The Psychology Of The Common Bully

As we grow up-and-and start getting older we often start facing new problems and issues. Bullying and dealing with bullying is one of them. Being a middle school student myself, I have dealt with bullying; both as a victim and as a bystander. Why does bullying occur? Have you ever been bullied? Bullying is a very complicated issue because, in our increasingly interconnected and diverse world, we come across varied thinking and opinions. Lines of reasoning, rules, and boundaries are changed, pushed and expanded. The line between what is considered acceptable and what isn’t is very much blurred and people are doing unethical things which are considered alright by themselves and others. Schools, children, and people should reconsider the boundaries of what is tolerable and what isn’t and enforce them. People who step over the line what is considered acceptable should be punished, and they are made to understand why bullying is wrong and helped. The argument that the bully is doing something wrong and should only be punished and that only the victim is negatively affected is misguided because both victim and tormentor are negatively affected psychologically, sociologically and physiologically. Bullying is like a double edged blade. Swinging it cuts both the victim and the tormentor. This paper will take one through the mind of the tormentor, the psychology behind their thinking, why it may be misguided and why the antagonizer and the victim need to be helped.

Firstly let’s take a look at the concept of dominance and power. Bullies often threaten others and try to control them. Why one might ask. Skeptics might argue that bullies have low self-esteem and that they bully to improve their self-esteem. Nevertheless, this is a misguided argument because it is based on a myth. Bullies actually often have huge egos and think very highly of themselves. With this inflated sense of self-importance, they try to be powerful through bullying. Catherine Bradshaw, a developmental psychologist who studies bullying says “It provides these kids with a sense of power,”.(Bradshaw,2010) Consequently, this leads to a vicious cycle being created where people are harassed and despotism so that their tormentors gain control over them and gain more influence. This boosts their self-importance even more and they try to control and antagonize more and more people. Jaana Juvonen a development psychologist and much sought out authority on bullying states, “The bigger, stronger kids create a social hierarchy and appoint themselves the leaders. The bullies are clearly in charge, gaining power and status that translates to a big time ego boost” (Jouven,2012) Furthermore, more people start wanting to join that that level of this social hierarchy to reap the so-called “benefits”.The focus intensifies on weaker people who are not so sure of themselves and lack self-esteem and confidence

Critics may argue that based on the actions and behaviors of the bullies, it is the victim that suffer and not the bullies. It is indeed true that victims often face many negative effects. Victims are taunted, the bully playing on the victims insecurities. This results in the victim having low self-esteem and a wounded self-concept. Dr. Mark Dombeck, a Ph.D. in Philosophy who studies philosophy states "Being bullied teaches you that you are undesirable, that you are not safe in the world, and (when it is dished out by forces that are physically superior to yourself) that you are relatively powerless to defend yourself." (Dombeck,2007)Students grow increasingly doubtful of your own talents and skill. Confidence is often lost and this can result in faltering more easily under hard times. While this may be true nevertheless bullies are also on the receiving end of the negative effects of the whole process of bullying. They are in a sense in the same boat as the victims later on in life, The vicious cycle of gaining more and more power for the bully does not end there. Bullies try to rule over people through violence and threats. In a study where boys from Grade six to Grade nine, bullies were found to be four times more likely to be convicted of a crime than other people. 60% of the bullies had committed at least one crime and 35% had committed three or more -Olweus, D. (1992).Through these statistics, it can be concluded how bullies often have higher chances of committing crimes in later years, a way they try to have a sense of power and control. Bullies often continue to try to be in control and have a sense of dominance. They can sometimes, though not always resort to violence and crime to try to control people through things such as fear.

Secondly, let’s take a look at popularity and being well known. People tend to bully to become more well known or be popular amongst kids. This might be surprising and many may argue that bullies are often scorned by others and are considered unpopular. I challenge this as it is actually a flawed argument. We keep hearing these stories in the news about how a plane has crashed in a certain place and we are many people are actually scared of their next flight. However, these are just a small minority. We don’t hear anything about the thousands of planes that safely take off and land every day. Humans are more attracted to interesting news which is often negative news. As bullying statistics.org states "The fact that one gets more social recognition for negative behaviors than for positive ones can also contribute to reasons why people bully." From this piece of evidence and the self-importance explored in the last paragraphs, we can conclude that bullies want to increase their sense of importance and want to be known to more and more people and get a wider audience to see them. So, they often pick on people who are considered nerdy or have low self-esteem and are considered popular and “cool” by many students. People with low self-esteem are labeled in such a way that they are considered uncool and bullying them does not matter because the victims do not matter. A study was conducted by Jaana Jouven.More than 2000 grade 6 students were taken where bullies were asked to be identified and victims were to be identified. Then teachers and students were asked who were the most popular students and who were the least popular. By far the bullies were the most popular and the victims were unpopular.This evidence makes it clear that students, idolize and in some sense almost hero worship bullies who make fun of unpopular kids who are sometimes scorned instead of helped.(Jouven, 2012)

It seems once again as though it is the victim who bears all the burden and negative effects while the bullies don’t. Critics might say that based on my previous point, the bullies tend to be the popular ones, with the support from the crowd and against the-the victims have no support. They are seen as uncool, nerds and geeks and are scorned. They take the constant taunting of the bullies and the bullies label them under titles such as teachers pet, nerd or if they are different they are titled as things like gay or disabled.Often victims of bullying suffer from problems such as anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. Some extreme cases can be seen in the example of Amanda Todd who committed suicide after cyber and physical bullying(as well as other reasons). A study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center took 1420 children, out of which 21.5 % were victims and 5%were bullies. The rest were bystanders and had nothing to do with bullying. (Copeland,2013)Victims had 4 times more chance of having anxiety issues and 5 times the chance of depression. This research and statistics give us proof that the problem being faced by victims is very real and them being scorned and not receiving support is one of the reasons these problems occur. Victims clearly showing signs of depressions and anxiety means that they do not get any help what so ever. This can mean that either students are considering bullying acceptable or they are mocked by the public for being labeled as teachers pet. This is the work of the manipulative bully who turns people against victims and makes the bullying humane and reasonable. This is clearly a concern that this is being allowed and boundaries of what is acceptable should re-made and enforced. The scene where the bully is the most popular and well known while the victim is scorned might be seen as an idealistic situation for the bullies, but this is far from the truth. Bullies too often suffer from anxiety, depression and substance abuse in adulthood. After being considered popular and having inflated ego’s, when they get to adulthood and the “real world” they are severely let down. They are not prepared to be working under people and often times they find that they can’t dominate and rule anymore. Having bosses and people that are above them is does not always go down well with their sense of self-importance. Bullying in one's past can be one of the many factors people might lose jobs. Eyes on bullying, an organization that raises awareness about bullying and it’s ill effects states “Aggression, Antisocial behavior, Difficulty controlling their emotions, Convictions for drunk driving, Depression, Suicides are characteristics found in adult bullies”

Equally important is this idea of shame and self-esteem as well as their difference. Earlier I had said that the idea of bullies having low self-esteem was largely a myth. While that may be true, bullies are prone to shame. Feeling shame means that you feel disgrace, inadequate or flawed about something. However having low self-esteem means that you do not believe in yourself and you feel bad about yourself and do not like yourself. Bullies may have high self-esteems meaning and largely believe that the are amazing but they try to hide any flaws, avoid any shame. They often try to hide their own flaws by bringing out others inadequacies and flaws. "Their mean behavior toward others keeps their self-esteem high because it takes their own and others' attention away from the parts of themselves about which they are ashamed.”-Dr.Maria C Lamia Bullies.(Lamia, 2012) Bullies often pick targets that either have flaws that the bullies can exploit to draw attention away from their own flaws or they have talents where the bullies have flaws. As Dr. Ronald E Riggio states “...Bullies often target persons who are particularly skilled or competent, viewing them as competition, and compensating for their own weaknesses.” (Riggo, 2015)Bullies label these victims as nerds or geeks and scorn them with support from the general crowd and pull out their flaws to shame them.

In the same fashions as above paragraphs, there is a price to pay with bullying for this reason. Maria C Lamia, a Ph.D. psychologist states that “ They are afraid their failures or shortcomings will be exposed.” (Lamia, 2012)They attempt to hide their failures.They always worried about these failures and shortcomings and them being exposed and that can cause stress and anxiety. A study that William Copeland, a researcher at the Duke University Medical Center took 2000 kids; a mix of bullies, victims, and bystander. Bullies had 15 times the likelihood of developing panic disorder and displaying symptoms of anxiety. (Copeland, 2103)Also, one cannot improve on one's flaws without acknowledging them and attempting to solve them. The problem with bullying to hide your flaws and ignore them leads to not fixing these flaws and having them permanently. I used to be terrible at art and would ignore the subject stating that I did not care about it. However, one year I tried to put effort into my work and I started improving slowly. I eventually managed to get a gratifying grade. The fact that before I did not bother with my flaw in art and when I did I started improving and getting better grades means that actually accepting your flaws and working on them are better in the long run as you actually improve on them and they are no longer considered flaws by you or others.

In conclusion, bullying occurs because of multiple reasons. The sense of self-importance and ego, the lust to be well known and being shame-prone. Schools and kids should reconsider the boundaries of what is acceptable and act within them. If they see anyone stepping over these boundaries and bullying others they should act and stop the bullying and help the victim as well as the bully. Most people believe that the victims are the only ones that need help and the bullies should be completely punished and not helped at all. They may state that the effects on the victim and the reasons bullies bully are terrible enough that the bully should not receive any help whatsoever. This is flawed and misguided because the process of bullying that occurs now as it harms and hurts victims, bullies, and even bystanders at times. "By far, being a bully and a victim meant having the worst long-term outcomes" sums William Copeland(Copeland,2013)The whole phenomena is full of negative psychological, physiological and even sociological impacts. It is everyone's duty to ensure that such a phenomena does not come to be and both victims and bullies receive support to stop the ill effects which can later impact their adult lives drastically.

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