What is 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.
Researchers generally accept that bullying contains four essential elements:
- The behaviour is aggressive and negative;
- The behaviour is carried out repeatedly;
- The behaviour occurs in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power between the parties involved
- The behaviour 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.
Social aggression or indirect bullying is most common to female bullies and young children, and 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).
Bullying can occur in any situation in which human beings interact with each other. This includes school, workplace, the home, and between countries. 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.
Types of Bullying
- Bullies mainly use a combination of intimidation and humiliation to torment others. The following are some examples of bullying techniques:
- Calling the victim names (e.g. “fatty!”); accusing the victim of uselessness in all of his or her pursuits.
- Repeated physical assault on a person, be it to his or her body or property.
- Interfering with or damaging personal property that belongs to the victim.
- Making fun of an individual through these things in any way.
- Making sounds with the intent of causing the victim annoyance or distress (banging, whistling, etc.)
- Spreading negative rumours and/or gossip about the victim. In business, this may include false documentation.
- Demoting the victim without just cause.
- Making the victim do what he or she does not want to do, often by using threats to ensure that the victim follows orders.
- Getting a victim into trouble with someone (usually an authority figure), or incurring disciplinary action against the victim, for an indiscretion either not committed by the victim or for one exaggerated by the bully.
- Making derogatory remarks about a person’s family (particularly the mother), about one’s home, personal appearance, sexual orientation, religion, race, income level, nationality, or any other perceived difference the bully has noticed.
- Social isolation of the victim.
- Sexual harassment
Less Common Techniques:
- Cyberbullying, through the use of various information technologies.
- Domination staring.
- Derogatory graffiti.
- Using blatant sarcasm to appear as friendly (to an outsider) while asserting control and status over the victim. (This often occurs directly after the bully has deemed the person as a “worthy victim”).