Ranking the drivers of human resource gaslighting based on knowledge erosion dimensions (Case study: Lorestan University): A combined Delphi, Fuzzy and Marcos approach

Purpose: In recent years, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have identified gaslighting as a major contributor to job stress and covert bullying in the workplace. Gaslighting in the workplace is a form of psychological manipulation in which an individual (often in a position of higher power) systematically distorts, denies, or distorts reality in order to cause the victim to doubt their perceptions, memories, and judgments. The concept has its roots in the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a man makes his wife doubt her sanity by dimming and increasing the light of gaslights. Unlike overt bullying, which is characterized by aggressive behavior, gaslighting erodes the victim’s self-confidence and ability to make professional judgments through ambiguity, gradual changes in reality, and covert acts of control. In other words, perceptual psychosis is a type of maladaptive and destructive communication pattern in which one party attempts to undermine the other party’s perception of reality. Gaslighting manifests itself in the workplace through the following tactics: denial of past statements or actions by the supervisor, even when documented; invalidating the employee’s feelings and experiences (you are too sensitive); constantly changing expectations and requirements without prior notice; blaming the employee for problems they did not cause; attributing the employee’s achievements to themselves; socially isolating the victim from colleagues; and using constant criticism in the guise of constructive feedback. This process, which takes place gradually and over time, aims to create and reinforce doubt about the individual’s abilities, judgments, and perceptions of themselves and the realities of the workplace. In workplaces, this phenomenon can manifest itself through supervisors distorting facts, denying or rewriting past events, and presenting contradictory messages, such that employees gradually begin to doubt their memory, judgment, and perceptions of work situations. Knowledge erosion is one of the most significant intangible damages that gaslighting can cause to an organization’s intellectual capital. Harvard Business Review noted in 2023 that the sudden departure of passive, value-creating employees or their failure to share knowledge due to a weakening of organizational trust can destroy half of an organization’s intellectual capital. In organizations where gaslighting is prevalent, organizational silence prevails; the workplace becomes an environment in which originality is considered a risk and knowledge becomes a commodity to be hidden. This knowledge hiding occurs in response to organizational injustice and feeds a negative vicious cycle. Therefore, the present study was designed to rank the drivers of human resource gaslighting based on knowledge erosion dimensions at Lorestan University.
Methodology: Given that the present study was conducted with the aim of solving the problem raised, it is applied in terms of purpose and is classified as exploratory research in terms of data collection method. This research is a mixed research and because it has an inductive approach in the qualitative part and a deductive approach in the quantitative part, it is classified as inductive deductive research. The statistical population of this study is limited to Lorestan University and includes experts consisting of employees working in this university and university professors, 12 of whom were selected using the purposive sampling method and based on the principle of theoretical saturation. The criteria for selecting experts were having work experience in the field of management and human resources, having direct management experience or human resources consulting, and having at least a master's degree. The data collection tools in this study are interviews and questionnaires. Given that the main goal of the research is to rank the stimuli of human resources' gaslighting based on knowledge erosion dimensions at Lorestan University, to achieve this goal, a combined fuzzy Delphi approach (for screening and consensus building of experts in identifying effective stimuli) and the Marcos method (for final prioritization and quantitative ranking) have been used.
Results: The final ranking showed that the exercise of power through informal networks parallel to the official structure (score = 0.969), the lack of any independent, secure, and supra-organizational reporting system (score = 0.939), the institutionalization of a culture of concealment and denial of mistakes instead of correcting them (score = 0.929), the dependence of career advancement on political relations and internal lobbying (0.909), and the pervasive fear of the consequences of exposing systemic flaws for senior managers (0.908) are, in order, the most important drivers of gaslighting based on knowledge erosion dimensions at Lorestan University.
Discussion: The findings from the combined Delphi Fuzzy and Marcos rankings show that in Lorestan University (as the case study), the exercise of power through informal networks parallel to the formal structure is, with a slight difference from other stimuli, the most important stimulus for cognitive neurosis based on the knowledge erosion dimensions. This finding is important in several ways. First, informal power networks - which are usually based on family, tribal, party or old friendship relationships - not only bypass formal decision-making processes, but also gradually do not leave a single and transparent narrative of organizational realities. Employees outside these networks never get a complete picture of the evaluation criteria, resource allocation or even strategic priorities. This systematic ambiguity is recognized by experts as the most important platform for gaslighting: network managers can undermine the employee's perception of justice and competence by relying on behind-the-scenes negotiations or unwritten decisions. In such a situation, the employee, in order to maintain his position, never dares to share his critical knowledge or creative ideas, because he knows that this knowledge may be interpreted against him in informal networks. According to experts' judgment, this is a direct consequence of the process of extensive knowledge concealment. This finding is in line with Ebrahimi's (1404) research, which pointed to the role of behavioral controls and speech suppression, but beyond that, it introduces the specific mechanism of informal power networks as the most key factor in gaslighting from the experts' perspective.
Conclusion: The results clearly showed that at Lorestan University, gaslighting is not a purely behavioral phenomenon resulting from individual characteristics or simple supervisor-subordinate interactions; rather, it is deeply rooted in organizational layers (informal power structures, institutional weakness in monitoring, and a culture of concealment). However, identifying triggers at three etiological layers (organizational, managerial, and interactional) shows that destructive behaviors at lower levels (such as false promises and personnel threats) act as connecting links and implementation mechanisms for this systemic damage. In other words, unhealthy organizational structures provide a context in which gaslighting behaviors of human resources are manifested at the level of middle managers and supervisors, causing employees to doubt and be confused, and ultimately leading to the erosion of the organization's knowledge capital.