bullying

Background factors

Early research showed that the prevalence of bullying increases quickly as children age, peaking during early adolescence, and declines in later adolescence. Distinct gender patterns also were identified, most studies finding that boys bully their classmates more frequently than do girls and that boys tend to target other boys. However, both of these findings may be in part artifacts of a narrow conception of bullying as overt harassment, as opposed to covert rumour mongering and ostracism. Children’s definitions of bullying centre on physical aggression and verbal abuse, which are more common among boys and younger adolescents. When studies adopt a broader measure that includes more subtle forms of aggression, such as spreading rumours, ostracism, manipulation, and “cyberbullying” (the anonymous electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person), the gender and age differences become less dramatic. Indeed, some research has found equivalent levels of aggression, broadly defined, among girls and boys. At the same time, girls tend to be disproportionately victimized, both by boys and by other girls.

Other demographic patterns are harder to discern. With respect to race and ethnicity, several studies from Europe and Australia found no racial differences in bullying, while others showed that students who were members of a country’s racial or ethnic minorities were more likely to be victimized. Contradictory results also surface in the United States, where one national study found that Latinos were more likely to bully and that African American students were more likely to be victimized, yet another identified African Americans as those less apt to become victims. These mixed results suggest that there may not be any general patterns with respect to race and that racial and ethnic differences in bullying may instead depend on the ethnic composition of individual schools.

The results of studies of the structure and socioeconomic status of families are likewise mixed regarding the likelihood of children becoming bullies. However, exposure to aggression and conflict in the home consistently relates to aggressive behaviour. Parents who are aggressive or neglectful, use corporal punishment, or engage in serious conflicts with each other are more prone to have children who bully.

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Over the course of adolescence, peer groups become increasingly important and in some cases eclipse parental influences. As within the family, exposure to aggression in the peer group is associated with bullying behaviour. There is a strong tendency for bullies to be friends with other bullies in their class or school. It is not clear to what extent this is because bullies choose other bullies as friends or because they influence their friends to engage in aggression, but research typically finds that both selection and influence processes are at work.

Research often has found that—perhaps as a result of exposure to conflict and aggression in the home and at school—bullies suffer from mental health problems. Bullying may arise as a response to low levels of self-esteem and empathy or to elevated levels of anxiety, depression, or anger. Additional research has documented that bullies have difficulty adjusting to school and that academic failures may contribute to their aggressive behaviour. These research findings together suggest that bullying is caused by psychological deficiencies, which in turn are triggered by exposure to aggression and conflict.

However, other research finds evidence of a quite different pattern, where bullies have either equivalent or higher levels of self-esteem than bystanders. Some bullies have high levels of social skills, empathy, and self-regard. They may occupy central positions in the social life of their schools and can be seen as quite popular among their peers, although they are not necessarily well-liked. Indeed, the high social status of these aggressors likely empowers them to torment their more vulnerable peers. In this view, rather than resulting from psychological troubles, bullying behaviour stems from a desire for greater social status among peers. As with gender, this novel, seemingly discrepant image of the popular bully may result from the expansion in the definition of harmful actions—or changes in bullying behaviour itself—to include cyberbullying and other forms of covert harassment.

These two general patterns—the bully as socially marginal and psychologically troubled versus the bully as socially successful and charismatic—have parallels in research on victims. The bulk of research on victims suggests that they are vulnerable or otherwise different in some dimension that is of importance to most adolescents. They are more likely to be physically underdeveloped and socially isolated and to have difficulty making friends. Victimization rates are also substantially higher among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth and among youth who are overweight or disabled. Additional research, using a wide notion of aggression, documents that a good deal of harmful behaviour—if not the bulk—targets popular adolescents in addition to isolated adolescents.

Bullying emerges out of fundamental social processes, and it is not always accurately identified as a negative personality trait by peers and onlookers. The terms bully and victim themselves can be misleading, because they suggest a permanence to these characteristics that is not always reflected in actual social interaction. As mentioned earlier, people can be both perpetrators and targets, which calls into question the stability of the bully and victim identities. Furthermore, bullying behaviour often appears to develop in reaction to struggles over status and power within group contexts. Depending on the situation, individuals may engage in short-term deleterious bullying behaviour in order to gain a social advantage over others. Once an advantageous position has been reached, however, they may no longer employ bullying tactics. Some research documents that harmful aggressive behaviour toward classmates increases as peer status increases until the pinnacle of the hierarchy is reached, at which point such actions decrease in frequency. A substantial amount of school bullying thus appears to result not simply from individual proclivities but also from social jockeying among adolescents.

Consequences

Although the root causes of bullying remain unclear, its consequences for victims are abundantly apparent. The U.S. Secret Service in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education found that bullying was a factor in the majority of “incidents of targeted school violence” in the last two and a half decades of the 20th century. Victimization is also significantly related to suicidal ideation, social isolation, anxiety and depression, low self-esteem, physical health problems, and diminished academic performance and school attachment. Many of these effects can last well into adulthood.

However, victims are not the only ones who suffer from bullying. For many outcomes, bully-victims often fare the worst on a variety of measures, but pure bullies also experience difficulties. They are at increased risk of subsequent mental health problems and are likely to encounter difficulty maintaining positive relationships as adults. More significantly, bullies are considerably more likely to be convicted of crimes and incarcerated as young adults.

Some youth nevertheless use bullying as a way to gain social status among peers. These adolescents may be more strategic in how they choose their targets, and they are also likely to be among the more popular students in school. For at least some of them, bullying and harassment effectively boost their status and influence among schoolmates by winning the admiration of peers or by tearing down social rivals. Generally speaking, however, bullying is more effective at harming victims than aiding aggressors.