CYBERBULLYING: Overview

Bullying among children is a persistent and substantial problem. According to a study published in 2001 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Nickelodeon Television, 55% of 8-11-year-olds and 68% of 12-15-year-olds said that bullying is a “big problem” for people their age. Seventy-four percent of the 8-11-year-olds and 86% of the 12-15-year-olds also reported that children were bullied or teased at their school. Children at greatest risk of being bullied are those who are perceived as social isolates or outcasts by their peers, have a history of changing schools, have poor social skills and a desire to fit in “at any cost,” are defenseless, or are viewed by their peers as being different.

A study of more than 16,000 children in the sixth through tenth grades conducted for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that bullying is a common problem in the United States and requires serious attention. Nearly 60% of the children responding to the survey reported that they had been victims of rumors. More than 50% of the children reported that they had been the victims of sexual harassment.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education found that white, non-Hispanic children were more likely to report being the victims of bullying than black or other non-Hispanic children. Younger children were more likely to report being bullied than older children, and children attending schools with gangs were more likely to report being bullied than children in schools without a major gang presence. No differences were found in these patterns between public and private schools. Fewer children reported bullying in schools that were supervised by police officers, security officers, or staff Page 185  |  Top of Articlehallway monitors. Victims of bullying were more likely to be criminally victimized at school than were other children. Victims of bullying were more afraid of being attacked both at school and elsewhere and more likely to avoid certain areas of school (for example, the cafeteria, hallways or stairs, or restrooms) or activities where bullying was more likely to take place. Significantly, victims of bullies were more likely to report that they carried weapons to school for protection.

Children who are identified as bullies by the time they are eight years of age are six times more likely than other children to have a criminal conviction by the time they are 24 years old. Bullying behavior may also be accompanied by other inappropriate behavior, including criminal, delinquent, or gang behavior.

Although research has been conducted on bullying in Europe for some time, the topic has only recently become of interest in the United States. There are no “official” figures currently available for incidents of bullying in the workplace. However, the nonprofit Workplace Bullying Institute conducted an informal survey of 1,000 self-selected volunteer respondents. Although it cannot be assumed that the volunteers answering the survey are representative of individuals in the workplace in general, the results do give food for thought concerning the prevalence of workplace bullying.

In the survey, 80% of the women and 20% of the men reported having been bullied at work. Sixty-one percent of the victims of workplace bullying said that the behavior was ongoing. The survey also found that 70% of victims of workplace bullying lose their jobs: 37% of the victims were fired or involuntarily terminated and 16% of the victims transferred to another position within the same organization. On the other hand, the survey found that only 4% of bullies stopped their aggressive or harassing actions after punishment and that only 9% of workplace bullies were transferred, fired, or involuntarily terminated. Contrary to the cartoon portrait of male bullies, the survey showed that 50% of workplace bullying was done by women victimizing other women. Men bullying women accounted for only 30% of bullying, while men bullying men accounted for 12% of workplace bullying and women bullying men accounted for 8%. The figure with women bullying other women is particularly interesting because such same-sex harassment (with the exception of sexual harassment) is usually outside the scope of antidiscrimination laws and is typically not tracked.

As of this writing, there is no evidence to support the theory that there is a genetic component to bullying behavior. Particularly in children, it is most often theorized that bullying is a result of the bully copying the actions of role models who bully others. This frequently happens when bullies come from a home in which one parent bullies another or one or both parents bully the children. When such behavior is modeled for children with personality traits such as lack of impulse control or aggression, they are particularly prone to bullying behavior, which is often continued into adulthood.