What are the intents of "bullies?"

Because people are caught up in their own heads. It's very easy to overlook somebody else's emotions if you aren't looking for them. Even more so if the person is actively trying to hide them.

As for blaming bullies, especially of the social variety, you can't really. Unless a select person(s) is deliberately tormenting somebody else it's hard to punish a person for being disinterested in or ignoring somebody else.

Generally speaking, it originates in a cycle of abuse. They've been taught that violence and intimidation give you power and they want that power as shown to them.

Generally speaking, it originates in a cycle of abuse. They've been taught that violence and intimidation give you power and they want that power as shown to them.

Actually, a lot of the bullies I've seen had pretty nice families. Problem was they were a bit too nice and the bully learned how to manipulate people instead.

Physical bullies then. Personally most of the over-spoiled people I've met have been self-absorbed socially inept abrasive-yet-thin-skinned people who never had their ass spanked as a kid so they never learned how one should act with other people.

Not exactly. Continued troublemaking means they generally have a really good idea of how far they can push someone or something before getting in trouble.

The point still applies. Social bullying is known for driving people to suicide as well, and it would take some pretty damn selective thinking to convince oneself that them doing the same kinds of things that helped caused other suicides couldn't help cause new ones.

Not compartmentalizing one's thinking isn't the rule, it's an anomaly.

Speaking as someone who was a bully, I didn't think of what I did as bullying while I was doing it. I stopped when I realized what my behavior really was, but it lasted for about a year, and I was considerably more self aware than most people my age, or even a good deal older.

edited 12th Feb '11 8:35:35 PM by Desertopa

So why did you bully in the first place then?

EDIT: Also...

"As for blaming bullies, especially of the social variety, you can't really. Unless a select person(s) is deliberately tormenting somebody else it's hard to punish a person for being disinterested in or ignoring somebody else." - Alk

I'm not suggesting punishing that. I'm suggesting punishing emotional abuse. "Ignoring" someone isn't the kind of thing I'm referring to here.

edited 12th Feb '11 9:56:36 PM by neoYTPism

And one person's emotional abuse is another person's friendly behavior. Unless the person is making a concentrated effort to torment somebody you shouldn't really punish them for what might have been a misunderstanding.

A bully or otherwise angry or cold person might have some fresh would of their own. Being hurt by someone or something—atypically hurt, in a way that leaves an emotional scar for a while—has a way of making one see reminders of that past hurt superimposed all over everything, including innocent people who may have nothing to do with the wound at all.

It's not justified (I know been unkind this way before and still feel just how unjustified it was), though, just a cycle of malaise being perpetuated.

Question is, then, how do we tell whether their intentions are malicious or not?

Generally, I'd say if they don't knock it off after they've clearly caused some upset, they're malicious. That's malicious, mind, which is not necessarily the same thing as being aware that they're bullies.

To elaborate on my previous comment, social bullies don't typically see what they're doing as bullying because it really doesn't seem like it. It seems like the odd sarcastic comment here, the odd slightly mean joke there, and you might not want to associate with somebody because they're a bit of a prick and nobody likes them, and so you might try to dissuade others from hanging out with them because, you know, they don't want to hang out with them, you know they don't.

I became a social bully having endured much the same thing for years, and I didn't even recognise what I was doing until I realised how upset we were all making this one person. I would never have wished bullying on another person, but I just plain didn't recognise it for what it was. And it was funny.

As for the more direct/physical types of bullying, I think it's mostly an intimidation thing; by showing themselves to be stronger and more dangerous than another person, they probably hope to gain respect. It's possible that it's the only way they know how to get it.

"I became a social bully having endured much the same thing for years, and I didn't even recognise what I was doing until I realised how upset we were all making this one person. I would never have wished bullying on another person, but I just plain didn't recognise it for what it was." - Bobby G

Interesting... so how can we help social bullies better realize the implications of what they're doing?

"As for blaming bullies, especially of the social variety, you can't really. Unless a select person(s) is deliberately tormenting somebody else it's hard to punish a person for being disinterested in or ignoring somebody else." - Alk

Slightly off topic (and adecdotal), but I feel I have to ask: During highschool assemblies and the like — I'm sure you have a similar experience — when we were forced to sit next to each other in lines no one would sit next to me. Or in the same row. In the middle of the auditorium.

Where does the action of the casual bystander who chooses not to sit in the same fucking row become punishable?

Where do you draw the line?

So why did you bully in the first place then?

I was young, not that socially adept, but pretty popular for my sense of humor and stand out behavior. I spent a lot of time hanging out with people I didn't know very well, but admired or were impressed by me, and I didn't know what to do with the attention and social leverage. There were a number of people I didn't like or respect, and I lorded my social dominance over them. It seemed like a natural thing to do. It wasn't until later that I realized that what I was thinking of as trivial jabs and shows of allegiance (I like this person, but not this person) were major blows to the self esteem of other kids, coming from someone higher up on the social ladder.

This study looked at social competence and morality of kids who were bullies, victims, both, or neither. The social skills tests involved one about a hypothetical scenario in which a boy thinks his sister doesn't know where he hid a chocolate bar, but she actually does, and a bunch of scenarios about people hiding their emotions. The morality tests involved several scenarios involving a kid doing something mean to another kid (mostly bullying scenarios), and the child was asked whether it was OK to do that and why it was/wasn't OK, and how they'd feel if they'd done that.

Victims of bullying, whether or not they were bullies as well, scored poorly on social skills. Male bullies, but not female bullies, showed poor social skills. Non-bully/victims scored high in social skills. Bullies, whether or not they were victims of bullying, scored poorly on the morality test.

Then they classified all the kids into subtypes based on combination of morality and social skills. The non-bully/victims were mostly high on both (44%) or high on morality but not social skills (34%). The victims were generally low on social skills but high on morality (39%) or low in both (30%). The bully/victims were mostly low in both (45%) or high in morality but low in social skills (29%). And lastly, the bullies were evenly divided among the four groups (21% high/high, 29% low/low, 29% socially skilled amoral and 21% moral with poor social skills).

edited 14th Feb '11 12:46:50 PM by Ettina

Kids should be taught political savviness in class. As well as the theoretical bases behind negotiation, intimidation, reciprocal relations... none of that moralfaggotry they put in philosophy and ethics handbooks which no one can take seriously because even the author knows it's outdated and/or hypocritical bullshit. Kids should be taught the merits of reciprocal altruism on a rational basis, among other things. They must be convinced of the usefulness of being moral.

The point of Primary and Secondary education, elementary, middle and high school, isn't the curriculum itself. That is mostly useless for most students, in that only a small part will come out in whatever speciality they choose. The goal is not instruction, but education, teaching them how to think, formatting and indoctrinating them, so that they can be keen healthy citizens building a keen healthy society. Most of the time, teachers lose sight of this, and only care for the students passing the curriculum, no matter what perception they gain of the contents or how it affects their worldview. Some of them even eschew any involvement at all in protecting the mental and emotional wellbeing of the students and mentoring them through their social and intellectual formation.

This is why bullying exists. Because nobody cares. If zero tolerance policies were enforced on that sort of stuff... Much would be gained. And if a student is a prick, you should call them out on it. And as for pecking orders, what are we, some sort of tribal animals? Why do we even need a social structure at all? Why can't it be horizontal?

And, Tsukubus, there is always better stuff to do than hurting people. Such as, I dunno, trying to out-stare the Sun, or jumping from a third-story window.

"Male bullies, but not female bullies, showed poor social skills." - Ettina

That makes sense, then. From what I've heard, female bullies tend to be more skilled at manipulating people's emotions, whereas male bullies tend more often to resort to violence. I've seen this to some extent in my experiences with bullying, though I was bullied by guys more frequently than by girls...

Slightly off topic (and adecdotal), but I feel I have to ask: During highschool assemblies and the like — I'm sure you have a similar experience — when we were forced to sit next to each other in lines no one would sit next to me. Or in the same row. In the middle of the auditorium.

Where does the action of the casual bystander who chooses not to sit in the same fucking row become punishable?

While that's certainly not very nice, I wouldn't really feel right punishing them for it myself. If there is enough space in the auditorium to let people seat themselves as they see fit, telling them to do otherwise would just create a pointless conflict.

Wait, why would you go to an assembly? Just duck out and head to the library.

Because that was the example given. To answer the question I have to work within the framework presented instead of just being a smartass.

To provide a counter example, we had open seating at lunch tables during middle school. I generally sat alone because I preferred it, but the teachers insisted that others sit and talk with me or the entire lunch period would lose free seating.

Yeah, when it comes to confronting bullying we have higher priorities than that, such as having a better sense of justice in schools in general...

"While that's certainly not very nice, I wouldn't really feel right punishing them for it myself. If there is enough space in the auditorium to let people seat themselves as they see fit, telling them to do otherwise would just create a pointless conflict."

No, there was barely enough space from what I recall. I don't know how they managed it.

"Wait, why would you go to an assembly? Just duck out and head to the library." — Awesomesauce

I tried a lot of things to get out of assembly, but none of them seemed to work. Didn't know what to do about it then, and don't know how to get over it now. But that's another story for another time.

Just accept that people might avoid sitting next to you in the auditorium, I know I didn't mind that in comparison to other forms of bullying.