Bullying is a topic of attention today. This is what a significant portion of contemporary adolescents face at some point of their lives at the school, in the street and even on the web. However, what wasn’t known before that bullying damages perpetrators just as much as the victims, if we consider long-term health consequences, including a person’s psychological health.
Perpetrators of bullying suffer psychological consequences as well as victims
Teasing, beating and hair-pulling by classmates are only a few forms of physical violence that can cause a psychological trauma, which is rather rare. But other types of bullying could be much more subtle and leave no visible marks, the damage is done on the inside, and not only for the victims. Perpetrators, too, are deeply affected and face psychological consequences of this type of violence for the rest of their lives, and the effects are not dissimilar to what victims experience, a recent study discovered.
Perpetrators often tend to have an alcohol or tobacco addiction, problems with their psychosomatic state.
Psychology of bullying
The study has been conducted by a research team of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) led by Matthias Donat and Anett Wolgast, educational psychology experts.
The purpose was to investigate how different cultures and countries are in dealing with bullying events.
Particularly, the researchers made an attempt to find out whether boys and girls were treated differently when it comes to this kind of psychological pressure.
The study was based on analysis of statistics made available by WHO (the World Health Organization).
Over the years, this reputable international body had been conducting a poll involving about 3,000 school students from a number of countries asking them about bullying events they faced in their lives. Along with that, questions about smoking, alcohol consumption and psychosomatic deviations were delved into.
Researchers made an attempt to find out whether boys and girls were treated differently when it comes to this kind of psychological pressure.
Study of students from the USA, Greece, Germany
This was a comprehensive study as it covered 3 countries, namely the USA, Germany and Greece, over the period of several years. The sample data belonged to different time stretches. The reason why these countries were selected is that they showed somewhat different types of society: highly individualistic in America, collectivistic in Greece and something in between in Germany.
Another aspect the researchers investigated was what factors can affect the bullying rate in a society.
In this respect, academics focused on such risky behavior factors as smoking and alcohol consumption. The related possibility of getting health problems by adolescents, such as headaches, depression etc., was another major point of interest.
How bullying victims and their perpetrators were behaving in their social environment was taken into consideration, too.
Upon this vast amount of data collection and analysis, the MLU researchers have come to the conclusion that the behavior of adolescents is much the same in all the three involved countries, that is in any type of the society.
It was found out that up to 10% of school students, boys and girls alike, used to suffer from psychological and physical attacks, which could be categorized as bullying.
No practical solution to stop bullying
According to Dr. Wolgast, none of the countries under discussion was able to propose a practical solution to tackle the problem.
This type of uniformity certainly should cause concern. While no clear correlation between being a bullying victim and consuming alcohol or tobacco was revealed, the situation with health problems is somewhat different.
This fact is of particular importance when it comes to girls as those tend to conceal bullying events and survive them on their own, which results in getting headaches or stomach aches more often.
What the researchers were astounded with, perpetrators reported the same health concerns with a similar occurrence, as victims.
Given the transboundary nature of this phenomenon, the study authors propose educational and medical professionals to join their efforts internationally to come up with a sustainable solution applicable in any country.
Apart from the torture that a bullied individual suffers from, this vicious activity distorts social behavior patterns acquired by the young generation.
This said, the major approach to consider would be the drive to improve communication in the communities of young people. This is where schools should play a leading role. Potentially successful tools include providing support, creating a friendly classroom atmosphere and asking young people to follow fair-conduct practices.
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Seems “researchers” have no experience with troublesome schools. In the last high school where I was at last year: – Ambulance attended about 2 – 4 times per week – Police attended 2 – 5 times per week – Drug raid by dogs 3 times last year (with nice loot, started when the so called “drug prevention” “lecturer” get educated by the local students about the topic, and see instantly the samples) There were several groups which are collected “protection” money (and by the way “borrow” forever what they like, from food to mobile phone and MP3), and sometimes who… Read more »
the problem of bullying will always be relevant since the world cannot be equal for all, always was, is now, and there will be a hierarchy. I always wanted children to treat everything simpler because a person creates the basis of himself in childhood. I understood that normal people would not offend others, but I didn’t know that those who mock themselves are suffering from their own actions. I will find it very much that they will begin to take some measures at stake to reduce the frequency of bullying between children. if the children become kinder, then the world… Read more »
To my mind, at least 5 people in the school suffer from this problem. Usually they are children who are abused in the family. This person who has come into conflict with you in order to increase his dominance and a sense of self-importance at your expense will do it either psychologically or physically. That is, they see violence as a normal manifestation of their disagreement with someone’s position or appearance!!One day I encountered a “bulling” at school. At 8th grade I had a fight with almost 30 students. Well, fight … I was able to escape from the crowd… Read more »
Well said!
Who stand up against a group, and even if beaten do it again, and did not broke/ hide/ beg others: will earn at least respect, no matter if never win.
We grow up in the same way: No matter you win or not, but fight.
Anyway in many cases the group will retreat, because tremble from the solo opponent who do not care, and lose the imagined overpowerment which come from their numbers.
As far as I know schools try to solve the problem with bulling. In some cases they succeed. But not only schools should improve this situation. Actually this phenomenon grows out of the family. Children used to see bulling and beating at home and they see every day how parents treat each other. This is our common question.