What is Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a term that refers to the practice of deceiving someone or a team through psychological manipulation by cultivating grains of distrust in a targeted person or faction, causing them to question their recollection, understanding, or decision, according to psychologists.
Another way to describe gaslighting is a deception tactic that causes your entire view of reality to be questioned. You frequently doubt yourself, your recollections, and your senses when a person gaslights you. You’re left feeling disoriented and questioning if there’s something wrong with you after conversing with the individual gaslighting you.
Who is a Gaslighter?
A negative boss, a conniving colleague, a partial work team, a furious client, or a disparaging business competition are all examples of gaslighters in the workplace. Systemic, institutional bias, and unfavorable media and social media coverage can all contribute to workplace gaslighting. As well as individuals, a gaslighter might aim for and torment groups. If you are dealing with this situation, you need to contact a Los Angeles workplace harassment attorney.
Detecting Workplace Gaslighting
- According to the gaslighter, they never received the presentation you submitted on time.
- When you bring up a topic that matters to you, the gaslighter becomes defensive and challenges your viewpoint, lashing out.
- When you’re on the verge of breaking, the gaslighter sprinkles in positive reinforcement.
- The gaslighter makes a racist or sexist remark only to condemn it later when other coworkers make the same remark.
- Any mention of race is dismissed by the gaslighter.
- The gaslighter takes items from your desk without your permission and replaces them.
- When the gaslighter claims to be doing something, they aren’t.
- The gaslighter says it’s fine if you don’t show up for the a.m. meeting but then keeps it.
- The gaslighter repeatedly collects data from you, but you eventually figure out that they are only listening selectively.
- The gaslighter modifies company policies to suit their own goals.
What Are the Signs of a Gaslighter at Work?
While typical hostile work environment dynamics may involve some of the following characteristics on occasion, a chronic gaslighter may participate in one or more of the maneuvers below on a regular basis while staying mostly unconscious of the detrimental impact gaslighting has on people. Orange County workplace lawyers know the tactics of gaslighters.
- An ongoing negative narrative about the gaslighter’s performance, credibility, product, or service.
- Consistent Negative Remarks about the gaslighter’s professional and/or personal attributes.
- Repeated negative public comment or publicity, primarily based on falsehoods, in face-to-face, online, individual, group, or other scenarios/settings, memorandums, reports, performance evaluations, customer and client reviews, or other scenarios/settings.
- Negative humor and sarcasm are persistent. Tease, insult, degrade, and marginalize the gaslighter with animosity or disdain masked as humor/sarcasm, frequently with the phrase “just kidding.”
- Unjustified exclusion from networking, professional development, promotion, advancement, leadership, and other opportunities when the gaslighter is capable and qualified.
- Bullying and intimidation in the workplace that is persistent and verifiable.
- Chronic and noticeable unfair treatment in comparison to other employees with similar or lesser knowledge and achievement, regardless of your strong track record of positive collaboration and notable contributions.
Chronic gaslighting can make a person feel “lesser” as a team member, contributor, product, or service provider, and an Orange County employment attorney will tell you to document every negative encounter.
How an Employment Attorney Los Angeles Can Help With Gaslighting
Your professional reputation and self-worth may even be called into doubt, as you wonder if the gaslighter’s charges and judgments are valid despite evidence to the contrary. Still, a Los Angeles employment attorney can help you get back your dignity. They’ll help you highlight the situation and work towards the best compensation.