[HN Gopher] Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Spread Through Emplo...
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Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Spread Through Employee Mobility
(2022)
Author : Luc
Score : 101 points
Date : 2023-03-05 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (journals.sagepub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (journals.sagepub.com)
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Is there a simplified term for this similar to Conway's Law?
|
| Wouldn't the mental health reflect the organization and its
| communication style?
| kj4211cash wrote:
| This is why it's important to shame Amazon and other workplaces
| with ludicrous cultures that damage their tech employees mental
| health.
| closeparen wrote:
| Ex-Amazons are valued in Silicon Valley explicitly for the hard
| edge that being socialized there is supposed to have imparted.
| [deleted]
| throwaway8689 wrote:
| Need to do this study across a couple of economic cycles because
| the last few years have been atypical for both stress and hiring
| patterns.
|
| It reads like Denmark has linked employment and health data so I
| guess they can do so for as far back as the records go.
| itronitron wrote:
| Yeah, I wonder if the study is GDPR compliant.
| itronitron wrote:
| >> unhealthy organizations (those with a high prevalence of
| mental disorders)
|
| Holy fuck, what an irresponsible thing to research and publish.
| coldtea wrote:
| Sounds like one of the best things to research and publish in
| order to help people. And, oh my god, this comment sounds like
| "just let sleeping dogs lie"...
| dschuetz wrote:
| Usually this goes like "don't hire the _spreaders_ , and get
| rid of those who are already employed". It is _very_
| difficult and costly to actually help people, compared to
| make it not your problem - that 's capitalism for ya.
|
| That study reeks of corporate consulting and management. And
| it's out there now, research is going on about this.
| ebiester wrote:
| I absolutely have noticed. In interviews, people coming from
| difficult and stressful positions absolutely radiate this in
| their interviews! I know that I will feel emotionally drained
| after an interview with such people. Further, I have explicitly
| worked to de-condition survival behaviors in negative
| organizations with new employees multiple times, and it wouldn't
| surprise me that these sorts of behaviors could be "contagious"
| in other organizations.
| azornathogron wrote:
| This sounds interesting! If you have time, could you share an
| example or two? What survival behaviours are you talking about,
| and what kinds of things do you do to decondition these
| behaviours?
| serpix wrote:
| my personal experience as a consultant has been outright fear
| of touching the production servers. Fear as in actual fear
| response such as nervousness, agitation, facial expressions.
|
| Other examples would be fear of altering any deeper parts of
| the system due to fear of punishment or war room style
| crisis.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| What's wrong with having a healthy fear of touching
| production servers? Fear of production is a sign that
| person has been through some shit and is probably more
| careful, in my experience.
|
| Touching production is a lot like being an electrician
| working on a live circuit.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Sounds like the problem is that it wasn't a healthy fear.
| [deleted]
| shoo wrote:
| I don't have HR or management experience, but I can
| speculate:
|
| - an employee avoids sharing key technical information with
| colleagues, either verbally or writing anything down, and
| becomes a bottleneck for all changes relating to some system
| or component. this could be adapted to maximise tenure at a
| previous org that had decided to outsource/"offshore"
| technical roles, where sharing key knowledge would result in
| you being promptly laid off
|
| - an employee demonstrates an extreme reluctance to estimate
| when any task they are involved with might be done. this
| could be adapted to survive in environments where estimates
| from individuals are interpreted politically as commitments
| to deadlines for unconditional delivery of work, and used to
| pressure workers to extract free labor (unpaid overtime)
|
| - an employee never communicates bad news about schedule
| delays, plans not being feasible, designs having serious
| flaws, etc. this could be adapted to prior environments where
| voicing bad news triggers retribution, and only good news
| flows up the org chart
| [deleted]
| vishal0123 wrote:
| I am not the OP, but observed exactly similar behaviour with
| a senior hire from Amazon:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25213817. Also the
| people who joined from Amazon in our organisation keep
| playing blame games, and this clearly spreads to other teams
| as well as you have to blame someone back if they blamed you
| for what you think are wrong reasons.
| cntainer wrote:
| Not OP but this definitely rings a bell with me.
|
| I started my career in a software agency, maybe I was
| unlucky, but in this particular agency I overheard the more
| senior employees staying after-hours and making fun of the
| the junior employees (in their absence) and the quality of
| the code they had wrote. There was no actual code review
| process but this memory had made me very defensive in regards
| to my code. I was always trying to push the perfect code in
| one shot, which led me to overthink solution, and if for
| whatever reason I had to push a rushed change I felt guilty
| and tried to find excuses preemptively.
|
| At one time I had to onboard the client's new dev team to a
| project that I had built alone for about one year. The
| product had become successful so the client wanted to invest
| in rebuilding it on better foundations to prepare for
| accelerating its growth.
|
| Working alone on the code for a year had subdued my fears of
| public shaming but, once I started going through it with a
| team of seniors looking over my shoulder, my anxiety went
| through the roof. For every new file I was opening I started
| my explanation with an apology about the quality of the code
| and tried to explain why I didn't have the time during
| implementation to write that code properly.
|
| After the 2nd or 3rd explanation one of the new guys stopped
| me and said something like: "You don't have to explain
| yourself to us. This code is the result of the context it has
| been written in. We are only having this conversation because
| the product that you helped build by writing that code is
| successful. Because of this success we now have the chance to
| spend time and think about how we can improve the code".
|
| I only realized later, but that was one of the most
| liberating things anyone has ever told me. It felt like a
| huge weight had just been lifted of my shoulders. People were
| looking at my code and discussing it not as a reflection of
| my quality as a person but as the output of different factors
| and priorities at a given point in time.
|
| I worked with that team long enough to feel deconditioned
| from the previous toxic behavior.
| l_theanine wrote:
| I've been reading about microbiomes and things like that over the
| past year, and I suspect there's a biological aspect to a lot of
| mental health issues in workplaces. Certainly the pandemic has
| renewed public interest in it, but I think to put it in caveman
| terms: sick people leave sick germs where they go.
|
| I haven't read this paper yet, but it looks pretty cool so far.
| The abstract certainly makes it seem worth the read.
|
| We seem to think ourselves as further removed from meatspace than
| we really are. We're a lot more like colonies of ants, I think.
| What attacks the ant, attacks the colony.
| armatav wrote:
| Be very careful who you waste your time working for.
|
| So many companies are cesspools of mental trauma that are very
| inviting places for the unaware, and if you're not strong of mind
| you get to subconsciously carry their issues with you for a long
| time after.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| fifteen years ago in California Bay Area, when experienced
| programmers showed up a the door of pre-funded companies, and
| especially as phones with ads became a huge revenue source, one
| internal Human Resources message was "do not hire anyone that
| does not have a job already." This conveniently included those
| who had their own small business or side-gig priors, as well as
| those that did not work well enough with teams, and those newly
| graduated without work experience.
|
| As the raw number of humans with some applicable skills increase
| world wide, and the disconnect between pre-funded wealthy
| environments and others increases, new invisible "flags" likely
| can be applied.
|
| Not to defend the way business is done in China, but I have heard
| that when they assembled teams for an important new company, they
| often did not do as the West has done and cast infinitely large
| hiring nets with infinitely more nuanced and rare
| characteristics, rather in China the rumor is that they just used
| who they could find with a reasonable search, and got on with
| it..
|
| Lastly, it is ironic that the divisive, command and control
| environments found in long-term stable business, are actually
| very negative to creative and open-minded people who want to try
| things.. Yet these "rules" might favor those in the stable
| business world, bringing all the anti-communication and top-down
| culture from there. odd times
| itronitron wrote:
| The near term financial security of people making hiring
| decisions is dependent on the opinion of only a select few
| people. Command and control depends on division.
| t344344 wrote:
| In my old job I had to fake depression. I lived nice bachelor
| life, some coworkers were jealous and toxic. I lied that my gf
| left me. I nuked my social media and started posting cats for
| adoption...Latter got new girlfriend, 10 years older with two
| kids...
|
| Work become easier. No stress and much less unpaid overtime.
|
| Workplace culture influences people a lot.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| Fake it till you make it?
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Great, as if there wasn't enough just world fallacy bs over
| layoffs, now those people have to deal with this too.
| oofta-boofta wrote:
| >Our findings reveal that when organizations hire employees from
| other, unhealthy organizations (those with a high prevalence of
| mental disorders), they "implant" depression, anxiety, and
| stress-related disorders into their workforces. Employees leaving
| unhealthy organizations act as "carriers" of these disorders
| regardless of whether they themselves have received a formal
| diagnosis of a mental disorder. The effect is especially
| pronounced if the newcomer holds a managerial position.
|
| This sounds sort of like victim blaming to me. I've worked in a
| couple of bad environments and felt outright relief when I was
| able to go somewhere much better.
|
| The answer is to do away with toxic work environments, not blame
| the person who suffered under them.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The point of the paper is that there's more to it than that.
| neuroma wrote:
| Reminds me of how Psychiatrists have one if the highest suicide
| rates of all professions. Seems unusual; like an accountant who's
| insolvent, or a mechanics who's car always breaks down.
| alana314 wrote:
| Interesting but I hope the takeaway isn't demonizing folks that
| are depressed or anxious, or having a thought-police toxic
| positivity style company culture.
| [deleted]
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Everyone with a bit of life experience can tell that that's
| exactly what's happening here.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I think any company who uses this study as hiring criteria is
| or will become one of the companies causing the problems.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| Lots of companies are already doing this, with or without this
| study.
| thuridas wrote:
| Let's don't blame people but the toxic learnt behaviors.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Our findings reveal that when organizations hire employees
| from other, unhealthy organizations (those with a high prevalence
| of mental disorders), they "implant" depression, anxiety, and
| stress-related disorders into their workforces. Employees leaving
| unhealthy organizations act as "carriers" of these disorders
| regardless of whether they themselves have received a formal
| diagnosis of a mental disorder. The effect is especially
| pronounced if the newcomer holds a managerial position._
|
| The study sounds like it is trying to blame the problem on the
| suffers (the "contagion" of their depression), but the obvious
| explanation of this is that by hiring from organizations with
| high stress, you're likely to be hiring perpetrators. That
| explains why it is not more likely to happen when the individual
| being hired is diagnosed ("Employees leaving unhealthy
| organizations act as "carriers" of these disorders regardless of
| whether they themselves have received a formal diagnosis"), and
| also why it is more likely to happen when they enter a position
| of power ("The effect is especially pronounced if the newcomer
| holds a managerial position.").
|
| I am also not sure if the social contagion model has a lot of
| evidence for it. If you apply epidemiological models to any data
| you will get fits for epidemiological model parameters, and those
| will have a built-in epidemiological interpretation - but without
| prior knowledge that mental disorders are contagious (I thought
| most were definitely not?) you would just be making blind
| nonlinear curve fits to generic functions with many possible
| explanations.
| nerdponx wrote:
| How is it blaming the victims? The initial depressed person
| that "spreads" their depression to three other people around
| them is as much a victim as anyone else.
| xyzelement wrote:
| // The study sounds like it is trying to blame the problem on
| the suffers (the "contagion" of their depression), but the
| obvious explanation of this is that by hiring from
| organizations with high stress, you're likely to be hiring
| perpetrators
|
| Really strong disagree. In every company I've worked at (4 so
| far) the level of mental illness I can observe among coworkers
| is directly related to who was hired, not what we do with them.
|
| As an obvious example, I worked at a hedge fund that strongly
| filtered for resilience, ability to overcome obstacles, and
| desire to grow through tough feedback. Almost everyone I worked
| with there was rational, calm, and sane as a consequence.
|
| At other places where mental attributes weren't considered (so
| let's say a pure tech interview that doesn't amp up the
| scenario) you could watch the "crazy" come out of the woodwork
| there moment something triggered it. And I think specifically
| you could see them feeding on each other's anxiety in the Slack
| hangouts, blind, etc.
|
| At some point, seeing 400 people have a meltdown about the
| layoffs that happened, on daily basis for months, takes a toll
| on you that's heaving than the impact of the layoff itself. So
| yes I see the chorus of crazies impact everyone negatively.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Yes, I'd be curious to know if they identified perpetrators vs
| victims of toxic workplaces. Someone who is leaving Blizzard
| because of a scandal where their assaulting other co workers
| became public is extremely different from someone leaving
| Blizzard because their manager assaulted them.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| > I'd be curious to know if they identified perpetrators vs
| victims of toxic workplaces.
|
| Simple.
|
| The perpetrators are successful and therefore well adjusted,
| whereas the victims are defective and have to be excluded
| lest there be "social contagion".
|
| The conclusion is its own justification.
|
| Or, as it's fashionable nowadays, the "just world fallacy".
|
| A tale as old as time.
| closeparen wrote:
| It also sounds like it's a bad thing. But one of the standard
| plays for startup executives is to deliberately create an
| influx of people and culture from Amazon, in order to inject
| fear and grind into an organization they see as too fat and
| happy. Not only do they believe this effect exists, they lean
| into it.
| swatcoder wrote:
| I don't think you realize how anti-scientific an attitude
| you're expressing here.
|
| If there is "evidence for the social contagion model", this
| kind of analysis would be a natural step in developing
| hypotheses about where and how to look for it. And if there's
| none to be found, those hypotheses will eventually fail to
| hold. That's the method.
|
| If you choose not to collect data or test hypotheses because
| you think a question is "most definitely" settled, then you're
| not practicing science.
|
| You may be saving wasted effort or managing some kind of socio-
| political dynamic, which may be more important to you, but some
| people appreciate science specifically for its ability to upend
| "most definite" knowledge now and then.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Which part was anti-scientific, offering an alternate
| hypothesis, or questioning the applicability of the
| methodology?
| golergka wrote:
| You have an implicit assumption that people in toxic
| organizations are split into two binary categories of
| perpetrators and victims. In my experience, in toxic orgs
| everybody thinks of themselves as victims, and everybody
| perpetuates toxic behaviors to some extent.
|
| Also, your comment is talking about value judgements (talk
| about blame), whereas the quoted text doesn't have them -- it
| is not saying who's the bad guy, it's just saying what will
| happen, statistically speaking.
| [deleted]
| steponlego wrote:
| Is it unreasonable to suspect that depressed people can spread
| their attitudes to other people? The concept of purely social
| diseases is centuries old at this point.
| girvo wrote:
| Yes it is unreasonable, because depression is not an
| "attitude".
| wjnc wrote:
| Same question but without the DSM-5 diagnosis? I do
| recognize that work cultures differ and that people after a
| few years internalize the work culture. Some firms have
| massively worse performance on absence, sickness and
| probably all other kinds of metrics related to well being.
| So my prior would be one of "totally true". But keeping an
| open mind. The same set of observations could fit other
| explanations like that extraverts with people skills switch
| jobs more often and that there is clustering of likewise
| individuals on certain negative traits.
| [deleted]
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| Clearly it's possible for depression to be affected by
| discussion with people around you.
|
| If that were not possible, then how could therapy have an
| effect?
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > Clearly it's possible for depression to be affected by
| discussion with people around you.
|
| > If that were not possible, then how could therapy have
| an effect?
|
| Because therapy is more than discussion.
| jjcon wrote:
| I mean it 100% is ultimately discussion no matter how
| much one wants to shroud it in academic ivory tower BS.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| If we reduce it to an incredibly basic form, sure, in the
| same way that surgery is just ultimately stabbing with
| medical ivory tower BS.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| No, therapy usually involves lots of homework as well.
| The talking part of it is essential to get there, but if
| you just go to therapy to talk it won't help much.
| johndunne wrote:
| What makes you want to apply reductionism at level 100%.
| A discussion might help.
| Lalabadie wrote:
| This is similar to saying a hiring interview is only
| discussion, and any acknowledgment of employee skills or
| hiring techniques is just bs managerial posturing.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I think it does depressed people a disservice to refuse
| to accept the possibility that depression might be
| contagious, in order to protect them from being demeaned.
| Swizec wrote:
| Genuine question: how is therapy more than discussion?
| Afaik therapists use nothing but words to effect their
| treatment.
|
| I am specifically referring to therapy as distinct of
| psychiatry (which uses meds)
| johndunne wrote:
| Therapy is only as good as the therapist, and it's
| difficult to gauge if a therapist will be any good for
| one particular person. Getting the right therapist is
| critical for therapy to 'work'. Same applies for meds.
| But generally, it's about helping a person help
| themselves.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Look into CBT, which would usually give the patient some
| tasks (jotting notes when the problem they seek help for
| happens and how problematic/stressful it is on a 1-5
| scale, what happens when they apply some breathing
| techniques to cope with it, what happened before/after,
| etc.). Also, phobia treatment where the therapist can
| walk with you on a bridge to help you overcome fear of
| height, etc.
|
| More broadly though, the conversation you can have with a
| therapist has a lot more going on than a regular
| discussion. Without getting into the details of every
| school I think it's fair to say that these conversations
| are guided in subtle and not subtle ways to lead the
| patient to introspection and self-reflection much more
| than a drink between buddies at a bar would (which is
| usually what people on HN tend argue when criticizing
| talk therapies). Therapists have to assess where the
| patient stands and feel how far the patient can be pushed
| to change their outlook on a situation or accept it.
|
| Put in another way: a debate is also more than a
| discussion, same applies to therapy.
| Swizec wrote:
| Got it. Sounds like the distinction hinges on how one
| defines "discussion"
|
| To your point at the end: the dictionary on iOS defines
| discussion as "a conversation or _debate_ about a certain
| topic"
|
| I can certainly agree that therapy is a guided discussion
| :)
| smohare wrote:
| [dead]
| ipaddr wrote:
| depressed people does not mean clinical depression
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transference
| cm2012 wrote:
| Most human behaviors are contagious to some extent -
| depression, obesity, definitely anorexia, etc.
| leonidasv wrote:
| Sure, but it has triggers. What if those actions act as a
| trigger for other pre-disposed people?
| mantas wrote:
| Clinical depression is not an attitude. But in vast
| majority of cases some attitudes was the cause.
| cies wrote:
| So we should help identify and fix attitudes, instead of
| "anti-depressing" them with medication -- sounds
| plausible.
| wnkrshm wrote:
| Though to be fair, the authors argue that in consequence,
| companies should actively on-board employees to reduce anxiety
| from uncertainty and unknown expectations.
| itronitron wrote:
| Hmm, I wonder why that wasn't the headline?
| thfuran wrote:
| Because you can't fit a whole paper in a headline.
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