Table of contents:
- What is social bullying
- Characteristics of social bullying
- Types of social bullying
- Causes of social bullying
- Contextual causes of social bullying
- Personal causes of social bullying
- Consequences of social bullying
- How to prevent social bullying
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Social bullying is a social scourge that marks the lives of our children and young people, both in the case of the victim and the aggressor. The psychological traumas that these experiences generate in the harassed people must be made visible in order to become aware of the seriousness of the matter and adopt the appropriate measures to end this drama.
In this Psychology-Online article we will talk about what social bullying is, its characteristics, the types of bullying, the causes that generate it, the consequences it causes and how to prevent it.
You may also be interested in: What to do in case of school bullying Index- What is social bullying
- Characteristics of social bullying
- Types of social bullying
- Causes of social bullying
- Consequences of social bullying
- How to prevent social bullying
What is social bullying
The social bullying is also called social bullying school and is a form of violence that occurs in a social situation in which one or more school are directed to another and become subject to discharge their aggressive behavior for a long time.
During this period, the child victim of bullying is subjected to physical attacks, harassment, threats and isolation or social exclusion. It is a perverse game of unjustified aggression that, when prolonged over time, causes a psychological deterioration in the victim of aggression and a moral deterioration in the aggressor.
Characteristics of social bullying
In general terms, we can talk about three basic characteristics of social bullying that are defined by three parameters:
- Main roles: social bullying occurs towards a defenseless victim by a main aggressor accompanied by several bystanders who encourage or directly participate in the aggressions.
- Power relationship: there is an evident inequality of power that confronts several strong physically, psychologically and / or socially aggressors with a weak victim.
- Persistence over time: this perverse dominance-submission relationship occurs constantly and repeatedly over a long period of time.
Types of social bullying
We can talk about four main types of bullying:
- Physical: it can be direct against the person (hitting, pushing, etc) or indirectly, against any of their properties (stealing, breaking, etc).
- Verbal: teasing, insults, contempt, etc.
- Psychological: using negative and disparaging speech that undermines the victim's self-esteem and increases their fear and insecurity. In many cases bullying generates an internal trauma in the harassed person that can accompany them for the rest of their life (if they do not face it, ask for help and treat them) and that will cause a generalization of said fear to other situations in their daily life.
- Social: the victim is isolated from his social group of reference.
- Cyberbullying, where different technologies and social networks are used to make public attacks. Here you will find more information about What is cyberbullying, its causes and consequences.
- Dating violence: it would be part of cyberbullying but, in this case, it would refer to the emotional blackmail carried out between adolescent couples, with the threat of publishing intimacies. In this case we could speak of a variant of gender violence. Here you can read more about Adolescents and gender violence.
The common characteristic of all these types of bullying is the fear and psychological drama that the different experiences cause in the victim.
Causes of social bullying
Regarding the causes that provoke social bullying, we could speak of two types:
Contextual causes of social bullying
- Family: it is the main and most important context in which people socialize and lay the foundations for what will be their subsequent physical, emotional and social adjustment.
- School: it is the second context of relevance for the socialization and healthy development of children, so the type of experience and care given to children will also condition the possibility of being bullied or acting as an aggressor.
- Socio-economic and cultural: the social micro-context in which we develop can condition our position as aggressors, victims or as a preventive of bullying. A social group that protects against a group that incites violence (cases of aggressors) or has no reference group (victims); living together and / or suffering sexist or discriminatory attitudes for any reason of race or social condition also positions us in one place or another; etc.
- Pregnancy: it is an important aspect to highlight since the intrauterine experience is the first determinant of the subsequent mental health of a person. In the case of both the victim and the aggressor, unpleasant or traumatic experiences during pregnancy can predispose weak or impulsive personalities, preparing the way for a future experience of bullying on one side or the other.
Personal causes of social bullying
- Of the victim: these are people with an insecure base and with a high degree of introversion, which causes them difficulties to create and maintain positive social relationships.
- Of the aggressor: these are people with an impulsive temperament and with a very low tolerance for frustration, which encourages them to execute aggressive behaviors as a discharge of their excess of internal discomfort.
In both cases, they are people with weak personality structural bases that push them, as a means of survival, to adopt opposite behaviors that, inevitably, end up uniting them: hiding and fleeing, in the case of the victim and attacking and unloading on the weak, in the case of the aggressor.
Consequences of social bullying
Bullying is a situation of mistreatment that generates terrible consequences on the victim, such as:
- Low academic performance and / or school failure.
- Low self-esteem and assertiveness.
- Social isolation and loneliness.
- Poor or non-existent social relationships.
- Rejection of school.
- Anger and, at the same time, terror.
- Somatizations (insomnia, ennuresis and physical pain) and symptoms that can persist into adulthood.
- Thoughts of suicide
- Low emotional intelligence.
Simultaneously, the experience of this negative situation of harassment also generates very negative consequences of social maladjustment in the aggressor and fear and insecurity in the spectators.
Here you will find more information about the consequences of bullying.
How to prevent social bullying
The best prevention of bullying is to guarantee a safe affective-emotional base for children from the family and reinforced by the school. However, and taking into account the current potential dangers of suffering this type of bullying in children and adolescents, it is essential that the family and school work together to care for, protect and inform children and adolescents about the dangers of suffering bullying.
Encourage open communication between family members; worry about the personal life of students, from school; encourage them to ask for help in case of suffering any type of abuse and to report anonymously if they witness it; etc. are some of the most important measures to implement to definitively prevent this social scourge.
If you suffer bullying or know someone who suffers it, ask your family, classmates and teachers for help or report the situation. There are many professionals who can help you overcome the situation and regain personal confidence. Stop hiding, you deserve a better life! Here you will see What to do in case of school bullying.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Social bullying: what it is, types and how to prevent it, we recommend that you enter our category of Socialization problems.
Bibliography- OƱederra, JA (2008) Bullying: Concept, causes, consequences, theories and epistemological studies.
- Barron, G. Social bullying.
- Molla, A. Aftermath of bullying that can last a lifetime.