Just seeing a happy face could activate the happiness concept, causing us to perceive future stimuli as more happy

effects are usually described as simple subconscious mimicry, they probably can’t describe why rudeness can make us more rude. So how does it happen?

To tackle this question, we explored whether a process occurring in a subconscious part of the brain was responsible. When we experience social stimuli (like a conversation with a co-worker), they can activate concepts deep in the subconscious part of our brains.

A concept could be anything. We have a concept for anger, happiness, sadness, power and, of course, rudeness. The activation of concepts is automatic – meaning when it happens, we aren’t aware of it. And when concepts are activated, this changes the way we perceive the world a little bit.

For example, just seeing a happy face could activate the happiness concept, causing us to perceive future stimuli as more happy. Furthermore, researchers have found that when people write a short vignette about power, that can activate the power concept, causing people to feel more powerful.

So if that rude concept is activated, it causes us to perceive stimuli as a little bit more rude. And that’s what we found in two experimental studies. When people experienced (or even witnessed) rudeness, they noticed rudeness in their environment more, making them more likely to perceive things as rude, and this perception of rudeness caused them to respond with rudeness.

For example, imagine someone walking by you and saying “Hey, nice shoes”. You might interpret that as a compliment, or you might interpret it as an insult – it’s sort of hard to tell, and your brain has to decide. Well, when you’ve recently experienced rudeness, you are more likely to perceive that comment as rude even if it wasn’t meant that way. Then, subsequently, you will respond to the perceived rudeness with more rudeness.

What is so scary about this effect is that it’s an automatic process – it takes place in a part of your brain that you are not aware of, can’t stop and can’t control. So, you would not necessarily be aware that the reason you (mis)interpreted the “nice shoes” comment is that you had recently experienced rudeness. This means you can’t temper the process.

This evidence that rudeness is contagious really underscores how harmful these behaviours can be, particularly in organisational settings.

While prior evidence showed that rudeness could be harmful to performance, creativity and helpfulness, this research shows that the effects are not limited to the parties of the rude interaction.

In this way, rudeness can spread out like a virus, harming not only the performance of those who experience it, but also making them carriers likely to pass the harm on to those with whom they interact next.

This means that maybe we need to rethink what behaviours are acceptable in the workplace. Behaviours like aggression, abuse and violence are not tolerated at work, but sometimes rudeness tacitly is – but maybe it shouldn’t be. Up to 98 percent of workers report they have experienced rudeness in the office, and 50 percent say they experience it weekly. So just be nice.