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Information

Editors

AnitaPuustjärvi

Bullying at School

General information

  • Bullying is an activity systematically and repeatedly targeted at one person to intentionally make that person feel bad and to harm them. The parties to bullying are not equal; it is difficult for targets of bullying to defend themselves. Not all aggressive behaviour and not every dispute or all teasing between children is bullying.
  • Bullying may be carried out by an individual or by a group of people.
  • Bullying is a multidimensional phenomenon associated with group activity in which roles are rarely restricted to those of person who bullies and target. Roles arise from the expectations and needs of the group but they may label the actors and persist as long-term operational models. By their activity, group members may potentiate or extinguish bullying behaviour. Bullying may be a form of activity connecting the group.
    • The person who bullies may have helpers and supporters.
    • Some group members may not approve of bullying but will not interfere with it, either. This may maintain bullying.
    • Targets gradually fall into an unfavourable position in the group, becoming unpopular and regarded by others as worthless, odd and deserving to be bullied. Targets themselves may start to believe in such negative definitions.
    • Others may believe they are safe from bullying because they belong to the people who bully.
    • People may have contradictory views of who is bullying and who is being bullied.
    • A person may both be bullied and bully.
  • Bullying may involve both direct bullying of targets (like teasing, calling names, shoving, hitting or kicking) or indirect harming, such as damaging their belongings, exclusion from the group or spreading mean rumours.
  • All or a part of the bullying may take place through smart phones or other smart devices on the internet, on social media or in games (cyberbullying). Cyberbullying may involve acts such as leaving out of message groups or sending or spreading insulting comments, messages or pictures.
    • Both cyberbullying and traditional bullying are often used simultaneously.
    • Cyberbullying may also predispose a person to becoming a target of traditional bullying.
  • Boys typically encounter more physical bullying, while bullying encountered by girls is more indirect, such as leaving out of groups or giving negative comments on how others look on social media.
  • The experience of being bullied is not always consistent with objective observations.
    • Bullying may sometimes be a subjective experience in a situation where no actual bullying has taken place. Previous experiences of bullying, depression or social perception problems (in people with autism spectrum disorders, for instance) and psychotic symptoms (emphasized suspicion, paranoia) make people more prone to such faulty interpretation.

Prevalence

  • Depending on the study method, 1/10-1/3 of all children and adolescents are bullied. In adolescence, bullying is more selective and different in some aspects from that among younger children.
  • Adults are often unaware of bullying, and taking steps to intervene is found to be difficult. At early school age, children are quicker to tell adults about being bullied whereas older children and adolescents often try to hide it.
    • In a Finnish study where every third child reported having been bullied, only every fifth parent and 10% of the teachers had noticed the bullying.
    • Child targets often feel that telling adults will only make the situation worse.
    • Bullying may be revealed indirectly by symptoms such as refusal to go to school or in connection with examining for depression.
  • Bullying may also occur between pupils and teachers; pupils may bully their (substitute) teacher, and teachers may unjustifiably use different pedagogical methods and punishments for different pupils.

Background factors

  • The target may be selected randomly, and the person who bullies is not necessarily angry at the target. Bullying is mostly not caused by anything the target has done, even though it is often later explained as having been due to what the target has done or how he/she is.
  • Group values define what targets are bullied for and who is bullied. Strong pressure for similarity in the group may increase bullying behaviour towards those experienced as different.
    • Pupils who are shy, quiet, fearful, who cry easily or become anxious or differ from the group by their looks or behaviour, such as new or overweight pupils or ones with learning difficulties, are more prone to be bullied. Having strong emotional reactions or provoking others on purpose may also predispose to being bullied.
    • In reality, targets may not differ from the others at all, and changing to conform to the wishes of others will normally not stop long-standing bullying.
  • Bullying is often an attempt to achieve social acceptance, dominating position or material benefit. It may also be used in an attempt to compensate for one's own perceived weaknesses.
    • As in any type of violence, also in bullying one can observe both reactive, impulsive bullying and proactive, premeditated and systematic bullying.
    • Incorrect action derived from thoughtlessness or lack of social skills may count as bullying even if it is not meant to make the other person feel bad.
    • People who bully have more negative attitudes to others and more positive attitudes to violence than their peers. Features associated with people who bully can mainly be regarded as predisposing factors, and not as characteristics of these people. Such features include, for example:
      • impulsiveness, getting easily frustrated, tendency to interpret a situation as threatening although it would not be
      • dominance, aggressiveness, poor capacity for empathy.
  • Attitudes towards people who bully vary; they may be popular but also shunned. Direct bullying and violent behaviour affect the bullying person's social position but indirect bullying may even (apparently) enhance it.
    • Any benefit or social acceptance experienced by the person who bullies makes it more difficult to tackle bullying and decrease the bullying person's motivation to change their behaviour.
  • Being bullied increases the probability of bullying others, and being a person who bullies increases the probability of being bullied.
  • Social support shown by parents and the teacher protects against bullying and being bullied. In addition, it alleviates the negative effects of being bullied.
    • Compassionate parenting, sufficient knowledge of what the child is doing and a good dialogical connection with the child help parents to intervene with bullying and to support the child being bullied.
    • Indifference, and insufficient guidance and control increase the risk of both being bullied and of bullying behaviour.
    • There may be traumatic experiences or maltreatment behind bullying.
  • Bullying tends to continue if there is no intervention. This is particularly common among children who both bully and are targets.

Effects of bullying

  • Psychological problems are more common both among people who bully and among child targets. Studies have shown that mental symptoms are most common in children who are both targets and who bully. The longer the bullying goes on and the graver it is, the more likely it is associated with mental problems.
  • Various physical symptoms such as pain, poor appetite and sleeping difficulty are common in child targets but also in people who bully and those who both bully and are targets.
  • Repeated serious bullying problems experienced in childhood are associated with depression Childhood Depression Depression in Adolescents, anxiety and self-destructive behaviour Self-Destructive Behaviour in Childhood and Adolescence Risk of Suicide in Adolescence in both those who bully and those being bullied. Smoking and alcohol and drug abuse are more common in both those who bully and those being bullied.
    • Being bullied affects the person's self-image and self-confidence, impairs performance at school, increases absenteeism from school and reduces the pursuit of further education. It causes stress and may trigger panic symptoms and a posttraumatic stress reaction. In addition, being bullied predisposes the person to severe mental disorders.
    • As adults, people who bullied in their childhood have an increased risk of disturbed personality development, intoxicant abuse Adolescent Substance Abuse, violent and property crimes and traffic offences. This probably represents a multidimensional phenomenon, not a causal relationship.
    • Targets have an increased risk of crime only if they already had mental health problems at the time of bullying.
  • In the Finnish ‘From a Boy to a Man' study, being a person who bullies and is a target at primary school age predicted both an asocial personality disorder and anxiety disorder in adulthood.
  • See also the article Conduct disorders in children and adolescents Conduct Disorders in Children and Adolescents.

Intervening in bullying

  • Intervention is always necessary if bullying occurs at school.
  • Bullying at school can be reduced by setting up clear procedures to prevent bullying and to intervene with any bullying situations. Bullying is reduced by an atmosphere opposed to bullying and by active intervention in any bullying. This is the responsibility of teachers, school health care and parents.
  • All pupils/students should be asked systematically about bullying experiences in association with health checks, for instance. It is often easier to respond to an indirect, open question than a targeted question. Examples of questions:
    • "Do you feel safe at school?" "How do you get along with other pupils/students and the teacher?"
    • "Many pupils/students have experienced bullying at school or in social media. Has this ever happened to you or another pupil/student that you know?"
  • The pupil/student welfare group can make a more comprehensive plan to investigate the matter if, for example, a child has definite mental symptoms or if earlier measures have not provided satisfactory results.
  • Programmes to intervene in bullying have proved effective in reducing bullying.
    • The KiVa school programme has been developed in Finland and found to be effective and cost-effective. It is used in over 2 500 schools worldwide http://www.kivaprogram.net/.
  • Primary methods for the intervention are measures both to stop bullying and to reinforce prosocial action in the whole community. Both targets and people who bully also need individual support to learn new modes of action.
    • Info sessions, campaigns and agreements made by the class or the whole school to stop bullying may help to change group activity.
    • School bullying can be prevented in younger year groups by giving clear and logical rules and in older year groups by high school motivation and clear learning targets.
    • Reinforcing prosocial activity (socially desired activity) and provision of other meaningful activity for example during breaks may reduce bullying.
    • Often it is also beneficial to reduce the opportunities for bullying (e.g. sufficient supervision).
    • Interest shown by adults (teachers and parents) towards children, sufficient support, active intervention in any bullying observed and a negative attitude to aggressive behaviour decrease bullying.
  • As both targets and people who bully may need child or adolescent psychiatric assessment and treatment, the need for this should be assessed whenever bullying appears at school.
    • Neuropsychiatric disturbances, depression, anxiety and posttraumatic symptoms, in particular, should be actively looked for.
    • Find out about local sources for more information and support.
  • Bullying may meet the criteria of a crime and obliges school and health care professionals to submit a child welfare notification. Check also local policies and guidelines.

    References

    • Chanda P, Chirwa M, Mwale AT, et al. Perceived Social Support and Health Care Spending as Moderators in the Association of Traditional Bullying Perpetration with Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimisation among Adolescents in 27 European Countries: A Multilevel Cross-National Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2024;21(7): [PubMed]
    • Wiertsema M, Vrijen C, van der Ploeg R, et al. Bullying perpetration and social status in the peer group: A meta-analysis. J Adolesc 2023;95(1):34-55 [PubMed]
    • Montes Á, Sanmarco J, Novo M, et al. Estimating the Psychological Harm Consequence of Bullying Victimization: A Meta-Analytic Review for Forensic Evaluation. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2022;19(21): [PubMed]
    • Fraguas D, Díaz-Caneja CM, Ayora M, et al. Assessment of School Anti-Bullying Interventions: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials. JAMA Pediatr 2021;175(1):44-55 [PubMed]
    • McDaid D, Park AL, Wahlbeck K. The Economic Case for the Prevention of Mental Illness. Annu Rev Public Health 2019;40():373-389 [PubMed]
    • Klomek AB, Sourander A, Elonheimo H. Bullying by peers in childhood and effects on psychopathology, suicidality, and criminality in adulthood. Lancet Psychiatry 2015;2(10):930-41 [PubMed]
    • Sourander A, Brunstein Klomek A, Kumpulainen K, et al. Bullying at age eight and criminality in adulthood: findings from the Finnish Nationwide 1981 Birth Cohort Study. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 2011;46(12):1211-9 [PubMed]