It’s the day of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and I’m deeply anxious. I’m not the only one. I’m wondering what world I will wake up to tomorrow. Will we have chosen the candidate who shares my values? If not, how will I show up to work? Will I be angry? Will I be full of fear for my country? Will my child, who’s currently working in Washington, D.C., be safe? Will my colleague who supports the “other side” gloat openly?
With strong emotions on all sides of the political spectrum, many employers are struggling with how they’ll address growing incivility in the workplace. Johnny C. Taylor Jr., CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), says, “We literally are seeing month-over-month increases in incivility and instability, specifically in response to one’s political opinions or one’s perceived political affiliation.” In an interview with Maria Aspan, a reporter for NPR, Taylor estimated that incivility was costing $2 billion a day. He added, “On average, after an individual experiences an act of incivility at work, it takes them 31 minutes to recover. That impacts productivity.”
Researchers define workplace incivility as “low-intensity deviant workplace behaviors with an ambiguous intent to harm. These actions can be intentional or unintentional, obvious or nonobvious, but will always negatively impact others (and organizational productivity).” Obvious behaviors could be intentionally ignoring a co-worker or publicly shaming them, whereas nonobvious behaviors could be interrupting or “forgetting” to share credit.
A neuroscience approach to civility
Neuroscience allows us not only to understand why incivility in the workplace is so costly but also how to create an environment of civility. Human behavior has evolved to avoid threat and seek reward: For reasons of survival, we respond more powerfully and quickly to potential threats than rewards. At work, threats and rewards are largely social; however, the brain responds to social threats in a similar manner as physical threats.
Experiencing incivility leads to rapid engagement of our threat-response networks, such as the amygdala and limbic system. As a result, cognitive resources are diverted from brain regions involved in executive control, such as the prefrontal cortex, and we suffer from reduced abilities to collaborate, make decisions, and focus our thinking. In fact, research shows that even witnessing incivility toward others can impair cognitive function. Finally, chronic exposure to stressful situations like incivility can lead to structural brain changes and an increased risk of depression and anxiety.
NLI’s SCARF® Model can help us understand different contexts that might trigger a sense of threat or reward:
Status: A sense of importance relative to others.
Certainty: The ability to predict what will happen next.
Autonomy: The feeling of having control over events or one’s environment.
Relatedness: The feeling of being connected with others.
Fairness: The perception that interactions among people are equitable.
Three habits of civility
Although incivility can spread, preliminary results presented at the 2024 NeuroLeadership Summit suggest that civility in the workplace is even more contagious. NLI has identified three habits employees can practice to halt the spread or escalation of incivility, thereby manifesting an environment where civility can thrive.
Habit 1: Noticing reactions
The first two habits are anchored in emotional regulation and will act to pause the spread of incivility. Since incivility often arises from unfiltered responses, due to a weakened influence of the prefrontal cortex, even reactions considered “unconscious” can quickly spiral into intentional acts of harm. The first step is to notice the perceived threat that arises from an act of incivility, whether we’re experiencing it directly or observing it in our environment. For example, a rude comment about the candidate we support may not have been a conscious insult toward us, but it still stung.
This habit involves understanding our own threat responses. Not all threats are equal — nor are they necessarily bad. A mild threat response, which we call a Level 1 threat, can make us more alert and focused. Beyond a Level 1 threat, we can become alarmed and frazzled, and a Level 3 threat can cause us to respond irritably — or worse. Noticing our own threat level in the moment dampens the strong response of the limbic system and helps to reengage the prefrontal cortex. Here, we might internally notice that the rude comment triggered a Level 2 threat, distracting us from the task we were hoping to focus on.
Habit 2: Inhibiting automatic responses
After noticing and identifying our threat level, we’ll be in a better state to take our emotional regulation a step further, which acts to increase our self-control. As the adage goes, “Think before you speak.” An emotional regulation technique called labeling involves putting our mental state into just a few words, such as describing to ourselves the emotions we feel in the moment. Research shows that this engages an area called the brain’s braking system, also found within the prefrontal cortex, further dampening the response of the limbic system and helping us to understand why we felt threatened in the first place. This is not the same thing as emotional suppression, which research shows can actually make things worse.
The SCARF® Model can provide a shared language and understanding for labeling our emotions. For example, when a colleague makes a disparaging comment about our favored political candidate, it likely threatens all five SCARF® domains: status (the colleague is, by extension, insulting us for supporting the candidate), certainty (what will happen if our candidate loses?), autonomy (feeling a lack of control over our work environment), relatedness (we feel less connected to our colleague), and fairness (how can they say that without consequences?).
Habit 3: Communicating cleanly
While the first two habits dampen the strong response of the brain’s limbic system and reengage the prefrontal cortex, the third habit is anchored in communicating with clarity. Clarity is not only about helping people understand you so they don’t need to devote cognitive resources to interpret your meaning, but it is also a way to ensure that your communication remains neutral, keeping the other person in a manageable threat state. You can provide clarity in your communications by maintaining a neutral-to-positive tone of voice. You can also focus on communicating necessary information while avoiding unnecessary details so there’s no cognitive overload or perception of a “hidden message.”
For example, in response to the colleague, we could acknowledge the comment in a neutral way but then redirect the conversation toward the work task. “Interesting perspective, but can we jump back into our task so that we can finish before the day ends?” This also leverages The SCARF® Model by providing the colleague a sense of status and autonomy in your response. With these habits, we can all gravitate back to the missions of our organizations without letting political polarization get in the way. We’re all experiencing this election cycle together, albeit through different lenses. We’re far better off choosing to agree to disagree while being civil than engaging in hidden or overt incivility. So, starting with this election cycle, let’s try to spread civility in the workplace and the world. It’s one small step in uplifting each other so we can all do our best work.
