research

Bullying

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability. The "imbalance of power" may be social power and/or physical power. The victim of bullying is sometimes referred to as a "target".

Bullying consists of three basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal, and physical. It typically involves subtle methods of coercion such as intimidation. Bullying can be defined in many different ways. The UK currently has no legal definition of bullying, while some U.S. states have laws against it.

Bullying ranges from simple one-on-one bullying to more complex bullying in which the bully may have one or more 'lieutenants' who may seem to be willing to assist the primary bully in his or her bullying activities. Bullying in school and the workplace is also referred to as peer abuse. Robert W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism.

Bullying can occur in any context in which human beings interact with each other. This includes school, church, family, the workplace, home, and neighborhoods. It is even a common push factor in migration. Bullying can exist between social groups, social classes, and even between countries (see jingoism). In fact, on an international scale, perceived or real imbalances of power between nations, in both economic systems and in treaty systems, are often cited as some of the primary causes of both World War I and World War II.

 

Etymology

The word "bully" was first used in the 1530s meaning "sweetheart," applied to either sex, from the Dutch boel "lover, brother," probably diminutive of Middle High German buole "brother," of uncertain origin (compare with the German buhle "lover"). The meaning deteriorated through the 17th century through "fine fellow," "blusterer," to "harasser of the weak". This may have been as a connecting sense between "lover" and "ruffian" as in "protector of a prostitute," which was one sense of "bully" (though not specifically attested until 1706). The verb "to bully" is first attested in 1710.

History

Bullying, in multiple widespread forms, was a ubiquitous feature of the fascism of Italy under Benito Mussolini. Virginia Woolf considered fascism as a form of bullying, and wrote of Hitler and the Nazis in 1934 as "these brutal bullies."

High-level forms of violence such as assault and murder usually receive most media attention, but lower-level forms of violence such as bullying have only in recent years started to be addressed by researchers, parents and guardians, and authority figures. It is only in recent years that bullying has been recognised and recorded as a separate and distinct offence, but there have been well documented cases that have been recorded over the centuries. The Fifth Volume of the Newgate Calendar contains at least one example where Eton Scholars George Alexander Wood and Alexander Wellesley Leith were charged, at Aylesbury Assizes, with killing and slaying the Hon. F. Ashley Cooper on February 28, 1825 in an incident that would now surely be described as "lethal hazing." The Newgate calendar contains several other examples that, while not as distinct, could be considered indicative of situations of bullying.

Definitions

Bullying is an act of repeated aggressive behavior in order to intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally. Bullying is characterized by an individual behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person

Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus defines bullying as when a person is

"exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons." He defines negative action as "when a person intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, through words or in other ways