25 Myths about Bullying and Cyberbullying. Elizabeth K. Englander

Chapter 2 Myth #1: Bullying is usually about a big kid beating up a smaller kid.

The deadliest animal in the world isn't the crocodile or the bear – it's actually the mosquito.¹ This persistent, tiny pest kills much more effectively and efficiently than any enraged bear by simply carrying malaria, yellow fever, and other blood‐borne illnesses. But while we're not likely to hear a tabloid news story about an outbreak of malaria, a bear attack on a few hikers is much more dramatic and makes much better news copy (even if it is statistically far less lethal). In 2016, many news outlets carried the sad story of a well‐liked Forest Service officer who was suddenly killed by a bear in Montana; in the same year, thousands of people died from malaria in Tanzania alone.²

In a similar way, severe incidents of physical attacks and bullying might be the most salient and noticeable, but it's that persistent and contemporary pest – psychological bullying – that really affects most of us. Yet until relatively recently, most researchers and educators focused on the type of bullying that was most evident and easiest to detect: physical harassment that happened on school grounds. Even as recently as 2015, the very first item on the National Education Association's list of “signs of bullying” was “torn clothes,” despite overwhelming data that psychological injuries prevail.³

      The fact is that physical bullying is in many ways easier to address, because it simplifies and clarifies the role adults should play and how they can respond. Although it's not always a simple task to spot a bullying situation when the bullying is psychological, detecting physical bullying isn't as hard – there are obvious, concrete signs. The relatively less complex nature of physical bullying makes it a tempting area for our focus, and the more difficult job of assessing psychological damage tempts us to brush it aside.

It's important, though, to keep your eye on the ball. A slew of research has overwhelmingly concluded that most bullying happening in the third decade of the twenty‐first century is, indeed, psychological in nature – either verbal or relational, in person, or through digital technology.⁴ In one of my own research studies, where I've examined thousands of 18‐year‐olds at the university where I've taught for many years, I've found exactly that same pattern. I've also studied more than 50,000 children aged 8–18, and those findings agree; far more children report being psychologically victimized by bullies, compared to the number who report that they're being physically targeted. Just as psychological bullying appears to be gaining in popularity, physical bullying seems to be declining precipitously.⁵ It hasn't completely disappeared, but it's most definitely taken a back seat to its sneakier, less apparent but arguably more damaging cousin.⁶ These findings are far from isolated. Other researchers have noted the same trend.⁷ ,⁸ ,⁹

The fact that most bullying today is psychological probably represents a major social shift, the result of profound changes in how we raise children, our tolerance of aggression, and the role of digital technology. Back when physical bullying was the focus, a child's size had real implications for becoming a bully. A 1998 study of three‐year‐olds found that preschoolers who were at least half an inch taller than their peers were actually more likely to be physically aggressive at age 11.¹⁰ Attacking or threatening your target with physical violence carried with it certain implications – the primary one being that when you used physical bullying, you had to carry out your bullying away from adult eyes. Avoiding adults is less of a problem for today's bullies. This is ironic, considering that children today are more closely supervised, spend less time away from adults, and generally find that adults tolerate aggression less than they once did. I think that most modern parents (myself included) approve of supervision and less aggression. But these positive social changes have also incurred a cost. While more supervision and less tolerance for aggression have hampered physical bullying, they may have also motivated bullies to perfect psychological tactics in the social power dance. “Game of Thrones” – the school edition – persists, and psychological attacks are, unfortunately, much more advantageous. For one thing, they can be carried out right in front of adults through the use of subtle behaviors and through digital technology, which, despite its myriad rewards, has (it must be admitted) helped facilitate this type of problem.¹¹

Just because psychological tactics predominate, though, doesn't mean they're all the same. The precise behaviors that children use to bully vary notably, depending upon the environment where they occur. In school, kids primarily bully through the use of psychological behaviors that express contempt or dismissiveness – for example, they might ignore a person who's speaking to them, laugh meanly at someone, or roll their eyes when an opinion is voiced or an answer is wrong. In research, we call these gateway behaviors, because frequent and widespread expressions of contempt are the “gateway” to more toxic and unpleasant social climates. One form of this is (particularly among girls) relational aggression, which is bullying or cruelty in which the aggressor takes action to interfere with friendships or torpedo another's relationships as a way of hurting the target.¹² In digital realms (online in gaming and social media, or through exchanging digital messages such as text messaging), psychological bullying might feature biting comments, threats, or public humiliation. Digital bullying can be relational and/or contemptuous. Both in school and online, though, the single most common type of meanness and bullying is often both relational and contemptuous: spreading gossip and rumors, which may or may not be true and which can enormously impact friendships. (In virtually every school where my students and colleagues at the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center work, rumors and gossip play a key, prominent role in making life difficult for the students [by their own admission].) The primary challenge in reducing gossip and rumors is (not to put too fine a point on it) its self‐reinforcing nature. The fact is, it's fun to gossip. And that makes it hard to resist, and hard to suppress.

      All of these things – gateway behaviors, relational aggression, and digital meanness – are relatively common in childhood and adolescence. But please note (and this is important!):

       I'm not saying that every rumor, or every contemptuous behavior, necessarily constitutes bullying.

      More often than not, gateway behaviors are used just to be mean (perhaps without really thinking), to show off, or when two kids are fighting and mad at each other. In other words,