Low-intensity disrespect provokes reciprocal disrespect, and the exchange escalates because each party reads their own response as proportionate.
Andersson and Pearson's 1999 model turns on ambiguity of intent: incivility is mild enough that the target cannot be sure it was deliberate, which licenses a response that is also deniable. Each round is slightly stronger and each participant believes they are matching. The spiral is cheap to start and expensive to stop.
In practice
- Two colleagues who each answer a curt email slightly more curtly are not speaking within a month.
- A department that stopped inviting another to meetings cannot now say who stopped first.