Bullying is difficult to stop. Some schools don’t know how to even begin to conquer this socially accepted practice. What do new studies show about bullying?
George Mason University Bullying Study
The study, "The Darker Side of Social Anxiety: When Aggressive Impulsivity Prevails Over Shy Inhibition, is co-written by Todd Kashdan and Patrick E. McKnight. Both men are psychologists at George Mason University near Washington, D.C.
The study included 1,822 adults who have a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder. One out of five reported to the researchers that they have elevated aggression with hostile interpersonal patterns. When asked why, some responded by saying that they attack and reject others before they get the opportunity to do the same to them. The paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, states that bullies are scared, too. [1]
Can George Mason’s Study Turn Around Schools?
Kashdan and McKnight are not convinced that the information in the study could be used with 9-12 year olds. They do, however, point to a Dutch study of 481 elementary school children. The University of Groningen asked these students to fill out a questionnaire. They were asked to list which classmates they preferred, which they disliked, name classmates they bullied or who bullied them. [1]
Some interesting data was collected from the Groningen survey.
- Bullies divide classmates into two groups – those that receive affection and targets.
- Targets were people that didn’t count.
- Bullies cared only about getting approval from classmates of the same sex.
- Boys didn’t care what girls thought.
- Boys picked on classmates that peers did not like.
- Mean girls did not care about the opinions of male classmates.
- Girls seemed to approve of boys that bullied boys.
- Overweight children were often targets without regard to race, gender, socioeconomic status, or academic success.
- Bullies are not always social misfits.
The conclusion of the study was that bullies want attention and affection from peers. They want friends. [1] Instead of being kind to others, they want to hit hard and fast before someone hits them hard and fast.
Bullying Has Lifelong Implications
Bullies have pain in the present but bully targets often suffer into adulthood. Being bullied has been linked to adult depression, low self-esteem, unhappiness in life and suicide. Bully targets appear as adults on talk shows and hold back tears as they tell about how they were emotionally tortured in school twenty years ago.
While the perfect method to eliminate bullying may not exist today, schools need to take serious steps to deal with bullies.
Paul, Pamela. "Maybe Bullies Just Want to Be Loved." The New York Times, May 21, 2010.
Barbara Pytel - Email me Experience Although I was never particularly fond of going to school as an ELL student, I ironically became a teacher, ...
