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How bullying may shape adolescent brains

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Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#91

Post by neogodless »

empath75 wrote: post #58
TrackerFF wrote: post #28

Here's my take: For most people, success in life, is tied up with your self-confidence. If you think you're gonna fail, you probably are - unless you happen to be wildly talented at something, and can stumble your way to success. In fact, many people will not even try, because they lacked the confidence. It could be academia, work, relationships, hobbies, If you've been conditioned to believe that you: suck, have no…

For me it started with bullying from my mom and continued with bullying in school. The only thing that pulled me out of it was time and MDMA. I don’t think I got my shit together until my mid 30s. Now I’ve got a family and a successful career. But I could have very easily have ended up drunk in a gutter somewhere.

This always tends to surprise people, which is encouraging - most mom's probably do not bully their children - but it might also be an unrecognized issue.

I would describe it differently, so I don't think I had it as bad as you, but I would say that my parents did not adequately prepare me for responding to bullying, and I likely did the exact wrong things as a response. I cried. I showed weakness. And the bullying continued for a long time - most of my elementary and secondary schooling.

I would say that I eventually formed a self image that went outside how my peers treated me, but then again, decades later, peer interactions can trigger strong emotional reactions.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#92

Post by jacobush »

zozbot234 wrote: post #30
jacobush wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get motivated when their peers condone it. You and I are the bully. We just need the “right” environment.

Peers who condone bullying are probably being manipulated into doing so, by someone with narcissistic traits who is skilled at whipping up hate towards the intended victims. It's not a normal attitude at all, it's very much a red flag that something quite nasty is going on.

It’s very common and very natural. We all try to find our in- and by extension, out-group.

Narcissists just make the problem much, much worse.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#93

Post by elliekelly »

luckylion wrote: post #69
ukj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never quite understood the pragmatic purpose of Approach 1. If punishment has no measurable, positive effect - why do it? Combine with Hanlon’s razor and indeed - victims become bullies when they default to Approach 1 when harm (rather than misunderstanding) is perceived.

Punishment is a deterrent though, at least for somewhat rational and premeditated acts, so it has an effect (though it's hard to quantify exactly). It's not a linear effect (as in threat of twice punishment = twice as effective as a deterrent), but it's certainly not zero. Additionally, punishment often goes hand in hand with making it harder/impossible to re-offend. If you're in prison, you're not breaking into anyb…

I've posted this before but I think it bears repeating: Study after study[1] has shown that an individual's perception of the likely punishment (e.g., prison time) doesn't deter crime. Rather, an individual's perception of the likelihood they'll get caught seems to be the main deterrent.

This is a really interesting & related read.[2]

[1]https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398

[2]https://undark.org/article/deterrence-punishments-dont-reduc...

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#94

Post by n0rbwah »

luckylion wrote: post #81
bullytw2019 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If somebody attacks somebody else and hurts themselves in the process and they both end up needing a new kidney and only one transplant is available, who gets it? bad analogy, because in this case it's more like one person's kidney got destroyed and the other lost a lung. You want different types of specialists to deal with victims vs bullies. Assigning the wrong type will probably just make things worse. > Instead…

> You want different types of specialists to deal with victims vs bullies. Both cost money (=resources). Money is limited. Who do we focus on? As for that theory on "no excuses": UBI is more or less reality in large parts of Europe, yet crime still exists.

UBI isn't a reality in large parts of Europe. There might be a handful of local experiments here and there but nothing on the scale that "large parts of Europe" suggests.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#95

Post by zozbot234 »

foobar_ wrote: post #88

One of the mindsets of the bully is assuming that the victim has something that the bully doesn't. This leads to envy, feeling of self-doubt .... which leads the bully to find the weakness of the victim and punish them for it. After punishing the bully feels "good". The goal behind their bullying behaviour is to eliminate the competition. Apart from this imitation of other bullies and impressing their peers are major…

Yup, that's exactly what narcissism is. "I can't possibly deal with being made to feel like a loser, so I will hurt those who might otherwise threaten my exaggerated ego". It's not a healthy mindset at all, it's a sign of serious pathology.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#96

Post by magduf »

gwd wrote: post #86
jokoon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never understood why schools seem so reticent to enforce zero-tolerance policies against bullying. It's pretty simple, this has a political answer: people believe that life is hard and that "it's tough out there", hence it's important for school to "toughen up" kids. It's as simple as that. Social darwinism is a creeping ideology that nobody really questions or talk about, but it's there, despite the presence…

> It's pretty simple, this has a political answer: people believe that life is hard and that "it's tough out there", hence it's important for school to "toughen up" kids. I wouldn't necessarily put it that way; but there is 1) a sense from adults that kids should learn to "sort out their own problems", 2) a sense from kids that you shouldn't "tell" ("snitches get stitches"). But the question is, how would you "sort o…

>I would be severely tempted to say in response: "From now on, everything that is done by bullies to my child, I will do to you.

>Obviously that may not actually turn out to be practical

I like this idea. For it to work, you probably need an accomplice, and to make sure there's no witnesses. Have an accomplice provide an alibi ("no, he was at home with me at that time"), and make sure there's no witnesses when you beat the crap out of the principal late at night.

Honestly, since schools are simply not willing to do anything about the problem, I don't see how this is a bad solution at all.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#97

Post by magduf »

schalab wrote: post #64

Seems to me a large part of growing up is keeping up with the herd. Like a pack of zebras in the savannah. If you stray too far behind or show weakness, you get picked off by the roving lions. Now I can see utility in behavior divergent from the norm being encouraged. But at the same time, peer pressure to keep moving and keeping pace is a great motivator for growth. So, I would say the issue needs to be studied with…

>Seems to me a large part of growing up is keeping up with the herd. Like a pack of zebras in the savannah. If you stray too far behind or show weakness, you get picked off by the roving lions.

Yeah, but you don't see the zebras beating the crap out of each other for being too slow. They just let the lions do it.

With us humans, we don't just leave others to their own devices; instead, we take on the role of the predator for no good reason. Basically, humans (some of them) are evil, and get enjoyment from doing evil things to others. Animals just don't have this problem for the most part.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#98

Post by bigred100 »

traderjane wrote: post #19
devoply wrote: post #2

Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment. We focus so much on the victims, we also need to focus on the perpetrators and see them as victims as well if not of anything else than their own psychology.

Western bullying literature suggests that bullying is more like a position that people step in and out of, whereas victimhood is sticky to the individual. It’s easier to predict victims than bullies, and it’s difficult to predict how long someone will remain in the bully position. Bullying predicts general protective effects on the individual and social well-being. It also predicts that peers will rate the bully well…

Frankly I think the answer is to just put children who bully in special education programs where they’re taught basic social skills. If they lack the interpersonal skills to not bully, they need remedial instruction in them.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#99

Post by boomlinde »

afandian wrote: post #21
devoply wrote: post #2

Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment. We focus so much on the victims, we also need to focus on the perpetrators and see them as victims as well if not of anything else than their own psychology.

Your comment has obviously split opinion here, but I think it mirrors the way that society is split in the justice debate. Approach 1: "People who hurt other people should be hurt back" Approach 2: "We should try to understand why people hurt other people" I used to think these were correlated with political spectrum (approach 1 on the right, appraoch 2 on the left). But these patterns happen across the spectrum. The…

Approach 1 seems quite natural. If I do something—in general—and find that it results in my suffering, I will normally take that into account when I consider doing the same thing again, and possibly avoid it because of it. In this sense I don't think that getting slapped or putting your hand on the stove for the first time are significantly different. You learn the consequences and adapt.

In the case of a bully, though, there may be so much at stake for the bully that it outweighs the suffering associated with getting beaten up or otherwise punished for it. Wishing to e.g. maintain his social status, he may double down instead of reacting in a way that seems appropriate given the obvious consequences. This is where I think approach 2 becomes useful. What is it that the bully thinks is at stake? etc.

Before that, who cares? Kids will be kids and will fight and bicker. That's how they learn what their boundaries and what the consequences of their actions are so that they can grow up to be healthy adults. I think that inflicting pain and suffering as a direct response to injustice may be an excellent way to keep misbehaving adults in check as well, but it seems more likely in adult age that there is an underlying psychological problem that needs to be addressed, perhaps one that could have been addressed during adolescence.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#100

Post by maceurt »

zozbot234 wrote: post #61
maceurt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. If you are a child then you are almost entirely dependent on your home and school environment for cues on social development. If a child is bullying another kid then you can almost guarantee it is a problem with their home or with the school.

Well, guess what's the biggest "problem with (the) school" - the inability to get away from a bad environment. And you can't fix that with counseling alone - you actually have to figure out who the worst offenders are, and punish them consistently. The more you can deprive those folks of the social influence among their peers that's what they crave most, the better for everyone else.

"The more you can punish people who are broken socially the more they learn"

Punishing a kid is not going to help them get over the fact that their mom abuses them or they don't have a dad or that they are not safe in their neighborhood, etc.

Punishment is good, but it can further traumatize or ingrain a kid into their bad behavior. Speaking from personal experience, I remember in elementary school I got very harshly punished and shamed for bullying a kid in my class. After that year I lost almost all my friends, and I was honestly traumatized. I still don't have many or any friends if I am being honest, and I think the situation would have been a lot different if they sat me down and talked to me instead of making me feel like a criminal.

Punishment does not really work to curb bullying, and often does more harm than good. Like your not going to have violent bullying for the most part, but you can't stop other types of bullying with punishment.

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