phd advisor bully

Bullying by supervisors is alive and well – now is the time to tackle it

The arrangements that trap PhD students in toxic relationships with abusive supervisors must be reformed – here’s how, says Timothy Ijoyemi

Timothy Ijoyemi

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In recent years, a chorus of former PhD students have broken their silence over abusive behaviour suffered at the hands of their supervisors. Their horrifying accounts variously relate being belittled and humiliated in front of colleagues, having supervisors explode with anger upon hearing of scientific setbacks, even supervisors sullying their students’ reputations in the eyes of prospective employers. The toll of this sustained torment on students’ mental health can be devastating, with reports of anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and even suicide having emerged.

Supervisor bullying deters talented students from pursuing academic careers. It can also compromise academic integrity by pressuring students to falsify data to avoid provoking backlash. This is a lose-lose situation for all of academia.

To make matters worse, the unprecedented demands of the Covid-19 pandemic risk diverting attention from nascent efforts to address supervisor bullying precisely when many of the conditions that feed into it, such as work frustration and economic inequality, have worsened. More optimistically, the state of flux created by the pandemic also presents an opportunity to finally get to grips with this issue requiring bold and urgent action.

But why focus on supervisor bullying of PhD students when bullying affects academics at all levels? While all forms of bullying must be eradicated, the power imbalance of the student-supervisor relationship makes students uniquely vulnerable to bullying from superiors who can destroy careers before they’ve even begun.

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Indeed, once a student has progressed to a certain point in their PhD, their supervisor is usually so intertwined with the project that they are virtually indispensable to its completion. Students jumping ship partway through their PhD are likely to lose access to essential resources bound to their existing supervisor, including research funding and access to crucial lab equipment, not to mention their supervisor’s expertise. Any student raising the ire of a malicious supervisor also risks forgoing the glowing reference and authorship credit on papers that could be pivotal to landing their first postdoc. It’s little wonder that so few PhD students report their experiences of bullying.

The arrangements that trap students in toxic relationships with abusive supervisors are something that universities and other stakeholders can and must work together to reform. A key focus must be making it easier for students to change supervisor partway through their projects. Here, funders could make provision for finance allocated to PhD students to be transferred to a new supervisor if bullying has occurred. Where this isn’t possible, universities should have a fund available to plug or mitigate funding shortfalls that accrue to students decoupling from abusive supervisors.

Furthermore, investigative committees should have the power to force offending supervisors to continue providing access to equipment or other resources needed by a targeted student to complete their project, with conditions around this carefully set to eliminate opportunities for reprisal – for example, mandating that the former supervisor be absent during specified access times.

Any effort to ease supervisor transition must be paired with a robust anti-bullying policy that sets out disciplinary action to be taken against supervisors found to have bullied. Consequences for repeat or particularly egregious offenders should be severe, ranging up to dismissal.

Research has found that reporting of academic bullying is low largely because targets doubt that it will lead to meaningful action. To inspire greater confidence, anti-bullying policies must be communicated to incoming PhD students as a prominent part of their induction, with clear definitions given of what constitutes bullying, how complaints will be investigated, what disciplinary actions may result and what measures can be taken to minimise negative impacts on reporting students. To increase confidence further, at least one example should be given of a previous case where a complaint was upheld with a resolution favourable to the targeted student.

Ensuring that investigations are conducted fairly is essential to earning supervisor and student support. As such, investigative committees should be made up of individuals external to an accused supervisor’s department. This would help avert conflicts of interest that could otherwise impel investigators to protect or sabotage an accused colleague.

Beyond the university itself, there’s much that can be done to tackle supervisor bullying. Funding bodies should follow the lead of the Wellcome Trust by attaching conditions to their grants that allow funding to be withdrawn from supervisors found to have bullied. Where this occurs, funding should be transferred to another principal investigator from the same department to reduce impacts on others funded by the same grant. Funders could also collaborate with universities to obtain records of academic bullying by grant applicants and factor these into funding decisions.

Gatekeepers for academic metrics, including those that publish institutional rankings, could also collaborate with universities to incorporate bullying records into their assessment criteria. This would benefit gatekeepers by driving up standards in the institutions on which their existence depends, while those institutions would benefit from outperforming competitors on a metric bound to influence student enrolment. Most important would be the benefit to students now belonging to institutions better incentivised to root out supervisor bullying.

The stories of supervisor bullying that have emerged in recent times are a terrible stain on higher education. It’s past time for the multi-pronged effort needed to reform a system in which bullying has been able to thrive. In the ruins of the pandemic, opportunity for drastic change abounds. It would be grossly unjust to the next generation of PhD students if inaction prevails.

Timothy Ijoyemi has more than 10 years’ experience in higher education. He has a passion for equity, diversity and inclusion, and at UCL School of Management he researches and supports on various projects to improve student and staff experience. 

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Why is Bullying so Frequent in Academia? Diagnostics and Solutions for Bully-Proof Organizations

When I was in graduate school, my fellow students and I often joked about a paradox: How come that our Management departments (employing dozens of faculty experts in human resources, social psychology, and group dynamics) are a breeding ground for bullies?

Indeed, one thing that struck me throughout graduate school was how common bullying was. Over the five years of my PhD, I have been the target and witness of intimidation attempts, threats, and destructive criticism. In contrast, the “supportive environment”, the “emotional safety”, and the “constructive feedback” that management scholars praise as necessary conditions for thriving work environments were rare, if not absent.

In general, horror stories about bullies were widespread in all the departments I visited, and most people around me knew at least one “bully”: A professor regularly engaged in aggressive, hostile, or even destructive behaviors towards PhDs students or colleagues.

What do we mean by bullying?

Bullying can be tricky to define. First, it encompasses a large range of behaviors (e.g., incivility, intimidation, social isolation, humiliation, emotional abuse or physical aggression) in various contexts (school, family, workplace, social media). Second, it is hard to measure: Bullies rarely talk about their bullying behaviors, and victims do not necessarily report them [1-5]. However, there is a consensus that bullying is an aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, power imbalance and repetition [6].

A case study in bullying: Academia

Academia provides an interesting setting to understand bullying. Such behaviors appear unfortunately more common in higher education than in other industries: 33% of academics report being victim of bullying (vs. 2% to 20% of people employed in other industries depending on the country considered [2,7]). In particular, bullying behaviors seem particularly frequent in advisor-advisee relationships: The Nature 2019 PhD survey on more than 6300 early career-researchers revealed that 21% of respondents had been bullied during their PhD, and that for 48% of them the perpetrator was their supervisor. In most cases, the victims of bullying felt unable to report these behaviors, for fear of personal repercussions [8]. The qualitative data from the survey also give insights on the specific type of bullying actions advisors engage in, such as acting aggressively or being overly critical.

When do people bully?

Bullying has been connected to some specific personality traits such as aggressiveness, Machiavellianism, or lack of empathy. However, it would be incorrect to reduce bullying to something that “evil people” do: The environment plays a major role, and organizational structures and processes can deter or on the contrary encourage bullying [5]. Academia, for example, has multiple features that can be conducive to bullying:

• A strong power imbalance between advisors and advisees.
• A loose organizational structure, with little oversight.
• An organizational culture in which the end justifies the means.
• An unidimensional hiring and promotion process.

Power imbalance

The strongest power asymmetry in academia is between graduate students and their supervisor. Very early on, PhDs are required to closely work with a supervisor who is supposed to guide them through their PhD journey. Graduate students are highly dependent on their supervisor for access to data, research budget, networking opportunities, recommendation letters… In addition, this relationship is characterized by a certain degree of opacity and informality: Interactions between supervisors and PhDs are rarely monitored or attended by third parties. This dependence and isolation can pave the way for bullying behaviors.

Loose Management

A “laissez-faire” or inadequate leadership can lead to bullying behaviors [9–11]: If figures of authority in the organization are perceived as weak, it is assumed that they will not intervene in bullying situations, which gives free reign to potential bullies to abuse others [5].

Academic departments are organized as “entrepreneurial spaces” in which professors are expected to self-manage most aspects of their work: time management, teaching, research pipeline, collaboration with co-authors, or supervision of graduate students. In addition, most academics dislike interference in what they are doing and how they are doing it: Many acknowledge that they pursued a career in academia precisely because they did not want to have a boss. However, this absence of leadership makes it easier for bullies to engage in abusive behaviors without facing repercussions.

High-Performance Organizational Culture

The academic culture is full of mythologies that justify bullying. It praises values of dominance, competitiveness, and high achievement in which bullying behavior may be perceived as only slightly transgressive, or even as an efficient way to “toughen up” aspiring academics.

The very revealing adage of academia, “publish or perish”, sets the tone of this culture. Publications in top journals define the pecking order among academics, and by the same token, make most behaviors justifiable as long as they can help achieve this goal. This ethos, that makes publishing a matter of survival, legitimizes abusive behaviors.

In addition, many academics rationalize and romanticize their past suffering, and frame it as a necessary condition to success: “Yes, the Ph.D. was tough, but it was a transformative experience, and the thick skin that I developed is now helping me thrive.” Once people hold this view, they are less likely to view bullying as an issue that needs to be solved, and less likely to take the suffering of graduate students seriously. After all, if they complain about bullying, maybe they are not “cut for the job".

This organizational culture makes particularly difficult both for PhD programs to intervene into abusive situations and for PhDs to report the behaviors they are victim of: Once everybody has internalized the idea that suffering is necessary to succeed, there is no more reason to fight against it.

“Brilliant Jerks”

Finally, academics are selected and promoted on their publication records, and much less so on their social skills and emotional intelligence. This may be surprising given that academics manage many different relationships (e.g., supervisor-supervisee, co-authors, authors-reviewers, professor-students…), have a job in which collaborations are frequent and essential, and are expected to mentor the new generations of scholars.

This narrow selection process can have multiple negative effects. It weeds out people who have good social skills but have a weaker publication record, it signals that social skills are not worth developing, and most importantly it legitimizes the stereotype of the “brilliant jerks”: prolific researchers who lack basic social skills (i.e., emotional regulation, self-reflection, and perspective-taking). Indeed, it is not rare to find that departments are willing to recruit, promote or even protect bullies, as long as they have the right number of publications, sending the message that toxic behaviors can be bargained [12].

Building a Bully-Proof Organization

While the economic cost of workplace bullying is difficult to assess, the negative consequences are well-documented. Victims are more likely to suffer from emotional issues, health disorders, extreme stress, feelings of worthlessness and shame [13]. Organizations suffer from an erosion of creativity, a reduced organizational commitment, job dissatisfaction, a decreasing productivity, an increased absenteeism, and a higher turnover rate [14–16]. How can we then avoid these behaviors, and build “bully-proof” organizations, in academia and elsewhere?

1. Not hiring bullies: “the people make the place”

The most obvious solution is not to hire people who are more likely to engage in this type of behavior. This strategy requires that organizations try to screen bullies during the recruitment and promotion process. Research suggests [17–19] that bullies are more likely to exhibit specific personality traits:

• They are aggressive, hostile, competitive, assertive, confrontational, impulsive, and moody.
• They have difficulty to self-analyze, to regulate their emotions and lack empathy.
• On the OCEAN personality inventory, they are typically low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and high in Neuroticism and Extraversion.
• They can also be high in narcissism and psychopathy.

However, the diagnostic value of these personality traits is low: Screening on personality alone would exclude many people who are not bullies and let in many others who are bullies.

In addition, organizations should base their recruitment and promotion decisions not only on productivity and achievement, but also on social skills and emotional intelligence. Research suggests that hiring toxic workers can be incredibly costly for companies, even when those toxic workers are high performers [20]: Between hiring a superstar (very high performer) and avoiding a toxic worker, companies are often better off avoiding the toxic worker.

2. Evaluating structural factors that allow bullies to thrive

Another important step is to determine organizational features that might enable bullying. Many aspects of organizational culture may accidentally foster bullying and should therefore be considered carefully:

• The quest for excellence (e.g., top chefs in the kitchen industry) [21]; an organizational culture that celebrates toughness (e.g., army, prisons, firefighters) [22–25].
• A socialization process that features initiation rituals (e.g., hazing) [5,26].
• A large number of informal and casual behaviors that make more difficult for some employees to distinguish “proper and professional” behaviors from “borderline and inappropriate” behaviors [27].

Those features can serve useful purposes. However, when many of them are present, it is important to be mindful that they can facilitate bullying.

3. The “no asshole rule”

On the 20th of January 2021, Joe Biden swore in nearly 1,000 federal employees. During this virtual ceremony, he felt the need to emphasize that under his watch, disrespect and condescendence among his collaborators would not be tolerated. As a leader, publicly and strongly reaffirming that bullying and other destructive behaviors do not have room in the organization can be a very powerful move.

To be effective however, this zero-tolerance policy must be accompanied with effective policies that discourage and punish bullying, and on the contrary reward constructive interactions [28]. If leaders do not walk the talk, they risk promoting a culture of impunity and hypocrisy within the organization.

To go further…

• Woolston, C. PhDs: the tortuous truth. Nature 575, 403–406 (2019).
• Minor, D. & Housman, M. G. Toxic Workers. Acad. Manag. Proc. 2015, 13189 (2015).
• Moss, S. Research is set up for bullies to thrive. Nature 560, 529–529 (2018).
• Breevaart, K., Wisse, B. & Schyns, B. Trapped at Work: The Barriers Model of Abusive Supervision. Acad. Manag. Perspect. (2021)
• Chirila, T. & Constantin, T. Understanding Workplace Bullying Phenomenon through its Concepts: A Literature Review. Procedia - Soc. Behav. Sci. 1175–1179 (2013).
• Keashly, L. & Jagatic, K. North American Perspectives on Hostile Behaviors and Bullying at Work. in Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Developments in Theory, Research, and Practice (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2011).
• Keashly, L. & Neuman, J. H. Bullying in higher education: what current research, theorizing, and practice tell us. in Workplace Bullying In Higher Education (Routledge, 2013).
• Randall, P. An overview of adult bullying. in Bullying in Adulthood: Assessing the Bullies and their Victims (Routledge, 2002).
• Salin, D. Ways of explaining workplace bullying: A review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment. Hum. Relat. 56, 1213–1232 (2003).
• Bullying. Wikipedia (2021).
• Rayner, C. & Cooper, C. L. Workplace Bullying. in Handbook of workplace violence 121–145 (Sage Publications, Inc, 2006).
• Einarsen, S., Raknes, B. rn I. & Matthiesen, S. B. Bullying and harassment at work and their relationships to work environment quality: An exploratory study. Eur. J. Work Organ. Psychol. 4, 381–401 (1994).
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• Nelson, E. D. & Lambert, R. D. Sticks, stones and semantics: The ivory tower bully’s vocabulary of motives. Qual. Sociol. 24, 83–106 (2001).
• Workplace Bullying Institute. Results of the 2010 and 2007 WBI US Workplace Bullying Survey. (2010).
• Bryant, M., Buttigieg, D. & Hanley, G. Poor bullying prevention and employee health: some implications. Int. J. Workplace Health Manag. 2, 48–62 (2009).
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• Zapf, D. Organisational, work group related and personal causes of mobbing/bullying at work. Int. J. Manpow. 20, 70–85 (1999).
• Jolliffe, D. & Farrington, D. P. Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying. Aggress. Behav. Off. J. Int. Soc. Res. Aggress. 32, 540–550 (2006).
• Mitsopoulou, E. & Giovazolias, T. Personality traits, empathy and bullying behavior: A meta-analytic approach. Aggress. Violent Behav. 21, 61–72 (2015).
• Seigne, E., Coyne, I., Randall, P. & Parker, J. Personality traits of bullies as a contributory factor in workplace bullying: An exploratory study. Int. J. Organ. Theory Behav. (2007).
• Johns, N. & Menzel, P. J. ‘ If you can’t stand the heat!’… Kitchen violence and culinary art. Int. J. Hosp. Manag. (1999).
• Archer, D. Exploring “bullying” culture in the para‐military organisation. Int. J. Manpow. (1999).
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• Hanson, B. C. Diagnose and Eliminate Workplace Bullying. Harvard Business Review (2011).

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PhD in Organizational Behavior

Perhaps It’s Not You It’s Them: PhD Student-Supervisor Relationships

• First Online: 15 September 2022

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• Zoë J. Ayres 2  

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This chapter explores the PhD Student-Supervisor relationship, outlining the role of a PhD Supervisor, discussing relationship management, and how to recognise signs of bullying and harassment if they occur.

(Trigger Warnings: bullying, harassment, sexual harassment)

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Depending on your country of study a PhD Supervisor may be called the Principal Investigator (PI) or you PhD Supervisor, or PhD Advisor. For the purpose of this chapter I will use “Supervisor”, to mean the academic in charge of your PhD research.

I count myself lucky every single day that I fell into the 76% category.

If you did not get this memo before starting your PhD, please do not worry. It is common for first-generation students to not get this information ahead of time.

Survivor bias is defined as the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility.

The sunk cost fallacy reasoning states that further investments or commitments are justified because the resources already invested will be lost otherwise . In the case of PhD study it can be that if we just “stick it out” and try to manage the abuse we are being subject to we will get our PhD. In reality, leaving and starting a PhD elsewhere may be beneficial.

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Research is set up for bullies to thrive

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A young woman contacted me earlier this year to discuss her PhD adviser. He would follow her around the lab, shaming her in others’ presence, yelling that she was incompetent and that her experiments were done incorrectly. She wanted nothing more than to minimize contact with him, but she felt trapped. Starting in another lab would mean losing nearly three years of work.

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4 Signs Your PhD Advisor Is Mistreating You and What to Do About It

PhD students rely on their supervisors for support, help and mentorship. But what happens when your supervisor treats you unfairly? In this article, we will tell about the top 4 signs your PhD advisor is mistreating you.

Why Do PhD Supervisors Turn on Students?

A PhD supervisor can make or break your post-graduate experience. An academic staff has a huge impact on how students feel about their experience. So, it’s hard when your supervisor starts treating you unfairly. Some students end up being micromanaged, bullied, and even abandoned by their advisors.

A conflict in working styles is one of the most common reasons why supervisor relationships turn sour. Many PhD advisors expect their students to be perfectly in sync with their work style. They don’t take it kindly when students can’t keep up.

Other times, it happens because of poor communication. Simply clarifying your expectations early can help you set things straight with your supervisor. Sometimes, even relationships that begin well, go on to become intolerable later. It’s all part of the ups and downs of the post-graduate experience.

With that said, there are times when students have advisors who are mistreating them without a clear reason. Let’s see how you can identify a PhD supervisor who mistreats you.

They Manipulate You through Praise

Mistreatment takes many forms. But you least expect it from someone who excessively praises you. Funnily enough, that is how some PhD advisors mistreat students. This type of behavior is called love bombing.

First, they will shower potential candidates with praises, telling them they are unlike other students they’ve worked with. They will lure you with promises of publications and prestigious institutions. However, it all ends after you join their research group.

As soon as you face problems like failed experiments, the same person could behave very differently. Instead of helping you modify your approach and reevaluate methods, they may belittle you.

The best way to pick up on such habits is to ask senior students in the program about their experience. Likewise, you can also ask the advisors how they relate to other students and how students relate to them.

In other words, if you sense your advisor is overpraising you or making fantastic claims about your acumen and credentials, pay attention to how they talk about other graduate students. Therefore, if an advisor tells you (a new graduate student) not to listen to senior graduate students because you are better than them, it’s likely they will discuss you similarly down the road.

They Want to Control Your Actions

Going to conferences and networking with people is crucial for the graduate journey. While it isn’t necessary to attend every meeting, you should definitely visit the ones relevant to your field and research topic.

A good supervisor will help you learn new skills and accelerate your professional and academic goals. Even if they disagree, they will let you decide what’s best for you. However, abusive advisors will stop you from attending conferences unless you have their permission. They will belittle you for going against their will and their position of power against you.

They Try to Isolate You

Abusers thrive in an environment where victims are isolated and can’t share their experiences. Unfortunately, graduate school is pretty isolating. Students must leave their established support circle, become financially dependent on an institution, and do their best to keep the advisor’s favor.

In such circumstances, it’s easier for abusive supervisors to force students into isolation. They may refuse to include other faculty as a part of your committee, so they have complete control over you.

There have been cases where abusive advisors refuse anyone on the committee who isn’t a part of their cult of personality. In such instances, a student’s success depends heavily on keeping their advisor happy. And since the rest of the committee is filled with people close to the supervisor, voicing your concerns can result in a group backlash or gaslighting.

This is why students need to maintain a strong support network. People around you can help you figure out different ways to avoid these situations.

They Want to Become Gatekeepers for Everything

Abusive supervisors have no qualms about telling you to do things and then get mad if you don’t follow through, even if it’s not directly related to the project. They will force you to ask them for permission for the simplest of things.

Impolite advisors may make it mandatory for students to ask for permission before approaching or talking to anyone at a conference. Other times, they might stop you from publishing your article in a journal until they have approved it.

Regardless, it’s likely that they won’t permit you and eventually force you to act on your own, only to then lash out at you for not listening.

In summary, the main purpose of mistreating supervisors is to misuse their power over you and exert their control over you. If you think your PhD advisor is mistreating you or stopping you from publishing an article, don’t worry; we have you covered.

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"My PhD broke me"—bullying in academia and a call to action

Workplace bullying —repetitive abusive, threatening, humiliating and intimidating behaviour—is on the rise globally. And matters are worse in academia. In the UK, for example, up to 42% of academics report being bullied in the workplace while the national average across all professions ranges from just 10-20%.

Why do bullies bully? According to researchers from Brock University in Canada the goals of bullying come from internal motivations and desires, which can be conscious or not. Bullying takes many forms: the malicious mistreatment of someone including persistent criticism, inaccurate accusations, exclusion and ostracism, public humiliation, the spreading of rumors, setting people up to fail, or overloading someone with work. Bullying is different from accidental or reactive aggression, since it is goal-directed meaning that the purpose is to harm someone when there is a power imbalance.

While anyone is at risk of being bullied in academia, research has found that some of us are more vulnerable compared to others. For example, early career researchers (ECRs), including trainees (e.g. graduate students, postdocs), minority groups, adjunct professors, research associates, and untenured professors are at a higher risk to experience bullying. Employees with more years in a job report feeling less bullied than others subordinate to them, meaning that junior members of a research group or Faculty may be at greater risk of bullying.

The existence of sharp power differentials is a major factor in workplace bullying in academia

These specific groups are more vulnerable to bullying in academia than others because of the existence of sharp power differentials , a major contributing factor to bullying in the workplace. For example, men and supervisors of large successful research groups are observed to perpetrate bullying behavior more often than women and other minorities, though exceptions do exist. Other research has shown that the pressure associated with publishing, getting research funding, and lack of leadership and people management training in science may also contribute to bullying.

In some cases , principal investigators (PI) can also experience bullying from students, peers, or administrators. Take the example of one PI who was bullied by an administrator for being too ambitious, making her overly conscious of her success. When she moved to another institution, she did not make collaborations with other researchers in different departments, as she had previously, because she did not want to appear to be too ambitious. This is also an example of the long-term impact bullying can have on future work.

To highlight that bullying can take different forms and occur at all career stages, we include here four anonymous testimonials from victims of academic bullying in the life sciences:

I got pregnant during my PhD and I was told it was not an issue. However, during the course of my pregnancy, I was removed from my projects and left out of discussions about the work that needed to be done. When I asked for an explanation, I was told that science could not wait for me while I was pregnant, even though I was eager to work, and the law permitted me to do so. After my child was born, I was made to return to work after just three weeks, while legally I was permitted up to a year off work. In the lab, I was given bits and pieces of others’ projects and not permitted to work on my own project. I worked without complaining but this took a toll on my emotional health with time. It was after my then-toddler son broke his arm that everything got worse. I needed to take a week off for his hospital stay, but my supervisor called me to his office and told me that I was a useless researcher and that I didn’t belong in science, and then he fired me. I knew it was illegal for him to do so, but I didn’t want to fight him because I was dependent on him to finish my PhD. I met with him after a week and he told me that I could work, but without pay, to make up for the duration of my pregnancy when I was paid. I did as I was told for the next six months, and somehow with the support of my husband and my best friend, was able to graduate and leave. I now have a permanent faculty position at a university in my home country, but my PhD broke me. International Female PhD Student

After I joined the lab, my supervisors told me that they needed to re-apply for funding, and that they were relying on my results for the application. Unfortunately, they wanted to employ a method that they were unfamiliar with, and as a beginner, I had very limited resources. I managed to get help from someone at another department and it took me three months to set up the method in the lab, but it turned out to be unsuitable for our project. My supervisors were unhappy about this and started blaming me for not smart enough to get the results they expected. I was constantly told that things didn’t work in my hands, and that they would need to decide whether to prolong my contract. This threat was dangled in front of me every few months, and it scared me. I contemplated leaving the lab and moving on, but my supervisors told me that it would look bad for them and offered me another project instead. Things didn’t improve after this either: my project worked fine, but my supervisors continued threatening to terminate my contract. I decided to graduate after three and a half years of enduring this, but my supervisors then threatened to block me from finishing. I was gas lighted throughout my Master’s and never understood what they really wanted. Why did they offer me a position if I wasn’t good enough? I decided to switch fields after my PhD and am much happier now. Male Graduate Student Completing His Graduate Studies in His Home Country

Within 3-weeks of starting a new research associate position, I was asked to lead the writing of a grant. The research focus of the group was beyond my experience, and I had little exposure to the research environment of the group. The PI had not established the big picture of the grant; it was left up to me. Furthermore, he provided little to no guidance with writing the grant (e.g. his expectations, what had previously been done, etc.). It was a very overwhelming experience. When I sent out a draft of the grant, I was pulled into a private meeting with the PI and the co-PI, who both told me that my work was crap and that since I was the highest paid member of the group I should have been producing amazing work. They said that all my responsibilities would be given to someone else in the group. I was given menial tasks like uploading files on the One Drive for several months. Most days, I would not have enough work to do or struggle with the work I was required to do because there was not enough guidance. I have been doing research for 16 years but had never been so bored as I was in this position. A few months later, I was asked to do a few more projects, but again was told my work was not good. The culture in the research group was unforgiving and exclusive. Outside of the job, through my hard work and determination, I obtained another position and was able to leave. When I sent in my resignation, I was even intimidated to leave earlier than I planned because it would cost them less. I stood my ground and left when I planned to. This job increased my imposter syndrome by a hundred-fold. I was convinced that I was the problem and the dumb one. When I told my husband about the interactions with the PI, he would comment on how ridiculous the situation was. When I was in this situation, it was too hard to see how crappy it was. It’s been about a month since I left, and I feel so much better. I have worked hard to combat my imposter syndrome, and this summer I will begin a tenure track position in a STEM field. In 2019, this is so rare, so I celebrate that! Female Research Associate in Home Country

I work as a postdoctoral researcher and my supervisor routinely tells us whom we can talk to, eat our lunch or take coffee breaks with. I recently started collaborating on a project with another postdoctoral researcher in the department but only after discussing it with my supervisor and gaining his approval. We worked on the project part-time for a few months. I approached my supervisor after we had some interesting results, and he suddenly decided that I needed to stop working on it despite the fact that it looked promising. He informed me that he was shocked that I was working on it in the first place and that he didn’t like me to do things behind his back. He also accused me of leaving him out of my activities in the lab. I was also tasked with informing my collaborator, who was livid that we needed to end the project abruptly. However, he understood and let it go, even though it was unfair for him too. My supervisor then blamed my collaborator for inciting me into doing the project in the first place and threatened him too. I do whatever my supervisor asks of me, but I am not sure if that’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I feel as though I have no choice since he pays me. International Male Postdoc

The impacts of bullying are manifold. Studies have reported a long-term health effects in bullying victims, such as anxiety, sleep disorders, chronic fatigue, anger, depression, destabilization of identity, aggression, low self-esteem, loss of confidence, and other health problems. Bullying also has an impact on the institutions where the victims work, including negative work environments, absenteeism, lower engagement, higher turnover, and reduced performance.

Recognizing what bullying looks like is just the first step towards tackling it. Many institutions have opted to use a top-down approach to tackle the problem through policies to report bullying via the human resource office or sometimes an ombudsman. Other institutions may not have specific policies to deal with bullying and often victims are not made aware of existing avenues of recourse. Funding agencies may also choose to get involved, for example after being accused of bullying by her colleagues in 2018 Professor Nazneem Rahman lost 3.5 million GBP in funding from the Wellcome Trust in the UK. In addition to what is currently being done at research institutions and funding agencies, legislation should be put into place by the government to ensure that victims are heard and that there are consequences for the perpetrators.

Apart from institutional actions, bottom-up approaches are also available, such as overcoming the bystander effect. The bystander effect is when individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. Research since the 60s has shown that the presence of other people will inhibit one’s own intention to help and overcoming this effect could be an effective way to mitigate bullying in academia.

A study of whistleblowers found that 71% of employees tend not to directly report wrongdoing as the perceived personal cost is higher than the perceived reward. People tend to feel that personal costs may be higher if reporting happens through face-to-face meetings with authorities. Hence, anonymous reporting channels are needed.

Bullying is an entrenched problem in academia, supported by workplaces with power differentials. Combating bullying is a challenging task at multiple levels and over the next year a group of us eLife Community Ambassadors will embark on an initiative to shine a light on the problem, investigate its root causes and eventually formulate a set of universal measures to tackle bullying in the workplace and give relief to its victims. Stay tuned for more on our progress!

by Nafisa M. Jadavji, Emily Furlong, Pawel Grzechnik, Małgorzata Anna Gazda, Sarah Hainer, Juniper Kiss, Renuka Kudva, Samantha Seah, Huanan Shi

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• v.40; 2021 Oct

STEM the bullying: An empirical investigation of abusive supervision in academic science

Sherry e. moss.

a School of Business, Wake Forest University, NC, USA

Morteza Mahmoudi

b Department of Radiology and Precision Health Program, Michigan State University, MI, USA

Academic bullying is a topic of significant interest of late, with high profile cases featured in scientific journals. Our aim is to document the nature and extent of academic bullying behaviors, examining who are the primary targets and perpetrators as well as the responses to and outcomes of bullying.

We developed a cross-sectional global survey aimed primarily at those in academic science institutions. The survey was administered via Qualtrics and data were collected (between November 2019 and July 2021) from 2006 individuals whose participation was solicited through various means including advertisements in Science and Nature magazines and the American Chemical Society.

Among the 2006 survey participants, the majority of targets were graduate students or postdocs. An overwhelming proportion of participants reported either experiencing (84%) or witnessing (59%) abusive supervision, or both (49%). While a majority of perpetrators were male, they were proportionately no more likely to abuse than females. Perpetrators were more likely from the highest-ranked institutions and they were most likely PIs. Females were more likely to report being bullied but their scores on the Tepper abusive supervision scale and the contextual behavior checklist we developed were not greater than male targets. Male targets actually reported higher levels of certain bullying behaviors. While international scholars were no more likely to report being bullied, the severity of the behaviors they reported was significantly greater. Targets (64%) were most likely to use avoidant tactics (not reporting and relying on family/friends for support) in response to bullying due to fear of retaliation (61%). The small percentage that did report the abuse (29%) overwhelmingly reported unfair and biased (58%) outcomes. Additional qualitative analysis of open-ended comments revealed similar patterns. We also noticed that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated academic bullying and changed the patterns of behaviors possibly due to the remote nature of interactions. Open-ended responses from targets are analyzed with examples provided.

Interpretation

Our results elucidated the various forms of abuse, the most likely perpetrators and targets, as well as the typical reactions of targets and witnesses. We investigated the results of targets’ actions following chronic bullying. Our findings highlight the domain, extent, and dynamics of academic bullying to hopefully motivate the scientific community to take action.

Research in context

Evidence before this study.

While there is significant anecdotal and empirical evidence to suggest that academia is “rife” with bullying from many different sources, there has been less specific focus on the hierarchical nature of bullying. Additionally, studies tend to utilize only one measure of bullying such as a single item or a general behavioral checklist. The most often-used checklists are general measures of “negative acts” in the workplace that could be perpetrated by many different actors.

Added value of this study

Our study is intended to be a comprehensive evaluation of hierarchical bullying, using three different measures: Single item, the generalizable Tepper (2000) scale for abusive supervision, and a checklist of behaviors that we created specifically to represent the context of academic science. In addition, we examine not only the most likely perpetrators and victims, but also the perspective of witnesses and the responses of both targets and witnesses following abusive supervision. We present both quantitative and qualitative data that fully capture the experience of bullying from academic superiors.

Implications of all the available evidence

This study suggests that academic science has a significant problem with abusive supervision, emanating from academic superiors ( e.g. principal investigators) and directed toward academic subordinates ( e.g. graduate students and post-docs). Evidence suggests that bullies are more likely to come from the highest ranked institutions. The way bullying was measured produced differences between male and female targets. International scholars indicated a higher level of contextual abuse than domestic scholars. Both witnesses and targets generally did not report bullying due to fear of retaliation. Those that did report primarily reported unfair and biased outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated academic incivility and changed the patterns of behaviors.

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1. Introduction

“Academic bullying” has become a topic of great interest in the last several years [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] . While there has been some systematic study of this phenomenon, our goal is to provide a specific definition and operationalization and an empirical narrative of the extent of abusive behaviors in academic science. At the same time, “abusive supervision” has been a topic of interest for several decades in the organizational literature [ 7 , 8 ]. Defined as subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which their supervisor engages in a sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact [7] , typical behaviors include ridicule and various forms of verbal abuse such as blaming, put-downs, angry outbursts, and name-calling [ 7 ]. It also involves isolating targets, giving them “the silent treatment,” and invading their privacy. The literature on abusive supervision has mainly focused on the consequences of such behavior including lower job satisfaction, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, perceived injustice, workplace deviance, lowered performance, and turnover [ 8 ]. In this paper, we apply the knowledge from the organizational literature to the specific context of academic science. We examine the extent of abusive supervision in this context and extend the work to include contextual abusive behaviors that are specific to the process of scientific inquiry. We seek to understand who are the most likely targets, the most likely perpetrators, and the responses and consequences of these behaviors. Our hope is that our findings illuminate the prevalence of academic bullying and motivate the scientific community to create resources to address it.

Which bullying behaviors occur most frequently in academic science? We recommend that the study of what has colloquially been termed “bullying” in academic science rely, in part, on the science of abusive supervision established in the organizational literature. Tepper [7] developed the domain of “abusive supervision” by drawing on the domestic violence literature. Aside from physical abuse, the specific behaviors demonstrated by domestic abusers and workplace abusers are very similar. These can be verbal ( e.g. , name calling, put-downs, blaming) and non-verbal ( e.g. , silent treatment, isolation) and present themselves in a variety of contexts such as healthcare [9] and hospitality [10] , [11] , [12] (See Table 1 for scale items), though Tepper developed his scale as a measure of abusive supervision in organizations in general. There is now significant anecdotal [13] and empirical [6] evidence of such behaviors in academic science. At the same time, there is behavior specific to academic science that must also be captured in any systemic study of academic bullying. This behavior includes abusing authorship or violating intellectual property rights [14] ; threatening to cancel funding, positions, or visas [15] ; and damaging budding scientists’ reputations through bad recommendations or speaking negatively about them to others [16] . We sought to evaluate the effectiveness of Tepper's measure to understand the extent of abusive supervision in academic science. And we also sought to develop an additional measure of contextual behaviors to help understand specific abuses unique to the lab and educational or scientific institutions. Thus, we created an inventory of behaviors, based on context-specific anecdotal narratives, to specifically assess academic bullying. We report on the extent of bullying using each method and compare the efficacy of Tepper's scale to our contextual checklist. By combining the organizational definition of abusive supervision with the contextual checklist, we define academic bullying as sustained hostile behavior from one's academic superior including, but not limited to, ridiculing, threatening, blaming, invasion of privacy, putdowns in front of others as well as interference with matriculation and career progress including removing funding, writing falsely negative recommendation letters, taking credit for others’ work and threatening to cancel visa or fellowships.” Our research question is: Which bullying behaviors occur most frequently in academic science? In addition to assessing this question, we also develop and test a series of hypotheses, based on the organizational literature, about the most likely targets and perpetrators of bullying as well as their likely responses and the consequences of their actions.

Tepper scale items and means for targets* My supervisor ….

* N  = 1131 (note that some who indicated that they had been bullied from the single item did not complete all survey items).

Who are the perpetrators? The literature on abusive supervision in organizations is clearly based on differences in power between perpetrators and targets. Abusive supervision, by definition, refers to perceptions that one in a “supervisory” status is perceived as perpetrating harmful acts toward another in an inferior position.

The literature on abusive supervision in organizations further identifies three categories of antecedents: self-regulation impairment, identity threat, and social learning [ 8 ]. First, the literature on leadership reveals that leadership styles are learned by followers and often repeated [ 17 , 18 ]. This so-called trickle-down effect implies that the behaviors of abusive leaders are emulated by followers [18] and are actually more likely to be learned and passed down than positive behaviors. Leaders who “grew up” with an abusive principal investigator (PI) or department chair are more likely to assume that their own followers must also “pay the dues” of working in the tough field of academic science [ 19 , 20 ]. Graduate students or post-docs who would give up just about anything to work with famous scientists from top-tier institutions may be willing to put up with abuse just to work in a particular scientist's lab, regardless of that scientist's reputation for bullying [ 21 ]. The social learning effect may result in these budding scientists passing along the same abusive behaviors, when they are in the position to do so.

Second, research suggests that those in positions of authority may feel threatened by their own superiors or even subordinates, and these perceived threats often precipitate abuse. In the case of academic science, threats from above may include pressure to publish [22] or obtain grants [23] , while threats from below may include incompetent or otherwise dysfunctional subordinates who make the leader appear or feel incompetent [9] . Threats may also emanate from within. Those with “dark triad” personality traits ( i.e. , Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) are more likely to bully because they feel justified and have little empathy for others [ 19 , 24 , 25 ].

Finally, exhausted, over-worked scientists may experience a depletion of personal or psychological resources [26] and react harshly to provocation from subordinates through conflict or poor performance [9] . Each of these antecedents suggests that power differentials between PIs and graduate students or postdocs, for example, exacerbate the likelihood that those in positions of authority may unleash their wrath toward those in less powerful positions [ 15 , 16 , 27 ]. The unique aspects of science, which require focused work on a series of studies or experiments that may eventually pay off in terms of scientific value, increases the likelihood that early-career scientists ( e.g., graduate students or post-docs) will feel “stuck” in their labs, perceiving little opportunity to change their circumstances without losing months or even years of work [ 15 ]. This is consistent with evidence in organizational research that the lack of “perceived alternatives” is a powerful predictor of a target being willing to stay with an abuser [ 7 ]. We hypothesize that abusers will typically be in positions of greater power along a number of dimensions such as gender, relative position, and institutional rank. Therefore, our first hypothesis is “ Perpetrators are hierarchically superior to targets.”

As discussed above, it is highly probable that power differentials are exacerbated in prestigious institutions due to the high demand for positions in the labs of highly successful scientists [ 28 ]. In short, it is easier to “get away with” abusive behavior when lab members believe themselves to be fortunate to even have their positions. Therefore, our second hypothesis is” Perpetrators are more likely to work in highly ranked institutions.”

Although women have historically made up a considerable proportion of the STEM and health workforce [29] , there is significant evidence that women have difficulty advancing in STEM careers [30] and are twice as likely as men to leave STEM careers [31] . This may be due, at least in part, to gender inequities at higher academic ranks ( e.g. , full professor and chair positions), greater likelihood of bullying by the male majority and even discrepancies in award money and/or prestige [ 32 , 33 ]. Thus, our third hypothesis is ” Perpetrators of bullying are disproportionately male.”

Who are the targets? Corresponding to our hypotheses that perpetrators are more powerful, we argue that targets of academic bullying are less powerful. There is substantial anecdotal [ 23 , 34 ] and empirical evidence that minorities and women are more likely targets of abusive supervision in general. Our fourth hypothesis is ” Targets of bullying are disproportionately female.”

In addition, the research on abusive supervision and bullying in academia suggests that individuals who are dissimilar to the abuser are more likely to be targeted [ 9 , 19 , 35 ]. Linguistic and cultural barriers, together with visa issues and less family support make international scholars more vulnerable to bullying. Thus, our fifth hypothesis is “ Targets of bullying are disproportionally international scholars.”

What are the consequences of bullying? Here we develop three hypotheses: The first concerns the most likely actions taken by targets (and witnesses) after a bullying incident. The second proposes a rationale for these actions, and the third explains the most likely results of targets’ allegations of bullying.

Most adults must maintain functional relationships with various disagreeable individuals, who may be relatives, roommates, colleagues, or bosses. Bullying ( a.k.a. abusive supervision) creates an unwanted relationship, and targets are left to determine how they will deal with inevitable interactions with the perpetrator.

The natural human reaction to a perceived threat or attack is either a “fight or flight” response [36] . In challenging relationships, fighting typically means taking a direct approach such as discussing relationship problems, communicating expectations and boundaries or questioning relational injustices [9] , either directly with the perpetrator or the institution. Flight responses are typically attempts to escape from noxious stimuli before they occur [37] . In the case of bullying, this might take the form of avoiding the threat ( i.e., bully) through interpersonal distancing [ 38 ].

In an organizational study [39] , individuals who perceived their supervisors as abusive were significantly more likely to engage in avoidant behaviors than direct confrontation, even though the latter made them feel better ( i.e., less anxious). Accordingly, our sixth hypothesis is that “ Targets and witnesses will more likely use “flight” than “fight” tactics in response to bullying.”

To further explain the likelihood of this response, Von Elm et al. [39] suggest that while directly confronting the perpetrator might be more efficacious, it is unlikely for several reasons. First, targets may be concerned about the personal costs associated with speaking out. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is significant fear that the perpetrator will make the target's life even harder [6] . Our seventh hypothesis is “ Fear of retaliation is the primary reason for avoidance tactics.”

Finally, through anecdotes collected from targets and witnesses, as well as documented accounts of high-profile bullying cases, we suspect that when targets do decide to report bullying, institutions rarely offer fair and unbiased responses. Thus, our eighth hypothesis is “ Targets and witnesses perceive that institutional responses to reports of bullying by targets are inadequate.”

What is the impact of COVID-19 on bullying? Since some of our data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, we had the opportunity to include survey questions to assess whether bullying had increased or decreased during the pandemic. Of our 2006 participants, 206 provided responses to the COVID question. In order to obtain more data regarding possible changes in patterns of academic bullying, we conducted a separate survey and received 191 responses (see the Methods section for full survey details). Our ninth hypothesis is The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated abusive behavior and changed its frequency and patterns.”

2.1. Survey

Full information about the IRB approval and consent and declaration of informed consent to use the data from the participants is provided in the survey details in the Appendix file. Briefly, we provided the information about the study, IRB approval, and the use of anonymous data on the first page of the survey. Participants that agreed to proceed, indicated that they were at least 18 years old and that they agreed to participate in the research project. The outcomes of our study were reported according to the Strengthening Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines [40] .

2.2. Main study

Data were collected from 2006 individuals whose participation was solicited through various means including advertisements in Science and Nature magazines (through an advertorial piece [41] and third-party emails) and the American Chemical Society (through their online panel advertisement and third-party emails). Participants were 65% female, 66.5% white (11.8% Asian, 6% Hispanic, 7% Middle eastern, 2.8% mixed race, 1.8% East Indian, and 1.3% Black), and 60% were residents of the country in which they studied or worked when experiencing/witnessing bullying. The participants were primarily postdocs (22.8%) and graduate students (21.6%) with 17% junior faculty, 13% senior faculty, and 21% “other” (indicating that staff members or other professionals were respondents).

The majority of participants came from the fields of life science (19%), social sciences (13.8%), chemistry (8.8%), engineering (8.7%), neuroscience (7.4%), molecular biology (7.6%) and physical science (5.4%). Other fields were represented including biotech/pharma, clinical science, genetics, cancer research, immunology, earth science and math/computational sciences (all ranging from 1.9% to 3.4%).

Forty-eight percent of the bullying reported took place in the U.S. The most represented states were Massachusetts (12.8%), California (12.1%), New York (9.1%), Texas (6.8%), and North Carolina (5.7%).

2.3. Measures

After giving their informed consent to participate, respondents were given a prompt that provided a definition of academic bullying: Academic bullying is defined as sustained hostile behavior from one's academic superior including, but not limited to, ridiculing, threatening, blaming, invasion of privacy, put-downs in front of others as well as interference with matriculation and career progress including removing funding, writing falsely negative recommendation letters, taking credit for others' work and threatening to cancel visas or fellowships.  They were then asked to indicate if they had ever been the target of such behavior. Those who responded “no” were directed to the portion of the survey related to witnesses of bullying. Those who answered “yes” were directed toward questions about the perpetrator such as his/her role ( e.g. , PI), sex, and age as well as characteristics of the institution in which the bullying took place ( e.g. , rank). After responding to these questions, they proceeded to the section asking them about specific bullying behaviors.

We used the 15-item abusive supervision scale developed by Tepper [7] to assess generic bullying behaviors. Sample items were “my supervisor ridicules me” and “my supervisor puts me down in front of others." Participants who indicated that they perceived they had been bullied responded to these items using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“I cannot remember him/her ever using this behavior with me”) to 5 (“He/she uses this behavior very often with me.”) Items were adjusted slightly for participants who had witnessed bullying ( e.g. , “the perpetrator ridicules others”). The reliabilities for the Tepper scale were more than adequate: alpha of 0.87 for targets and 0.91 for witnesses.

In addition to the Tepper scale, we developed a contextual behavior checklist comprising items developed through the analysis of publicized stories and narratives of victims collected over time by the authors. We call this the Abusive Supervision in STEM Checklist (AbSuSTEM Checklist). The scale consists of 10 items (See Table 2 ) . We believe that it is more interesting to examine the specific behaviors on the checklist than to provide a global “score.” This will inform training for science leaders and enable institutions to develop specific policies.

Contextual scale items and means for targets* The perpetrator ….

* N  = 1128 (note that not all who indicated they had experienced bullying completed the entire survey).

After responding to questions about specific types of bullying, participants were then asked about their position at the time they were bullied, their response to bullying, the rationale for their responses, and the outcome of their actions. They were also given the opportunity to provide additional details in an open-ended format.

All participants were asked if they had ever witnessed academic bullying with someone else as the target. A similar series of questions was asked of witnesses.

Finally, all participants were asked a series of demographic questions such as their sex, ethnicity, current role, area of research, whether or not they were citizens of the country in which they studied or worked, and the country in which the bullying took place.

2.4. Complementary study on COVID-19 pandemic

This complementary survey was performed to obtain more data on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on academic bullying. Data were collected from 191 individuals whose participation was solicited through various means including advertisements in Science magazine (through third-party emails) and the American Chemical Society (through their online panel advertisement and third-party emails). Participants were 17% junior faculty, 17% postdocs, 17% doctoral students, 2% undergraduate students, 2% visiting scholars, and 45% “Other” (indicating that staff members or other professionals were respondents on this survey). A majority of participants came from the fields of Biology (31.4%) and Chemistry (25.5%). Other fields were below 7.4%. Among our participants, 88% work or study in universities/colleges, and the majority were in their thirties (33.3%) or forties (23.2%). Fifty-three percent were U.S. citizens while 46% were not. Forty-nine percent work in US Universities; 49% did not.

2.5. Measures

Similar to our main study, after giving their informed consent to participate, respondents were given a definition of academic bullying. We then asked for information about the participants’ age, gender, position, and US citizenship status. They were then asked to indicate if they had ever been the target and/or witness of academic bullying. Those who answered “yes” were directed toward questions about differences in bullying behaviors before and after the pandemic.

2.6. Statistical analysis

To analyze the data, we used a variety of statistical techniques. When testing for significant statistical differences, we used either Chi-square or ANOVA. Chi-square analysis is appropriate when a variable is categorical ( e.g. , male vs. female). ANOVA is appropriate when comparing differences among the means of two or more groups ( e.g. , do male or female perpetrators score higher on the Tepper scale for abusive supervision?).

2.7. Ethic statement

The study has been reviewed and approved by IRB committees at Wake Forest University (IRB00023594) and Michigan State University [STUDY00003215 (for the main study) and STUDY00005250 for the complementary COVID-19 study)]. The consent forms were obtained from participants prior to filling out the survey questions. In the consent form, we provided full information about the study (including IRB information, the use of Qualtrics as the administrator of the survey, and approximate time needed to complete the survey). We indicated that the participation in this research was completely voluntary and the participants could discontinue their participation at any time without penalty by simply closing their browser window. The participants were informed that they had the choice not to answer any question(s) they did not wish to answer for any reason. We also informed the participants that while there would no particular benefits accrue to them, as a result of participating in this study, we believe that there would much to be gained in the field of academic science by understanding the extent to which bullying takes place in institutions of higher learning and science. We also informed the participant that they can address their questions or concerns about this study or the process of data collection, by contacting the co-principal investigators of this study ( i.e. , the authors of this research) and/or institutional review boards. Full information on the consent and declaration of informed consent to use the data from the participants is available in the Appendix file.

2.8. Role of the funding source

There was no funding associated with this study. All authors had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

Before presenting the results of our hypothesis testing, we call the reader's attention to Fig. 1 , which shows that of the total sample ( n  = 2006), 84% reported being the target of academic bullying, 59% reported being witnesses to bullying, and 49% reported being both targets of and witnesses to bullying. These results were based on the single item which provided a definition of academic bullying and asked participants if they'd been targeted or had witnessed bullying. While we directed our survey toward all individuals in academic science, it is very likely that targets and witnesses had more motivation to participate in the study than those with no experience with bullying. Despite this likely bias, we still find these percentages extraordinary, especially in comparison to other estimates of abusive supervision in non-academic organizational contexts, which hover around 10–14% [42] ; or in academic contexts, typically 25–33% [6] but may be as high as 42% [16] . However, all remaining results should be interpreted under the assumption that our survey is very likely skewed, in that targets and witnesses were more likely to respond than those with no experience with academic bullying.

Information on participants, targets, and witnesses. (A) the total number of survey participants as well as the numbers of individuals who were targets, witnesses, and both targets and witnesses of academic bullying and (B) targets’ and witnesses’ reports of victim positions.

To address our research question, “Which bullying behaviors occur most frequently?” We administered the Tepper scale as well as the checklist of context-specific academic bullying behaviors developed for the current study. Using the Tepper scale for abusive supervision, the mean level of abusive supervision reported by targets was 3.23 on a scale of 1 (“I cannot remember him/her ever using this behavior with me”) to 5 (“He/she uses this behavior very often with me”). In most studies of abusive supervision, means are in the 1–1.5 range, but these studies include individuals who were not targeted. Note that in our survey, once participants indicated that they were neither targets of or nor witnesses to abuse, they were routed to the demographics section at the end of the survey. The top five abusive behaviors (see the full outcomes in Table 1 ) were (i) “makes negative comments about me to others (3.73); (ii) “does not give me credit for jobs requiring a lot of effort” (3.69); (iii) “breaks promises he/she makes,” (3.5); (iv) “lies to me,” (3.46); and (v) “puts me down in front of others” (3.43). Means range from 2.59 (“does not allow me to interact with my coworkers”) to 3.73.

The data we collected also provide support for the use of the checklist we developed to more precisely address bullying behaviors prevalent in the context of academic science. The top behaviors (see the full outcomes in Table 2 ) reported by targets were: “Encouraged others to mistreat me” (53.1%), “Canceled or threatened to cancel my current appointment/position” (52.1%), “Gave me a bad/unfair recommendation” (48.0%), “Took away my funding or threatened to take away my funding” (43.1%), and “Violated authorship contribution guidelines” (41.0%).

Hypothesis 1 suggested that perpetrators would be hierarchically superior to targets. Both targets and witnesses were most likely to report PIs as perpetrators (56.2% and 50.2%, respectively). The “other” category was chosen as the second most selected category for targets (23.2%) and “professor” was the second most selected category for witnesses (27.3%). We, however, acknowledge the possible role of discrepancy in the survey questions for targets and witnesses on this outcome. Open-ended responses from targets indicated that department chairs were perpetrators 15% of the time, senior faculty 12% of the time with deans, assistant deans, Ph.D advisors, and senior lab colleagues/peers between 6 and 8% of the time. It was not unusual for a target to report multiple perpetrators. We believe that the “other” category was chosen often due to differences in the nomenclature used to describe stakeholders in different fields and different countries.

At the same time, our results reveal that a majority of the targets of bullying were primarily graduate students (41%), post-docs (28%), with some visiting scholars (6%), undergraduate students (3%) and other (22%). Witnesses reported that 47% of targets were graduate students and 26% post-docs. Again, “other” was a category selected more than we expected, indicating that bullying extends beyond the PI-student relationship and may include other targets such as administrative assistants, junior colleagues, or possibly individuals in hierarchically superior positions. Overall, it appears that the majority of perpetrators ( e.g. , PIs) were hierarchically superior to the majority of targets ( e.g. , graduate students and Post Docs).

Hypothesis 2 suggests that bullying is more likely in higher-ranked institutions. Fig. 2 shows the percentage of bullying according to the rank of their institutions. We provided a link (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2019/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats) in the survey which allowed participants to look up their institution's rank. Our data suggest that the largest percentage of abuse was reported in the highest ranked institutions. These data support the possibility that the highest percentages of abuse are reported from higher-ranked institutions.

High-ranked universities are more prone to academic bullying behavior. Pie chart showing the percentage of institutional ranking where the bullying incidents took place according to the targets ( n  = 1151) and witnesses ( n  = 1010) reports.

Hypothesis 3 states that perpetrators are more likely to be male. We asked both targets and witnesses to indicate the gender of the perpetrator. Targets reported that males were the perpetrators 63% of the time, while witnesses reported male perpetrators 64% of the time. When we broke down the data set to include only self-reported targets and witnesses with STEM-related research areas ( n  = 718), both targets and witnesses reported that perpetrators were male 67% of the time. When we broke down our sample even further to include only targets in the US in STEM fields ( n  = 330), the percentage of male perpetrators was 63%. However, these statistics are difficult to interpret without context. A study conducted by the National Science Foundation (NSF, 2019 [43] ) reports the percentage of females with doctoral degrees in several areas. Since 1997, the percentage of female PhDs in the physical sciences ranged from 13 to 19% and the percentage of women with PhDs in engineering ranged from 12 to 24%. Of the science and engineering doctoral degrees awarded in 2016, 41% were earned by women. From these statistics, we can conclude that women comprise a minority of STEM professionals with terminal degrees (in the US), suggesting that the proportion of male perpetrators of academic bullying ( i.e. , 63–67%) reported by our respondents is roughly consistent with the proportion of men in these fields.

Before concluding that males are no more likely than females to be perpetrators of academic bullying, we ran two additional analyses. Going back to the full data set, we found that targets gave female perpetrators significantly higher scores on the 15-item Tepper scale (mean = 3.32) than male perpetrators (mean = 3.20) ( F  = 4.473, p  < 035). This indicates that female perpetrators engage in a significantly higher frequency of abusive behaviors than male perpetrators, according to our participants. Another possibility may relate to the interaction of perpetrator and target sex, as studies have revealed that females will experience more indirect bullying from female supervisors and males will experience more direct bullying from male supervisors [44] . While not formally hypothesized, we conducted a 2 (perpetrator sex) x 2 (target sex) ANOVA to determine if there were any interactions between the sex of the perpetrator and of the targets on reports of abusive supervision. The effects were not significant ( F  = 0.038, p  = 846).

We also ran a series of Chi-square analyses to determine if there were differences in the reporting of specific contextual behaviors from male and female perpetrators. While overall, there were no significant differences, we did find that targets reported that male perpetrators were trending in the direction of unnecessarily lengthening the target's stay (calendar time) in the lab (39 vs. 31%; χ 2   = 2.786, p  < 095) compared to female perpetrators. Based on all of these results, we conclude that males are no more likely to be perpetrators of bullying than females, but female perpetrators receive higher scores on the abusive supervision scale. Hypothesis 3 is not supported.

Hypothesis 4 predicted that targets of academic bullying are disproportionally women. Table 3 provides an overview of our results. As mentioned above, the majority (65%) of our participants were female, and 84% of participants reported being targets of academic bullying. To determine whether females were more likely than males to report being targets of academic bullying, we conducted a Chi-square analysis to compare the male/female proportion of the full sample ( n  = 2206) to those who reported being targets of abuse. Females were significantly more likely (87%) than males (78%) to report being targets of academic bullying (χ 2  = 13.225, p  < 004) based on the simple question, “Have you experienced academic bullying?”

Results of Analysis of Differences Between Male and Female Targets of Bullying

Next, we conducted subgroup analyses. We looked first at the Global STEM subgroup (removing social scientists and those not reporting sex, n  = 837) and found that females in STEM (86%) were significantly more likely to report being targets of academic bullying than males (79%) (χ 2  = 7.758, p  < 0.005).

Finally, we analyzed the U.S. STEM-only subgroup ( n  = 428) and found that 86% of the males and 90% of females reported being bullied. However, this difference did not reach statistical significance (χ 2  = 0.837, p  = 0.344).

To further examine the relationship between bullying and target sex, we compared the mean level of abusive supervision on the Tepper scale and percentages of contextual bullying behaviors against male and female targets. Using the full data set ( n  = 2206), we found no differences between male and female targets’ reporting of abusive supervision on the Tepper scale ( F  = 0.152, p  < 0.929). Using the STEM-only data set ( n  = 644), we found no significant differences on the Tepper abusive supervision scale between male and female targets ( F  = 0.117, p  < 0.732) nor did we find significant differences on the Tepper scale between males and females ( F  = 0.652, p  < 0.43) for the US-STEM only subgroup.

Next, we examined differences between male and female targets’ reporting on contextual bullying behaviors. When we examined the full data set, we found several significant differences. Male targets were more likely than female targets to report threats to their visas (12% vs. 7.6%; χ 2  = 4.477, p  < 0.034), threats to their funding (48% vs. 41%; χ 2  = 3.987, p  < 0.046), and authorship violations (46% vs. 38%; χ 2  = 4.151, p  < 0.042). When examining the Global STEM-only data set ( n  = 837), we found that males were more likely than females to report threats to their visas (13% vs. 8%) (χ 2  = 4.06, p  < 0.044), threats to their funding (49.5% vs. 41%) (χ 2  = 4.206, p  < 04), and were trending toward being more likely to experience authorship violations (48% vs. 40%) (χ 2  = 3.654 p  < 0.056).

When we examined the US STEM-only subgroup, we found that males were more likely than females to report having their funding threatened (53% vs. 41%; χ 2  = 4.206, p  < 0.040), and to have to sign away their rights (21% vs. 11%, χ 2  = 5.959, p  < 015). Our results also indicate that males were trending toward beingmore likely than females to report the threat of visa cancelation (19% vs. 11%) (χ 2  = 3.179, p  < 0.075) and to have their authorship rights violated (48% vs. 37%, χ 2  = 3.732, p  < 0.053).

This pattern of results suggests that women perhaps have a lower threshold for what they consider bullying and are therefore more likely to perceive/report being bullied ( e.g., via a simple question such as “have you been bullied”?) while males were more likely to report experiencing a higher level of certain contextual bullying behaviors. There is significant consistency within measures of academic bullying across the different samples/sub-groups. Our data suggest mixed, and surprising results for Hypothesis 4.

Hypothesis 5 states that victims of academic bullying are disproportionately international. We asked participants in what country the bullying took place. Sixty countries were represented in the sample, with the largest percentages coming from the U.S. (47.9%), followed by the U.K. (11.2%), Germany (5.3%), and Canada (4.3%). To focus our analyses, we conducted a sub-group analysis using only the portion of the data from the U.S., including only targets of bullying with STEM research areas ( n  = 371) and found that 42.4% of the self-reported targets of bullying were not residents of the U.S. The majority of this group comprised graduate students (22.4%), post-docs (24.4%), junior faculty (16%), and “other” (24.2%). The more frequently reported research areas were life science (24.8%), engineering (13.6%), chemistry (12.7%), and neuroscience (9.7%). We then compared our data with publicly available data on the percentage of graduate students and post-docs in the U.S. in these areas. An Inside Higher-Ed study reports that the number of international students in various engineering fields ranges from 57 to 81%. [45] The percentage of international students in chemistry was reported to be 42.3% in 2008 by the American Chemical Society [46] . Another report demonstrates that 49% of STEM-educated scientists in the U.S. are foreign-born (National Science Board, 2020 [47] ). This latter report suggests that the number of individuals studying in STEM programs in the U.S. has grown substantially between 2001 and 2017, with 46.2% of temporary visa holders entering graduate education in engineering, natural sciences, and social/behavioral sciences. Comparing these figures (range 42.3–81%) to the percentage of non-citizens reporting being bullied in our US STEM sample (41.1%), it appears that Hypothesis 5 is not supported. International students, post-docs, and early-career scholars are not any more likely than domestic students to report being targets of bullying, at least not in the U.S.

However, the previous finding pertains only to the question, “Have you been a target of academic bullying?” We conducted some post-hoc analyses on this same sub-group (US STEM) to determine whether international scholars reported higher frequencies of abusive behaviors than domestic scholar participants. We first examined their scores on the Tepper scale and found that there was no significant difference ( F  = 0.686, p  = 0.408) between domestic and international scholars. However, when we examined differences on the contextual items, a higher percentage of international scholars naturally reported more threats of visa cancelation (32% vs. ∼0%; χ 2  = 65.28, p  < 0.0001), violations of intellectual property rights (30% vs. 20%; χ 2  = 4.163, p  < 0.041), and threats of position cancelation (60% vs. 46%; χ 2  = 6.189, p  < 0.013) than domestic scholars. The data also trends toward international scholars being more likely to have their data used without acknowledgement (43% vs. 32%; χ 2  = 3.718, p  < 0.054). Thus, we can conclude that while international scholars may not be disproportionately targeted, when they are targeted, the severity of certain contextual abuses is higher. Our findings provide substantial support for Hypothesis 5.

Hypothesis 6 suggested that targets of bullying and witnesses would be more likely to use “flight” vs. “fight” tactics in response to bullying. Over 64% of targets reported “flight” responses ( i.e. , 27% did not report the bullying and 37% sought emotional support). Only 29% reported abuse to their institutions. Witnesses reported that “flight” responses were chosen by targets 78% of the time ( i.e., 46% didn't report and 32% sought support from friends/colleagues). Only 16.5% of witnesses said that the targets reported the bullying to their institutions. Further, witnesses also chose non-confrontational responses 85.0% of the time, including not reporting (25.3%) but offering support to the victim (59.5%). Only 11% of witnesses reported the bullying to their institutions. These data support the idea that targets and witnesses are more likely to use “flight” tactics as a response to bullying.

Hypothesis 7 suggested that fear of retaliation would be the primary reason for use of avoidant, non-confrontational tactics. Indeed, both targets and witnesses reported fear of retaliation as the primary reason for failure to report (61% and 62.4%, respectively). While there is support for Hypothesis 7, a significant proportion of targets chose the “other” category as their reason for not reporting. Qualitative analyses of open-ended responses ( n  = 723; Appendix 1 of the Supplementary Information) indicated that participants were eager to share additional details of their experiences with bullying. We coded the responses of the 723 responding to the open-ended item, 122 of which mentioned their reason for not reporting the bullying. Some reported more than one reason for not “fighting” but overwhelmingly, 87% elaborated on the “fear of retaliation” theme. Smaller proportions mentioned fear of losing visa or that they were unaware of resources available to them. Table 4 provides sample responses.

Samples of qualitative comments in open-ended survey question (rationale).

Hypothesis 8 proposed that institutional responses to targets’ reports of bullying would be inadequate. Targets reported that outcomes were “unfair and biased” 58% of the time, and “fair and unbiased” only 8% of the time. A significant percentage (34%) of the targets selected “other” as the outcome, so we conducted a qualitative analysis of their open-ended responses ( n  = 723; Appendix 1 of the Supplementary Information) and found, again, that participants were not reluctant to share details of their experiences. Of the 723 who responded to the open-ended questions asking for details of their experience as a target of bullying, 388 mentioned the outcomes. When analyzing the narratives they provided, we found that 41% reported that nothing happened following their report; 34% elaborated on the retaliation theme; 25% left the lab, institution or field; 16% reported that the bully was protected; and only 13% reported being supported by the institution. Table 5 provides sample responses below.

Samples of qualitative responses to open-ended survey question (outcomes)

Further, witnesses reported 54% of the time that the outcomes of reporting were unfair and biased while only 7% reported fair and unbiased results ( n  = 723; Appendix 1 of the Supplementary Information). There is substantial evidence to support Hypothesis 8.

Finally, we wanted to know if the COVID-19 pandemic has had any impact on the experience of academic bullying. Most of the data for the main study were collected before the pandemic, but in September 2020, we added an additional item to the end of the survey, asking those who had either experienced or witnessed bullying, if and how COVID-19 had affected bullying behaviors (exacerbated, no effect or reduced). According to the outcomes of the main study, where 206 participants responded to the COVID question, 45.6% said bullying was exacerbated by COVID-19, 40.3% said COVID-19 had no effect on bullying, and 13.1% said COVID-19 reduced bullying.

To obtain more clarity on the impact of the pandemic on bullying behavior, we conducted a separate, complementary survey (see the Methods section for details). A total of 191 participants provided responses. In this survey, we asked two main questions regarding the frequency and pattern of academic bullying: (1) Had participants either witnessed or experienced bullying before the pandemic and during the pandemic; and (2) If witnessed/experienced, were the bullying behaviors exacerbated, reduced or the same. Table 6 indicates that the frequency of bullying had decreased during the pandemic. However, 39% of participants reported that the severity of the bullying had gotten worse (49% reported no change and 12% reported reduced severity). We suspect that the reduced frequency is likely due to social distancing measures instituted in labs and other workplaces. We suspect that increased severity is the product of greater pressure experienced by all affected by the pandemic. Thus, we conclude that bullying was less frequent during the pandemic but with a higher level of severity.

Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of bullying behavior.

n  = 191.

4. Discussion

While bullying in academia has been acknowledged, there have been relatively few empirical investigations of the phenomenon. In this study, we attempted to elucidate the forms of abuse, the most likely perpetrators and targets, as well as the typical reactions of targets and witnesses. Finally, we investigated the results of targets’ actions following chronic bullying. We received responses from all over the globe, likely due to growing concern regarding this issue in the science world and several high-profile cases at prestigious institutions [ 23 , 34 , 48 , 49 ]

Since we defined academic bullying as “sustained hostile behavior from one's academic superior” we were not surprised that a majority of perpetrators were PIs and others who were hierarchically superior to the typical targets, who were mostly graduate students and postdocs. These results underscore the importance of power differentials as important antecedents of academic bullying, suggesting that PIs and other organizational leaders may need training on supportive leadership behaviors before being granted their own labs or leadership positions.

We found that while males make up a majority of perpetrators, they do not disproportionally bully their subordinates. They are simply the majority in positions of power in most STEM fields and are proportionately represented among perpetrators. However, high-profile cases such as that of Nazneen Rahman [50] reveal that the face of academic bullying has no gender. In fact, our data show that the targets of female perpetrators reported higher levels of abusive supervision behaviors on the Tepper scale than did targets of male perpetrators.

Females make up a majority of those reporting that they have been bullied, in the full data set and in the Global STEM subgroup. However, the specifics of our analysis shed additional light on nuances in the relationship between perceived bullying and target gender. When asked if they had been targets of bullying, females were more likely to say yes. However, when reporting on the experience of specific behaviors in the Tepper scale, there were no significant differences between the male and female targets. When we examined the differences in the contextual behavior checklist, there were a number of significant differences, with male targets reporting worse treatment. Further, detailed research regarding the role of gender in all aspects of academic bullying in the STEM fields is required before substantive conclusions are possible.

“Otherness” and increased vulnerability due to visa issues, particularly for foreign graduate students and postdocs (the most frequent targets), increases the severity of contextual bullying and their patterns in the US. As more international students enter STEM fields, this may increase both the severity of bullying overall and the probability that these behaviors will trickle down to future scientists. With the percentages of international graduate students and postdocs in the US increasing, the increased severity of bullying towards international scholars underscores the urgent need for interventions from institutions, funding agencies, and individual scientists to address these behaviors from all angles [ 15 , [51] , [52] , [53] ].

This urgent need is even more evident when we consider that more bullying seems to take place in the most prestigious institutions. Thousands of graduate students and postdocs apply for positions working with famous scientists in the world's most highly regarded academic institutions. This creates a powerful breeding ground for bullying, because perpetrators have even more leverage as targeted students justify suffering abuse in exchange for prestige. If they choose to leave, they can be easily replaced by eager applicants from all over the world. While the power inequalities between PIs and graduate students/postdocs in any institution are already obvious, especially in STEM, it is exponentially greater in the highest-ranked institutions, leaving these institutions even more exposed. We are encouraged by the work under way in several institutions, including Duke University [54] , the University of Wisconsin Madison [ 55 ], and the University of California (through establishment of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement) [ 56 ] to shed light on this important issue, not only increasing awareness but actually cultivating policies and practices designed to curb bullying.

Despite these bright spots, the results of our study indicate that much work remains to be done. When targets and witnesses choose not to report bullying because they fear retaliation or when they do, find that the results of speaking out are unfair and biased, as our data clearly suggests, the field has not evolved far enough. Much more needs to be done to develop policies and procedures, akin to those pertaining to sexual harassment, to protect the rights of junior/new, budding scientists, or their fields may be robbed of the scientific findings that hugely affects scientific integrity and breakthrough progress.

Last but not least, our results suggest that the current COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant effect on the frequency and pattern of academic bullying. While the frequency of bullying reported by targets and witnesses has decreased, likely due to social distancing, the severity has increased, likely due to increased pressures on everyone due to the pandemic. Institutions must be sure to focus their attention on this matter during this difficult time.

Finally, we acknowledge the main limitation of our study, which is the fact that we limited our focus on bullying to those in hierarchically higher positions, as our definition directed participants toward “academic superiors.” Thus, there is still a need to focus empirical attention on varying types of bullying from colleagues or others in the academic workplace, including mobbing [16] . We also acknowledge the probability that those who had either witnessed or experienced bullying were more likely to complete the survey than those who hadn't, creating a sampling bias. We also acknowledge that a large percentage of our data comes from the United States. Finally, we note that the design of our survey may have caused us to miss out on some interesting results. When participants initially indicated that they had not experienced or witnessed academic bullying, they were routed to other parts of the survey and did not respond to the Tepper abusive supervision scale nor the contextual checklist or the institutional ranking item. Perhaps some of these participants would have indicated that they had indeed experienced or witnessed some of abusive behaviors our survey addressed. Further, this design issue may have skewed our results regarding institutional ranking as we do not know how many respondents who were not targets of bullying came from top, middle or bottom-ranked institutions. Despite these potential biases to the generalizability of our results, we have attempted to illuminate, in greater detail, the types of behaviors most likely experienced by targets of bullying, as well as their typical responses and resulting outcomes.

In summary, our empirical investigation of academic bullying has illuminated some of the less-familiar patterns and nuances of bullying behaviors in academic science. We hope that our results will serve to rally all stakeholders, especially those in a position to make a difference in creating a safe and positive environment for scientists and budding scientists around the world.

Declaration of Competing Interest

Morteza Mahmoudi discloses that he is a co-founder and director of the Academic Parity Movement (www.paritymovement.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing academic discrimination, violence, and incivility. Sherry Moss discloses that she is a director of the Academic Parity Movement.

Data sharing statement

All relevant data are available from the authors.

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Tress Academic

#136: 7 symptoms of problematic supervisors

February 21, 2023 by Tress Academic

Do you have a good relationship with your supervisor? Are they supporting you with your PhD project and all the nitty-gritty issues that arise? Good for you, but this is not everyone’s situation. While the majority of PhD candidates are well-supported, there are some who are not and who might even suffer from the conduct or behaviour of their supervisors. In this blogpost, we describe recurring signals of problematic supervisors in the hope that it might help you spot warning signals early on and choose supervisors who give good support instead. 

Most of my work at TRESS ACADEMIC is dedicated to helping academics master the complementary skills they need to succeed in academia. As such, I give advice to PhD candidates and postdocs on how to improve their current situation, complete their PhDs successfully and thrive in their careers afterwards. I do not usually dwell on negatives or bring attention to wrong habits or patterns of behaviour. 

With today’s blogpost though, I feel I have to make an exception and shine a light on the typical signs of insufficient performance or the poor conduct of supervisors. Should your main supervisor or one of your co-supervisors display any of the symptoms described below, please take it as a warning signal. None of these are patterns of behaviour that good PhD supervisors would ever exhibit. In contrast, they are often an alarm that your supervisor might not give you sufficient support throughout your PhD. All of the seven issues below I have witnessed over the past years and heard personally from PhD candidates who spoke to me about their problems. 

This blogpost is dedicated to three PhD candidates in my last round of the PhD Success Lab who endure a high level of personal suffering due to the lack of support, inadequate behaviour or misconduct of their supervisors. Two of them considered giving up, mainly due to the difficulties with their supervision. 

Satisfaction with supervision

Since 2008 I’ve taught PhD candidates how to successfully complete their PhD, and I’ve always discussed the challenges they experience at their scientific institutes. Their personal situation with their supervision is always included. When asked about their satisfaction with their supervisors, in a group of 20 PhD candidates I often have 2-3 who are excited about their supervisors and happy with their guidance and support. The majority is satisfied with their supervisors, while pointing out  one or two issues that could be better. In the same group, I usually have 1-2 who fall silent because they realise–often while listening to the positive reports from their colleagues–that they receive far from wonderful support and positive experiences. It dawns on them that their supervisors are not fulfilling the main duties of a good supervisor ( Smart Academics blog post no. #10: Good PhD-supervision: What you can expect )

My experiences are broadly in line with results reported by PhD candidates in the Nacaps study (Nacaps 2023) , where 55% of PhD candidates are happy with their supervision, and 16% of PhD candidates are not satisfied (Nacaps 2023) . The Helmholtz Juniors (2019) Survey Report came up with 25.3% of PhD candidates who are in the categories ‘rather unsatisfied’ to ‘very unsatisfied’ with their supervision. Though the percentage of PhD candidates who are very dissatisfied with their supervision may seem small, we should not forget that behind each single count in this category is a person who is suffering and potentially not able to complete their PhD.  

Let’s have a look at the 7 symptoms of a problematic PhD supervisor: 

1. Continually ignoring requests for meetings or exchange

This is probably the most common of the seven listed issues. In this case, a supervisor is difficult to get hold of and speak to. This often goes for all means of communication. They are not easily accessible for spontaneous questions (‘sorry, no time!’) and repeatedly ignore requests to meet and discuss the PhD project over longer time periods. They might eventually get around to answering an e-mail or looking at a paper-draft, but often with a long delay. This makes for a distant relationship, where real exchange or support is not happening.

The PhD candidate often experiences this as a personal rejection and is hurt by a supervisor who’s not showing interest in their project. Communication is severely hampered and there’s a loss of trust often paired with anxiety on the side of the PhD candidate. 

2. Contradicting or shifting advice

In this case, the supervisor often gives vague instructions to the PhD candidate only to come up with different ideas at random points later on. There is no follow up or documentation about the instructions and hence also no appreciation when PhD candidates want to report on a completed task or show results. When the PhD candidate wants to show what they have achieved, they are often met with surprise or get random new instructions. There is a lack of goals or a clear path that leads towards meritable achievements that give the PhD candidate the confidence that they can complete their PhD.

This type of behaviour leads to irritation, frustration and demotivation on the side of the PhD student. They desperately try to ‘get it right’ for the supervisor, but never will. 

3. Temper tantrums

This includes supervisors who shout at PhD candidates or have fits of rage. The reasons why the temper tantrum occurs is often unclear, so the PhD candidate is left feeling guilty and searching for a reason as to what in their  behaviour may have caused such frenzy. The rage may be for entirely different reasons, but the PhD candidate accidently pushed a button that triggered the explosion. Once they have calmed down, the supervisors often seem to regret their behaviour, but never formally aplogise or explain their outbursts. They may suddenly appear overly friendly and caring, but this wears off soon and the next tantrum can be expected any time. 

PhD candidates often reel from the emotional fallout of being shouted at long after the incident. They get nervous and anxious, and avoid making mistakes at all costs. The emotional processing of the shouting incidents takes up a huge amount of space and time for them (e.g. they may spend hours or days just re-playing the incident and how they might have reacted differently over and over again in their minds) at the cost of good scientific work. 

4. Bullying

This ranges from subtle occasional verbal quips to full-blown unveiled assaults. The bullying supervisor uses personal performance, race, background or gender of the PhD candidate to display power and to make it unmistakably clear who is higher up in the hierarchy. 

A PhD candidate with a bullying supervisor may feel shame or inferiority and is coerced into more or better work, often to the benefit of the supervisor’s career. As with some of the other described traits, PhD candidates with a bullying supervisor find it difficult to speak up about incidents. Over time, PhD candidates lose confidence and self esteem and are in an unhealthy dependent relationship with their supervisor. 

5. Perpetual criticism

This is a supervisor who dishes out criticism about everything a PhD candidate intends to do or has been working on. No matter how much one tries or what is delivered, the supervisor is never satisfied. The perpetually criticising supervisor may hold themselves to high standards, be a perfectionist, and can be a very successful scientist. With their permanent negativity however, they let a PhD candidate know that they’ll never be anywhere near. The criticism may feel unjustified and usually comes without constructive suggestions as to what to improve or change. 

The ongoing reception of negative feedback erodes the self-esteem of a PhD candidate, who feels insecure and intimidated. 

6. Track-record of failed PhDs 

Highly successful and supportive supervisors often have an impressive track record of PhD candidates who finished within the standard funding period or with reasonable overtime and went on to have successful careers themselves in academia and beyond. In contrast, a line-up of former PhD candidates who have dropped-out or took an overly long time to complete their dissertation is a clear warning sign. If someone in a work group or lab tells you that ‘it’s common here to take 8 years or more and no-one completes without trouble’ and among them they know a host of people who left before handing in a dissertation–that is a very clear warning sign. This is a supervisor with an obvious inability to lead a supportive team and to direct PhD candidates towards successful completion. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you’ll be the exception and that this supervisor may have a different and unproblematic relationship with you. 

7. Mistaking PhD candidate and project employee

There’s an abundance of 3rd party funded projects who perfectly lend themselves to involve PhD candidates and lead them to successful completion within the umbrella of the larger project cluster. But not all supervisors manage that alignment and not all projects are suitable for PhD candidates. The problem occurs when a supervisor does not differentiate between a PhD candidate and a project employee. The supervisor’s focus is on project results and completion, not on PhD completion. PhD candidates with that type of supervisor may get so much project work allocated that they have no time to pursue their dissertation project. Or, the research project is very applied in its character and its results are very difficult to transfer into a high-quality dissertation. There are also research projects whose timeline exceeds the period of the PhD so that publishable results will not occur during the time in which the PhD candidate is normally funded. The described situations are ill-perceived from the onset and can make it virtually impossible to complete. For PhD candidates, this makes for a frustrating experience where they feel lured into exciting project work only to discover later that they have achieved little that could be put together and handed in as their dissertation. 

Conclusion:

My fingers are crossed and chances are good that you do not experience any of the above. If however, you actually have a supervisor who displays the above behaviour, or you know anyone else who has, then please do not take the situation as set or unchangeable. It isImportant that you acknowledge that there is a problem but that it is not your fault or a consequence of your own behaviour. Speak-up about the situation: It might be easiest first to talk it over with other PhD candidates or your partner, friends, and family. If you have someone in your supervisory team you trust, speak to them. Consider talking it over with experienced and supportive colleagues and if you can, flag it to representatives at your institute. Today in academia, there is a growing awareness and readiness to address supervisory problems, but your organisation or institute can only help and support you if you let them know. 

• Smart Academics blog post no #98: Should I replace my PhD supervisor?  
• Smart Academics blog post no #81: Meet your PhD supervisor online!  
• Smart Academics blog post no. #80: Do I have to include my supervisor as a co-author?  
• Smart Academics blog post no. #68: PhD Support: Pick the perfect co-supervisor
• Smart Academics blog post no. #57: Can’t get your message across to your supervisor?
• Smart Academics blog post no. #10: Good PhD-supervision: What you can expect
• free worksheet ‘How good is my PhD supervision’
• DZHW, Nacaps (2023): Promovierendenbefragung 2019-2021.
• Helmholtz Juniors (2019): Survey Report.

More information:

Do you want to successfully complete your PhD? If so, please sign up to receive our free guides.

Photograph: Drazan Zigic at Freepik.com

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Dealing with a bully of an advisor

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PhD Advisor is Inexperienced Junior Faculty, Possible Bully, Who do I Tell?

I was accepted into a PhD program 3.5 years ago. They hired a new faculty member 2 years ago and I was reassigned to this 'new' person since she didn't have any students of her own. She is interpersonally aggressive and hard to 'read.'

Over the last two years she has produced 1 publishable paper, which was rejected by the journal. I've published 2 in that same time. She was assigned 3 classes to teach by the department, and assigned me to TA for all 3, essentially leaving me in charge of all 150 students. The more work I do for her, the angrier she seems to be. The problem, however, started when she gave me inaccurate information about my requirements for graduation. She told me I had to prepare my dissertation prospectus before doing the department's 3rd core exam, which turned out to be incorrect. I wasted months writing, was then told by another faculty I had to rush my (mandatory) exam, which I failed (6 weeks ago). This is the first thing I've ever failed here.

My advisor told me all students fail the 3rd exam in order to build 'character' in them. However university rules state I am now on probation and another failure would mean I am terminated from the department. She also shared that she was a grader on my 3rd exam and had chosen to vote 'fail' rather than 'conditional pass' because "she wanted to see me do it again." There was no constructive feedback, it just seems like bullying. There was zero information on how to re-do the exam or improve. This is high-stakes.

If the department does fail all students as ritual hazing, I believe the department is doing something unethical. If that statement was false, I consider my advisor to be doing something unethical.

I would like to voice my concerns to the university. What person should I approach? Department Chair? Dean of Students? Dean of College? Office of Graduate Studies? A lawyer? I fear retaliation.

• personal-misconduct

• 6 What you describe is extremely bizarre. Why were you “assigned” to this advisor? Normally students have some choice in the matter. Have you talked with other students to compare experiences? Is there a “director of graduate studies” that you can ask about requirements and expectations? –  Thomas Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 6:19
• 3 +Thomas My department is bizarre; we only have 3 faculty after our PhD program 'split' in half (11 faculty in the other program). My former advisor retired. It is normal for us to be assigned advisors. Most of our students graduate in 4-8 years. I am currently the most junior student here because we have not been accepting new applicants. –  Quixy Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 6:29
• 4 Yes, this sounds very unpleasant, but, unfortunately, not entirely unrealistic. Which country? This will inform your procedure. In many Anglo-Saxon countries there are ombudspeople to support students, so this would be the first go-to-point there. Prepare to switch programs/unis if you at all can, the department sounds not in a good shape as described (3 faculty, split, retired advisor, graduation times, no new applicants). –  Captain Emacs Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 12:16
• 6 This does indeed sound like bullying, or at least rather odd., and the other comments offer good advice. As a word of warning, though, do not try to judge somebody's worth as an academic by how many papers they put out in a short period - opening with this, or indeed trying to show that she's bad in some other way, probably isn't going to do you any favours. Concentrate on the behavior towards you and the effects of that. –  Flyto Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 12:50
• 2 "She demands this semester I try to finish/submit two publications with her." -- This is an unreasonable, parasitic request. To me that settles it: just run. –  Scientist Commented Sep 17, 2018 at 14:25

I believe properly answering your question depends on providing more specific detail, e.g. which is the country. Institutional structure and the corporate culture can be very different between, say, Mexico and China.

I believe you have a broken relationship with your current advisor. I will not attempt to judge a reason for why she did what you describe, or whether your account is precise and complete.

This means you should primarily focus on getting away from this person while trying to find yourself another PhD advisor . Accomplishing this will do most of the "official communication" for you. The department will know there is a problem, and you both will be moving towards a healthier relationship.

So my answer to you is: the person you should talk to is whoever is responsible for shifting advisors in your institution. If you cannot change advisors for whatever reason, then it is the person responsible for smoothly terminating your contract locally so you can get better training elsewhere. The conflict itself becomes self-evident as you move to a better stand.

• 1 Thank you for the advice. Should anyone else find themselves in this situation, please know I also am taking the following steps: 1. contacted the college's staff advisor. 2. Officially resigned (signed/submitted) my student employment; 3. Notified the "advocacy outreach," an ombudsman like place to request clarification of my responsibility/rights during the exam and time-line to graduation. –  Quixy Commented Sep 17, 2018 at 5:04
• 1 @Quixotic It is very nice of you to keep others here updated of your experience. Too many colleagues value the PhD degree and duration over the actual experience and skills gained. If it is not working out nor advancing you, moving elsewhere asap is usually the best option. Good luck! –  Scientist Commented Sep 17, 2018 at 14:23

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Search Utah State University:

Recent graduate of itls master’s program named university new advisor of the year.

Utah State University’s Office of the Provost, along with the USU Advising Awards Committee, has named academic advisor Tylan Dee the university’s Outstanding New Advisor of the Year. Dee has served as an academic advisor at USU Blanding since 2022.

“Tylan has consistently proven himself to be a self-starter with an exceptional talent for problem solving,” said Priscilla Arungwa, director of students at USU Blanding. “Tylan's reliability, intelligence, and amiable nature make him an invaluable asset to our team and a significant contributor to the positive trajectories of our students' careers. His dedication, expertise, and collaborative spirit set him apart as an exceptional candidate for this honor.”

Dee is a member of the Diné (Navajo) tribe and grew up on the Navajo reservation in Monument Valley before recently settling in Blanding. His clans are: Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water clan), born for Tábąąhá (Water’s Edge clan), his maternal grandfather’s first clan is Tł'ízí lání (Many Goats clan) and his paternal grandfather’s first clan is Bit'ahnii (Within His Cover clan).

Dee began attending USU in 2012 and worked in the school’s cafeteria beginning that year. After taking a hiatus from school in 2014 due to struggling with classwork and facing academic suspension, Dee joined the staff as a full-time employee, eventually working his way up to Day Shift Manager.

Knowing it was time for a change, he returned to finish his bachelor’s degree in 2021, majoring in Integrated Studies, graduating in 2022. During this time, Dee also applied and was accepted for one of the Student Services Coordinator positions through USU Blanding working with the admissions and registrar’s office. It was here that he got into helping other students.

While working on his bachelor’s degree and remembering the struggles of leaving the reservation for the first time, Dee came to the realization that he knew what he wanted to do with his life: be an academic advisor at USU Blanding and help other students succeed who come from this similar background.

“Advising at USU Blanding has been such a fulfilling experience that has allowed me to focus on helping students experience their own empowerment, develop their work ethical mindset, and discover how their resilience can contribute to self-improvement,” Dee said. “I challenge my students to channel those aspects into succeeding in their coursework, programs, life goals, and career ambitions. Being able to see my students believing in themselves and achieving their goals is beyond rewarding. I have a huge passion for working in higher education and advocating for my students because I know how it felt to be in their shoes at one point. Also being from the Navajo reservation, I wanted to help other Native American students succeed while coming to USU Blanding, as I personally know how it is being away from the reservation for the first time.”

Working with students, Dee strives to help them create plans, guiding them into their programs of interest, and helping them achieve their educational and career goals. He strives every day to help educate others and help them find their full potential beyond their own expectations.

“Tylan has been a very supportive and resourceful academic advisor,” said Shania Paul, a student majoring in elementary education at USU Blanding. “With his motivating words and guidance, he helped me overcome my academic challenges and struggles which played a crucial role in my academic success. I’ve seen how he prioritizes and communicates with each of his students and shows genuine interest to support and help them succeed in their academic journey with Utah State University.”

Dee is praised by his supervisor for being proactive at identifying and addressing inefficiencies. He is also commended for his leadership and work with students.

Dee continued his schooling and was admitted into the Educational Technology and Learning Sciences, Master of Education program, graduating in 2024. He earned the 2024 USU ITLS Master’s Scholar of the Year award. He will continue to work for USU Blanding as he works toward a doctorate degree in Higher Education administration from the University of Utah.

When not working, Dee loves online gaming, anime, drag racing, working on vehicles, and powerlifting.