Though bullying is a nuisance, it seems to be so prevalent that we must witness or experience in interpersonal relationship. Apparently, the bullied need our care and love. Yet, many of us might simply focus on caring and curing the victims, instead of dissecting the motives behind the behaviors of the bullies. If we are able to do so, the issue of bulling will be resolved, if not eradicated.

 

Social learning, the process that children learn to adapt to the society (Bandura, 1973), contributed to bulling. On particular, children are mostly influenced by family and schools. If parents show strong negativity when raising up their children, or even abuse violence in worse case, their children will be in a negative state in daily interactions, which surges the possibilities for those children to imitate their parents or even become bullies. At school, if teachers fail to spot bullying behaviors in time, or simply neglect them, the growing bullies will rationalize their behaviors (Papalia, Wendkos & Feldman, 2011). In spite of parental and school influences, past experience of being bullied will lead to a vicious cycle. Research has shown some of the bullies were actually victims in the past, and they bully in order to offset their sense of inferiority (Keelan, Schenk, McNally & Fremouw, 2014).

 

Bullies are mainly results of previously traumatic experiences, showing the uttermost importance of family and school in knocking down bullying. Likewise, the nature of bullying as one grows up. Bullying in children tends to be physical, which makes it easier to be discovered. Nevertheless, bullying in adult and teenagers is subtler, at most times, related to relational aggression, for example spreading negative rumors, devastating one’s social status or even excluding one from social circles, which is known as social exclusion. All those are more covert, and are more detrimental to the bullied (Hawker and Boulton, 2000).

 

Bullying shall never exist in interpersonal relationships. Only by caring people alongside us can we stop the vicious cycle of bulling and create a bully-free environment.

 

 

References

Bandura, A. (1973) Aggression: A social learning Analysis. New Jesey: Prentice Hall.

 

Hawker, D. S. J., & Boulton, M. J. (2000). Twenty years’ research on peer victimization andpsychosocial maladjustment: A

       meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41, 441-455.

 

Keelan, C., Schenk, A., McNally, M., & Fremouw, W. (2014).The interpersonal worlds of bulies: Parents, peers, and partners.

     Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29(7), 1338–1353.

 

Papalia, D., Wendkos, S., & Feldman, R. (2011). Human development (11th edition). NY: McGraw-Hill.