How bullying may shape adolescent brains • Hacker News Board

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#121

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

ukj wrote: post #43

afandian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Because the wronged demand justice, and to see your bully now cut down to size, is to be given back a sense that there is justice.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#122

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #13

ryannevius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment I'd replace "rather than" with "in addition to".

You really want to make a must to punish children? If you get in there early there shouldn't be an in addition to. Prison is a final measure when all other measures have failed. Even with prison, first time offenders of non-serious crimes usually do not do time or are diverted to other programs to help them avoid this fate. I just love how all the nerds here are going crazy over letting bullies off the hook initially…

What are you teaching a victim when both he and his bully receive only the same general kind of feel-good therapy?

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#123

Post by spunker540 » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 7:51 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…

I totally agree with this. I fall into the latter camp and generally stay quiet in order to avoid saying something wrong or foolish. But throughout life I’ve seen people surpass me who are initially less knowledgeable but who aren’t afraid to make mistakes or look foolish.

One most obvious case was when I studied in France for a semester. Even though my base knowledge upon arrival was higher than some of my peers, I was generally shy and embarrassed around native French speakers, while others who weren’t ended up getting a lot more experience and making a lot faster progress.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#124

Post by wbronitsky » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

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…

> So, I would say the issue needs to be studied with greater depth than it sucks for the guy being bullied. What is the greater effect on the entire population?

"We should not discount something that harms 100% of people who experience it, and helps no one, because that behavior could be beneficial to our society" is an argument for eugenics as well.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#125

Post by marcus_holmes » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

I literally just told a security guard at the PyCon in Berlin to go f* themselves as a direct result of bullying I experienced at boarding school in the '70s.

It took 2 years of therapy to make that connection, though.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#126

Post by zepto » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:06 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…

The likelyhood is being caught may be the metric that determines the effectiveness of a deterrent over the severity of the punishment, but being caught implies that there is at least some negative consequence.

So in order to be a deterrent there must be punishment. Increasing the severity will do little to increase the effectiveness, but increasing the likelyhood of getting caught will.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#127

Post by watwut » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #105

bonoboTP wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 point…

Middle management in most corporations proves you wrong. Knowing what you say is for lower levels, the ones that they rule over by whim. Leadership in those projects rarely knows things.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#128

Post by watwut » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

intarga wrote: post #66

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…

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 each others feelings, were taught what is big deal and what is not big deal.

Slowly over time, situation got better. The point is, solution was not punishment nor seeking who is guilty. It was working with all the kids, bullies, victims, bystanders and teaching them new behavioral patterns. Repeatedly saying the same things, reinforcing same values, playing similar games etc.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#129

Post by UncleOxidant » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC

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 70s & 80s when I was in school the attitude was that bullying made the bullied stronger so adults rarely intervened (as they thought that conversely, doing so would make the bullied kid "weaker"). Even the response of my parents was to put me into Karate classes - I think that did help some as I did gain more confidence, but I think the policy now to stop bullying in the schools is much better.

Re: How bullying may shape adolescent brains

#130

Post by wallace_f » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

bullied wrote: post #116

I was bullied badly as a child and am permanently suicidal, with no trusting relationships and failed life: homeless, mentally ruined, no career, assets, accomplishment, etc. It’s to the point where, decades after having said to self “people are shit and I don’t want to be alive anymore” as a child, I turned down a million dollar inheritance to keep close to a permanently suicidal self-imposed destiny. It’s difficult…

I'm sorry about these experiences.

I also experienced a mix of bullying that became worse as I became an adult.

I would caution you about your conclusion that it is the weak who get bullied. While this may be true many times, it is certainly not universal. Korolev is perhaps the greatest engineer of the 20th century and he was bullied nearly to death... As an adult.