Mobbing vs Bullying vs Harassment: What Each Word Means

Mobbing, bullying and harassment describe overlapping behavior, and in the research literature the differences are small. In everyday use, mobbing usually points to a group acting against one person, bullying to repeated mistreatment by one or more people, and harassment to a legal category tied to protected characteristics, though in some countries it is just another word for bullying.

The labels do not change how much it hurts. They do change what you can do next, and that is why they are worth getting straight.

The three words side by side

Mobbing. Leymann’s term, from Sweden in the 1980s, for hostile and unethical communication directed in a systematic way by one or a number of persons mainly toward one individual, happening often and over a long period (Leymann, 1990). It is the usual word in many European countries. Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf and Cooper (2020) note that the same phenomenon is called bullying in English-speaking countries and “harassment” (harcèlement) in the French-speaking world.

Bullying. The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) defines it as repeated, harmful mistreatment of an employee by one or more employees, in the form of verbal abuse, threatening, intimidating or humiliating behavior, or work interference and sabotage. It counts harm to health, social status and economic status. Acas, the UK’s workplace advisory body, defines bullying as unwanted behavior from a person or group that is offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting, or that abuses or misuses power in a way that undermines, humiliates or harms someone.

Harassment. This is the slippery one, because it has at least three meanings:

• In the US, the EEOC defines it as unwelcome conduct based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation, transgender status or pregnancy), national origin, older age, disability or genetic information.
• In the French-speaking world, it is the everyday name for what other regions call bullying or mobbing (Einarsen and colleagues, 2020).
• In international law, the ILO’s Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) uses “violence and harassment” for a range of unacceptable behaviors and practices, or threats of them, whether a single occurrence or repeated, that aim at, result in or are likely to result in physical, psychological, sexual or economic harm. It applies to countries that ratify it.

Same word, three jobs. When someone tells you “that’s not harassment,” it is worth asking which meaning they have in mind.

Here is how the overlap plays out in a composite scenario. A manager belittles one employee in meetings for a year, and two colleagues start to echo it. A European researcher might call that mobbing. An English-speaking one might call it bullying. Your employer’s policy might file it under “conduct.” A US harassment claim would first ask whether any of it was based on a protected characteristic. And the ILO’s broad definition could cover it in a country that has ratified the Convention. Same behavior, four labels, and each label opens a different door.

One person or a group?

This is the difference people quote most, and it is weaker than it sounds. Leymann’s own definition allows “one or a number of persons.” WBI’s definition says “one or more employees.” Acas says “a person or group.” None of the three treats a lone aggressor as outside its definition.

Usage has drifted, though. Many people now use mobbing for the group case and bullying for the single-instigator case, and the two Field Guide entries follow that convention: coalition-building and mobbing for the crowd, the lone aggressor for one person. Even so, Einarsen and colleagues say only minor differences exist in practice, with “bully” more often describing the perpetrator and “mobbing” the target’s experience of mistreatment by one or more people. Some scholars, including Duffy and Sperry (2012), argue the difference is real and lies in the organizational context. The honest summary is that experts disagree on how much the split matters, so do not let anyone tell you the word you use disqualifies your experience.

Repeated, or a single incident?

For mobbing and bullying, repetition is the core. Einarsen and colleagues describe bullying as normally not about single, isolated events but about behavior repeated regularly, with a research yardstick of roughly weekly acts over about six months, a cut-off that has been argued to be somewhat arbitrary. Two people of roughly equal strength in one conflict, or one isolated event, would not count.

Legal harassment works differently. The EEOC says harassment becomes unlawful when enduring the conduct becomes a condition of continued employment, or when it is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile, intimidating or abusive environment, and that petty slights, annoyances and isolated incidents will not qualify unless extremely serious. So one very serious act can be enough in law, while a long run of small unkind acts might not be, if none of it is tied to a protected characteristic. The ILO Convention, for its part, explicitly covers a single occurrence or repeated behavior.

Where the law draws the line

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by country, they change, and a qualified adviser or your local labor authority can tell you how yours applies to your situation.

With that said, the pattern in the sources is consistent:

• UK: Acas states there is no specific law against bullying, but bullying can amount to illegal discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 when it relates to protected characteristics.
• US: The EEOC’s harassment rules are tied to protected characteristics. WBI notes that a proposed “Healthy Workplace Bill” to cover general abusive conduct has been introduced in 32 states but not fully enacted anywhere in the US, as of its published page.
• International: ILO C190 sets a broad definition for countries that ratify it.
• Elsewhere: Some countries and provinces have laws that name psychological harassment at work directly. The mission page keeps a running timeline.

The practical upshot is that the same conduct may be against the law in one country, only against policy in another, and legal in a third. That is a reason to check locally, not a reason to doubt what you are experiencing.

Incivility: the mild end

Think of these words as points on a line. At the mild end is workplace incivility: low-intensity rudeness with ambiguous intent. In the middle sits the slow drip the Field Guide calls social undermining: small acts that erode your reputation and relationships. At the far end is severe, sustained victimization.

Researchers see this as a continuum too. In the analysis behind the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised, employees fell into groups ranging from infrequent exposure to incivility to severe victimization from bullying and harassment (Einarsen, Hoel and Notelaers, 2009). Hershcovis (2011) goes further, arguing that the field has produced many overlapping constructs, among them abusive supervision, bullying, incivility, social undermining and interpersonal conflict, and finding no predictable pattern of outcomes across them. In plain terms, the label does not reliably predict how much harm follows.

Why the label matters for what you do next

The word does not decide how bad it is, but it can point you toward the right door.

• If the behavior seems tied to a protected characteristic, it may qualify as harassment in the legal sense. Write down that link explicitly, and consider getting legal or union advice early.
• If it is repeated, involves several people, and management has begun to repeat the group's story, it matches the mobbing pattern. Keep a dated record and look at both internal routes and exit options. The Field Guide entry on the HR reality covers what HR can and cannot do for you.
• If it is one repeated aggressor, "bullying" is the closest word, and the same record-keeping applies.
• If it is low-intensity and ambiguous, it may still be worth a direct conversation before anything formal.

Whatever the label, two things are always true. Dated, specific facts help you more than a word does, and it helps to use the terms your employer’s policy uses when you make a report, describing the acts in plain language alongside. If you want a fuller picture of the strictest of the three words, What Is Mobbing at Work? covers the definition and the four stages.

These terms describe patterns of behavior, not the character of any person. You cannot diagnose a coworker from a definition. You can name a pattern, keep a record, and protect yourself.

Sources

Label note: Definitions vary by country, employer and research tradition. Nothing here is legal advice, and no word in this post is a diagnosis of any person.