How bullying may shape adolescent brains • Hacker News Board

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#161

Post by samatman » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

magduf wrote: post #97

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 pred…

Chickens, on the other hand, are absolute bastards to one another.

We're not much like chickens, thankfully. But we're not much like zebras either.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#162

Post by zen22334 » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 12:37 AM UTC

chimi wrote: post #153

UncleOxidant wrote: post #129

50-something here. I was bullied a lot in elementary, jr. high and high school probably because I was the nerdy kid who was into science. We also moved a lot so I was always the outsider. While my home life was fine (my parents were great) I do suffer from anxiety and difficulty staying in a job for more than a year or two. I've only recently started to make the connection with the bullying I received. Back in the 70…

Anxiety as an emotion is very similar to excitement. Sam Harris discusses this a lot. I never got from him what exactly the difference is, but the other day in the car, I felt excited and started really analyzing why. What I believe now is that the difference between anxiety and excitement is: perception of outcome. If you have a positive expected outcome, you are excited . If you have a negative expected outcome you…

I started doing push-ups every morning as part of a plan to do some form of exercise with my upper body. Noticed at some point it has been a long time I felt anxiety. Not sure if there is a link, but starting to think so.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#163

Post by jader201 » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 12:47 AM UTC

astura wrote: post #109

redleggedfrog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

So sorry you didn’t have it better. Parents should be the absolute opposite of a bully.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#164

Post by miles » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 1:24 AM UTC

bigred100 wrote: post #140

burntoutfire wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to work for normal company (not brogrammers startups). At most places, there is simply no bullying, so your problem will solve itself.

This is one reason I think big dreams and ambitions are a liability. Being a competent worker with a reasonable work ethic, putting money in your 401k, and making sure you’ve got other options if something goes wrong doesn’t leave a lot of openings for bullying. Nobody is going to bully Stanley from the Office and you’d look like a moron for trying.

> Nobody is going to bully Stanley from the Office

You can say that again!

https://tenor.com/view/the-office-stanley-jim-halpert-sumo-w...

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#165

Post by Zod666 » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #129

50-something here. I was bullied a lot in elementary, jr. high and high school probably because I was the nerdy kid who was into science. We also moved a lot so I was always the outsider. While my home life was fine (my parents were great) I do suffer from anxiety and difficulty staying in a job for more than a year or two. I've only recently started to make the connection with the bullying I received. Back in the 70…

I'm sorry you went through that. Yes, bullying needs to stop, but if we back up and ask the question, why do kids do this? We used to hear 'kids can be cruel'. I think it has something to do with with alpha/beta dynamics. Kids always want to fit in but they also want to be popular. To be popular means some have to be unpopular. Maybe a quick way to do that is by putting someone down and in effect making them lower than you on the social status ladder.

I think the kindest of us probably suffered through bullying or forever being the outsider, and maybe these people experience more empathy for others as they know first hand how awful it feels to be on the receiving end.

But the majority don't go through this. Because of this, I don't believe we will ever get rid of this behaviour. We may minimise it a bit, but really we are trying to change embedded behaviour.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#166

Post by LorenPechtel » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #62

I've never understood why schools seem so reticent to enforce zero-tolerance policies against bullying. In my experience at least, every time bullying seems to be a problem at a school, it's because the environment allows it to occur. Schools will eagerly put in place various other zero-tolerance policies, like no fighting. So if you dare defend yourself against such a social predator, you are taught a lesson by such…

Zero tolerance ends up punishing the victims, often instead of the bullies. Furthermore, it doesn't even work. If the bully gets punished then the victim will likely suffer worse. The victims very quickly learn that there is no help, the victimhood must be hidden even from well-meaning parents and authority figures. Their blundering efforts to help only make the problem worse. They think they solved the problem when they really just drove it underground. It "works", they keep using that strategy rather than doing something effective which would be very difficult. Parents, understand that you probably have only one chance to address it, if you fail to solve it you won't know unless your child suffers injuries they can't hide.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#167

Post by anxman » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

Can confirm. I was bullied by my verbally abusive brother for almost 35 years. I have diagnosed PTSD now.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#168

Post by LorenPechtel » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 2:32 AM 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…

Yup. The two real things adults would do is a retraining order and weapons. Kids get neither. (And, yes, sometimes it rises to that level. There was one incident in grade school where firearms would have been an appropriate response.)

I don't think most of the adults knowingly look the other way. They try some little measure, the problem appears to go away (the victim got a beating and is afraid to talk) so they think it worked.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#169

Post by LorenPechtel » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #128

intarga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is difficulty defining bullying. Fighting is easy, if you hit someone then you broke the rules, but bullying has a much more blurry line. At my school there was some attempt to crack down on bullying, but instances of bullying were regularly dismissed or reframed as "just banter".

Punishing kids is not answer on itself either. For one, it does not deal with victim at all. In one school I have seen, they had problem with bullying in a class. What they did were regular meet ups of whole class with psychologist and year long programs about communication. Kids were taught how to express what they feel (what and who makes them angry), were taught to listen to other kids, were taught to care about e…

That sort of thing will help with the minor stuff, it won't deal with the serious stuff.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#170

Post by LorenPechtel » Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 2:37 AM UTC

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.

We don't have meaningful treatment.