Why kids bully: because they're popular

[BridgeTheGap]

Mean kids, mothers tell their wounded young, behave that way because they have unhappy home lives, or feel inadequate, or don't have enough friends or because they somehow lack empathy. But a new study suggests some mean kids actually behave that way simply because they can.

Contrary to accepted ruffian-scholarship, the more popular a middle- or high-school kid becomes, the more central to the social network of the school, the more aggressive the behavior he or she engages in. At least, that was the case in North Carolina, where students from 19 middle and high schools were studied for 4.5 years by researchers at the University of California-Davis.

Authors Robert Faris and Diane Felmlee interviewed public-school kids seven times over the course of their study, starting when the students were in grades 6, 7 and 8. They asked the students to name their friends and used the data to create friendship maps. They then asked the kids who was unkind to them and whom they picked on, and mapped out the pathways of aggression.

What they found was that only one-third of the students engaged in any bullying at all — physical force, taunts or gossip-spreading — but those who were moving up the school popularity chain bullied more as they went higher. Only when kids reached the very top 2% of the school's social hierarchy or fell into the bottom 2% did their behavior change; these kids were the least aggressive.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/08/do-popular-kids-bully-more/#ixzz1DNZJt5gX

[DBoon]

1. the bullies are trainining for positions in corporate america

where aggression and cruelty are richly rewarded

[BridgeTheGap]

2. Ain't that the truth! n/t

[Lorien]

3. That's been my experience. The bully that hounded me throughout grammar school

and Junior high was my best friend's older brother. He was smart, handsome, very popular, and his parent's favorite child. He was very privileged in every way that a kid could be. , on the other had, was unattractive, had a speech impairment, and was not liked much at all by my parents. I most certainly fell into the bottom 2% of the social hierarchy. The sad thing is that my friend now has a son who is a carbon copy of his uncle, and he's every bit as vicious toward the less popular children in his school.

[MineralMan]

4. Not surprising at all.

In high school, I was not classically popular, but had a lot of friends, mostly through music and the church I attended. One of the things I remember about bullying in that small high school was that it was a small group of "popular" kids who did most of the bullying. The church I attended had a youth minister who was a pretty smart guy. When the subject of bullying came up, he said that all of us should take the initiative and speak up loudly and publicly when we witnessed it.

We started doing that, and the bullying lessened. It caught on, and bullying almost disappeared at that school. It seemed like some sort of critical mass of kids who would tell bullies to "Knock it off," in no uncertain terms developed, and cut down on that crap.

"Popular" is such a strange word, really. The "popular" kids were very unpopular with most of the kids at school, it seems.

[vim876]

5. Someone got paid to study that?

I could have told them that for free at 9 years old. Or they could have asked any bullying victim in the country.

[Kber]

6. If I'm reading this right

when kids fall into the bottom or top 2% their bullying decreases which I find interesting.

I wonder if the "top 2%" are there because they are actually nice kids and not disliked by the majority of their peers (i.e. popular in a real sense), or if they just feel like they don't have to engage in this behavior because their social position is more "secure".

I think I'll talk to my 14 year old about this. I'd be interested in what he thinks.

[provis99]

7. well! Put this in the "No Shit, Sherlock" category.

I can't believe people get paid to study the obvious.