Bullying: Protecting one’s in-group

We as humans instinctually look at one another in a defensive mode- is this person like me or not? This can be seen throughout our lives, however, it seems to be prominent in many of our schools in the form of bullying. In applied social psychology, there are many thoughts and ideas pertaining to discrimination and intergroup relations; especially the social identity theory and the social dominance theory. Humans are social creatures, and we do many things in order to belong. We must feel like we are an individual member of a larger group, and we must protect that group in order to keep our “place.” Could bullying be seen as a way to keep one’s place in their respective groups?

The social identity theory aims to explain why and when we use different aspects of our identity to behave in situations. Our social identity focuses on a person’s membership and committal to a group. (Nelson, 2018) A child or adolescent is just beginning to really feel the importance of belonging to a group of peers, and this seems to be when bullying occurs the most. Groups provide an identity to a person by having common norms and expectations. However, these group norms/expectations tend to enhance bullying when a group is presented an “outsider” with conflicting norms. (Duffy, Nesdale, 2009) Perhaps bullying is a result of a person feeling their identity is rooted within a group, and feels that when their identity is threatened, they must act against the threatening outsider. It may be a sign of “I believe what you believe” to the other members of the group when a child bullies an outsider to that group.

The social dominance theory highlights that a person feels that they must protect their in-group, in order to keep the group’s resources available to the individual. While the social identity theory believes that an individual is only motivated to protect the group sometimes, the social dominance theory believes that a person is motivated to protect all of the time. (Nelson, 2018) These groups may provide a sense of belonging to an individual, and opportunities of power. These positions of power and status may cause children and adolescents to treat others poorly, however. From research, ranking members of more dominant groups tend to treat group outsiders negatively in order to keep their power within a group. (Olthof, Goossens, Vermande, Aleva, van der Meulen, 2011) According to the social dominance theory, a person will always protect their group because the group and power it provides is most valuable. Could bullies simply be trying to preserve their in-group status by derogating others?

While there is no denying that bullying is an atrocious act and is becoming a bit of an epidemic, there may be more to it than angsty teenagers or rowdy children. Could bullying be rooted in our own innate tendencies to belong to a group and protect our status? While there are many facets that may explain bullying, there seems to be a large part of it that we are simply born with in our genetics. We should take a step towards looking at ourselves as a human race in order to understand our faults, and hopefully one day alleviate many of them; including bullying.

 

References

Pennsylvania State University, World Campus (2018). PSYCH 424: Lesson 6: Intergroup Relations/Diversity. Retrieved from CANVAS: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1924488/modules

Duffy, A. L., & Nesdale, D. (2009). Peer Groups, Social Identity, and Children’s Bullying Behavior. Social Development18(1), 121-139. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2008.00484.x

Olthof, T., Goossens, F. A., Vermande, M. M., Aleva, E. A., & van der Meulen, M. (2011). Bullying as strategic behavior: Relations with desired and acquired dominance in the peer group. Journal of School Psychology, 29(3), 339-359. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2011.03.003

2 comments

  1. You raise an interesting question, relative to the root cause of bullying. As you mentioned, we are very social creatures and bullying would seem to stem from our desire to maintain status within a specific group. This desire to maintain a specific status could certainly encourage these types of behaviors, but why do they get taken to the extreme? In other words, humans exist with daily conflict, disagreements or sometimes fights. Typically, once resolved, these short-term occurrences usually will not resurface again, at least not within the same capacity. For example, if you have a disagreement with a coworker regarding how to complete a project, it will eventually get resolved. After which, the conflict is considered over and done. However, bullying seems to be an ongoing issue, specifically demonstrated by intent to harm, repetition over time and a power differential (Salmivalli & Peets, 2009).

    In addition to social dominance and social identity, it is suggested that elevated narcissism may be a contributing factor to bullying behavior. Narcissism involves a sense of entitlement, privileged status and belief that one is more important than another; thus, these narcissistic individuals need approval and admiration from others, but at a much higher level than normal (Reijntjes et al., 2015). In one study, adolescent boys were more likely to engage in high levels of bullying compared to adolescent girls. Additionally, adolescent boys that were higher in narcissism were substantially more likely to display high levels of direct and indirect bullying behavior versus the adolescent boys that were lower in narcissism (Reijntjes et al., 2015). Additional findings have suggested that narcissism does not directly impact bullying, but that it does impact approval-of-aggression beliefs, or the normative beliefs that aggression is acceptable. In turn, beliefs that aggression is acceptable seem to impact the level of bullying behavior that occurs (Ang, Ong, Lim, & Lim, 2010).

    In other words, and in line with social dominance theory, bullying could potentially stem from the excessive need to be accepted and admired within one’s group. As such, bullying behavior continues in order to preserve the group dynamic, as it allows the narcissistic individual to obtain the satisfaction that they desire from others. If the group were to fall apart, the narcissistic individual would lose the established dominance. Obviously, this is not a scenario that they would want to be in, thus encouraging the continuation of the bullying behavior. Regardless, looking at bullying from these perspectives allows for a potential understanding of why the behavior occurs in the first place and helps to determine if it is a result of social dynamics, environmental influences or genetics. There is no doubt, in my mind, that all three contribute to instances of bullying, and I think the most effective interventions would need to tackle every angle to be effective.

    References

    Ang, R. P., Ong, E. Y. L., Lim, J. C. Y., Lim, E. W. (2010). From narcissistic exploitativeness to bullying behavior: The mediating role of approval-of-aggression beliefs. Social Development, 19(4), 721-735. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00557.x

    Reijntjes, A., Vermande, M., Thomaes, S., Goossens, F., Olthof, T., Aleva, L., & Van der Meulen, M. (2015). Narcissism, bullying, and social dominance in youth: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(1), 63-74. doi: 10.1007/s10802-015-9974-1

    Salmivalli, C., & Peets, K. (2009). Bullies, victims, and bully-victim relationships in middle childhood and early adolescence. In K. H. Rubin, W. M. Bukowski, & B. Laursen (Eds.), Handbook of peer interaction, relationships, and groups (pp. 322-340). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

  2. Bulling is prominent in any age group. In school it is more obvious, but as adults people are bullied mostly in more subtle ways. I also would like to add that, in your adolescence years into adulthood there is a constant search of self. This search of self leads to us searching for a social group in which we fit. Bullying also is due to us as humans identifying our differences with others, and ostracizing those that are different. There are different types of bulling, my question would be how many identifiable types of bullying exist? I do agree that when an individual tries to find a group they fit in they try to protect that group. But most importantly the individual looks to that group for protection of self.

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