Pure bullies: Aggressors who are socially-savvy, popular, and smart
© 2008 – 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved
Pure bullies are a distinctive grouping
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter learns a terrible truth: His tardily father had been a school dandy.
How disturbing. Later on all, Harry Potter's male parent hadn't been a social oaf—a boring-witted outsider who couldn't think of anything better to do. James Potter had been an admired upper classman, a star athlete, a "cool" guy. He had no excuse for being a bully.
But is that really unusual? Perchance non.
We sometimes hear that bullies harass other people considering they are emotionally insecure or socially incompetent. They resort to harassment and intimidation considering they tin't remember of any better way of getting attention.
The reality is more complicated than that.
Two kinds of keen
Yep, at that place are bullies who feel similar social misfits. There are bullies who experience 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 function. They don't become victimized by other bullies. They are at the superlative of the nutrient chain. And they seem to reap the benefits of their position.
A new understanding of the pure smashing
Inquiry has debunked several misconceptions about bullies.
Bullies aren't necessarily choked, insecure, socially clueless, or academically inept.
Nor is bullying but about physical aggression.
Physically aggressive bullying—also chosendirect bullying–may include hit, kick, or taking a victim's personal belongings.
But in that location is toorelational bullying, which involves more subtle forms of harassment: social snubs, name-calling, and the spreading of malicious rumors.
Equally 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 heighten their social status.
Support for this hypothesis? Check out these points.
Pure bullies don't seem to suffer from low cocky-esteem
In a report of American sixth graders, researchers interviewed kids to determine who the bullies, neat/victims, and victims were. Then they asked each kid a series of personal questions (Juvonen et al 2003).
Compared to other children, pure bullies were more than likely to agree with such statements as "I practise most things right." They were least probable to agree with statements similar "I worry well-nigh what others think." They were too the least probable to agree with statements that indicated loneliness or social anxiety (e.one thousand., "I have nobody to talk to" and "I worry virtually what others will think of me").
For bully-victims, the results were different. They showed more psychological distress so did kids who were uninvolved in bullying.
But pure bullies seemed to exist the to the lowest degree anxious, least depressed, and least lonely of all kids—including those kids who were wholly uninvolved in bullying.
Other enquiry supports the thought of the confident bang-up. Studies conducted in Finland, Ireland, and the United States accept all found that kids who bullied were more likely to have positive self-concepts (Kaukianien et al 2002; Collins and Bell 1996; Pollastri et al 2010).
In fact, kids with high self-esteem may tend to be more aggressive than other children. In 1 written report, researchers asked hundreds of American kids (from the 3rd, 4th, and 4th grades) to rate the aggressiveness of their peers (David and Kistner 2000). Kids as well reported on how they felt about themselves.
The kids with highly positive cocky-images were more than likely to be named as aggressive by their peers. The results remained meaning subsequently decision-making for gender and ethnicity, and fifty-fifty moderately positive self-perceptions were linked with higher levels of assailment.
Granted, these studies relied on what kidssaid they felt about themselves. Maybe pure bullies are simply more reluctant to admit their insecurities.
But when researchers presented kids with a personality questionnaire designed to notice lies, pure bullies showed less evidence of lying than did kids who were uninvolved in bullying (Mynard and Joseph 1997).
Other testify suggests that pure bullies are relatively absurd-headed.
Pure bullies aren't "wired" or "choked"
A study of young British adolescents examined their levels or arousal—the caste to which they were excited or stressed by stimuli in the environment. Researchers found that keen/victims had college levels of arousal than all other kids—including passive victims (Woods and White 2005).
But the arousal levels of pure bullies were much lower, like to those of neutral kids (who were neither bullies nor victims). Maintaining lower states of arousal may help pure bullies command their emotions, making them more constructive schemers (Woods and White 2005).
Pure bullies aren't social oafs
Experiments on British kids have shown thatbullies really outperformed their peers on social cognition tasks.In detail, these kids—aged 7 to 10 years—did a better chore of identifying the mental states and emotions of the main character in a story (Sutton et al 1999).
A more recent, Italian report has replicated some of these results.
In this report, psychologist Gianluca Gini asked primary school children to place who among them were bullies and who were victims. In add-on, Gini asked students to identify peers who
• Assistance the bully
• Express joy at people getting bullied
• Stick upwardly for the victim
• Isn't normally in that location when someone gets bullied
So Gini presented each student with social knowledge tasks—a series of brusk stories that students were required to translate.
The stories portrayed characters with thoughts, beliefs, goals, and emotions—including moral emotions, like guilt.
Gini found that the kids identified every bit bullies performed as well as did other children. Moreover, the kids who were rated as the biggest bullies actually performed better than average (Gini 2006b).
Pure bullies aren't necessarily struggling in schoolhouse
Some studies accept reported that bullies are more likely to showroom poor "schoolhouse adjustment" (east.g., Nansel et al 2004). But these studies didn't include any objective measurements of bookish achievement.
What happens when we await how bullies perform on standardized academic tests?
British researchers examined over a thousand young school children (aged 6 to 9) and could findno link betwixt being a corking and performing poorly on standardized bookish tests(Woods and Wolke 2004).
In fact, the results suggested that some bullies may be improve-than-boilerplate students. Kids who were "relational" bullies—the bullies who engage in mostly "psychological warfare," like spreading malicious gossip and excluding victims from social groups—had average or better-than-boilerplate academic scores.
Other studies propose that low achievement is linked with bully/victims, not pure bullies.
For example, a study of Finnish 5th grade students found that students with poor literacy skills were somewhat more probable to exist bullies than were other students (Kaukiainen et al 2002). Simply researchers suspect that not bad/victims—not pure bullies—were more likely to take learning difficulties.
And a report of over 3500 American kids (enrolled in grades 3 through half dozen), institute that bullies were more likely to be low achievers (Glew et al 2005). But this was true but for not bad/victims—not pure bullies (Glew et al 2005).
Pure bullies have high social status
Bullies seem pretty confident and socially-adept. Where does this lead? Apparently, to higher social status.
A report of Swiss children (aged v to 7) establish that bullies had more leadership skills than did children who were not involved in bullying (Perren and Alsaker 2006). Moreover, the bullies belonged to larger social clusters.
The tendency continues amid older kids.
In an Irish study, researchers assigned bullies high scores for sociability and leadership (Collins and Bell 1996).
And in the study of American 6th graders mentioned above, students rated the schoolhouse bullies equally the "coolest" kids in school (Juvoven et al 2003). This was true for both types of neat. However, the effect was much larger for pure bullies. Pure bullies were also perceived by teachers to exist the most popular students.
But high status doesn't necessarily mean that people similar you. When asked which kids they preferred to spend time with, students tended to name peers who were wholly uninvolved in bullying.
A recent study of Dutch kids found the same matter: Bullies were perceived every bit more pop, but kids didn't actuallylike bullies (Sijtsema et al 2008).
So what's the trouble?
If pure bullies aren't suffering from deficits in social reasoning, self-esteem, self-command, or social condition….so merely whatis missing?
Empathy and moral engagement: The missing pieces?
New enquiry points to old-fashioned respond. Bullies may but take problem withmoral reasoning.
Ane study found that bullies scored low on a examination of empathic reactivity (Gini 2006b). Other studies (Obermann 2011; Perren et al 2012; Pozzoli et al 2012) report that bullies are more likely to
• justify their behavior in terms of the consequences for themselves
• rely on rationalizations that make anti-social behavior seem acceptable
• endorse Machiavellian beliefs
For the total story, check out this article on opens in a new windowMachiavellian bullies.
Does this imply that bullies are sociopaths?
Not necessarily. But opens in a new windowkids who peachy others on a daily basis are at a greater hazard of developing anti-social traits, particularly if they also exhibit other behavioral problems.
For this reason, information technology makes sense to screen frequent bullies for psychiatric symptoms, and provide help to those who screen positive.
What else tin can nosotros practice?
Quite a bit, I think.
In improver to screening kids for potential psychiatric bug, we can offer bullies help in the areas that thing.
This might mean
• addressing the way bullies reason about moral bug
• reviewing—and improving—the manner bullies communicate with other members of their families
• emphasizing opens in a new windowadministrative (every bit opposed to disciplinarian) subject
It might also hateful irresolute the way bullies interpret the intentions of others.Research shows that ambitious kids are more likely to perceive hostility in neutral social situations, so information technology makes sense to teach these kids how to re-interpret the intentions of other people (Hudley and Graham 1993).
But, most of all, it waystaking clear stand against bullying.
When bystanders do cypher, it sends the message that bullying is okay. When bystanders—fifty-fifty peer bystanders—intervene, bullies tend to end.
For more than information, come across this fully-referenced article on the opens in a new windowprevention of bullying. And check out these opens in a new windowtested strategies for reducing the rates of bullying in schoolhouse.
References: Understanding pure bullies
Andreou E. 2004. Swell/victim problems and their association with Machiavellianism and self-efficacy in Greek primary school children. Br J Educ Psychol. 74(Pt two):297-309.
Collins, K., & Bell, R. (1996). Peer perceptions of aggression and bullying behavior in main schools in Northern Ireland. Annals of the New York Academy of Scientific discipline, 794, 77-79.
David CF and Kistner JA. 2000. Do positive self-perceptions have a "dark side"? Examination of the link between perceptual bias and aggression. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 28(4):327-37.
Dijkstra JK, Lindenberg South, and Veenstra R. 2008. Beyond the class norm: bullying beliefs of popular adolescents and its relation to peer credence and rejection. J Abnorm Kid Psychol. 36(viii):1289-99.
Gini G. 2007. Associations between bullying behaviour, psychosomatic complaints, emotional and behavioural issues. Periodical of Paediatrics and Child Health 44(9): 492 – 497.
Gini G. 2006a. Does empathy predict adolescents' bullying and defending beliefs? Aggressive Behavior 33(5): 467 – 476.
Gini G. 2006b. Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What's wrong? Ambitious Behavior 32: 528-539.
Glew GM, Fan MY, Katon West, Rivara FP, and Kernic MA. 2005. Bullying, psychosocial aligning, and academic operation in simple school. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 159(11):1026-31.
Hudley C and Graham Southward. 1993. An attributional intervention to reduce peer-directed aggression among African-American boys. Child Dev. 64(1):124-38.
Juvonen J, Graham S, Schuster MA. 2003. Bullying amidst young adolescents: the stiff, the weak, and the troubled. Pediatrics. 112(six Pt 1):1231-7.
Kaukiainen A, Salmivalli C, Lagerspetz K, Tamminen M, Vauras M, Mäki H, and Poskiparta E. 2002. Learning difficulties, social intelligence, and self-concept: connections to bully-victim bug. Scand J Psychol. 43(3):269-78.
Mynard H and Joseph S. 1997. Bully/victim problems and their association with Eysenck's personality dimensions in 8 to thirteen year-olds. Br J Educ Psychol. 67 (1):51-4.
Nansel TR, Craig West, Overpeck Dr., Saluja Yard, Ruan WJ and Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Bullying Analyses Working Group. 2004. Cross-national consistency in the human relationship between bullying behaviors and psychosocial adjustment. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 158: 730-736.
Obermann ML. 2011. Moral detachment in cocky-reported and peer-nominated school bullying. Beset Behav. 37(ii):133-44.
Perren S, Alsaker FD. 2006. Social behavior and peer relationships of victims, bully-victims, and bullies in kindergarten. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 47(1):45-57.
Perren Due south, Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger E, Malti T, and Hymel South. 2012. Moral reasoning and emotion attributions of adolescent bullies, victims, and keen-victims. Br J Dev Psychol. xxx(Pt iv):511-thirty.
Pozzoli T, Gini Thou, and Vieno A. 2012. Individual and class moral disengagement in bullying amidst elementary school children. Aggress Behav. 38(5):378-88.
Pollastri AR, Cardemil EV, and O'Donnell EH. 2010. opens in a new windowSelf-esteem in pure bullies and slap-up/victims: a longitudinal analysis. J Interpers Violence. 2010 Aug;25(8):1489-502.
Sijtsema JJ, Veenstra R, Lindenberg S, and Salmivalli C. 2008. Empirical test of bullies' condition goals: assessing direct goals, aggression, and prestige. Beset Behav. 2008 October 16. [Epub ahead of impress].
Sutton J, Smith PK, and Swettenham J. 1999. Social cognition and bullying: Social inadequacy or skilled manipulation? Br J Dev Psychol 17: 435-450.
Woods S and White Eastward. 2005. The association between bullying behaviour, arousal levels and behaviour problems. J Adolesc. 28(3):381-95.
Woods S and Wolke D. 2004. Direct and relational bullying among primary school children and academic accomplishment. Journal of Schoolhouse Psychology 42: 135-155.
Content last modified ix/2013
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