In my last diary, I revealed the fact that I was bullied when I was in seventh grade, and how a kind stranger told the principal of my Catholic girls’ school, who put a stop to it. What I didn’t tell you, for sake of length was precisely what went on. In truth, I was bullied twice, in completely separate incidents that had nothing to do with each other, by a group of girls in my class, and outside school by a younger girl from the school who rode the same city bus.
I was a typical victim: shy, quiet, not inclined to be verbally aggressive, and, because of the many moves (I was in six schools before I graduated from eight grade), inclined to entertain myself with books or drawing or writing. I was new in the school, and I was different because I had a slight Southern drawl, the result of 5 years surrounded by neighbors from the Deep South in my subdivision. I didn’t know how to fight back.
And, worst of all, I was good at—better even—the same things as the Head Mean Girl. Deirdre was her name, and she took my simply doing my work to the best of my ability as a challenge to her authority and popularity. She had a coterie of friends she’d known since kindergarten, and they targeted me. First, there was a whispering campaign in an attempt to alienate our classmates. Most of them ignored it. When that failed, they looked for a better method, and I unwittingly handed it to them.
I have a weak stomach. I never took high school bio for precisely that reason. I can look at pictures now, but in those days, I was a lot more sensitive to stimuli. One day in seventh grade, during a lesson on anatomy (the book had a description of how to dissect a chicken leg; after reading that, I was unable to eat a chicken leg for two years), someone brought in a cow’s leg for us to examine. It came in the front door. And I, the kid who’d never had a detention because I took rules seriously, did not ask for permission. I simply ran out the back door. I made it to the bathroom where I vomited. Then I rinsed out my mouyth, washed my face, and collapsed in a heap with my back to the wall, having my first full-fledged panic attack: cold sweat, wobbly legs, faintness, hyperventilation. Eventually the principal came in and told me to go back to class, but to sit in the back. I ended up sitting with Nicole, who was part of Deirdre’s clique. She was kind and sympathetic, and told me to close my eyes and she’d take notes for the pair of us.
But my Achilles Heel had been spotted, and Deirdre and her pal Janet immediately went to work. I was stuck at the same lunch table with them. One friend and I ended up there the first day of school, and those seats became permanent. I couldn’t change my seat, and I couldn’t leave the table until the presiding nun announced that we could do so. So I was stuck there, with Deirdre and Janet and Nicole and Kathy who always looked vaguely unhappy at having to be bystanders to my torment. During lunch period, for months and months, they would describe the most disgusting things they could come up with—I recall one lunchtime when they lingered lovingly over detailed descriptions of the fates of the bomb victims at Hiroshima.
I tried to ignore them, and would turn toward my friend and talk with her, but they escalated into class time, where the books they’d choose for reports were replete with things they knew would upset me. They talked about getting the butcher to provide a heart so we could dissect it. I never knew when they were going to act on it, and it made it damned hard for me to get through the afternoon.
Eventually, that stranger figured out something was wrong (I never told me parents, who thought the reason I would take the bus right back home was that I had a particularly nasty flu that just wouldn’t go away) and accompanied me to school, where the principal made sure it wouldn’t happen again.
In the movie Heathers, one of the trio of Mean Girls, all named Heather, asks the ringleader, "Why are you always so mean, Heather?"
And the ringleader replies with a shrug, "Because I can be."
Deirdre and Janet were Heathers, and my sin was being different, shy, introverted and challenging her authority by being good at the same things she was. She did what she did because she could, and because she knew she would get away with it. She was from a good and well-off family, smart and popular and pretty and a class leader, a female Draco Malfoy.
At the same time that this was going on, I was targeted on the city bus by the sister of a friend. Roxanne was three years younger than me, but two inches taller and about 15 pounds heavier. She was furious that her sister Cindy had a friend who lived close by—it meant she no longer had Big Sister’s undivided attention. She was a physical bully who would shove me at the bus stop or knock my books onto the filthy snowy winter sidewalk (after she’d destroyed three sets of book covers, Mom and I finally resorted to contact paper because it was waterproof and could be wiped clean). If she got to her seat first, she’d try to trip me. And while the bus was in motion, she’d grab my books or my hat or my gloves, toss them on the floor and wipe her feet on them. My parents knew about this but Mom counseled ignoring her, so I did.
One day Roxanne went too far. At the town square, where my grandparents and her mother usually met us, she’d gotten off the bus before me and was waiting for Cindy, who was following me. She gave me a malicious shove and I went down hard. The snowdrift was icy and it slanted down—and my legs ended up under the bus.the bus. My grandmother, who stolld 5’4" and was around dumpling of a woman with the gentlest heart, helped me up—then rounded on Roxanne like a tigress. She took her by the arm and marched her over to the car where here mother waited. She told her precisely what had happened and that similar crap had been going on for months. Her sister and the other girl who rode the bus with us confirmed it. Roxanne’s mother was mortified, and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
It didn’t, but the price was my friendship with Cindy.
Roxanne was what most people mean when they call someone bully: someone physically aggressive and with low self esteem. She was spoiled rotten because Dad had made big buck with his three car dealerships. But there was trouble at home, I later learned. Mom was pretty sure Dad was cheating, and there were frequent fights over it. Dad was a bully and he would threaten to leave and make sure she got nothing in the divorce settlement. Eventually he dumped her and his daughters and married the trophy wife. Roxanne and Cindy moved from a beautiful 5 bedroom home to two bedroom apartment because Dad had socked away money in accounts no one knew about. Someone from a dysfunctional family like that was bound to have problems. Roxanne learned her tactics at home. She is what is called by some researchers a bully/victim: someone who becomes a bully because of problems at home.
Research shows that some bullies are a lot like Roxanne.
A number of child-rearing styles have been found to predict whether children will grow up to be aggressive bullies. A lack of attention and warmth toward the child, together with modelling of aggressive behaviour at home, and poor supervision of the child, provide the perfect opportunity for aggressive and bullying behaviour to occur (Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986; Patterson, DeBaryshe & Ramsey, 1989; and Olweus, 1993). Modelling of aggressive behaviour may include use of physical and verbal aggression toward the child by parents, or use of physical and verbal aggression by parents toward each other. The connection between witnessing wife assault by children, particularly male children, and bully behaviour by children toward peers, has not been well studied, but studies do indicate that aggressive behaviour of all kinds is elevated in children who witness violence by their father toward their mother (Jaffe, Wolfe & Wilson, 1990).
The best-documented individual child factor in bullying is temperament. Temperament refers to basic tendencies by children to develop certain personality styles and interpersonal behaviours. Children who are active and impulsive in temperament may be more inclined to develop into bullies. With boys, physical strength compared to age peers also seems to be a characteristic which is associated with bullying, although of course there are many strong, physically adept boys who never bully.
You can almost feel sorry for that kind of bully. They learn what they have lived.Research shows that they tend to have problems down the road .
Researchers discovered that 30% of the bully/victims suffered from some kind of adult psychiatric disorder.
The disorders included anxiety, depression, psychosis, and substance abuse.
But the most common disorder among these bully/victims was anti-social personality disorder.
In fact, over 11% of all bully/victims had developed this disorder as young adults.
Compared with boys who had not been involved in frequent bullying, the bully/victims had almost 7 times the odds of being diagnosed with anti-social personalities.
http://www.parentingscience.com/...
But there’s another type of bully it’s pretty darned hard to sympathize with: the ones like Deirdre and Janet. They behaved as they did because they wanted to increase their popularity and strike fear into the hearts of anyone who would challenge them Some researchers have called them "pure" or "Machiavellian" bullies, because it’s all about power.
Yes, there are bullies who feel like social misfits. There are bullies who feel depressed, anxious, or lonely.
But these bullies usually belong to a special category-— bullies who are also the victims of other bullies.
By contrast, there are the "pure" bullies. These are the people who always occupy the dominant role. They don’t get victimized by other bullies. They are at the top of the food chain. And they seem to reap the benefits of their position.
Bullies aren’t necessarily high-strung, insecure, socially clueless, or academically inept.
Nor is bullying only about physical aggression.
Physically aggressive bullying—also called "direct" bullying--may include hitting, kicking, or taking a victim’s personal belongings.
But there is also "relational" bullying, which involves more subtle forms of harassment: social snubs, name-calling, and the spreading of malicious rumors.
As researchers have taken a closer look at bullying, a new picture has emerged.
Some pure bullies may be skilled social strategists--cool, confident manipulators who use harassment to enhance their social status.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/...
Like Machiavelli’s prince, they know precisely what they are doing. They choose indirect, relational methods because they are less likely to get caught. They do it because it serves their purpose. It shores up their power and keeps them popular—and they are popular not because they are so well-liked but because people are afraid to take them on. It is all about power, and a power imbalance is the one thing hat typifies the relationship between bully and victim. In junior high and high school, power manifests as popularity, and they are careful to choose victims who marginal, who lack popularity and status.
How can someone live with themselves after behaving that way? Again, think Machiavelli. They don’t see their behavior as a problem. Moral disengagement is the process by which people convince themselves that bad behavior is morally acceptable (Bandura 1991).
Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura has argued that aggressors may "turn off" their sense of guilt or shame by invoking one of several mechanisms of moral disengagement, including
• Blaming or/and dehumanizing the victim
• Displacing or diffusing responsibility (e.g., "He made me do it")
• Euphemistic labeling, (e.g., "Just a bit of fun")
• Exonerative comparison (e.g., "What I did isn’t as bad as what others have done")
Do bullies use such mechanisms? Ginaluca Gini of the University of Padova tested this idea by asking young adolescents how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements like
• "Some kids deserve to be treated like animals," and
• "Kids cannot be blamed for misbehaving if their friends pressured them to do it"
Peer-identified bullies showed the highest levels of agreement. They were joined by kids who regularly helped bullies (by catching or holding the victim) and by kids who regularly laughed at victims.
The kids who were least likely to agree with the statements were the defenders--kids whom other students identified as regularly standing up for the victims of bullying (Gini 2006).
Educational psychologist Eleni Andreou presented Greek primary school children with a series of questions about human nature and the acceptability of manipulating people to get what you want.
Kids were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements about human nature, like
"Successful people are mostly honest and good,"
"Most people are good and kind,"
"It is possible to be good in every way," and
"It is smart to be nice to important people even if you don’t really like them."
Kids also rated their agreement with statements like
"Sometimes you have to hurt other people to get what you want"
"Sometimes you have to cheat a little to get what you want"
"A criminal is just like other people except he is stupid enough to get caught"
"It is better to be ordinary and honest than famous and dishonest"
The outcomes were interesting. Compared with kids who were not involved in bullying, bullies were more likely to endorse Machiavellian beliefs.
But there were differences among bullies.
"Pure" bullies—-bullies who are not victimized themselves—- agreed with statements about the acceptability of manipulation and dishonesty. But when it came to human nature, "pure" bullies were not significantly more cynical than the uninvolved kids were.
http://www.parentingscience.com/...
This moral disengagement and justification of their actions takes its toll on the pure bullies as well as on the bully/victims. The pure bullies have three times the rate of psychopathy as the average, only half that of the bully/victims, but the are far more likely to commit violent crimes than that the bully/victims, who were inclined to crimes against property.
While I was researching this diary, three classic examples of bullies came to mind: the clique in the movie Heathers, J.K. Rowling’s Draco Malfoy, and George Bush. All three are classic pure bullies. They do what they do because they can. They are arrogant, lack empathy and care most about their power. IN Heathers, the three girls are pretty, popular and have social clout, as well as being affluent and socially prominent. The same is true of Draco, whose pureblood family have told him for his birth that he is better than others because he has no Muggle blood. His family has power and wealth. He has henchman willing to do his dirty work, and a lot of the Slytherins are afraid to take him on. And then there’s Dubya, scion of a rich, prominent, political family who delighted in giving reporters and staffers humiliating nicknames which he used to keep them in their place. A mediocre man intellectually, he failed at everything he tried, except for the baseball team—and that venture succeeded because he knew how to manipulate people, nN=ot because he was a good businessman. His messes were cleaned up by Poppy and Poppy’s friend. And when he became president, he called upon those friends to help him out. I think Dubya gives a good idea of what Draco Malfoy would have been like as President.
Why should we care about who becomes a bully, and why?
Aside from all the misery they cause their vioctims, bullies don’t stop being bullies after high school or college. They go right on being bullies. They become abusive co-workers and bosses. They make the workplace hell for the rest of us. And, more important, they often go on to become important and powerful people whose decisions influence our lives. If we don’t call them on their bad behavior when they are young and still malleable, we end up with the Bush administration: two wars, the worst recession since the Depression, a nation viewed as a bully by the rest of the world.
We can see their reflection in Republican politicians who feel it is acceptable to call the President a lair on the floor of the House and who use threatening comments that work up their base. We see it in the birthers who question he president’s right to hold that office, despite having been offered proof over and over again. We see it in Tea Party types who consider it acceptable behavior to spit on an African-American Congressman, a veteran of the Civil Rights struggle, and call him a "nigger". Who think it’s just fine to call Barney Frank a "faggot". We see it in Glenn Beck who views everyone who isn’t white and Christian as a monster lurking in the bushes, waiting for a chance to pounce and whose loathing for Muslims makes me sick to my stomach. We see it in Lou Dobbs and his hysterical attacks on anyone with skin darker than his—and the only man on the planet who’s whiter than Lou is Karl Rove. We see it in Bill O’Reilly who cuts the mike of anyone who is scoring points against him. We see it in Wall street bankers and brokers who only care about their own short term financial gain, not the effect on other people. We see it in the Bushies who called anyone who disagreed with their policies "traitors" and said they hated America. These are the tactics of grown-up bullies who have finally achieved real power –and they are the ones the Partiers emulate.
We can’t do a hell of a lot about the bullies who hold public office, other than to work to get them unelected. But we can damned well make sure there will be fewer of them in the future. Schools need to take a hard line against bullying. Teachers have to be aware of the more subtle forms of it—the relational bullying that is so common in junior high and high school. And there has to be immediate interventions when it’s spotted, along with real consequences. We need to do this for thwe victims, for our country, and for the bullies themselves, because we don’t need more psychopaths or Wall Street banker or Machiavellian Princes. The country cannot afford them.