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Kick The Cat
Kick the cat (or kick the dog) is a metaphor used to describe how a relatively high-ranking person in an organization or family displaces their frustrations by abusing a lower-ranking person, who may in turn take it out on their own subordinate. Origin of the idiom The term has been used in the United States at least since the 19th century. In current usage, the name envisions a scenario where an angry or frustrated employee comes home from work looking for some way to take out his anger, but the only thing present is the cat. He physically abuses it as a means of relieving his frustration, despite the cat playing no part in causing it. Workplace or family dynamics Kicking the cat is commonly used to describe the behaviour of staff abusing coworkers or subordinates as a mechanism to relieve stress. This behaviour can result in a chain reaction, where a higher-ranking member of the company abuses their subordinate, who takes it out on their own subordinate, and so on down the line ...
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Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world an ...
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Catharsis
Catharsis (from Greek , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing" or "clarification") is the purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art, or it may be any extreme emotional state that results in renewal and restoration. In its literal medical sense, it refers to the evacuation of the '' catamenia''—the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material from the patient. But as a metaphor it was originally used by Aristotle in the ''Poetics'', comparing the effects of tragedy on the mind of a spectator to the effect of catharsis on the body. In psychology, the term is associated with Freudian psychoanalysis and specifically relates to the expression of buried trauma, bringing it into consciousness and thereby releasing it permanently. However, there is considerable debate as to its therapeutic usefulness. Social catharsis may be regarded as the collective expression of extreme emotion. Dramatic uses Catharsis is a term in dramatic art that describes the effect of tra ...
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Management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees (or of volunteers) to accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources, such as financial, natural, technological, and human resources. "Run the business" and "Change the business" are two concepts that are used in management to differentiate between the continued delivery of goods or services and adapting of goods or services to meet the changing needs of customers - see trend. The term "management" may also refer to those people who manage an organization—managers. Some people study management at colleges or universities; major degrees in management includes the Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.), Bachelor of Business Adminis ...
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English-language Idioms
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9t ...
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Abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other types of aggression. To these descriptions, one can also add the Kantian notion of the wrongness of using another human being as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves. Some sources describe abuse as "socially constructed", which means there may be more or less recognition of the suffering of a victim at different times and societies. Types and contexts of abuse Abuse of authority Abuse of authority includes harassment, interference, pressure, and inappropriate requests or favors. Abuse of corpse :''See: Necrophilia'' Necrophilia involves possessing a physical attraction to dead bodies that may led to acting upon sexual urges. As corpses are dead and cannot give consent, any manipulation, removal of parts, mutilation, or se ...
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Scapegoating
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., "I couldn't see anything because of all the tall people"), groups against individuals (e.g., "He was the reason our team didn't win"), and groups against groups. A scapegoat may be an adult, child, sibling, employee, peer, ethnic, political or religious group, or country. A whipping boy, identified patient, or "fall guy" are forms of scapegoat. At the individual level A medical definition of scapegoating is: Scapegoated groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of different races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behaviour from the majority. However, scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such a ...
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Psychological Projection
Psychological projection is the process of misinterpreting what is "inside" as coming from "outside". It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world. In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage. A bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target, or a person who is confused may project feelings of confusion and inadequacy onto other people. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping. Projection has been described as an early phase of introjection. Historical precursors A prominent precursor in the formulation of the projection principle was Giambattista Vico. In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach was the first enlightenment thinker to employ ...
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Presumption Of Guilt
A presumption of guilt is any presumption within the criminal justice system that a person is guilty of a crime, for example a presumption that a suspect is guilty unless or until proven to be innocent. Such a presumption may legitimately arise from a rule of law or a procedural rule of the court or other adjudicating body which determines how the facts in the case are to be proved, and may be either rebuttable or irrebuttable. An irrebuttable presumption of fact may not be challenged by the defense, and the presumed fact is taken as having been proved. A rebuttable presumption shifts the burden of proof onto the defense, who must collect and present evidence to prove the suspect's innocence, in order to obtain acquittal. Rebuttable presumptions of fact, arising during the course of a trial as a result of specific factual situations (for example that the accused has taken flight), are common; but an opening presumption of guilt based on the mere fact that the suspect has been ...
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Kiss Up Kick Down
Kiss up kick down is a neologism used to describe the situation where middle-level employees in an organization are polite and flattering to superiors but abusive to subordinates. The term is believed to have originated in the US, with the first documented use having occurred in 1993. A similar expression (lit. "lick up, kick down") was used by Swedish punk band Ebba Grön in one of their songs, on an album released in 1981. The concept can be applied to any social interaction where one person believes they have power over another person and believes that another person has power over them.Calum Paton The Policy of NHS Deficits and NHS Re-form in Health Policy and Politics 2007JJ Mearsheimer, D ShapleMCNAMARA'S WAR Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 00963402, Jul/Aug93, Vol.49, Issue 6 Examples of use Robert McNamara The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' described Robert McNamara, an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, as a classic ...
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Hostile Attribution Bias
Hostile attribution bias, or hostile attribution of intent, is the tendency to interpret others' behaviors as having hostile intent, even when the behavior is ambiguous or benign.Nasby, W., Hayden, B., & DePaulo, B. M. (1980). Attributional bias among aggressive boys to interpret unambiguous social stimuli as displays of hostility. ''Journal of Abnormal Psychology'', ''89''(3), 459.Dodge, K. A. (1980). Social cognition and children's aggressive behavior. ''Child Development'', 162-170.Dodge, K. A. (2006). Translational science in action: Hostile attributional style and the development of aggressive behavior problems. ''Development and Psychopathology'', ''18''(03), 791-814. For example, a person with high levels of hostile attribution bias might see two people laughing and immediately interpret this behavior as two people laughing about them, even though the behavior was ambiguous and may have been benign. The term "hostile attribution bias" was first coined in 1980 by Nasby, Hayden ...
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Bullying Culture
Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, imbalance of power and repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally or emotionally. Bullying can be done individually or by a group, called mobbing, in which the bully may have one or more followers who are willing to assist the primary bully or who reinforce the bully by providing positive feedback such as laughing. Bullying in school and the workplace is also referred to as "peer abuse". Robert W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism. The Swedish-N ...
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Abusive Supervision
Abusive supervision is most commonly studied in the context of the workplace, although it can arise in other areas such as in the household and at school. "Abusive supervision has been investigated as an antecedent to negative subordinate workplace outcome." "Workplace violence has combination of situational and personal factors". The study that was conducted looked at the link between abusive supervision and different workplace events. Researchers have previously argued that abusive supervision is a one-dimensional construct, however, recently it is found to be a four-dimensional construct. The study of Ghayas and Jabeen is a paramount study that suggests abusive supervision to be a four-dimensional construct where yelling, belittling behavior, scapegoating and credit stealing are described as the dimensions of abusive supervision. Researchers such as Tepper and Martinko had previously asserted that there was a need to study dimensions of abusive supervision. Workplace bullyin ...
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