Does rudeness really matter in the workplace? Studies O have established that rudeness in the workplace can lead RUDE to retaliatory and counterproductive behavior. However, there has been little research on how rude behaviors influence a victim's task performance. Such a study was conducted, with the results published in the Academy of Management Journal (Oct. 2007). College students enrolled in a management course were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: rudeness condition (45 students) and control group (53 students). Each student was asked to write down as many uses for a brick as possible in 5 minutes. For those students in the rudeness condition, the facilitator displayed rudeness by generally berating students for being irresponsible and unprofessional (due to a late-arriving confederate). No comments were made about the late-arriving confederate to students in the control group. The number of different uses for a brick was recorded for each of the 98 students and is shown at the top of the page. Conduct a statistical analysis (at α = .01) to determine if the true mean performance level for students in the rudeness condition is lower than the true mean performance level for students in the control group.

Control Group: 1 24 5 16 21 7 20 1 9 20 19 10 23 16 0 4 9 13 17 13 2 12 11 7 3 11 1 19 9 12 18 5 21 30 15 4 2 12 1 10 13 11 3 6 10 13 16 12 28 19 12 20 Rudeness Condition: 4 11 18 11 9 6 5 11 9 12 7 5 7 3 11 1 9 10 7 8 9 10 7 11 4 13 5 4 7 8 3 8 15 9 16 10 0 7 15 13 9 2 13 10