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Researchers at Simon Fraser University observed a group of high school students finding that bullies had the highest self esteem, greatest social status, and were less likely to be depressed, as reported by National Post.
"Humans tend to try to establish a rank hierarchy," Jennifer Wong, a criminology professor who led the study, told the Post. "When you're in high school, it's a very limited arena in which you can establish your rank, and climbing the social ladder to be on top is one of the main ways ... Bullying is a tool you can use to get there."
Wong notes that many anti-bullying initiatives try to change the behavior of bullies, but often don't work. This is likely because behavior is hard-wired and not learned, she says. Experts suggest that schools might expand competitive, supervised activities as an alternative outlet to channel dominating behavior.
The new study surveyed 135 teenagers from a Vancouver high school using a standard questionnaire. Questions included things like how often individuals were hit or shoved. Researchers then categorized the students into four groups: bully, bystander, victim, or victim-bully.
About 11 percent of the group was categorized as bullies and they scored highest on self-esteem, social status, and lowest on depression, according to study.
In a separate study, Tony Volk, a Brock University psychologist, found among 178 teenagers surveyed, bullies also were more sexually active.
"The average bully isn't particularly sadistic or even deeply argumentative," he says. "What they really are is people driven for status."
Comment: Bullying is sadistic. Due to the bullying, psychopathic nature of our leaders, this behavior has become normal in our society.
Those working to change bullying tactics in schools are concerned that some claim the characteristic is innate and cannot be changed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines bullying as unwanted aggressive behavior that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is often repeated multiple times. The CDC notes that the behavior can inflict harm or distress in the form of physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.
Rob Frenette, co-founder of the advocacy and support group Bullying Canada, emphasizes that bullies usually have some sort of underlying issue, such as violence in the home, suggesting that bullying is triggered, not natural.
"This is kind of stepping backward and that's concerning," he told the Post, regarding Wong's study. "I don't want parents who have a child who is considered a bully to think, 'Well, it's something they're born with and there's nothing we can do to adjust their behavior.' "
Wong says more research is needed before considering it definitive, hoping to test the same concept with larger groups of students to strengthen the findings.
Not just bullies. I think India is the premiere example of what all society is striving for. A clear and consistent organized power structure where ALL know their place. After a war, colonizing, inhabiting a new space, these provoke a scramble for power. Unknown to the Americans living this fact, we have been since our WWs , living the 'shake out' for top dogs. Now with the Bush Buddies political maneuvering, it appears to have solidified.
It must be one of our most ingrained, intrinsic patterns, this need to have a social structure and to know your place in it. I suspect its pure form, demonstrated most clearly on an island where all interact, is a peaceful and stasis world. At least, information about village life pre European contact seems to indicate this.
Perhaps we will here in America be born knowing that our place is unchangeable so if not too burdensome, perhaps peace will reign.
This appears to be what the Eurozone is about. To create a bloc out of competing parts. I suggest Africa should be N and S Africa divided across the Belgian Congo. Again two large blocks. Such small divisions like Haiti and Dominican Republic make no sense, nor does the division of New Guinea. These indicators of competition are ill served in the real world. Divisiveness leaves one without a sense of place in the world.
The medical attention to drugs or hypnosis that bends one toward forgetting is a panacea that is a substitute for a working world of caste were each experience their place and the satisfaction of that place. Remember the original Greek democracy ---the earliest before Solon---was where there was sufficient land so all could have a share. Only after the 60 elders had forsaken this pact and become greedy, leaving the farmers landlesss and indebted to slavery, did the farmers rebel and Solon had to intercede, trying to create not the original fairness but a substitute for it where the farmers were freed from slavery and laws were encoded in writing so all could see.
I realized that India's caste is built someone being lower and perhaps works by the difference being played up. Are the social rules bullying? Perhaps not.