“Bullies only have power if you let them.” Television producer & writer Aaron Korsh
Reasons / Origin (Why)
Why does bullying occur? Common motivations for bullying include getting power, control, respect, social status, and revenge, according to therapist Dawn-Elise Snipes. But ultimately, bullying is “really about getting access to resources,” explains 🎧 psychologist Dieter Wolke: “…the aim is really to get high in the hierarchy of dominance, and to have access to resources, like for example in pre-school it can be to the favorite toy, to friends, to get invited to parties, but it increases again in early adolescents when the new sources — access to romantic partners, and for that it’s very important to be cool, to be up in the tree, to be socially liked, to be popular… and bullying is one vehicle to get there” [01:32].
“Human bullying is both the product of tendencies inherited from our chimp-like ancestors, and of competitive social environments like those of chimps and rhesus monkeys,” behavioral biologist Dario Maestripieri asserts. As long as bullies in competitive social circles are using this archaic strategy to grab resources, none of us can avoid bullying throughout our lifetime.
Bullying can be proactive or reactive. As psychologist Marina Camodeca explains: proactive aggression is “goal-directed, deliberate and cold-blooded, does not need any stimulus and may be characterized by pleasure or satisfaction… [It] aimed at obtaining an object or a privilege… [or it is] used to intimidate or dominate a peer…”. By contrast, reactive aggression “is a defensive response to provocation or trouble… [it] might be viewed as justified by the need to defend oneself and to retaliate against abuse…”. Proactive bullying often triggers reactive retribution, which in turn can trigger more proactive bullying, creating a vicious cycle.
Definition (What)
Psychologist Dan Olweus, an authority on the subject of bullying, defines it as “purposeful negative behavior enacted upon an individual or group that is repeated over time in the context of an interpersonal relationship that involves an imbalance of power favoring the perpetrator(s)”.
Four conditions have to be met for bullying to take place, as explained by Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin in Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard 📖:
- “First, the behavior is intentional and purposed rather than accidental or inadvertent.”
- “Second, bullying necessarily involves maliciousness on the part of the aggressor, and that maliciousness is one type of violence.”
- “Third, one instance of aggression is not sufficient to qualify as bullying; to be considered bullying, behavior must occur, or present the threat of occurring, on a repetitive basis. This is one of the features that distinguishes bullying from other forms of peer harassment.”
- “Fourth, inherent in any conception of bullying is the demonstration (or interpretation) of power by the offender over the target. If both parties were equal (socially, physically, or otherwise), one might think that neither has the proverbial upper hand. With differential levels of power, though, bullying can occur. Many characteristics can give a bully perceived or actual power over a victim, including popularity, physical strength or stature, social competence, quick wit, extroversion, confidence, intelligence, age, sex, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.”
A simple-to-remember acronym for bullying is PRIM (power imbalance, repeated, intentional and malicious). We will be using these four criteria to evaluate and verify bullying situations throughout World. For now, let’s just highlight a few things:
- Power imbalance can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people (source).
- Without the imbalance of power, there is no bullying. The situation would instead be power struggle or competition. Refer back to Groups > System 2: Game Theory > The Case for Competition.
- While bullying is arguably the oldest form of human conflict, let’s not forget that there are other more evolved causes of group conflicts: tribalism, externality and deindividuation, attachment styles, moral foundations, societal development stages, and identities. See discussions on these topics in Groups > Group Conflicts.
Conditions (When)
When does bullying occur? Whenever there is a relationship involving an imbalance of power and competition of resources, where one party can exert influence on another party for the express purpose of exploiting the other, bullying inevitably occurs. As the saying goes: “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Out of the four conditions of bullying, PRIM, the first letter P — power imbalance — is the most definitive. Without an imbalance of power, we are left with intentional, malicious and repeated power struggle, but not bullying. Also, a bully typically bullies to gain something, tangible or intangible, from the exploitation. Finding out what unfair advantages a bully gains from a relationship equals to finding the root cause of an abusive relationship.
On a psychological level, cognitive scientist Scott Barry Kaufman argues that “assholes” are born when “either we focus too much on others at the expense of the self, or we focus too much on the self at the expense of others”, as either situation creates a power imbalance ripe for exploitation. Find a related discussion in Groups > Group Conflicts > Externality & Deindividuation.
From a personal and relational perspective, bullies choose their targets “…on the basis of certain characteristics, such as providing tangible rewards, giving signs of suffering and being unable to retaliate… Thus, bullying can be considered as the result of individual characteristics and social context…,” writes Camodeca citing Perry, Williard & Perry, 1990.
From the game theory point of view (more in Groups > System 2: Game Theory), whenever someone rigs the system to get an unfair payoff, such as corporate lobbying superseding citizens’ collective will or totalitarianism controlling every aspect of its subjects’ lives, you will very likely find bullying.
Methods (How)
As a form of violence, bullying behaviors may manifest in many ways. That said, abusive behaviors generally fall into two categories: direct and indirect; and five types: physical, psychological, verbal, sexual and cyberbullying.
Direct bullying includes these physical behaviors:
- Hitting, pushing, kicking, etc.;
- Taking items or money by force;
- Harassment such as inappropriate touching, blocking someone’s movement;
- Physical intimidation such as threatening someone with a weapon;
- Stalking;
- Rape or sexual assault;
- Controlling another’s behaviors;
- Gang violence.
Indirect aggression includes more subtle, manipulative acts such as:
- Verbal violence, e.g., name-calling, taunting, teasing, mocking, threatening, intimidating, humiliating, abusive language, inappropriate jokes;
- Relational aggression, e.g., gossip, rumor spreading, social sabotage, exclusion, and other behaviors destructive to interpersonal relationships such as intensity, isolation, extreme jealousy, belittling, volatility (source);
- Sexual advances such as catcalling, asking for sexual favors, inquiring about sexual history;
- Discrimination based on gender, race, physical attributes, etc.;
- Emotional bullying that causes harm to a victim’s psyche and/or emotional well-being. One example is gaslighting: the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or one’s feelings;
- Cyberbullying, e.g., doxing, trolling, shaming, cancelling, cyberstalking, framing, flaming, cat-fishing (see more in World > Systemic Anti-bullying > From Cognitive Warfare to Cyberbullying).
At the group level, social dominance theory identifies three primary means of bullying: institutional discrimination, aggregated individual discrimination, and behavioral asymmetry. For more about institutional discrimination, see World > Systemic Anti-bullying > From Identity Politics to Social Coercion.
On top of individuals and groups, authoritarian political regimes also use all of the above abusive methods to control its subjects. We will look into this ultimate form of bullying in World > Political Anti-bullying.
Roles (Who)
As mentioned before, as long as there is power imbalance, any relationship has the potential to become exploitative. The following are common relationships that can potentially turn aggressive — for discussions about these relations, see Groups > Groups We Are In & Their Significance.
- Self;
- Family;
- Romantic / Sex;
- Friends;
- Classmates / teacher-student;
- Colleagues;
- Community relations, e.g., between religious leaders and followers;
- Social and economic classes (see World > Systemic Bullying > From Economic Exploitation to Extreme Inequality and From Generational Conflicts to Generational Inequality);
- Majority-minority relations such as gender, race, disabilities, appearance, etc. (see World > Systemic Anti-bullying > From Identity Politics to Social Coercion);
- Political affiliations, e.g., between authoritarian regimes and their subjects (see World > Political Anti-bullying);
- Human and environment (see World > Systemic Anti-bullying > From Environmental Exploitation to Planetary Abuse).
Listed below are the variety of roles involved in an act of bullying, which goes far beyond bullies and their targets, with detrimental impact on the entire group or society. Understanding the complex interplay of bullying roles would help us navigate intricate power dynamics and effectively combat bullying.
- Bully (ringleader): the main bully who commits “aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time” (Bullying at School 📖 by Dan Olweus). See more in World > Bullying Basics > Understand Bullies.
- Bullied: person or group of people whom the bullying act is directed at. See World > Bullying Basics > Understand the Bullied.
- Bully/victim (provocative victim): someone who suffers from bullying and in turn bullies those who are weaker. Discussed in both Understand Bullies and Understand the Bullied.
- Assistant: those who assist the ringleader bully and thus are bullies themselves. See World > Bullying Basics > Other Roles in Bullying.
- Reinforcer: those who reinforce an act of bullying by giving the bullies an audience. See Other Roles in Bullying.
- Bystander: those who are not directly involved in the bullying, neither reinforcing the act nor defending the sufferer. See Other Roles in Bullying.
- Defender / upstander: those who actively comfort the sufferer or help the sufferer stand up to bullying. See Other Roles in Bullying.
Neutralizing Bullying (Solutions)
While bullying is embedded in a hierarchical society, it is not a necessary condition in an egalitarian society. In fact, the development of human civilization, including democracy, legal systems, cross-border trade, basic human rights, globalization, international cooperation and certain religions, can be seen as a process of "de-bullying" our social structures for progress and common good. When a society equalizes the imbalance of power, institutional bullying would minimize, because compared to other resources-allocation methods such as cooperation and commerce, societal bullying behaviors such as wars generates the least social value. However, we are far from living a bully-free society. To prevent reverting back to "Lord of the Flies" situations and to promote individual freedom, most of us will benefit from banding together to increase the cost of bullying and lower the cost of standing up to it. For more, see World > Bullying Basics > Methods to Overcome Bullying, World > Political Anti-bullying and World > D3 — Direct Deliberate Democracy.
Those of us with growth mindset, iterative learning skills, open life view, and life-actualizing experience through moral struggles will be much more resistant to bullying (see Self > Principle: Growth Mindset and Method: Iterative Learning, Life > Principles > Open Life View and Self-actualization through Moral Struggles). So are people who understand game theory and know how to collaborate in groups (see Groups > System 2: Game Theory and System 2: Collaboration).
Can bullying be stopped? It will if we fight for it; it definitely won’t if we don’t. It’d as simple as that.
As to the all-important how, we will deep-dive in the following segments as well as the rest of World.
- Method: Standing up to Bullying
- Understand Bullies
- Understand the Bullied
- Other Roles in Bullying
- Identify Bullying in Your Life
- Check for False Victimhood
- Why Standing Up to Bullying is One of the Most Important Things in Life
- Methods to Overcome Bullying
Further reading:
Do you have any suggestions, doubts, hypothesis or experience for this topic? Please comment below 👇!
