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Workplace rudeness is contagious: Study

Posted On: Mar. 12, 2018 12:37 PM CST

Workplace rudeness is contagious: Study

Hand sanitizer and flu shots? How about more “please” and “thank you”?

There’s a new ailment in the over-extended workplace: rudeness, according to a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology that found such behaviors as condescending talk and being snappy in the workplace to be contagious.

For the study, researchers sent three emails a day to 70 employees over two weeks, questioning the behaviors of those around them as well as their own, finding that the more rudeness an employee endured during the day, the more likely he or she was to act rudely to others.

The study found that, over time, these negative repetitive behaviors in the workplace wore employees down and affected performance. This can drain a person’s “internal resources for dealing with their own behavior,” wrote syndicated psychology newspaper columnist Linda Arnold of the study.

On the flip side, Ms. Arnold pointed out that kindness is also contagious — so pass compassion along!