What is Bullying?

Bullying is unwanted aggressive behavior by an individual or group, characterized by three key components: intent, repetition, and a power imbalance. It involves intentional actions aimed at causing harm, whether through physical force, hurtful words, or other damaging behaviors. These actions are not isolated incidents but rather a pattern repeated over time.

Types of Bullying

Bullying can manifest in various forms, each with unique characteristics and impacts:

• Physical Bullying: This involves direct physical actions against a person, such as hitting, slapping, pushing, or stealing. It is often the most visible form and can cause immediate physical harm as well as long-term emotional trauma.
• Verbal Bullying: Uses words to hurt, humiliate, or intimidate someone. This includes name-calling, gossiping, teasing, and making threats. Verbal abuse can significantly damage a person's self-esteem and emotional well-being, often leading to anxiety and depression.
• Non-Verbal Abuse: Involves actions that convey harmful messages without words, such as inappropriate hand signs, offensive gestures, or abusive text messages. Non-verbal cues can be just as damaging as verbal ones, contributing to an environment of fear and disrespect.
• Emotional Abuse: Characterized by behaviors that intimidate, humiliate, or manipulate someone. This includes constant criticism, undermining someone's confidence, and threatening behaviors. Emotional abuse can have profound long-term effects on a person's mental health.
• Exclusion: Involves deliberately ignoring or isolating someone from a group or activity. This form of relational bullying aims to damage a person's social connections and status, often leading to feelings of loneliness and rejection.
• Cyberbullying: Occurs through digital platforms like social media, text messages, instant messaging, and emails. This form of bullying can be particularly harmful as it can happen at any time and often remains hidden from adults. Cyberbullying includes spreading rumors online, sending threatening messages, and public shaming.
• Relational Bullying: Involves actions intended to harm someone's social relationships and reputation. This includes gossiping, spreading rumors, and social exclusion. Relational bullying can be subtle but is extremely damaging to the victim's social standing and emotional health.
• Discriminatory Bullying: Involve bullying based on racial, sexual, transphobic, or homophobic motives, as well as targeting individuals with disabilities. These types of bullying are not only harmful but also illegal, often carrying severe legal consequences.
• In-Person Bullying on School Grounds: Can take many forms, including physical bullying, name-calling, public shaming in class, physical acts like shoving or stealing, excluding someone from groups or events, gossiping, and stalking or following.

Recognizing the Signs of Bullying

Children may not always vocalize their experiences with bullying, making it essential for parents, guardians, and educators to be vigilant in observing both behavioral and physical signs.

Emotional and Behavioral Signs

Fear and Anxiety: A child who fears going to school or attending events may be experiencing bullying. Anxiety, especially around specific individuals or situations, can indicate distress.

Vigilance: Overly watchful or wary children, constantly looking over their shoulders, may be trying to protect themselves from a perceived threat.

Social Withdrawal: Avoiding social interactions or losing friends suddenly can be a sign of bullying, whether through exclusion or a desire to avoid further harm.

Aggressive Behavior: In some cases, a bullied child may exhibit aggressive or angry outbursts, reflecting their internal turmoil and frustration.

Secretive Behavior: Increased secrecy, particularly regarding online activities, can indicate cyberbullying or exposure to inappropriate content.

Mood Changes: Coming home moody, sad, teary, depressed, or overly fatigued.

Physical Signs

Unexplained Injuries: Bruises, scratches, broken bones, and healing wounds without a clear explanation can be signs of physical abuse or bullying.

Frequent Complaints of Ailments: Headaches, stomach aches, or other unexplained physical complaints often manifest from stress and anxiety related to bullying.

Academic and Social Signs

Reluctance to Attend School: A child who frequently asks to stay home, claims to be ill, or has a sudden drop in attendance may be trying to avoid bullying.

Declining Academic Performance: A noticeable dip in grades or a lack of interest in schoolwork can result from the stress and distraction caused by bullying.

Seeking Proximity to Adults: Staying close to adults during school hours can indicate a child's fear of peers and a need for protection.

Social and Material Signs

Loss or Damage of Belongings: Frequently lost or damaged personal items, including clothing and electronics, can indicate bullying.

Requests for Money: Repeated requests for money or unexplained theft of money may be attempts to placate a bully.

Distress After Online Activity: A child who becomes unusually upset after using the internet or their phone may be experiencing cyberbullying.

Sleep and Health-Related Signs

Changes in Sleep Patterns: Not sleeping well, having nightmares, or significant changes in sleeping habits can be a response to stress and fear from bullying.

Physical Symptoms: Regular complaints of headaches, stomach aches, or other physical symptoms without a medical cause often relate to the emotional distress caused by bullying or abuse.

Changes in Eating Habits: Sudden changes in eating habits, like skipping meals or binge eating, can also be indicators. Kids may come home hungry because they did not eat lunch at school.

Recognizing Signs that a Child is Bullying Others

Children may be bullying others if they:

• Get into physical or verbal fights.
• Have friends who bully others.
• Are increasingly aggressive.
• Get sent to the principal's office or detention frequently.
• Have unexplained extra money or new belongings.
• Blame others for their problems.
• Don’t accept responsibility for their actions.
• Are competitive and worry about their reputation or popularity.

Effects of Bullying

Bullying can have long-lasting effects that extend into adulthood. In severe cases, it has driven children and young people to self-harm and even suicide. Within school settings, bullying significantly impacts a student’s ability to learn and feel safe.

Children who are bullied may:

• Develop mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
• Have fewer friendships and be less accepted by their peers.
• Become wary and suspicious of others.
• Experience difficulties adjusting to school, leading to poor academic performance.

Bullying affects all involved—whether they are being bullied, bullying others, or witnessing bullying. Providing support to all children involved is crucial.

Impact of Trauma and Violence

Children or teens exposed to trauma and violence are more likely to:

• Bully others.
• Be more distressed by bullying or appear desensitized to it.
• Become targets of bullying themselves.

The relationship between trauma and bullying is complex. Being bullied can lead to traumatic stress reactions, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Physical Health Consequences

Children who have experienced trauma are more likely to be bullied and to engage in bullying behavior. Trauma can lead to social or interpersonal difficulties, increasing the likelihood of becoming a target of bullying.

Somatic Symptoms

Bullying can result in various somatic symptoms, which are physical manifestations of stress or emotional distress. These symptoms include:

• Sleep disorders
• Gastrointestinal issues
• Headaches
• Palpitations
• Chronic pain

Neuroendocrinology of Stress

Bullying activates the body’s stress system, centered on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is crucial for adaptation and survival. Chronic stress, such as that caused by bullying, can lead to adverse effects on both the body and brain. Cortisol, a key stress hormone, initially elevates in response to stress but becomes blunted with prolonged exposure. This pattern indicates that the body's stress response system becomes less functional with chronic stress, potentially leading to long-term negative impacts on physical and mental health.

Consequences on Brain Function

Bullying can significantly alter the behavior of children and youth, potentially impacting brain function. Techniques like fMRI, which monitor brain activity by tracking blood flow, have shown that bullying affects how the brain operates. For example, bullying can alter how the brain responds to rewards and negative feedback, impacting areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. These changes can affect memory, learning, decision-making, and emotional regulation. The stress of bullying can lead to lasting changes in brain function, particularly in regions involved in emotional regulation and memory, like the hippocampus and amygdala.

Social Pain and Bullying

Social pain refers to the emotional distress experienced from peer rejection, ostracism, or loss. Children who have been bullied exhibit different brain responses to various stimuli compared to their non-bullied peers.

Psychosocial Consequences

Bullying can lead to significant psychosocial consequences, impacting both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Internalizing problems include depression, anxiety, fear, and social withdrawal, while externalizing problems encompass anger, aggression, risky behavior, and substance abuse.

Victims of bullying commonly experience severe and enduring psychological issues, such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. In particular, boys who are bullied may develop externalizing behaviors, including aggression and delinquency.

Long-Term Effects

The long-term effects of bullying often extend into adulthood, with victims facing higher risks of mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. The impact of bullying on future mental health can be even more severe than that of childhood maltreatment by caregivers. Adults who were bullied as children often show higher rates of depression, anxiety, and self-harming behavior.

Psychotic Symptoms

Recent meta-analyses support a link between childhood bullying and later development of psychotic symptoms, both clinical and nonclinical.

Academic Performance Consequences

Children who experience bullying often exhibit diminished academic achievement, evidenced by lower grades, standardized test scores, and increased absenteeism. While some longitudinal studies support a direct link between bullying and academic decline, others show inconsistent findings, necessitating more research to clarify these associations over time.

Mechanisms Behind the Psychological Effects of Bullying

Several psychological mechanisms explain the effects of bullying on both victims and perpetrators:

• Self-Blame:Victims often internalize blame, attributing their situation to uncontrollable factors, leading to negative outcomes such as low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.
• Social CognitionSocial cognitive models highlight factors like hostile attribution bias and normative beliefs about aggression, which contribute to the development and perpetuation of bullying behaviors.
• Emotion Dysregulation:Chronic stress from bullying can lead to difficulties in managing emotional responses, increasing vulnerability to psychological distress and behavioral problems.

The Roles in Bullying

Students Who Bully Others

These students may bully to gain popularity or attention, often mimicking aggressive behavior they’ve experienced. They are at high risk for future conduct problems, such as domestic violence and substance abuse.

Bystanders

Bystanders are students who witness bullying but are not directly involved. They can influence the bullying dynamic through various roles:

• Assistants: Encourage or join in the bullying.
• Reinforcers: Provide an audience, encouraging bullying through laughter or other support.
• Outsiders: Stay separate, neither supporting nor defending the bullied child.
• Defenders: Actively intervene or comfort the bullied child.

Why Do People Bully?

Bullies often have underlying issues that contribute to their behavior, such as:

• Seeking Attention: Some bullies lash out due to a lack of attention at home or elsewhere.
• Mimicking Behavior: Bullies may replicate aggressive behaviors they’ve observed in their own family or social circle.
• Social Status: Bullying can be a way to elevate their social status among peers.
• Insecurity: Bullies often feel insecure or have poor self-esteem, finding emotional relief in dominating others.

Bullies may feel emotional relief from their own insecurity by dominating others. They often blame others and don't accept the consequences of their actions.