“Mimetic desire and mirror neurons: the consciousness of workplace bullying”

Workplace bullying is important to business and government, because it has a real impact on unfortunate casualties’ wellbeing and organizations’ benefits. Studies into the causes and outcomes of workplace bullying with a focus on the key psychodynamic factors underlying harassment and the subsequent results are rare. This paper applies René Girard’s mimetic desire theory to clarify the elements and non-cognizant components associated with “interdividual” connections prompting aggression for the victim by the harasser. The disclosure of mirror neurons affirms that mimetic desire grows unwit-tingly through a mediator of the mimetic brain. Mimetic desire theory helps to recognize and understand that the destructive patterns of behavior and emotional responses to situations leading to moral harassment is a direct consequence of the mimetic rivalry between the bully and the victim. The unconscious mechanism is then brought up to the consciousness. The bully and the victim can avoid becoming entrapped within dysfunctional and toxic relationships such as bullying. The use of the mimetic desire concepts also enables human resources managers, bystanders, and practitioners to better deal with protagonists. This can help minimize or eliminate workplace bullying.

Any workplace situation including WPB that alters the physical, mental, and social well-being of employees must be avoided (Glendinning, 2001) or at least be terminated in the early stages regardless of their causes (Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2009).Thus, Vveinhardt (2015) proposed a customized questionnaire for the timely diagnosis of such phenomena in the early stages.
2015; Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012; Pihl, Albertsen, Hogh, & Andersen, 2017; Samnani & Singh, 2012).Empirical research has focused on the behavior of the harasser, the consequences for the victim, the identification of hazard factors related to harassment, the personality of the bullied person, and the group dynamic characteristics of the organization (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2011;Faulx, Delvaux, & Brun, 2009).As noted by Faulx et al. (2009), the current status of logical learning of WPB portrays the primary appearances of harassment and, to a specific degree, an inventory of the conditions under which there is a possibility that WPB will occur.By only looking at WPB prevalence, antecedent or outcome, the community has not yet scrutinized what Faulx (2007) calls the "blind box" of harassment: the deep understanding of the psychological mechanisms at work between the bully and the victim.Robinson (2008) imagines bullying as a dynamic procedure that unfurls in a constellation of exchange relationship with suggestions for the business relationship overall.Faulx et al. (2009) suggest a lack of understanding of the psychodynamic processes in place during these situations.Parzefall and Salin (2010) affirm that constrained endeavors have been made to comprehend the procedure through which workplace bullying develops and converts into negative responses from the victims and, most importantly, from bystanders.The lack of studies examining the underlying mechanism that explains the antecedent-WPB-outcome relationship motivates this study.
Only a few theories of workplace bullying are available to look inside the "blind box".Rai and Agarwal (2016) point out the shortcomings of existing WPB literature concerning its conceptual clarity, process, theoretical underpinning and underlying mechanisms.They suggest focusing on the theoretical underpinnings of WPB.
The research questions below are posed in the context of WPB situations between manager/employee and/or between peers with an unbalanced power between the bully(ies) and the employee(s): • RQ1: Is there a general theory applicable to all human beings regardless of the social or cultural context that could simultaneously explain: 1) why the bully starts to attack his targeted victim?
2) why and how does the employee become a victim?
3) why and how is harassment a process whose violence increases over time?
• RQ2: Does this theory make it possible to analyze and understand concurrently the evolving behaviors and reactions of the bully and the victim?
This paper presents a theoretical model for the study of WPB based on the mimetic desire theory (MDT) of René Girard (Girard, 1965).Existing literature on theories of WPB is analyzed followed by a description and scientific empirical validation of the mimetic theory as a new tool to better understand the origins and the process of WPB at the interpersonal level.The expected results and outcome are then discussed.We compare our findings to the results obtained by other researchers.The MDT is proposed as a mean for consciousness improvement for the victim, bully, as well as bystanders, management, HR managers and practitioners.

LITERATURE ON WPB THEORIES
The theories can be classified into three groups: the group of applicable theories on "Antecedent-Bullying Relationship", the group of applicable theories on "Bullying-Outcome Relationship", and the group of applicable theories on "Bullying Antecedent and Outcome Relationship".
1.1.The four Antecedent-Bullying Relationship theories (    tween these different processes.However, the explanations for psychological harassment are still fragmented and compartmentalized.Ciby and Raya (2014) explore the victim's experience and feelings from an interpretive perspective.Their analysis of qualitative interviews with victims using a Grounded Theory Approach led to an applied model that clarifies the precursors, bullying behaviors, consequences and self-coping tactics of the victims.White (2004) scrutinized the psychodynamic perspective of workplace bullying in an interpretivist approach.The Life Cycle Theory can explore the origins, as well as the evolvement, of toxic relationships between the bully and the bullied.
None of the above theories answer the research questions posed above.A clear vision Teor ia explaining why harassment occurs besides the usual scapegoat reasoning is missing.It is clear that none of the existing WPB theories can look inside the "blind box" (Figure 1).
An explanation via the underlying unconscious brain mechanisms is still lacking.The encompassing psychological phenomenon fails to uncover the internal and deepest motivations of a bully to harass his or her victim and for the victim to fall into the victimization process.
One exception is the Life Cycle Theory of Bullying, which explores a psychodynamic perspective of workplace bullying.The emotional responses are clues that can explain the unconscious processes that occur within interpersonal relationships.This hypothesis appears top to bottom and explains how the connection between the harasser and the victims develops towards viciousness when people move towards becoming holders of one another's sentiments (White, 2004).Life Cycle Theory based on Freud's theory is a useful tool to answer Research Questions 1 and 2; however, it does have three limitations: 1) its practice is reserved to highly trained psychoanalysts; 2) Freud's theory is based on the individual unconscious and is limited to object desire and sexual motivation.It may not be the best tool to understand a non-neurotic person who habitually courts disaster.The concept of imitation is present in Freud's theory.He does not recognize mimetism, because his vision focuses on psychologism and pansexualism.
Psychoanalysis is willing to recognize that human beings are autonomous; thus, every desire is object-oriented.Freud explains the jealousy of the child towards the father via the Oedipal complex: The child has an innate sexual desire towards his mother, and his father is an obstacle to satisfy this desire.Girard claims that this rivalry has nothing to do with sexual desire.The rivalry takes his roots in the imitation by the son of the father's sexual desire for the mother.The child's desire is a desire of imitation of the father's desire and is not a desire for the object (the mother).The father then becomes his model/rival; 3) the two sources of desire for the mother according to Freud are identifications with the father and libido directed towards the mother.Freud almost ignores the first source.In doing this, Freud removes the relationship between the Oedipus complex and mimesis.Cowdell (2013, p. 51) notes: "Freud's theory is surpassed -effectively made redundant -by Girard's account of mimesis, of desire according to the desire of another, and of sexuality under mimetic control".Causes?Consequences?WPB Blind Box?

THE MIMETIC THEORY
"In Leif's case, the real reason was envy over his wages".Here, Leymann (1990, p. 121) identifies the link between mobbing and psychological terror at workplaces: envy (in the sense of being envious of…).Envy is a synonym of desire in the situational context of WPB.Jealousy is caused by the fear of losing someone or something to which an individual is attached or that another individual possesses.Envy is a resentment caused by another person with something that the affected individual does not possess but desires.It is actually two opposing passions: the envy of coveting the good of a rival and the jealousy of not wanting to share or lose that good.Thanks to the work of Leymann (1990Leymann ( , 1992Leymann ( , 1996)), Leymann and Gustafsson (1996), Zapf and Leymann (1996), there is a consensus on the fact that envy, desire, and jealousy form the three pillars of WPB.Nevertheless, a question remains: What is the link between these feelings and mimetic desire?
The French anthropologist René Girard (1965) proposed an interesting hypothesis of human culture called Mimetic Desire Theory (MDT).Girard hypothesizes that desire is constantly mimetic, i.e., duplicated, propelled, created, proposed and generated by the other person's desire.Mimetic desire starts from the minute that one mimics a person's desire for an object.Following Girard's MDT hypothesis, desire is constitutive of oneself.To separate desire from instinct, we should include imitation and, in this manner, create the mimetic desire that makes us human.Mimetic want enables us to learn and to adjust to our way of life.Desire and learning are indivisible (Girard, de Castro Rocha, & Antonello, 2007).In Girard's MDT, desire is "triangular" and drastically unstable: the subject (envious), the mediator-model (jealousy), and an object (Figure 2).
The mediator can turn into a rival by blocking (or seeming to obstruct) the subject's access to the object.The MDT uncovers the connection between desire and the imitation of the core of human conduct.The hypothesis groups mimetic desire as the principle wellspring of forcefulness and viciousness describing people (Girard, Oughourlian, & Lefort, 1978, p. 9).It safeguards the postulation of a person's desire for the desire of another individual (Girard & Chantre, 2007, p. 72).It determines desire as an imitation of the desire of the other; desire is proportionate to the alternate.Through this appropriation, desire modulates the other's own being and foreseen qualities (Girard, 1965).The attributes of human connections are in this way a apportionment of an "ontological" nature ("all desire is a desire to be"), which, on a fundamental level, cannot achieve its goal.The closer the distance, the greater the conflict Identity is not the issue of a conceivable complementary acknowledgment, but rather is the plain impetus of a deadlock struggle (Girard et al., 2007).Following MDT, the difficulty of fulfilling the desire of the protagonists can radicalize a contention powered by their positions and their targets.
Clashes must be broken up by establishing an arrangement of contrasts fit for rendering the objects controlled by the actors as equally unwanted notwithstanding their own being.Mimetic conflictswhen they are not defused by proper institutional courses of action -can impersonate overbidding making them ruinous on a fundamental level (Girard et al., 2007).Girard considers modernity to be tormented and needing redemption (Girard & Treguer, 1994).For him, the ontological illness of modern man has been expanding since the Reformation and the breakdown of conventional society -notwithstanding the devastation of the significance of rituals.The Enlightenment proposed an all-powerful self-governing subject free from any guardianship prompting an inexorably fragile individual.For Girard, the cutting-edge world curves individualistic.It is a world in which desire must be individual and unique.When the withering away of state sovereignty and the competitive logic of the market economy overlap with the multiplication of conflicts, then this rivalry of equals becomes a relevant paradigm (Bourdin, 2016, p. 4).

Mimetic desire and violence
The idea of imitation contains two inverse components: the co-present viewpoints of the prohibited and imitating subject.The imitator's emptiness of being vanishes when he feels alike to the mediator.To do this, he should take the property of the object and emulate the mediator whose distinction is presented by the demonstration of prohibition according to the subject.The subject sees the mediator as getting a charge out of self-rule of his own longing and ownership of the ideal object.The subject mirrors the desire of the mediator for the object to win the situation of the mediator.He should turn into the mediator and make it suitable for his being and properties.The estimation of the object and the mediator develops as an element in the obstruction experienced by the subject in a self-creating and expanding way Incomprehensibly, the subject mirroring the me-diator likewise mimics the dismissal of the mediator in his place.He rejects himself from what he has in order to identify himself with the mediator.The recognizable proof incomprehensibly incorporates the basis of non-identification (Girard, 1977).The imitating subject is on obligation to get away from the logical inconsistency among need and self-prohibition without staying alert that this logical inconsistency originates from the mimetic desire -and not from the object or the mediator.
Next, the rivalry between the imitator and the mediator leads the latter to confront a similar logical inconsistency.The mirroring subject turns into the potential mediator according to the mediator.To maintain his status, the potential mediator wants the object considerably more seriously.He copies the mirroring subject.Fortifying one's desire for the object by emulating the subject heightens this competition.The two mediator-subjects are in an opposition bolstered by an indistinguishable system in which the competition appears without birthplace.The mimetic desire that bolsters that objective makes them progressively comparable as the adversaries progressively endeavor to separate themselves by possessing the mediator's position.The opponents turn out to be progressively comparative not in light of their individual or social property, but rather in view of their indistinguishable lead and situation dependent on aggressive impersonation.All people are mediator and subject to numerous interceding connections; subsequently, they will fit their particular arbiter's characteristics.
Rivalries have developed through a social virus from age-old social orders to the current day.This can escalate and prompt violence.The estimation of the mediator's object increases in extent to the obstruction experienced by the subject to appropriate the object (Girard et al., 1978;Girard & Treguer, 1994).
An imperative idea in Girard's hypothesis is that the mediation can be internal or external.In internal mediation, the subject advances in a world not quite the same as the go between (e.g.Don Quichotte and his mediator Amadis de Gaulle).External mediation does not cause struggle in light of the fact that the object of desire is distant to the subject (Girard, 1965).With regards to in-ternal mediation, the subject lives in the proximity condition from the arbiter (e.g., a bully and his/ her unfortunate victim).The object of the mediator is open to the desiring subject and competition emerges: a closer separation leads to a more noteworthy fight (Figure 3).
External mediation attempts to anticipate rivalry and all types of internal mediation.To be powerful, the forbiddance of external mediation must shroud certain disclosures.This is the means by which external mediation worked in archaic societies.Interestingly, denials in present day society have lost their power, and internal mediation has assumed control (Girard & Barberi, 2001).This clashing vitality is socially infectious, and the mimetic crisis can grow and strengthen.When two opponents battle for a similar object, the estimation of the object increases according to the different people who watch this contention and are mimetically sullied.The quantity of twin rivals may increase, and along these lines, stepwise reduce the object's fascination.

Mimetic desire, mirror neurons, and workplace bullying
We propose a new psychology based on Girard's mimetic idea and the disclosure of mirror neurons by Gallese (2009), Oughourlian and Merrill (2016), Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Gallese, and Fogassi (1996): mimetic brain research -a meta-brain research dependent on imitation.In expressing, "I structure myself by imitating the other", Girard, Oughourlian, and Lefort (1978) have supplanted between individuality by interdividuality to accentuate that people are not confined.Desire is mimetic, and hence the desire framing oneself is the reflection or the duplicate of another's desire.Oughourlian presented the idea of the "mimetic brain" (Cyrulnik et al., 2014).As indicated by Oughourlian and Merrill (2016), mimetic conduct is first produced through enactment of a system of mirror neurons, i.e., the mimetic brain is amid a scene in between individuals' mimetic desire.The mimetic connection is first settled at any minute between two individuals, and the connection is adequately essential and critical to cerebral capacity.Research on mirror neurons has given mimetic components a beginning in the intellectual movement.They actuate the limbic framework.The mirror neuron system's organization comprises the framework by which people go into associations with one another and acquaint people with friendliness, to associations with others, to interdividual connections, and to hominization.When these neurons are actuated, the interdividual relationship initiates regions of feelings and sentiments in the limbic cerebrum (Lebreton, Kawa, d'Arc, Daunizeau, & Pessiglione, 2012).The cognitive mind at that point includes moral, ethical, consistent, philosophical, and rational justifications of mimetically-prompted activities (Oughourlian, 1991).
These discoveries lead to other human studies and comprehensions of psychic and psychopathological constitutions that arise because of cooperation and harmony between the three systems of the human brain.Desire makes people move like a pendulum, which sways persistently between two clearly opposing attitudes: 1) rivalry when we desire what the other de- sires; and 2) empathy when we consider the other as a mediator (Oughourlian et al., 2016).Oughourlian (1991) notes that neurotic or psychotic patients -as well as the general population -make a twofold demand: The demand of the self to the property for desire and the demand by desire of its anteriority and antecedence regarding the other's desire.This has actually engendered its own desire through mimetic suggestions (Oughourlian, 1991).
Finally, Lebreton et al. (2012) unraveled the mechanisms underpinning mimetic desire using functional neuroimaging.They discovered that the initialization of mimetic desires through action scrutiny involves the modulation of the brain valuation system (BVS) activity through the mirror neuron system (MNS) activity.The MNS/BVS association is a key instrument clarifying how nonverbal conduct spreads desire without the need for unequivocal, deliberate communication.Furthermore, the authors conclude: a drawback could be that motivational contagion may lead to rivalry, which would make problematic the distribution of resources, and it may lead to herding, which would result in irrational mob behaviors (Lebreton et al., 2012, p. 7156).
Today, the theory of mimetic desire tends to be validated by empirical demonstration of the underpinning brain mechanism.
In light of the MDT, the beginning and evolution of bully conduct can be examined by means of distinguishing proof of mimetic desire, its beginning and evolvement toward the mimetic fight and one of its results: WPB.The Mimetic Theory is a valuable tool for investigating the inceptions and advancement of interdividual conduct as it rises up out of the otherness of desire.Applying MDT to the understanding of a WPB situation leads us to develop a three-step methodology.The WPB situation of the victim first has to be validated before any interview.This is achieved via the Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror (LIPT) questionnaire (Leymann, 1992) or the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (Einarsen, Hoel, & Notelaers, 2009).The second step of MDT process analysis is to perform a semi-structured qualitative interview with the participants.The final step is data interpretation in light of the MDT -searching for the mimetic desire, which is seen as the source of WPB violence.

MDT APPLIED TO WPB: WHAT OUTCOME CAN WE EXPECT?
The MDT process can take the victim position viewpoint and complaints into consideration in an interpretivist approach.Analysis of this narrative reveals not only the present situation, but also the entire WPB process over time.
In light of MDT, the "Mediator", "Subject", and "Object of desire" are identified.The mimetic desire "game" is scrutinized through circumstances that unfurl over a significant amount of time.This allows to analyze and explain the origin and the evolution of the WPB situation.
From the original critical incident (Leymann, 1990) -and throughout the entire bullying period -the mimetic theory sheds light on the genesis and the process of WPB.Here, it is critical to stress that the mimetic desire process is triangular (mediator, subject, object).The bully and the victim's behaviors are both unconsciously managed by the mimetic desire.One can understand the situation from the bully's perspective by scrutinizing the mimetic desire in place during the bullying process (Stoupe, 2010).
Our desires are inspired by others from birth to death (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977).The verbal and even nonverbal behavior of others propagates desires in our self via our mirror neuronal network without the need for explicit or intentional communication.All human brains have the same anatomy, and the mimetic desire is equally identified regardless of the social, cultural, religious, or ethnic differences.The MDT is applicable to all human beings and can be explained via RQ1: 1) the bully starts to attack her/his targeted victim when she/he realizes or believes, unconsciously, that the victim has an equal desire for the same object; 2) the employee becomes a victim when she/he unconsciously realizes that the mediator forbids her/him to access the desired object; 3) harassment is a process whose violence increases over time because of the simultaneous increase in desire of the subject and the mediator via the "mirror effect".increased mimetic desire can lead to more violence.
Qualitative analysis of the victim's verbatim contains the entire conscious and unconscious events of her/his bullying process.It reveals the "identity" of the mimetically "object" (physical or virtual) desired by both the victim and the bully.The MDT allows one to analyze and understand the evolving behaviors and reactions of the bully and the victim at the same time (RQ2), because they are in a triangular mimetic desire relationship with the object.

DISCUSSION
A Baillien and De Witte (2009b) found three causes of WPB: individuals' ability to deal with frustration, escalating conflict, and team and organizational cultures.A conflict will develop where an individual's desires are not met or are frustrated.In Girardian terms, this would be identified as a mimetic rivalry.Baillien et al. (2009b) support the Oughourlian's understanding that escalating conflict will lead to bullying (Oughourlian, 1996).To understand what is happening in WPB, we need to discern the desires that drive an individual to behave in a certain manner either from his/her personal background or from his/her working environment.These mimetic desires can lead to violence and WPB.Few theories have been examined in the context of bullying.Theories that can explain the onset, tolerance and outcomes of bullying are missing from the literature (Rai et al., 2016).
The MDT is actually a powerful tool to examine the underpinnings of WPB and its interactional processes.

CONCLUSION
Mimetic desire is neither good nor bad.Gallese (2009) emphasizes that it can prompt mimetic violence additional to the most imaginative parts of human insight.Traditional ways to deal with compromise neglect to address this mimetic dynamic and wrongly expect there to be a target proportion of desire that must be filled to fulfill the contenders.The introduction of desire and of human brain research runs inseparably with obliviousness and misconception of the mimetic components -driven by the mirror neurons -that give birth to them (Oughourlian, Webb, & Ebrary Inc., 2010).The MDT clearly demonstrates that the solution of the predicament includes the intelligent capacity of the humans involved in a fight to address the (mimetic) roots of their hostility (Farneti, 2009).
The MDT is simple to explain and easy to understand and apply by anyone involved in WPB.Both bully and the victim can avoid becoming entrapped within dysfunctional and toxic relationships such as bullying by being better equipped to recognize the destructive patterns of behavior and emotional responses to situations.The use of mimetic desire concepts also enables human resources managers, bystanders and professionals to better deal with the protagonists.This research might also help prevent and reduce workplace bullying.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Triangle of the mimetic desire

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.The relationship between distance and rivalry in external or internal mediation

Table 2 .
Theories of WPB: the four Bullying-Outcome Relationship theories

Table 3 .
Theories of WPB: the three Bullying Antecedent Outcome Relationship theoriesDepict the unpredictability of circumstances of WPB.Mirror the manner in which the distinctive procedures entwine and the manner in which forms including the association, the gathering, and the people affect the connection between the victim and the assumed harasser.Goes for depicting the association among victimization and struggle forms including a request to portray how they all collaborate with one another White (2004)the psychodynamic point of view of workplace bullying in light of two related psychoanalytical ideas: containment and boundaries.Depicts both inside and outside of the advancing connection between a bully and an injured individual.Proposals are made for restorative changeWhite (2004)Partly Partly (Rai et al., 2016)lly is relatively non-existent.Stoupe (2010)introduced the mimetic desire dimension to his understanding of the bullies.Exploring the bullying phenomenon from the perspective of the perpetrator when possible can lead to many new interesting insights in WPB research(Rai et al., 2016).The MDT proposes possible access to this exploration by looking at the perpetrator and the victim as a part of the same mimetic desire triangle.There is an empirical link between conflict and WPB(Baillien,De Cuyper, & De Witte, 2011; Baillien & De Witte, 2009a; Francioli et al., 2016; Skogstad, Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2007).