Mobbing, as a sociological term, refers either to bullying in any context, or specifically to that within the workplace, especially when perpetrated by a group rather than an individual.
[4] In the 1970s, the Swedish physician Peter-Paul Heinemann [sv; de; pl] applied Lorenz's conceptualization to the collective aggression of children against a targeted child.
[3] In 2011, anthropologist Janice Harper suggested that some anti-bullying approaches effectively constitute a form of mobbing by using the label "bully" to dehumanize, encouraging people to shun and avoid people labeled bullies, and in some cases sabotage their work or refuse to work with them, while almost always calling for their exclusion and termination from employment.
[5] Janice Harper followed her Huffington Post essay with a series of essays in both The Huffington Post[6] and in her column "Beyond Bullying: Peacebuilding at Work, School and Home" in Psychology Today[7] that argued that mobbing is a form of group aggression innate to primates, and that those who engage in mobbing are not necessarily "evil" or "psychopathic", but responding in a predictable and patterned manner when someone in a position of leadership or influence communicates to the group that someone must go.
Through innuendo, rumors, and public discrediting, a hostile environment is created in which one individual gathers others to willingly, or unwillingly, participate in continuous malevolent actions to force a person out of the workplace.
Another form of employment where workers are mobbed are those that require the use of uniforms or other markers of group inclusion (law enforcement, fire fighting, military), organizations where a single gender has predominated, but another gender is beginning to enter (STEM fields, fire fighting, military, nursing, teaching, and construction).
Rather, Harper contends, some mobbing targets are outcasts or unproductive workers who cannot easily be terminated, and are thus treated inhumanely to push them out.
While Harper emphasizes the cruelty and damaging consequences of mobbing, her organizational analysis focuses on the structural, rather than moral, nature of the organization.
Shallcross, Ramsay and Barker consider workplace "mobbing" to be a generally unfamiliar term in some English speaking countries.
It involves "ganging up" on someone using tactics of rumor, innuendo, discrediting, isolating, intimidating, and above all, making it look as if the targeted person is responsible (victim blaming).
[13] It is to be distinguished from normal conflicts (between pupils of similar standing and power), which are an integral part of everyday school life.