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Abuse

Types

The Basics of Bullying

In colloquial speech, bullying is most often used to describe a form of harassment perpetrated by someone who is in some way more powerful, physically or socially, than a weaker peer.

For the term bullying, the following criteria must be met:

the behavior is aggressive and negative;
the behavior is carried out repeatedly;
the behavior occurs in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power between the parties involved
the behavior is purposeful

Bullying is broken into two categories:

direct bullying
indirect bullying, also known as social aggression

Direct bullying is the form most common to male bullies.

Ross (1998) states that direct bullying involves a great deal of physical aggression. Typical forms of direct bullying are:

shoving and poking
throwing things
slapping and hitting
choking
punching and kicking
beating
stabbings

Social aggression or indirect bullying is characterized by forcing the victim into social isolation. This isolation is achieved through a wide variety of techniques, including:

spreading gossip
refusing to socialize with the victim
bullying other people who wish to socialize with the victim
criticizing the victim's manner of dress and other socially-significant markers (including the victim's race, religion, disability, etc).

Ross (1998) outlines other forms of indirect bullying which are more subtle and more likely to be verbal, these include:

name calling
the silent treatment
arguing others into submission

Bullying can occur in any situation in which human beings interact with each other. This includes school, workplace, the home, and between countries (see Jingoism). Whatever the situation, the power structure is typically evident between the bully and the victim. To those outside the conflict, it seems that the bully's power depends only upon the perception of the victim, with the victim being too intimidated to put up effective resistance. However, the victim usually has just cause to be afraid of the bully (due to threats, and previous encounters with bullies) or even if not afraid is unable to resist due to personal weakness.

Teasing Versus Bullying

Stones (1993, p. 70)Template:Ref stones states that when teased:

Someone is making fun of you in a good-humoured way.
The Person doing the teasing is someone who knows you well and cares about you.
The teasing is not something to be taken seriously - usually you will find it funny also.
If you do feel upset by the teasing, it is a mild feeling that soon goes away.
Teasing is a two-way thing - someone who teases will soon get teased and someone who is teased will soon become a teaser.

When teasing becomes cruel and causes someone distress and/or it becomes one-sided and prolonged, then teasing has become bullying.

Bullying can be summarized as teasing that is meant to hurt the person on the receiving end.

Characteristics of bullies

Research indicates that adults who bully have personalities that are authoritarian, combined with a strong need to control or dominate. It has also been suggested that a deficit in social skills and a prejudicial view of subordinates can be particular risk factors.

Further studies have shown that while envy and resentment may be motives for bullying, there is little evidence to suggest bullies suffer from any deficit in self esteem (as this would make it difficult to bully). However there are instances where bullying takes place only for humor. It is generally used in this instance by children who were bullied earlier in their lives. The fact that those who bullied them derrived fun from their acts this would teach the victims to do the same.

Researchers have identified other risk factors such as quickness to anger and use of force, addiction to aggressive behaviors, mistaking others' actions as hostile, concern with preserving self image, and engaging in obsessive or rigid actions. It should also be noted that in most schools there is reward for bullies such as apearing aggressive and more attractive while drawing lines that they are better than their victims.

Bullying may also be "tradition" in settings where an age group or higher rank feels superior than lowerclassmen.

It is often suggested that bullying behavior has its origin in childhood:

"If aggressive behaviour is not challenged in childhood, there is a danger that it may become habitual. Indeed, there is research evidence, to indicate that bullying during childhood puts children at risk of criminal behaviour and domestic violence in adulthood."

Bullying does not necessarily involve criminality or physical violence. For example, bullying often operates through psychological abuse or verbal abuse.

Identifying Early Warning Signs of Violence

Parents, educators and students can learn to recognize certain early warning signs of violence (TVDSB safeschools, 2006). Some of these early warning signs include:

social withdrawal
excessive feelings of isolation and being alone
excessive feelings of rejection
feelings of being picked on
low school interest and poor academic performance
expressions of violence in writings and drawings
uncontrolled anger
past history of violent and aggressive behaviour
drug use and alcohol use
high interest in movies, videos and internet web sites which glorify violence
threats of violence

Types of bullying

School Bullying

In schools, bullying usually occurs in areas with minimal or no adult supervision. It can occur in nearly any part in or around the school building, though it more often occurs in PE, exploratory classes, hallways, bathrooms, classes that require group work and/or afterschool activities.

An extreme case of schoolyard bullying is that of an eighth grader named Curtis Taylor at a middle school in Iowa. He had been the victim of continuous bullying for three years, which included name-calling, being bashed into a locker, having chocolate milk poured down his sweatshirt, and the vandalism of his belongings. In reaction to the continuous harassment, Curtis Taylor committed suicide on March 21, 1993. Some bully experts have termed this extreme reaction "bullycide".

In the 1990's, the United States saw an epidemic of school shootings (of which the most notorious was the Columbine High School massacre). Many of the children behind these shootings claimed that they were victims of bullying and that they resorted to violence only after the school administration repeatedly failed to intervene. In many of these cases, the victims of the shooters sued both the shooters' families and the schools.

As a result of these trends, schools in many countries strongly discourage bullying, with programs designed to teach students cooperation, as well as training peer moderators in intervention and dispute resolution techniques, as a form of peer support.

Since media coverage has exposed just how widespread bullying is, juries are now more likely to sympathize with victims. In recent years, many victims have been suing bullies directly for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and including their school as a defendant under the principle of joint and several liability. American victims and their families have other legal recourse, such as suing a school or teacher for failure to adequately supervise, racial or gender discrimination, or other civil rights violations. Special education students who are victimized may sue a school or school board under the ADA or Section 504.

Workplace Bullying

Main article: Workplace bullying

Workplace bullying, like childhood bullying, is the tendency of individuals or groups to use aggressive or unreasonable behavior to achieve their ends. When perpetrated by a group, workplace bullying is often called mobbing. Unlike the more physical form of schoolyard bullying, workplace bullying often takes place within the established rules and policies of the organization and society. For instance, a workplace bully might use the "rumor mill" to circulate a lie about a co-worker. An employee who dislikes a co-worker for personal reasons may incessantly criticize everything that co-worker does. Such actions are not necessarily illegal and may not even be against the firm's regulations; however, the damage to the targeted employee and to workplace morale is obvious.

According to the Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute, workplace bullying is "the repeated mistreatment of one employee targeted by one or more employees with a malicious mix of humiliation, intimidation and sabotage of performance." Statistics show that bullying is 3 times as prevalent as illegal discrimination and at least 1,600 times as prevalent as workplace violence. Statistics also show that while only one employee in every 10,000 becomes a victim of workplace violence, one in six experiences bullying at work. Bullying is also far more common than sexual harassment and verbal abuse.

Cyber-bullying

Main article: Cyber-bullying

Cyberbullying occurs in electronic space. According to Canadian educator Bill Belsey, the creator of the term, it:

"involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, blogs, online games and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others".

Bullies will even create blogs to intimidate victims worldwide.

Neighbourhood Bullying

Bullying between neighbors normally takes the form of intimidating behaviour, such as excessive noise to disturb sleep and other normal living patterns, and reports to authorities, such as the police, for minor or made-up incidents. Known as jurisdiction bullying, its purpose is to make the victim so uncomfortable that they move from their property. Bullies often pick their victims because of some perceived 'weakness', including the sheer weight of numbers - a whole family who intimidate and abuse a neighbour who lives alone and feels vulnerable. The bullying may start because the bullies begin to do something which is not reasonable or acceptable, and hold their victim to ransom, under the threat of intimidation and abuse. The law is often heavily weighted on the side of children and adolescents - and in society these days, anti-social youths are using this protection to intimidate and abuse adults - particularly those who have different outlooks on life, different lifestyles to them, etc. whilst under the actual protection of the law. Neighbours like this often call their "rights" into play, but afford their victims none. Again, the law seems weighted against the law-abiding person who just wants to go about their business in peace. Solving this situation can be almost impossible. Bullies can be chameleons, appearing to authority figures as charming and harmless, often being believed to be the victims. They are very practiced in making it look like they are the ones being victimised. When challenged with facts, a female bully will turn on the tears to gain sympathy from authorities and other neighbours.

How do you deal with such bullies? You can call the police and report the behaviour, e.g. excessive noise at unreasonable hours, or continuous noise - councils have procedures for noise monitoring, but since the perpetrators have the 'right' to be told recordings might be taken, you may well go through this several times and fail to prove the nuisance, so getting no-where. You can report intimidation from staring, attacking your car, throwing dog faeces over the fence, threats, unlawfully entering your premises, etc. You can cite the Human Rights Act on your own behalf, but under current law, it is likely that bullies will be victorious. If they are hell-bent on their agenda of getting you out of your home, ultimately the law is on their side, supporting them - not on yours. Once they start this kind of behaviour, beware of the other neighbours, who often will side with them and refuse to help you as witnesses - let's face it, they don't want to become the next victims. If you can endure it, face them with as much dignity as you can muster. Refuse to be bowed by them, hold your head up, even when you are feeling terrified. Ignore them as much as humanly possible, even during an attack. If the attack is extreme, just walk away and immediately call the police. Keep a record of every incident, however minor, and log it with the police. Eventually the police will want the incidents to stop accumulating on their statistical log, so will have to come and do something about it. Just make sure you are in the right, and don't bow to the overwhelming pressure being levelled at you by the bullies. The police are often duped and sympathise with the bully, so don't necessarily expect any help from that quarter, but this is all that is currently available to you.

Being bullied is stressful and destructive. Plan how you will deal with incidents before the next one happens, and plan your ultimate escape, no matter if it is going to take you years to achieve. You need some way to survive.

Political Bullying

Main article: Jingoism

Jingoism occurs when one country imposes its will on another. This is normally done with military force or threats. With threats, it is common to ensure that aid and grants will not be given to the smaller country or that the smaller country will not be allowed to join a trading organisation. Often political corruptions, coup d'états, and kleptocracies are the solution and response to the countries being bullied.

Military Bullying

In 2000, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) defined bullying as: “...the use of physical strength or the abuse of authority to intimidate or victimize others, or to give unlawful punishments,”

Yet it is claimed that military bullying is still shielded from open investigation. Deepcut Barracks in the UK is one example of the government refusing to conduct a full public enquiry into possible military bullying.

Some argue that this behaviour should be allowed because of a general academic consensus that "soldiering" is different from other occupations. Soldiers expected to risk their lives should, according to them, develop strength of body and spirit to accept bullying.

Sometimes the bullying is unavoidable and even necessary, but comes down from above: the drill sergeant. This is the basis of boot camp training: to create a fighting unit where loyalty will lead to protecting the unit at any cost to the individual. Old group affiliations are weakened, the new group forged into one entity of incredibly strong allegiance and bonding by this sanctioned bullying.

In some countries, ritual hazing among recruits has been tolerated and even lauded as a rite of passage that builds character and toughness; while in others, systematic bullying of lower-ranking, young or physically slight recruits may in fact be encouraged by military policy, either tacitly or overtly (see dedovschina). Also, the Russian army usually have older/more experienced candidates abusing - kicking or punching - less experienced soldiers..

Military environment hazing and bullying is also found in the military academies of the various armed forces. The abuse includes sexual objectifying, sexual harassment and even rape.

Derogatory Labels

Normally a nickname is given by a family member or friend. It may be a short commonly used form of the given name or it might be a pet name given in early childhood.

However, in bullying, rather than friendly nicknames, a derogatory label is associated with the victim. In early childhood, the label most often draws attention to a feature or characteristic that distinguishes the victim from the rest of the crowd. In some cases, the targeted characteristic is not one the victim wants to be noticed. A redhead might be called "carrot top", or someone with glasses might be called "four eyes." Bullies might also choose nicknames that target physical oddities such as birthmarks or muscular disorders. These nicknames can be so changed from the original that they appear entirely harmless and can be taken up by teachers and other adults further alienating the victim unintentionally.

Sometimes others follow the bully by adopting the cruel nickname. Feelings of ostracism are frequent and can severely impact socialization and academic performance. Teachers may notice the harassment, but it is usually perceived as harmless, often because the jabs are too subtle to recognize. Often the teacher will respond to a target's pleas for intervention by the recitation of the refrain, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Unfortunately, it is often a false assessment.

Derogatory nicknames are not limited to the schoolyard. Adult bullies may also participate in labeling others in the workplace or social circle. These labels are more likely to characterize perceived or suspected personality, character or incompetency. Adult labeling is often paired with other harassing and undermining behaviors.

Hazing

Main articles: Hazing and Ragging

Hazing is an often ritualistic test, which may constitute harassment, abuse or humiliation with requirements to perform meaningless tasks; sometimes as a way of initiation into a social group. The term can refer to either physical (sometimes violent) or mental (possibly degrading) practices. It is a subjective matter where to draw to line between 'normal' hazing (somewhat abusive) and a mere rite of passage (essentially bonding; proponents may argue they can coincide), and there is a gray area where exactly the other side passes over into sheer degrading, even harmful abuse that should not even be tolerated if accepted voluntarily (serious but avoidable accidents do still happen; even deliberate abuse with similar grave medical consequences occurs, in some traditions even rather often). Furthermore, as it must be a ritual initiation, a different social context may mean a same treatment is technically hazing for some, not for others, e.g. a line-crossing ceremony when passing the equator at sea is hazing for the sailor while the extended (generally voluntary, more playful) application to passengers is not.

Hazing has been reported in a variety of social contexts, including:

Sports Teams
Academic fraternities and sororities (see Fraternities and sororities)
College and Universities in general. This practice occurs no less in smaller institutions such as the officially sanctioned 'Kangaroo Court' at Quincy University, Illinois. In India, this process is termed Ragging.
associated groups, like fan clubs, school bands
secret societies and even certain service clubs, or rather their local sections (such as some modern US Freemasons; not traditional masonic lodges)
similarly various other competitive sports teams or clubs, even 'soft' and non-competitive ones (such as arts)
The armed forces — e.g. in the US, hard hazing practices from World War I boot camps were introduced into colleges. In Poland army hazing is called Polish fala "wave" adopted pre-World War I from non-Polish armies. In the Russian army (formerly the Red Army) still often excessive hazing is called "Dedovshchina".
Police forces (often with a paramilitary tradition)
Rescue services, such as lifeguards (also drilled for operations in military style)
In workplaces
Inmate hazing is also common at confinement facilities around the world, including frequent reports of beatings and sexual assaults by fellow inmates.

Hazing is considered a felony in several US states, and anti hazing legislation has been proposed in other states.

Strategies to cope with bullying

Helping Victims at School

One of the responsibilities of members of a school team is that they need to help the victims of bullying. The following strategies may be considered:

If a person voluntarily comes to someone for help then they need to listen. Sometimes this is all that the victim wants and needs.
After investigating the situation, it may be that intervention is necessary with the bully or bullies. The situation needs to be addressed and hopefully a resolution to the problem can be found.
Inform the parents of the victim and of the bully. Discuss possible solutions with them. Arrange a meeting with them if possible.
Follow up in communicating with the victim, the parents and the teachers about the situation.
Monitor the behaviour of the bully and the safety of the victim on a school-wide basis.
teach kids how to stand up to bullies and learn to defend themselves

Strategies to Reduce Bullying Within Schools

Researchers (Olweus, 1993; Craig & Peplar, 1999; Ross, 1998; ) provide several strategies which address ways to help reduce bullying, these are:

make adults aware of the situation and involve them
make it clear that bullying is never acceptable
hold a school conference day devoted to bully/victim problems
increase adult supervision in the yard, halls and washrooms more vigilantly
emphasize caring, respect and safety
emphasize consequences of hurting others
enforce consistent and immediate consequences for aggressive behaviours
follow up on all instances of aggression
improve communication among school administrators, teachers, parents and students
have a school problem box where kids can report problems, concerns and offer suggestions
teach cooperative learning activities
help bullies with anger control and the development of empathy
encourage positive peer relations
offer a variety of extracurricular activities which appeal to a range of interests

References

The Harassed Worker, Brodsky, C. (1976), D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, Massachusetts.
Student Reports of Bullying, Results From the 2001 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, US National Center for Education Statistics
Beat Bullying at Work: a Guide for Trade Union Representatives and Personnel Managers. Trades Union Congress (TUC) (1998), London, UK.
Bullyonline: Stress, injury to health, trauma, PTSD Field, Tim, Success Unlimited, UK.
Striking back at the cyberbullies Page, Chris, BBC, UK.
Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace. International perspectives in research and practice, Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.)(2003), Taylor & Francis, London.
Petty tyranny in organizations , Ashforth, Blake, Human Relations, Vol. 47, No. 7, 755-778 (1994)
Areas of Expert Agreement on Identification of School Bullies and Victims, Hazler, R. J., Carney, J. V., Green, S., Powell, R., & Jolly, L. S. (1997). School Psychology International, 18, 3-12.
Anti-Bullying Center Trinity College, Dublin,
Bullies and their victims: Understanding a pervasive problem in the schools, Batsche, G. M., & Knoff, H. M. (1994) School PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW, 23 (2), 165-174. EJ 490 574.
Military bullying a global problem, BBC, UK Monday, 28 November 2005
The Values and Standards of the British Army – A Guide to Soldiers, Ministry of Defence, UK March 2000, paragraph 23.
Social Psychology of the Individual Soldier, Jean M. Callaghan and Franz Kernic 2003 Armed Forces and International Security: Global Trends and Issues, Lit Verlag, Munster
Internet Infidels Discussion Boards, http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=170922
Craig, W.M. & Peplar, D.J. (1999). Chilren who bully - Will they just grow out of it? Orbit, 29 (4), 16 - 19.
Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. Oxford Blackwell Publishers.
Ross, P.N. (1998). Arresting violence: A resource guide for schools and their communities. Toronto: Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation.
Stanfield, J. (1992). Be Cool Grades 3 - 6 Coping with bullying. Teacher's Guide. Santa Barbara, California: James Stanfield Publishing Company.
Stones, R. (1993). Don't pick on me: How to handle bullying. Markham: Pembrook Publishers
Thames Valley District School Board (2006). Safeschools. London, Ontario

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