='Hi'>bullying among an entire grade of 1,458 thirteen- to fourteen-year-old pupils. The results show that cyberbullying is an extension of traditional bullying as victims often face the same perpetrators offline and online, there is evidence of mutual cyberbullying among youngsters, and cyberbullying is more likely to occur in same-gender and same-class students. The implications for future research and prevention of cyberbullying are discussed. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that existing artificial systems are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of phenomenally conscious artificial systems would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if Global Workspace Theory (GWT) — a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness — is correct, then instances of one widely implemented AI architecture, the artificial language agent, might easily be made phenomenally conscious if they are not already. Along the (...) way, we articulate an explicit methodology for thinking about how to apply scientific theories of consciousness to artificial systems and employ this methodology to arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal consciousness according to GWT. (shrink)

Everyone involved with the care and welfare of children and young adults is confronted with the issue of bullying. Bullying behaviors create an uncomfortable, threatening, and hostile environment that make it difficult for children to learn. 101 Facts about Bullying breaks down what the research says about bullying and its effects, offering ideas for what can and should be done to minimize or reduce it. Kevorkian systematically discusses topics ranging from relational bullying to cyber (...) class='Hi'>bullying to media and video violence to the legal ramifications of bullying, debunking myth and uncloaking the facts about bullying and its prevention. (shrink)

Recent accounts on the global workspace theory suggest that consciousness involves transient formations of functional connections in thalamo-cortico-cortical networks. The level of connectivity in these networks is argued to determine the state of consciousness. Emotions are suggested to play a role in shaping consciousness, but their involvement in the global workspace theory remains elusive. In the present study, the role of emotion in the neural workspace theory of consciousness was scrutinized by investigating, whether unconscious and conscious display (...) of emotional compared to neutral facial expressions would differentially modulate EEG coherence. EEG coherence was measured by means of computing an average EEG coherence value between the frontal, parietal, and midline scalp sites. Objective awareness checks evidenced that conscious identification of the masked facial expressions was precluded. Analyses revealed reductions in EEG coherence in the lower frequency range for the masked as compared to unmasked neutral facial expressions. Crucially, a decline in EEG coherence was not observed for the emotional facial expressions. In other words, the level of EEG coherence did apparently vary as a function of awareness, but not when emotion was involved. The current finding suggests that EEG coherence is modulated by unconscious emotional processes, which extends common views on the global workspace architecture of consciousness. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the influence of workplace bullying incidences on both targets and bystanders with respect to their perceptions of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior. Responses from 288 white-collar public employees revealed that one third of the participants stated themselves as being exposed to workplace bullying behavior in the last six months. As hypothesized, findings support the view that workplace bullying experience plays a significant negative role in organizational justice and citizenship behavior perceptions. Moreover, (...) a significant negative effect is also found on justice perceptions and citizenship behavior of bystanders. Subjective evaluations did not reveal a significant effect in both cases. (shrink)

The Global Workspace Theory (GWT) proposed by Bernard Baars (1988) along with Daniel Dennett’s (1991) Multiple Drafts Model (MDM) of consciousness are renowned cognitive theories of consciousness bearing similarities and differences. Although Dennett displays sympathy for GWT, his own MDM does not seem to be fully compatible with it. This work discusses this compatibility, by asking if GWT suffers from Daniel Dennett’s criticism of what he calls a “Cartesian Theater”. We identified in Dennett 10 requirements for avoiding the Cartesian (...) Theater. We believe that some of these requirements are violated by GWT, but not all, hence there is partial incompatibility with MDM, and it is nonsense to answer if GWT is or is not a Cartesian Theater. However, by asking such question we conclude that the issues around this discussion involve fuzzy claims about degrees of consciousness and we show how the Neuro-Astroglial Interaction Model (NAIM) is fit for solving such conceptual issues. (shrink)

School bullying among young adolescents is a globally pervasive problem, but is less common when bystanders are motivated to defend victims. Thus, the focus of this experimental study is on motivation to defend victims of bullying.Methods: A total of 388 students from two Turkish public schools participated in a vignette experiment. Students were randomized to one of two vignettes. Self-report measures of motivation to defend, trait anxiety, depression, and identification with the victim or bully were used.Results: Participants reported (...) more autonomous motivation in the cyberbullying condition, while those who witnessed direct bullying reported higher anxiety and depression.Results also revealed that this type of condition was associated with anxiety and depression, while anxiety was associated with autonomous motivation to defend. Finally, participants in the direct bullying condition were more likely to identify with the bully.Conclusion: Findings advance our understanding of when and why adolescents are motivated to help victims of bullying because they give a richer picture of what they assess when deciding whether or not they should intervene. (shrink)

A new strategy for moving forward in the characterization of the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) is proposed. According to Dehaene, Changeux and colleagues, broadcasting is the main function of the GNW. However, the dynamic network properties described by recent graph-theoretic GNW models are consistent with many large-scale communication processes that are different from broadcasting. We propose to apply a different graph-theoretic approach, originally developed for optimizing information dissemination in communication networks, which can be used to identify the pattern of (...) frequency and phase-specific directed functional connections that the GNW would exhibit only if it were a broadcasting network. (shrink)

Both the global workspace theory and Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, are central in the current debates about consciousness and the neural correlates of consciousness. In this article, a unifying global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness is proposed. In the model, recurrent neural interactions take place in distinct yet interacting access and phenomenal brain loops. The effectiveness of feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is emphasized for the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Two forms (...) of top-down attention, attention for perception and attention for access, play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model is implemented in a neural network form, with the simulation of single and multiple visual object processing, and of the attentional blink. (shrink)