For generations upon generations, there has been bullying. Kids enter school and soon enough they begin to fall into their place within the school’s social hierarchy. This unspoken hierarchy includes the most popular kids and the most isolated, and everyone else in between. The smallest differences in behavior or appearance can be enough to initiate a social isolation that follows one through their schooling. Typically, the lower one falls in this social hierarchy, the more people will consciously and unconsciously distance themselves from them. While few kids are clear bullies directly targeting specific kids, there are many more bystanders who keep their distance and do not make strong enough efforts to make these kids included and accepted among their peers.
Researchers have identified three normative social processes that may help explain how this unspoken hierarchy begins to form in such young, well-meaning kids. These social processes include descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and norm salience. In a school setting, descriptive norms are what a child perceives as typical behavior at their school. Injunctive norms are how that child is expected to behave at school, and what will happen to them when they do or don’t comply. Norm salience refers to the extent in which the norms are carried out at their school (Gruman et al., 2017). When examining a school’s social hierarchy, and the subsequent bullying that comes with it, we begin to see how these social processes may take form in schools.
When starting out in school, children become exposed to an entirely different world that they were once unaware of from the bubble of their homes. They are shown all sorts of different kinds of people and situations. During this time, they are also learning and absorbing the new information now presented to them. This is when we start to see the social processes take form. When put in a classroom full of kids their own age, a child begins to see similarities and differences between their peers. They see how the majority of their classmates look and behave, and they also begin to take note of the individuals who deviate from this norm. When a child sees one of these children who are different than the majority being left out, they then learn that it is bad to have those differences. They also begin to learn how people treat those who are different. Once they repeatedly observe that the children with differences get treated less favorably, this is when they begin to distance themselves as they don’t want to be associated with the kids who are different. By making these realizations and acting in their own self-interest, the social hierarchy gets strengthened. This child may not want to be a bully themself, but they also don’t want to face the same treatment as the children who are different.
Schools are notoriously tough places to be for those who fall outside of the social norms. The normative social processes of descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and norm salience help to shed light on how such young children can unintentionally create a toxic learning environment for some of the other children. While these social processes are human nature within social situations like schools, adults can be more informed of these processes happening within our children in order to lead them in the right direction on how to best handle the new information they are learning in kind and empathetic ways.
Reference:
Gruman, J.A. Schneider, F.W. & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Sadly, everyone at some point or another has been a victim of bullying. This is the result of the school hierarchy; the social norms are carried throughout the school. Within the confines of the school everyone fits into a certain category of people based on there “status.” “Social Salience is when a particular target draws the attention of an observer or group.” (Administrator 2016)
Norm salience refers to the extent in which the norms are carried out at their school. (Gruman et al.., 2017) In my school/county the norm is for the jocks to be extreme in bullying. Whether it was harassing, hazing, or just bullying it was a constant struggle. It did not matter if it was between athlete and non-athlete.
References
Administrator. (2016, January 27). Salience – IResearchNet. Psychology. Retrieved December 5, 2022, from http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-cognition/salience/
Gruman, J.A. Schneider, F.W. & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
There are so many things sadly that go into social hierarchies and sadly it is not just in schools either. We often see many things go into social status like one’s clothing or sense of style, how much money someone does or does not have, and now more often how many followers and likes someone gets. There are so many issues that we see arise out of people’s backgrounds even where someone is from may isolate them from a group and there is so much work to be done in order to start dismantling these hierarchies.
References
Joffer, J., Randell, E., Öhman, A., Flacking, R., & Jerdén, L. (2020). Playing the complex game of social status in school – a qualitative study. Global health action, 13(1), 1819689. https://doi.org/10.1080/16549716.2020.1819689
I think the hard thing about getting control of the bullying that happens in schools due to social hierarchy is that it doesn’t just happen to kids in school — it’s something that often continues throughout adulthood. We’re relying on the same adults who bully their coworkers to teach their kids about empathy and kindness. A lot of our day-to-day lives and successes can be majorly impacted by another person’s selective opinion. “If you are led to believe that a new coworker is highly capable and industrious, you will tend to notice each of his or her accomplishments…if you expect that the new employee is somewhat lacking in ability and motivation, you will more likely take note of his or her failures.” (Gruman, et al., 2017). I’ve seen this happen firsthand throughout my career. Social hierarchies impacted upper management’s opinions of employees. This held back dedicated, productive employees who were achieving their goals and targets. It’s the playground hierarchy following you forever. I think it’s really unfortunate, and would be really interested on how early intervention with empathy could impact bullying in both schools and the workplace.
Reference:
Gruman, J.A. Schneider, F.W. & Coutts, L.A. (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage