Читать книгу 25 Myths about Bullying and Cyberbullying - Elizabeth K. Englander - Страница 9

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, bullying is only one reason kids would use these behaviors. Characterizing every eye roll as bullying would be crazy; but it's not crazy to say that eye‐rolling is one way of making a victim of bullying feel terrible, and a way of continuing the saga of cruelty against them. When gateway behaviors are used sporadically or in isolation, the hurt is likewise transient. But if they're used as part and parcel of an ongoing campaign to make someone's life miserable, the impact is often much more potent.

One challenge that's interesting to me is how two‐faced we are as a society about gateway behaviors and relational aggression. On the one hand, generally speaking, our social rules dictate that we shouldn't use behaviors that openly express contempt for others. We're taught not to whisper to someone in front of other people, not to make a face when introduced to someone, and not to call others mean names (at least, not to their face). In practice, though, we sometimes tolerate these snarky behaviors – particularly, but not exclusively, when they're used by children. So although we might hasten to correct a child who says aloud, “You're an idiot,” we may do nothing when that same child rolls his eyes, even though that gesture is essentially a nonverbal way of implying the same thing. Although I know of no data supporting this point, I think an argument could be made that we've become more tolerant of these rude behaviors in children – more inclined, perhaps, to excuse rudeness by attributed it to “adolescence” or “just being a kid,” and less likely to correct it. Perhaps we sometimes view such social rules as superficial, arbitrary, or pointless; why shouldn't we tell people they're stupid if we think they are? Yet when we dispense with the guidelines that demand social civility, the result can be a psychological climate that is decidedly unpleasant and even hurtful. I think that behaving politely even when you don't admire someone is an important social mechanism that has evolved to keep our society agreeable. It makes everyone feel more relaxed and content – not just the target of that (so‐called) “fake” politeness. In contrast, behaving contemptuously toward those you don't admire makes all onlookers feel uncomfortable – again, not just the target. If the incivility is actually celebrated as courage or honesty, others may decide to take up gateway behaviors and relational aggression. The fact that these behaviors affect everyone in the environment (not just targets) is an essential fact that we all need to remember. You may have heard that bullying prevention is all about “improving the climate.” This is what that means.

But social problems aren't just about whether or not a behavior hurts; they are also about how much it hurts. It would be reasonable to assume that psychological attacks don't hurt as much as physical attacks. We all recall the “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” saying. But in reality, the data suggest that the opposite is true. (Maybe the saying is wishful thinking.) One way to study this is to assess how hurtful cyberbullying is (since cyberbullying is exclusively psychological). In the 2013–2014 school year, I studied this issue in a sample of 421 teenagers. Among many other questions, I asked them about being targeted by their peers online, in school, in both places, or in neither place. The students who were targeted online (or both online and in school) reported being much more emotionally impacted, compared to the students who were attacked in person. This might seem ridiculous – how could words on a screen be so hurtful? (I once wrote a paper entitled Just Turn the Darn Thing Off.¹³ ) That question is really part of a larger question: how can psychological attacks hurt more than physical attacks?

But in reality, there are good reasons why psychological attacks can hurt more. First, psychological attacks can be much more sustained than physical attacks; they can go on and on, and they often cross over from school to cyberspace to continue even further.¹⁴ Second, because they can often be done right in front of others using digital means, gateway behaviors, or relational aggression, they can be much more public. That public exposure can be a key element in the trauma induced by bullying and cyberbullying, and it is, unfortunately, often exacerbated by adolescent psychology. During the teenage years, boys and girls have a distinct feeling that the entire world is watching them and endlessly fascinated by them. Psychologists term this effect an imaginary audience – the sense that you're constantly on stage, being closely examined by everyone else. This helps explain why your teenager might refuse to go to school because of a tiny pimple on their face. Adults might realize that a minor flaw isn't terribly noticeable, but for an adolescent who feels like they're under constant intense scrutiny, even a small flaw is assumed to be quite noticeable indeed. All this makes it very hard for teens to shrug off any public incidents.

This cognitive tendency, coupled with the dynamics of digital interactions, can actually worsen the impact of a teen's negative exposure. Online, a much broader circle of peers can participate in discussions or conversations (in real time or delayed). That can be, and usually is, very appealing. But the downside is that everything negative is also very public. In one of my studies, I asked teens how long it would take for a digital rumor to get around a school to 100 kids; most answered that it would take 15 minutes or less. If a friend gets mad at you and tries to humiliate you at the mall, odds are that at most there will be only a few witnesses. But online, the number of witnesses feels endless – and thus the attack feels potentially much more humiliating. So even though cyberbullying can only be psychological, it can also be very distressing. That sense that everyone's aware of your humiliation is key to understanding why psychological bullying can be so traumatic.

Realistically, we can't completely change the adolescent tendency to over‐focus on oneself. But we can keep in mind how much psychological attacks can hurt, particularly in the teenage years, and we can remind our kids that most other teens are more interested in themselves than in others. It's ironic that adolescents can feel so humiliated by a rumor or negative event and so sure that everyone is focused on their humiliation, when the fact is that most teens are focused simply on how they themselves are appearing to others. Sometimes taking the long view can help kids cope with the trauma at hand.