7.35 Rudeness and its effect on onlookers.
Many believe that an uncivil environment has a negative effect on people. A pair of researchers performed a series of experiments to test whether witnessing rudeness and disrespect affects task performance.16 In one study, 34 participants met in small groups and witnessed the group organizer being rude to a “participant” who showed up late for the group meeting. After the exchange, each participant performed an individual brainstorming task in which he or she was asked to produce as many uses for a brick as possible in five minutes. The mean number of uses was 7.88 with a standard deviation of 2.35.
7.35
(a) (b) . The data are significant at the 5% level, and there is evidence that witnessing rudeness decreases performance (the mean number of uses is less than 10).