How bullying may shape adolescent brains • Hacker News Board

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#101

Post by luckylion » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #93

luckylion wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That was my point regarding it not being a linear relationship and only working on somewhat rational actors (not on somebody that is on drugs and completely out of their mind for example). Getting caught is irrelevant if it has no consequence at all. If there is zero punishment (meaning no negative consequences and you get to keep the loot), but you are 100% sure to get caught, you have incentive to commit e.g. robbery, but zero incentive not to. If the punishment isn't negative (i.e. "you get $1000 for getting caught"), getting caught is also irrelevant. Getting caught only becomes relevant when it has consequences you'd prefer to avoid: punishment.

The point isn't that punishment isn't a deterrent, it's the only external deterrent (and you could argue that a bad conscience is self-punishment). It's that the likelihood of getting caught is a very important factor, not so much the severity of the punishment.

In RTS games, there's the idea of overkill: a unit (or set of units) does so much damage that it would kill the attacked unit multiple times. That's a problem, because you waste a lot of the damage, it's generally more efficient to do less damage more often for the same DPS (damage per second). I believe that you can think about punishment in a similar way. With the likelihood of punishment staying the same (for example: 10%), a hike of "somebody stares angrily at you" to "you spend 10 years in prison" very much acts as a deterrent. You get barely any more value out of that being 20 years though, because of "over-deterrence". Here as well, the same punishment with more frequency (=likelihood of punishment) would be more efficient.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#102

Post by luckylion » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

n0rbwah wrote: post #94

luckylion wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's why I added "more or less". Housing, health insurance and essentials being taken care of by the state + cash money is UBI for these intents and purposes. It's only given to the poor, and society would prefer if you didn't require assistance, but the argument was that it would decrease crime because people needn't worry about finances as much, for which it serves as functionally equivalent. Whether you call it UBI, Hartz 4, Kontanthjælp or something else is mostly semantics with regards to "if people get money, they won't commit crimes".

UBI has other parts which aren't covered in that regard, but those aren't relevant to the question of crime motivated by poverty.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#103

Post by peterangular » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

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…

> Nobody is kicked out of school or demoted for being jerks, and often they're not kicked out of school even for regular physical intimidation.

Ding. You're often forced to sit there with your aggressor to "sort it out" - or at least that was how it worked in my situation. This just made things so much worse to the point that I almost immediately stopped trying to get adults involved (parents, teachers, staff).

> "From now on, everything that is done by bullies to my child, I will do to you. If my child finds bullies waiting for him as he leaves the school, you will find me waiting by your car [...]"

This really spoke to me. As someone who's been through both of those situations as a child, I never thought how much more recourse an adult would have in the same scenario... you'd end up with a restraining order, you'd get arrested - that's just a fact.

These bullies would work in the system and often play the victim themselves when they were ran up the chain of authority to the point that the schools just enabled them. I believe that if any teacher actually _did_ something about it they'd put their career at risk, ergo: the victim gets the short end of the stick because that's how the system is designed.

Due to this I feel like we just condition them to be better jerks because they get to learn how to manipulate a system to lessen their consequences + get away with things... this tends to be a "school" all it's own for these bullies.

We should treat assault and abuse with the same weight for children as we do adults, especially in an educational setting. But we don't... we just coddle them because that's the easier thing to do, which just puts the onus on the victim to solve (typically by violence).

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#104

Post by magic_beans » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

redleggedfrog wrote: post #77

empath75 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your Mom?! Holy crap, that's a source that hadn't occurred to me. Good job getting it together - that must have been a tough row to hoe.

Try being the anxious daughter to a perfectionistic but insecure mother. You're one of the lucky ones if it has never occurred to you that mothers can be terrible bullies.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#105

Post by luckylion » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #80

raxxorrax wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise if people with unchallenged confidence get to run things, bad things tend to happen and there is a difference in being confident and projecting it to others. Understanding is often followed by humility.

> Likewise if people with unchallenged confidence get to run things, bad things tend to happen They usually grow in the process and get ahead of the too careful and doubtful ones. Throughout growing up I regularly thought other guys knew so much more things than me on various topics and often didn't dare to pitch in and felt like I couldn't contribute. Then most of the times, just a little later I realized how much t…

> They usually grow in the process and get ahead of the too careful and doubtful ones.

I don't know whether they "grow", as in "actually understand things", "acquire skills" etc if they're basically just using Markov chains to communicate (but maybe they are, maybe it's "fail forward", iterate over your mvp and turn it into a success product, but for communication). They often do get ahead with regard to social points, but at least in my experience, only very few of them are so good at bullshitting their way through life that they don't hit a wall. At some level, just having heard a word isn't enough to look competent, you also need to know what it means.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#106

Post by jokoon » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #74

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…

> If you ask people "should we protect the weak?", at the end of the day, people will answer "no, it's too difficult to protect the weak" Isn't "protecting the weak" the whole point of civilized society over barbarism? Life is hard enough already, why make it even harder by tolerating aggressive and violent behavior from others? It's not "toughening up" anyone, it's creating an environment where the worst offenders a…

Not until individualism and anti-government sentiments kick in

I'm not saying that those things I described are good, I'm just saying they make sense in our current time.

> why make it even harder by tolerating aggressive and violent behavior from others?

> Isn't "protecting the weak" the whole point of civilized society over barbarism?

You're right, civilization matters more, but it doesn't change the fact that human nature will always easily re-surface. Free markets, competition, individualism, money, those values sound very dangerous because to me, because they contradicts and almost negate the entire concept of civilized society.

The fall of the soviet union and acute capitalistic dogmas have exacerbated the sentiment that it's "everyone for himself".

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#107

Post by peterangular » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #96

gwd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 be…

It wouldn't work - you would just get arrested. I think that's part of the point - there are consequences for adults exhibiting this sort of behavior where there are arguably very few/none for children.

As much as I love watching the "Ray Velcoro Beats Up Bully's Dad" bit, it's just Hollywood. If someone pulled a stunt like beating up a principal, or an abuser's father, you would immediately be a criminal and you'd be legally destroyed to the full extent of the law. You'd likely lose your job, etc etc. These same legal consequences just don't exist bullies - and I think they should (with obvious due process and clear evidence).

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#108

Post by kaopuheike » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

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…

I am happy, successful, married, no complaints, super fortunate.

And there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think of the teasing and physical injuries I suffered in middle school. I have no doubt it affects things like career decisions and my reactions to violent scenes in entertainment media. I am literally afraid of having children because I don't want to witness a loved one go through anything similar (or worse, have them experience cyber-bullying, which I think would be way worse).

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#109

Post by astura » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

redleggedfrog wrote: post #77

empath75 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your Mom?! Holy crap, that's a source that hadn't occurred to me. Good job getting it together - that must have been a tough row to hoe.

Parents are the absolute worst bullies. I'm not saying every parent bullies their children, I'm saying the ones who do the bullying is much worse than anything peers can dish out. And it's more persistent and impossible to escape. Then they turn around and act normal in front of other people so the fucked up kid looks like the bad guy to outsiders.

From as far back as I can remember until I left for college my mom berated me day in and day out about how my of a piece of garbage I am, how I ruined her life, how literally everything I did was wrong, and how I'm the reason my dad is an alcoholic. Despite me being a good kid who never got into any trouble.

I was bullied in elementary school, middle school, and summer camp for being a runt (literally off the growth charts) but it didn't actually bother me, I already learned that I was garbage from my mom.

Been through years of therapy... I don't think I'll ever be able to really recover, the best I can do is move forward.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#110

Post by AiApotheosis » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

tempguy9999 wrote: post #60

HNLurker2 wrote: post #55

The only way to overcome your bully is to face him, leave him or cope (learned the hard way)

And if the bully is your parents, which of these do you recommend? Edit: sorry, that was an unnecessary response by me. Clearly you weren't thinking in those terms. Apologies.

Until you can separate yourself, learn to cope. Start with "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents".

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Adult-Children-Emotionally-Immature-P...