[ANPPOM-Lista] Academic Assholes and the Circle of Niceness

[Carlos Palombini]

 Academic Assholes and the Circle of Niceness
November 9, 2015 <http://sasconfidential.com/2015/11/09/niceness/> / SAS
Confidential <http://sasconfidential.com/author/sasconfidential/>

*Author: Inger Mewburn <https://twitter.com/thesiswhisperer>*
*Original: The Thesis Whisperer
<http://thesiswhisperer.com/2013/02/13/academic-assholes/>*

Two of my favourite people in the academic world are my friends Rachael
Pitt (aka @thefellowette <https://twitter.com/thefellowette>) and Nigel
Palmer. Whenever we have a catch up, which is sadly rare, we have a fine
old time talking shop over *beer and chips* (well lemonade in my case, but
you get the picture).

Some time ago ago Rachael started calling us ‘The B Team’ because we were
all appointed on a level B in the Australian university pay-scale system
(academic Level B is not quite shit kicker entry level academia – that’s
level A just in case you were wondering – but it’s pretty close). I always
go home feeling a warm glow of collegiality after a B team talk, convinced
that being an academic is the best job in the entire world. Rachael reckons
that this positive glow is a result of the *‘circle of niceness’* we create
just by being together and talking about ideas with honesty and openness.

Anyway, just after I announced my appointment as director of research
training at ANU, the B team met to get our nerd on. As we ate chips we
talked about my new job, the ageing academic workforce, research student
retention rates. Then we got to* gossiping* — as you do.

All of us had a story or two to tell about academic colleagues who had been*
rude, dismissive, passive aggressive or even outright hostile* *to us in
the workplace.* We had encountered this behaviour from people at level C, D
and E, further up in the academic pecking order, but agreed it was most
depressing when our fellow level Bs acted like jerks.

As we talked we started to wonder: *do you get further in academia if you
are a jerk?*

Jerks step on, belittle or otherwise sabotage their academic colleagues.
The most common method is by criticising their opinions in public, at a
conference or in a seminar and by trash talking them in private. Some
ambitious sorts work to cut out others, whom they see as competitors, from
opportunity.* I’m sure it’s not just academics on the payroll who have to
deal with this kind of jerky academic behaviour.* On the feedback page to
the Whisperer I occasionally get comments from PhD students who have found
themselves on the receiving end  — especially during seminar presentations.

I assume people act like jerks because *they think they have something to
gain, and maybe they are right.*

In his best selling book ‘The No Asshole Rule’
<http://www.amazon.com/The-Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace/dp/0446698202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357512437&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+sutton>Robert
Sutton, a professor at Stanford University, has a lot to say on the topic
of, well, assholes in the workplace. The book is erudite and amusing in
equal measures and well worth reading* especially for the final chapter
where Sutton examines the advantages of being an asshole*. He cites work by
Teresa Amabile, who did a series of controlled experiments using fictitious
book reviews. While the reviews themselves essentially made the same
observations about the books, the tone in which the reviewers expressed
their observations was tweaked to be either nice or nasty. What Amabile
found was:

… negative or unkind people were seen as less likeable but more
intelligent, competent and expert than those who expressed the the same
messages in gentler ways

Huh.

This sentence made me think about the nasty cleverness that some academics
display when they comment on student work in front of their peers.
Displaying cleverness during PhD seminars and during talks at conferences
is a way academics show off their scholarly prowess to each other,
sometimes at the expense of the student. *Cleverness is a form of currency
in academia; or ‘cultural capital’ if you like.* If other academics think
you are clever they will listen to you more; you will be invited to speak
at other institutions, to sit on panels and join important committees and
boards. Appearing clever is a route to power and promotion. If performing
like an asshole in a public forum creates the perverse impression that you
are more clever than others who do not, there is a clear incentive to
behave this way.

Sutton claims only a small percentage of people who act like assholes are
actually sociopaths (he amusingly calls them ‘flaming assholes’)* and talks
about how asshole behaviour is contagious. *He argues that it’s easy for
asshole behaviour to become normalised in the workplace because, most of
the time, the assholes are not called to account. So it’s possible that
many academics are acting like assholes without even being aware of it.

How does it happen? The budding asshole has learned, perhaps
subconsciously, that other people interrupt them less if they use stronger
language. They get attention: more air time in panel discussions and at
conferences. Other budding assholes will watch strong language being used
and then imitate the behaviour. No one publicly objects to the language
being used, even if the student is clearly upset, and nasty behaviour gets
reinforced.* As time goes on the culture progressively becomes more
poisonous and gets transmitted to the students.* Students who are upset by
the behaviour of academic assholes are often counselled, often by their
peers, that “this is how things are done around here”
<http://thesiswhisperer.com/2010/11/01/the-stegosaurus-strategy/>. Those
who refuse to accept the culture are made to feel abnormal because, in a
literal sense, they are – if being normal is to be an asshole.

Not all academic cultures are badly afflicted by assholery, but many are. I
don’t know about you, but seen this way, *some of the sicker academic
cultures suddenly make much more sense.* This theory might explain why
senior academics are sometimes nicer and more generous to their colleagues
than than those lower in the pecking order. If asshole behaviour is a route
to power, those who already have positions of power in the hierarchy and
are widely acknowledged to be clever, have less reason to use it.

To be honest with you, seen through this lens, my career trajectory makes
more sense too. I am not comfortable being an asshole, although I’m not
going to claim I’ve never been one. I have certainly acted like a jerk in
public a time or two in the past, especially when I was an architecture
academic where a culture of vicious critique is quite normalised. *But I’d
rather collaborate than compete and I don’t like confrontation.*

I have quality research publications and a good public profile for my
scholarly work, yet I found it hard to get advancement in my previous
institution. I wonder now if this is because I am too nice and, as a
consequence, people tended to *underestimate my intelligence*. I think it’s
no coincidence that my career has only taken off with this blog. The blog
is a safe space for me to show off display my knowledge and expertise
without having to get into a pissing match.

Like Sutton I am deeply uncomfortable with the observation that being an
asshole can be advantageous for your career. *Sutton takes a whole book to
talk through the benefits of not being an asshole and I want to believe
him.* He clearly shows that there are real costs to organisations for
putting up with asshole behaviour. Put simply, the nice clever people
leave. I suspect this happens in academia all the time. It’s a vicious
cycle which means people who are more comfortable being an asshole easily
outnumber those who find this behaviour obnoxious.

Ultimately we are all diminished when clever people walk away from
academia. So what can we do? It’s tempting to point the finger at senior
academics for creating a poor workplace culture, but I’ve experienced this
behaviour from people at all levels of the academic hierarchy. *We need to
work together to break the circle of nastiness. *

It’s up to all of us to be aware that we have a potential bias in the way
we judge others; to be aware that *being clever comes in nice and nasty
packages*. I think we would all prefer, for the sake of a better workplace,
that people tried to be nice rather than nasty when giving other people,
especially students, criticism about their work. Criticism can be gently
and firmly applied, it doesn’t have to be laced with vitriol.

It’s hard to do, but wherever possible we should *work on creating circles
of niceness*. We can do this by being attentive to our own actions. Next
time you have to talk in public about someone else’s work really listen to
yourself. Are you picking up a prevailing culture of assholery?

I must admit I am at a bit of a loss for other things we can do to make
academia a kinder place. Do you have any ideas?
http://sasconfidential.com/2015/11/09/niceness/

-- 
carlos palombini, ph.d. (dunelm)
professor de musicologia ufmg
professor colaborador ppgm-unirio
www.proibidao.org
ufmg.academia.edu/CarlosPalombini <http://goo.gl/KMV98I>
www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Palombini2
scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=YLmXN7AAAAAJ
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