The Psychology of Bullying

What is a bully?

Well for the sake of this little exercise in self indulgence a bully is somebody who:
"Consistently and persistently empowers themselves at the expense of the safety, dignity or security of another individual or individuals."
So what comes to mind when we think of a bully? Is our bully male or female? Are they strong and beat you up? Or are they just snide and caustic and make you miserable through the use of gossip, lies and insults?

The simple approach is just to view bullies as some kind of immature child or sub-neanderthal and write them off as something less then human, or second-class citizens. The problem with this approach is it never really solves anything, why do people bully? Do they grow out of it? Or do they just get better at hiding it? Are bullies born or created?

Well to answer those questions like the smart-arse i am. Most (about 65%) of bullies fall into the category of "Bully-Victim", ie: A bully that is made because they are, or continue to be the victim of bullying and so in turn bully others as a way of empowering themselves. About 10% are just "pure bully" the other 10% are "pure victim" in the bully/victim populations that are surveyed by the types of people who love this sort of thing.

A bully is just as likely to be a man or a woman, and is likely to be any age. Though psychical violence does deteriorate as the bully gets older, they find other ways of gaining control over their own lives by making people around them feel powerless. A bully will focus on making sure that their victims have no agency, the most obvious being physical violence (I can hit you, you cannot defend yourself from me, I am in charge, I have the power, you have none.). But more subtle ways are often seen in the work place, spreading rumors, petty theft of belongings, and interference with personal relationships.

You see, a bully often works along an "Aggression/reward" scale, what act of aggression can get me the best reward with the least risk to myself. Obviously bullies work out fairly young that physical violence leaves evidence and therefore carries the greatest risk, and so other ways are discovered and employed. Hence in the adult world violence is no longer vogue, and passive aggression and using others as your proxy's becomes the weapon of choice.

Which leads me to the modern day bully-victims, people who have turned being a victim into a weapon to hit others with, and essentially become the bullies themselves. They have discovered the best way to avoid all or most risk while still being able to belittle, scorn, lie, and condemn others is to shout loud and proud from the rooftops that they are the victims and therefore any action taken against them is only proof that the people they are condemning need to be condemned harder. Social change at gunpoint, but you ensure that you are not holding the gun, and any bullets that come back your way either hit somebody else (as there will be hordes of people ready to defend a victim), or validate the use of even bigger guns!

I guess the point of all this is to emphasize that being the victim of hatred or oppression does not make you special, or even unique. And it does certainty not give you a right to enforce your opinion on others, no matter how upset or offended you are, you cannot break a cycle by feeding it. To do so would be putting your own desires and your own need for control over another persons right to autonomy and self-efficacy,

...and that my friends, is how bullies think.