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Why people bully


What Is Bullying | StopBullying.gov

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

  • An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
  • Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

  • Types of Bullying
  • Where and When Bullying Happens
  • Frequency of Bullying

Types of Bullying

There are three types of bullying:

  • Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:
    • Teasing
    • Name-calling
    • Inappropriate sexual comments
    • Taunting
    • Threatening to cause harm
  • Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:
    • Leaving someone out on purpose
    • Telling other children not to be friends with someone
    • Spreading rumors about someone
    • Embarrassing someone in public
  • Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:
    • Hitting/kicking/pinching
    • Spitting
    • Tripping/pushing
    • Taking or breaking someone’s things
    • Making mean or rude hand gestures

Where and When Bullying Happens

Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the playground or the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the youth’s neighborhood, or on the Internet.

Frequency of Bullying

There are two sources of federally collected data on youth bullying:

  • The 2019 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) indicates that, nationwide, about 22% of students ages 12–18 experienced bullying.
  • The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) indicates that, nationwide, 19.5% of students in grades 9–12 report being bullied on school property in the 12 months preceding the survey.

See also "Frequency of Cyberbullying."

How to Prevent Bullying | StopBullying.gov

Parents, school staff, and other caring adults have a role to play in preventing bullying. They can: 

  • Help kids understand bullying. Talk about what bullying is and how to stand up to it safely. Tell kids bullying is unacceptable. Make sure kids know how to get help.
  • Keep the lines of communication open. Check in with kids often. Listen to them. Know their friends, ask about school, and understand their concerns.
  • Encourage kids to do what they love. Special activities, interests, and hobbies can boost confidence, help kids make friends, and protect them from bullying behavior.
  • Model how to treat others with kindness and respect.

Help Kids Understand Bullying

Kids who know what bullying is can better identify it. They can talk about bullying if it happens to them or others. Kids need to know ways to safely stand up to bullying and how to get help.

  • Encourage kids to speak to a trusted adult if they are bullied or see others being bullied. The adult can give comfort, support, and advice, even if they can’t solve the problem directly. Encourage the child to report bullying if it happens.
  • Talk about how to stand up to kids who bully. Give tips, like using humor and saying “stop” directly and confidently. Talk about what to do if those actions don’t work, like walking away
  • Talk about strategies for staying safe, such as staying near adults or groups of other kids.
  • Urge them to help kids who are bullied by showing kindness or getting help.
  • Watch the short webisodes and discuss them - PDF with kids.

Keep the Lines of Communication Open

Research tells us that children really do look to parents and caregivers for advice and help on tough decisions. Sometimes spending 15 minutes a day talking can reassure kids that they can talk to their parents if they have a problem. Start conversations about daily life and feelings with questions like these:

  • What was one good thing that happened today? Any bad things?
  • What is lunch time like at your school? Who do you sit with? What do you talk about?
  • What is it like to ride the school bus?
  • What are you good at? What would do you like best about yourself?

Talking about bullying directly is an important step in understanding how the issue might be affecting kids. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, but it is important to encourage kids to answer them honestly. Assure kids that they are not alone in addressing any problems that arise. Start conversations about bullying with questions like these:

  • What does “bullying” mean to you?
  • Describe what kids who bully are like. Why do you think people bully?
  • Who are the adults you trust most when it comes to things like bullying?
  • Have you ever felt scared to go to school because you were afraid of bullying? What ways have you tried to change it?
  • What do you think parents can do to help stop bullying?
  • Have you or your friends left other kids out on purpose? Do you think that was bullying? Why or why not?
  • What do you usually do when you see bullying going on?
  • Do you ever see kids at your school being bullied by other kids? How does it make you feel?
  • Have you ever tried to help someone who is being bullied? What happened? What would you do if it happens again?

Get more ideas for talking with children - PDF about life and about bullying. If concerns come up, be sure to respond.

There are simple ways that parents and caregivers can keep up-to-date with kids’ lives. 

  • Read class newsletters and school flyers. Talk about them at home.
  • Check the school website
  • Go to school events
  • Greet the bus driver
  • Meet teachers and counselors at “Back to School” night or reach out by email
  • Share phone numbers with other kids’ parents

Teachers and school staff also have a role to play. 

Encourage Kids to Do What They Love

Help kids take part in activities, interests, and hobbies they like. Kids can volunteer, play sports, sing in a chorus, or join a youth group or school club. These activities give kids a chance to have fun and meet others with the same interests. They can build confidence and friendships that help protect kids from bullying.

Model How to Treat Others with Kindness and Respect

Kids learn from adults’ actions. By treating others with kindness and respect, adults show the kids in their lives that there is no place for bullying. Even if it seems like they are not paying attention, kids are watching how adults manage stress and conflict, as well as how they treat their friends, colleagues, and families.

8 reasons why some people bully others

Very often the question is how to protect yourself from bullying by other people. But at the same time, outside the professional sphere of psychologists, the main question rarely arises: what is the reason for bullying? Why does this or that person come to the decision to mock another? What drives them? Let's figure it out.

Here are some reasons why some people bully others.

1. Feeling superior to others

Some people have a tendency to control everything and everything and only want to interact with others on terms that are beneficial to them. When things don't go the way they would like, these people resort to bullying.

Feeling their physical superiority at school, university, and even in the workplace, they may resort to harassment in order to gain power over the weaker physically and morally. It is not uncommon for poisoners to be in conflict with each other, striving to become the only "alpha male" in the company.

This concerns not only physical strength, but also position in society. And therefore, both men and women are prone to bullying because of superiority over others.

2. Popularity

Bullying can sometimes be a manifestation of social status. People who are popular often make fun of the less fortunate, especially outsiders within the group. Popularity may encourage them to spread rumors and gossip, to set other members of the social group against a particular person. And they are listened to, as the poisoners have already received a kind of credit of trust.

In addition, bullying is used as a tool to achieve power in society, to attract attention, and also to reduce the social status of another person. Sometimes it is the persecution of one person by another that makes the latter popular, which creates a kind of negative loop.

3.

False right to retaliation

Some people who have been bullied tend to look for ways to get revenge, and not necessarily their bullies. More often than not, bullying victims think they have every right to retaliate because they themselves have been bullied, and start behaving like their bullies, targeting a weaker person than them.

In some cases, victims of bullying may even join the bullyers as stronger ones, thinking that in this way they will stop being bullied and even be able to be in the shoes of the bully themselves. A vivid example of this is bullying in the army, which is taken for granted by the victims of bullying and is practiced by them against younger colleagues, and so on in a circle.

4. Low self-esteem

People with low self-esteem may use bullying as a way to cover up low self-esteem. At the same time, self-esteem does not increase and is at a consistently low level. Any rebuff to bullying lowers the self-esteem of the offender even lower, and he, realizing this, tries to reach as many people as possible with his actions and enlist the support of supporters in order to minimize the risk of a response.

5. Pleasure

Some people who are simply bored sometimes resort to bullying to bring excitement and drama into their lives. In this case, they choose the object of harassment randomly, without focusing on certain details and calmly switching from one victim to another.

This is one of the most dangerous types of poisoners, as they are usually smart enough not to act overtly, and prefer more subtle methods of influence that will not look bad behavior in the eyes of other people.

6. Prejudices

Perhaps this is the main reason for bullying. And this is not about external signs like big ears or a nose, but about social patterns hammered into the head of a child by parents, as well as society and culture. Because of this, the poisoner may feel hatred for a certain nation, and he cannot explain why, believing that its representatives are simply bad and that's it, or using the stereotypes embedded in his thinking.

7. Pressure from stronger members of the group

Sometimes a person begins to poison another not of his own free will, not feeling hostility towards him and not having problems with self-esteem, but in order to earn a place in a certain social group. As a rule, such a group involves the membership of physically and psychologically strong people, and by mocking his victim, a person, as it were, earns himself an entrance ticket to this closed society.

Fear of not being accepted into such a social group pushes him to more radical actions, sometimes strongly contrary to his own moral principles.

8. Attracting Attention

This type of bullying is common among children and adolescents, and is quite rare among adults. The fact is that a child, in order to attract the attention of his parents, may begin to poison his brother or sister, or choose other weaker children as the object of bullying. Such a child feels abandoned, which embitters him and makes him take such actions.

In addition, bullying can be used by children and adolescents to attract attention in relation to the objects of their sympathy. A striking example is the boys who pull girls by the braids, push them, make fun of them, and generally behave provocatively, because they do not know how to express their unfamiliar and incomprehensible feeling of sympathy for another person.

7 signs that you are a victim of bullying

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for life

Why do people bully animals: a psychologist's explanation: January 28, 2023, 19:26

January 28, 2023, 19:26

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Cases of animal abuse in Kazakhstan are not decreasing. "Why do people do it?" - perhaps the most frequently asked question from such news. The editors of Tengri LifeStyle asked the psychologist Bibigul Satkulova.

Aggression of children and adolescents

The expert reminds that aggression does not wake up suddenly in a person. According to Satkulova, a common reason is a negative experience experienced in childhood.

"A child is not born aggressive. He is influenced by the environment in which he grows up, his environment," she says.

Which children are most likely to show aggression towards animals, the expert said:

  • if a child sees physical or emotional abuse in the family on a regular basis;
  • if psychological pressure is constantly exerted on him;
  • if parents allow themselves to sort things out in front of their children.

"All this greatly affects the child's psyche. He/she may develop an attitude: the world is aggressive, I must defend myself from it. Therefore, do not make sharp remarks about others in front of children; child is the norm. After all, children often, especially at a young age, read the model of their parents' behavior. Noticing your aggression, he can later begin to reproduce it on those who are weaker. Often - on animals," Satkulova notes.

The expert reminds that it is important to take care of the child's psyche and not to watch films and serials with the child that are not intended for his age.

"Today, there is a lot of aggression in the information environment, in films, TV shows, news, social networks. Parents can not always protect against this. But you need to try to ensure that your children watch films and cartoons that are age appropriate. It is not in vain when the rental this or that film comes out, it has an age marking," she notes.

It is important that a child grows up in love, care, trust and attention. We must try to devote time to him, communicate with him, talk about emotions, feelings, experiences, emphasizes Bibigul Satkulova.

"The child grows up, unconsciously compares himself with others and sees that there are other families where children are loved, respected, cherished. And then, of course, seeing this contrast, his internal anger grows. This can remain closed for quite a long time. Aggression can manifest itself much later - in adolescence or even adulthood. Often, because of this aggression, animals suffer, "says the specialist.

If you suddenly notice that your child has shown aggression towards animals, then you need to urgently find out the reasons for his / her act.

"Don't rush to label your child as spoiled. You need to contact a specialist to figure out and work out the reasons together. It's important not to get angry, but to figure out the reasons together with him / her, help him understand why this happened," adds she.

The psychologist also urges parents not to forget to regularly remind their children that they are important to you.

Aggression of adults

The expert recalls that the causes of aggression are more often hidden in childhood. However, other factors may also have their effect. Possible causes of aggression in adults:

  • overwork;
  • chronic lack of sleep;
  • constant anxiety;
  • stressful situation;
  • drug/alcohol addiction;
  • due to hormonal failure;
  • thyroid disorder;
  • unsatisfied internal need, unfulfillment.

"It is difficult for a person to restrain his emotions, he begins to splash out his problems on others, on the "first counter irritant" for him/her. Often he/she splashes out his negativity on someone who is weaker, for example, on an animal. Such a person internally unfortunate,” says Bibigul Satkulova.

In addition, the psychologist reminds us that aggression occurs against the background of constantly suppressed emotions.

"At some point, this can turn into aggression. If a person himself realizes that his actions can be destructive / destructive, if he is ready to change, then he will work on himself. Without an independent decision, it is difficult to reach out to a person. If necessary, it is worth see an experienced psychologist," she says.

The expert also advises those who find it difficult to cope with emotions to start actively playing sports.

"Physical unloading is important.

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