(Photo Courtesy of <a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/lokner/4164251472/>Michael Lokner via Flickr</a>.)

Instinctively, we all understand that a boss who is abusive – who engages in personal attacks or drives you to constantly produce more, more, more – affects our entire workplace. Now we have research to prove it.

A recent study published in the journal Personnel Psychology, researchers noted that abusive behavior from a top-level boss filters down two levels in the hierarchy. In other words, those managers and supervisors exhibit the same kinds of abusive behaviors they endure from their own boss.

Our working guy, Brandon Smith, talks this week about why this cycle perpetuates itself and how (if?) we can break it on Working on GPB Radio.