Under Pressure: Mobbing, Otherness, and the Making of a Scapegoat

Introduction

Mobbing and bullying dynamics in the workplace rarely appear out of nowhere. While such hostility and exclusion can occur in virtually any setting where people come together, they tend to surface and escalate in teams and organizations that are already under considerable strain (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011; Leymann, 1996). Research on organizational antecedents of bullying shows that such escalation is especially likely in workplaces characterized by poor psychosocial conditions, organizational change, and internal competition (Hoel & Salin, 2003; Zapf, 1999). Typical sources of that strain include budget and staff cuts, overwork, existential insecurity, or persistent performance pressure that overloads both individuals and structures (Glambek et al., 2014).

Importantly, the strain that fuels this escalation is not only financial or workload-related. Studies of psychosocial risk factors show that role conflict, being asked to act against one’s values, being silenced when raising concerns, and unresolved interpersonal conflicts are among the conditions that predict bullying, because they create chronic tension and identity threats that have nowhere to go (Feijó et al., 2019; Trépanier, Fernet, Austin, & Boudrias, 2016). Beyond these well-documented risk factors, contemporary research has begun to highlight another insidious source of institutional strain: the erosion of genuine belonging and the rise of workplace loneliness. Chronic social disconnection is now recognized as a powerful stressor in its own right, impacting not only emotional well-being, but also the physical health and cognitive performance of employees (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018; Murthy, 2023). The World Health Organization now lists lack of social support and connection as key occupational risk factors, underscoring that a deficit of belonging can be just as stressful as job insecurity or overwork. In today’s hyper-competitive environments, the pressure to fend for oneself often supplants any sense of community, further intensifying both individual and collective vulnerability to stress.

Based on this understanding, the present article explores how combined pressures on workload and identity make groups “ready” to turn against one particular person, and how institutional conditions, group dynamics, and the biology of stress together shape the making of a scapegoat.

Mobbing and Bullying as Processes

In the research literature, workplace bullying and mobbing are defined as processes that unfold over time, not as single incidents. Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf and Cooper (2011) describe workplace bullying as a situation in which an employee is repeatedly and over a prolonged period exposed to negative acts at work, in a context where it is difficult for this person to defend him- or herself. Leymann (1996) uses the term mobbing for a similar pattern and speaks of “psychological terror” at the workplace when hostile and unethical communication is directed in a systematic way against one person, often almost every day and for at least six months, leading to serious psychological and social consequences.

In most of the European tradition, bullying is used as an umbrella term for sustained negative acts that can be carried out by one or a few individuals, whereas mobbing emphasizes the collective dimension of such hostility, highlighting how a wider group or organizational climate can join in and gradually isolate the targeted person (Einarsen et al., 2011; Leymann, 1996; Zapf, 1999). Both perspectives highlight repetition, a variety of negative acts, and a growing power imbalance that makes effective self-protection increasingly unlikely.

Subsequent work has reinforced this picture of bullying and mobbing as gradually escalating patterns of harm, often starting with what looks like ordinary conflict and ending in stigmatization, trauma, and exclusion from working life (Einarsen, 1999; Leymann, 1990, 1993, 1996; Zapf & Gross, 2001). Seen from this angle, mobbing and bullying are not isolated acts of cruelty, but social processes that gather force over time in particular organizational climates. This escalation-focused view can be placed alongside earlier functional accounts that ask how groups as a whole react to perceived norm deviation and threat to collective functioning. From that functional perspective, mobbing is best understood as an escalating psychosocial process embedded in wider organizational conditions, which raises a central question: why does institutional stress so often crystallize in the form of targeted hostility toward one person instead of being addressed at the structural level? One early answer comes from animal behavior research.

Bilz and the Animal Roots of Group Aggression

Bilz (1971) developed his concept of mobbing within this framework. His paleoanthropological approach starts from behavioral research that compares humans and animals. He looked for shared patterns of aggression against group members who stood out. This grounding in ethology, the study of animal behavior, gave his framework a biological starting point before he applied it to human institutions. In one of his central examples, Bilz cites a 1939 experiment by the biologist Friedrich Goethe (1911–2003), a German researcher in avian behavior who conducted a series of experiments in the late 1930s in which he marked birds and documented collective attacks on the “painted” individual (as discussed in Bilz, 1971). Bilz (1971) used this case to argue that animal groups police visible difference automatically, without conscious reasoning. He extended this logic to human groups. Both attack members who deviate from group norms, whether the deviation is meaningful or not. Drawing on both animal behavior and clinical observations of human groups, Bilz (1971) outlines a functional definition of mobbing as a group’s repressive response to perceived deviation from an implicit norm, a form of “Anstoßaggressivität” that serves the group’s survival even when the trigger is trivial. He also noted a cost: sometimes the group turns against members who are simply gifted or sensitive, not harmful, and treated this as an accepted error within the system rather than an exception that invalidates the model. In other words, the group’s need to restore order can override the individual qualities of the person selected as the target.

Bilz’s framework thus shifts attention away from individual perpetrators and victims toward a biologically rooted readiness of the group to respond to anything that disturbs its felt equilibrium. This readiness, mobbing as an institutional reflex, provides the backdrop for later work that looks more closely at how particular people come to embody the tensions the group cannot otherwise resolve. One of these later accounts is Ottomeyer’s work on identity at work.

Carriers of the Group’s Inner Conflict: Psychological Mechanisms in Scapegoating

Ottomeyer’s (2000) work on identity at work picks up a related thread, focused on effort rather than talent. He describes two inner figures that every employee has to live with. One is the part that pulls back and protects its own energy, avoiding overwork. The other pushes forward, competes, and tries to get ahead. The catch is that both figures live in all of us, but neither is allowed to show. Someone seen as lazy, or someone seen as too eager to please the boss, ends up carrying something the whole group secretly recognizes and needs to disown. In Bilz's terms, they become the visible symptom of a tension the group cannot otherwise resolve.

Taken together, Bilz (1971) and Ottomeyer (2000) show how groups under strain can turn against members who embody disowned aspects of the group’s own life: difference, sensitivity, withdrawal, ambition, even when those members have done nothing structurally wrong. Yet both accounts still leave gaps. Neither fully explains why quiet, unremarkable workers sometimes become targets, or why someone can be singled out simply for being different, with no behavior involved at all. Social identity research going back to Tajfel and Turner (1979) shows that people discriminate against out-groups the moment a group boundary exists, even an arbitrary one, without any real conflict of interest behind it. Later work on in-group and out-group bias confirms how easily this happens.

Everyday labels such as “black sheep” and “scapegoat” already point to a further dimension: they implicitly suggest that the group’s unresolved tension and guilt are being shifted onto one person, not merely that a rule has been broken. Scapegoat theory, especially as Girard (1977) describes it, makes this implication explicit. When tension inside a group builds up without a clear cause, it often gets discharged onto one person, chosen less for what they did and more for being available and slightly apart from everyone else; the collective aggression unifies around that figure and is then misremembered as a justified response to their alleged danger or guilt. In later work, Girard (2001) describes the scapegoat mechanism as a recurrent pattern in which communities, facing complex crises of rivalry and disorder, converge on a single victim and misattribute the crisis to that person or subgroup, whose expulsion or destruction is experienced as restoring peace and order even though the underlying causes are not actually resolved, hence, “wrongly experienced as a solution.”

From this angle, “mobbing” mainly names the relational outcome (who is victim, who is perpetrator), whereas “scapegoat” and “black sheep” additionally encode a psychological hypothesis about why the aggression occurred: that shared conflict, anxiety, or guilt needed somewhere to go. Considered alongside one another, these ideas widen Bilz’s original picture from “the group attacks what disrupts its norms” to something closer to “the group will find someone to carry its unresolved tension, deviant or not.”

Marked as Other: The Selection of Targets Under Strain

With this mechanism in view, a practical question follows: who, in contemporary workplaces under strain, is most likely to be chosen to carry that unresolved tension? To answer this, it is helpful to transition from the theoretical mechanisms described above to the empirical research that identifies which workers are most often marked as “other” and placed in the scapegoat position.

The concept of “otherness” in group dynamics is broad and multifaceted. Individuals may become targets not only due to visible differences such as ethnicity, age, or gender, but also for being too competent, too generous, too principled, too attractive, too quiet, too outspoken, or in any way conspicuously different. Research has shown that any attribute perceived as setting an individual apart from group norms, whether social, intellectual, moral, or physical, can increase vulnerability, especially under institutional strain (Einarsen, 2000; Szabó & Bereczkei, 2017). Ultimately, vulnerability to targeting arises not from any single trait, but from the perception of standing apart, no matter the reason, or how many reasons, in a context where conformity and cohesion are under threat.

Contemporary studies, in line with Bilz’s (1971) emphasis on visible difference and Ottomeyer’s (2000) focus on disowned effort and ambition, identify two particularly exposed positions: those marked as outsiders and those marked as conspicuously successful colleagues (Billan, 2023; Feather, 1989, 1994; Rosander & Blomberg, 2022; ).

Under institutional strain, these positions become especially vulnerable. Under institutional strain, these positions become especially vulnerable. People who are coded as “not quite us,” or who stand out through achievement, generosity, moral conviction, appearance, or any manner of distinction, are more easily reframed as problems rather than members, and thus become plausible candidates to carry fears and conflicts that cannot be addressed at the structural level (Einarsen, 2000; Samnani & Singh, 2016). The following subsections describe these two patterns in more detail.

The Outsider as Target

Rosander and Blomberg (2022), of Linköping University, found that foreign-born workers in Sweden face more than double the risk of workplace bullying, rising to nearly fourfold for those from culturally dissimilar backgrounds, independent of actual performance or wrongdoing. Drawing on the same social identity logic as Tajfel and Turner, they describe the mechanism as a shortcut: under threat, a group re-sorts itself into “us” and “them,” and once someone is filed under “them,” aggression against that person is read as defending the group rather than harming an insider (Rosander & Blomberg, 2022).

This mechanism echoes Bilz’s (1971) emphasis on visible difference, but with an added identity dimension: the target is treated less as a colleague and more as a representative of an out-group. In such situations, institutional strain, whether economic, organizational, or symbolic, makes it easier to justify harsh treatment of those who are marked as “not quite us,” which in turn feeds back into the escalating processes described by Leymann (1990, 1993, 1996) and Einarsen (1999). As Leach et al. (2003) demonstrate, shared negative emotions and schadenfreude toward out-group members can further legitimize or even encourage such aggression. This collective emotional response helps to justify the group’s actions and makes it easier to project unresolved anxieties and insecurities onto the outsider. Moreover, schadenfreude delivers a particularly potent sense of belonging within the group, boosting members’ feelings of unity and self-worth while diffusing any individual shame associated with their actions. As a result, the outsider becomes the carrier of diffuse fears about change, loss, and insecurity that the group cannot address directly at the structural level, and is gradually repositioned from member to problem (Roulet & Pichler, 2020).

These patterns of exclusion, while rooted in group anxieties and identity threats, also serve practical organizational functions. The removal of a scapegoat often leads to the quiet redistribution of roles, responsibilities, and opportunities among those who remain. In high-strain environments, this process can serve as a covert form of resource wrangling and career advancement, justified by the prevailing narrative about the target’s deficiencies (Duffy, 2009; Glambek et al., 2014; Hoel & Salin, 2003).

Importantly, the normalization of bullying, mobbing, or scapegoating is deeply influenced by who initiates or endorses such behaviors. As Salin (2003) and Ashforth (1994) have shown, when individuals with authority, expertise, or high status participate in or tacitly approve of exclusion, their actions are more likely to be interpreted as acceptable, even necessary, by others. This dynamic can set powerful norms, making it far less likely that bystanders will intervene or question the legitimacy of the targeting. As a result, violence or aggression that might otherwise be condemned becomes embedded in the organizational culture, further protecting those who benefit from scapegoating and amplifying its effects across the group (Einarsen et al., 2020).

This process of normalization means that anyone who stands out, whether through difference, visibility, or excellence, can become vulnerable to group targeting. Leaders or managers, too, may participate in or even initiate such exclusion, especially when high performers are seen as a threat to their own position, authority, or status.

The Tall Poppy as Target

One of the most common forms of outsider status in organizations arises not from difference or deficiency, but from exceptional achievement, capability, ambition, or success. This dynamic is at the heart of what Feather (1989) termed the "tall poppy syndrome," in which a conspicuously successful person attracts envy or hostility and is “cut down” to the group’s level. Feather’s (1989, 1994) research found that people feel greater satisfaction watching a high achiever fail than an average person fail, and that this tendency is strongest among people with lower self-esteem. Billan (2023), CEO of Women of Influence+, extended this into the modern workplace, surveying over 4,700 working women across 103 countries and finding that 86.8% had experienced tall-poppy dynamics at work, while roughly 60% believed they would be penalized simply for appearing ambitious.

While the tall poppy phenomenon is most often associated with conspicuous achievement or ambition, a growing body of research highlights that this dynamic can apply to many forms of distinction. The underlying mechanism, group discomfort with standout qualities, means individuals may be targeted not only for visible success, but also for attributes such as exceptional intelligence, quick cognitive processing, creativity, strong moral conviction, generosity, piety, or any trait that departs from group norms. For example, Feather (1989, 1994) demonstrates that high achievers often become the focus of envy and hostility, particularly in cultures or environments where conformity is highly valued. The vulnerability of gifted individuals to bullying and exclusion is also well established in educational settings (Mullet & Rinn, 2015), and qualitative research suggests these patterns often persist into adulthood, with gifted employees reporting marginalization, misunderstanding, or resentment in the workplace (Jung & Young, 2017; Persson, 2014).

For example, Persson (2014) found that gifted adults regularly report being misunderstood, marginalized, or even ostracized by colleagues, especially when their abilities highlight differences or challenge established norms. Jung and Young (2017) similarly describe how gifted employees’ intellectual intensity and creative problem-solving can evoke discomfort and social isolation in professional settings.

Moral or prosocial distinction can provoke similar responses. Silverman (2009) discusses how individuals with pronounced moral sensitivity or ethical standards may be perceived as threats to group cohesion, leading to their exclusion or disparagement. Szabó and Bereczkei (2017) further show that pronounced prosociality or generosity, far from always being celebrated, can sometimes result in social penalties, as such behaviors inadvertently highlight others’ shortcomings or disrupt implicit expectations of group sameness.

Thus, the “difference” that draws aggression is not limited to background or nationality, but can include any conspicuous characteristic marking a person as distinct from the group. The tall poppy, like Goethe’s painted seagull, may stand out due to success, intelligence, creativity, generosity, or moral conviction—any trait that disrupts the group’s sense of sameness or security. When group members experience strain, insecurity, or fragile work identities, the presence of a visibly strong, gifted, or principled individual may intensify their discomfort, leading to resentment and exclusion.

When people’s work identities are already fragile because they feel persistently devalued or invisible, or because their sense of self depends on maintaining an exaggerated image of being superior to others, the presence of a visibly strong performer tends to intensify their distress rather than ease it (Berjot et al., 2013; Braithwaite, 2011).

In such cases, attacking or undermining the high performer functions both as a way to protect a shaky identity and as a way to restore a feeling of dominance. (Berjot et al., 2013) In Ottomeyer’s terms, the high performer becomes a living reminder of the inner figure that wants to push forward, compete, and get ahead, and thus a plausible carrier of what the group wishes to disown. Between them, outsider status and tall-poppy visibility fill exactly the gap Bilz (1971) and Ottomeyer (2000) left open: the group does not need a rule-breaker to police, only someone who reads as different enough, in identity or in achievement, to absorb its unresolved tension (Leymann, 1996). To understand why these vulnerabilities turn into full-scale mobbing rather than remaining private feelings, it is necessary to return to the institutional pressures described earlier and to Bilz’s idea of a group that is already “ready” to attack deviation when strain rises.

Stress as the Amplifier: Linking Group Dynamics and Individual Biology

Seen from Bilz’s (1971) perspective, the institutional pressures described above are not neutral background conditions; they form part of a bio-psycho-social model in which groups under strain become more prepared to respond to disturbance by isolating someone. He argued that when institutions face pressure, what he called “mobbing readiness” rises: the group’s baseline willingness to move from unease about deviation to active aggression against a member. This understanding fits closely with contemporary findings showing that psychosocial stressors at work, such as high demands, role conflict, lack of control and perceived injustice, are key risk factors for bullying (Feijó et al., 2019). Hershcovis, Reich, and Niven (2015), writing for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, found that job insecurity, high workload and organizational injustice are strongly associated with both perpetrating and being targeted by bullying. In other words, the same conditions Bilz identified as raising “mobbing readiness” are precisely the conditions under which otherness-based and tall-poppy-based targeting intensify.

These findings suggest that institutional strain does not simply increase the number of conflicts; it changes the meaning of difference and success within the group. Under pressure, colleagues who might otherwise be seen as resources, because of their skills, sensitivity or distinct perspective, are more easily reframed as threats or burdens. This shift from group-level pressure to individual neurobiology is crucial: as the group's collective anxiety rises, it influences each member's brain and behavior. Current work in stress neurobiology helps explain why strain can lower the threshold for such group reactions in both animals and humans by altering how attention, emotion, and control are regulated in the brain (Nolfe et al., 2018).

A closer examination of the neurobiological consequences of chronic stress reveals how the capacity for reflection and restraint is compromised.

Image via Unsplash by corina ardeleanu @corina

The Neurobiology of a Lowered Threshold: Stress Effects on Brain and Behavior

According to medical and neurobiological overviews of the stress response, acute threat perception activates the amygdala and, via hypothalamic signaling, triggers both the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic-adreno-medullary system; cortisol and catecholamines are released and attention shifts toward salient threat cues (Chu et al., 2024; Harvard Health Publishing, 2024). This response evolved for short, acute danger with a clear resolution in fight, flight, or freezing and can be observed in many animal species, including humans.

Animal work by Arnsten (2009, 2015) shows that repeated or uncontrollable stress leads to dendritic retraction and loss of synapses in neurons of the prefrontal cortex, with corresponding impairments in prefrontal-dependent functions such as working memory and flexible regulation of behavior. McEwen, Nasca and Gray (2016) underline this pattern and point to a broader shift in structural plasticity, where prefrontal circuits become more vulnerable under chronic stress while limbic regions show stress-related growth. Arnsten (2015) summarises this shift as a movement “from a reflective to a more reflexive state” (p. 1376), in which rapid, stimulus-bound reactions dominate over slower, reflective regulation.

In organizational terms, this means that chronic strain does not only make people more anxious; it gradually weakens the neural systems that support perspective-taking, self-restraint, and deliberate conflict resolution. Under such conditions, colleagues are more likely to respond quickly and defensively to perceived threats, and less able to pause, question group narratives, or intervene when they see someone being unfairly targeted (Kim & Kim, 2023).

Yet even as the ability for thoughtful connection is diminished, the need for belonging does not disappear. When genuine social safety feels unattainable, groups under strain often seek alternative routes to cohesion. One of the most striking and troubling mechanisms is collective schadenfreude: the shared satisfaction in another’s downfall. Research shows that this experience can rapidly generate a powerful sense of togetherness, activating social reward circuits and briefly relieving collective anxiety (Cikara et al., 2011; Leach et al., 2003). The group’s shared experience of witnessing or participating in the suffering of another offers a rapid, full-body sense of connection. When these acts are repeated, each instance of putting someone down delivers a fresh emotional “hit” or reward for the group. In social contexts, similar reinforcement mechanisms help explain how exclusionary group behavior can become self-sustaining, as members continually seek the temporary relief or satisfaction that comes from shared hostility or derision (Bhanji & Delgado, 2014; Tzavella & Tzavellas, 2021). This shortcut to belonging helps explain why, under chronic stress and loneliness, groups may gravitate toward bullying, scapegoating, or mobbing. The act itself becomes a quick route to social cohesion, but at the cost of deepening exclusion and amplifying the suffering and stress of those targeted.

In an era increasingly marked by a loneliness epidemic and with real connection harder to forge, these collective behaviors can become a maladaptive response to unmet needs for belonging and community.

Taken together, these dynamics illustrate how chronic stress not only undermines individual capacities for empathy and restraint, but also reshapes group behavior. The pursuit of quick, counterfeit connection through shared negativity or exclusion becomes intertwined with efforts to manage anxiety and restore order. Hence, the convergence of social pressures and neurobiological vulnerability likely culminates in patterns of rapid and defensive group action.

Defensive Targeting: The Social and Biological Cascade

These findings suggest that chronic institutional stress does two things at once. It raises the pressure to restore a felt sense of order by isolating whoever stands out, whether through outsider status, unusual success, or sheer availability, and it recruits the very brain systems that evolved for short-term threat response, systems that are not designed to sustain the reflective capacity needed to notice when that response has gone too far. This convergence of group-level motivations and individual neurobiological changes means that both the social context and the stressed brain are driving the same outcome: rapid, defensive targeting of difference. The group’s biologically and socially primed impulse to protect itself by targeting difference is thus combined with a nervous system that, under prolonged strain, prioritizes speed over reflection, exactly as it is built to do.

Under those conditions, the step from diffuse group anxiety to a targeted, sustained campaign against one person becomes both more likely and much harder to stop once it has started. The making of a scapegoat is not simply a matter of malicious choice, but the outcome of strained institutions, group-level needs for cohesion, and stressed nervous systems converging on whoever is most available to carry what the group cannot bear to face collectively.

Conclusion

Understanding the interplay between institutional strain, group identity dynamics, and the neurobiological effects of stress provides critical insight into why scapegoating and the suppression of high performers remain persistent challenges in organizations. Crucially, this analysis also reveals how chronic stress and loneliness can drive groups to seek rapid, counterfeit forms of connection, such as collective schadenfreude or exclusionary bonding, which briefly relieve anxiety but perpetuate harm and division.

Recognizing that these behaviors are not merely the result of individual failings but are rooted in predictable group and neurobiological processes enables leaders to respond more effectively. Sustainable solutions require more than simply reducing chronic stress or fostering inclusive group norms. They demand a commitment to full stress assessment, robust safeguards, and the intentional cultivation of environments where genuine belonging and difference are celebrated.

This is where the often-cited, but not always truly practiced, principles of psychological safety become indispensable. When people feel seen, heard, and believed, and when their perspectives are recognized and their identities respected, their motivation and performance can reach extraordinary levels. This sense of safety empowers individuals to speak up, take risks, and contribute fully, knowing they are trusted and valued (Edmondson, 1999). For organizations, this is not just a matter of well-being; it is a powerful driver of innovation, adaptability, and sustained success.

Crucially, this dynamic depends on leadership that cares more about collective achievement than personal ego. When leaders misuse power or prioritize their own status over human connection, they create environments where voices are silenced and potential is squandered. In contrast, leaders who foster real connection, who see and value the humanity in those around them, unlock not only individual potential but also the collective intelligence and resilience of the entire organization.

If the goal is sustained performance and healthy growth, organizations must prioritize environments where identity is affirmed and power is used responsibly. Only then can people truly bring their best selves to work, and only then can organizations thrive.

© 2026 Dr. Kerstin Hecker. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, distributed, or used in any form without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations with proper citation.

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