Employees sensitive to treatment of coworkers.

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

If your boss embarrasses you by criticizing your performance, you might seek retribution by stealing office staplers or working at a more leisurely pace. What would your reaction be, though, if the boss attacked the performance of your coworker in the next cubicle? According to Mary Beth Marrs, visiting assistant professor of management, University of Missouri-Columbia, employees are just as likely to seek revenge against a boss as a result of seeing a coworker demeaned or verbally abused as they are if they themselves are the target of the verbal aggression.

In a study, the victims of verbally aggressive behavior or those who witnessed it often engaged in deviant...