SOCIAL BULLYING: What is it, Types and How to Prevent It

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 take the appropriate measures to end this drama.

In this Psychology-Online article we will talk about what is social bullying, its characteristics, the types of bullying, the causes that generate it, the consequences it causes and how to prevent it.

Index

1. What is social bullying
2. Characteristics of social bullying
3. Types of social bullying
4. Causes of social bullying
5. Consequences of social bullying
6. How to prevent social bullying

The social bullying is also called social bullying and is a form of violence that occurs in a social situation in which one or more schoolchildren turn to another and make him the object of discharge for their aggressive behavior for a long time.

During this period, the child victim of bullying is subjected to physical assaults, 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.

In general terms, we can talk about three basic characteristics of social bullying that are defined by three parameters:

1. Main roles: social bullying occurs towards a defenseless victim by a main aggressor accompanied by several spectators who encourage or participate directly in the aggressions.
2. Power ratio: there is an evident inequality of power that confronts several strong physically, psychologically and / or socially aggressors with a weak victim.
3. Persistence over time: This perverse relationship of dominance-submission occurs constantly and repeatedly over a long period of time.

can we talk about four types main bullying:

1. Physical: it can be direct against the person (hitting, pushing, etc) or indirectly, against any of their properties (stealing, breaking, etc).
2. Verbal: teasing, insults, contempt, etc.
3. Psychological: using a negative and disparaging speech that undermines the victim's self-esteem and increases her 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 not faces it, asks for help and treats it) and that it will cause a generalization of said fear to other situations in his life everyday.
4. Social: the victim is isolated from her social reference group.
5. 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.
6. Dating violence: It would be part of cyberbullying but, in this case, it would refer to the emotional blackmail that is carried out between teenage 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 harassment is the fear and psychological drama that the different experiences cause in the victim.

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 that is given to children will also condition the possibility of being bullied or acting as aggressor.
• Economic and cultural partner: 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 in one or the other side.

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 a very low tolerance for frustration, which encourages them to execute aggressive behaviors as a discharge of their excess of discomfort inside.

In both cases, they are people with weak personality structural bases that push them, as a means of survival, to adopt behaviors opposing that, inevitably, ends up uniting them: hiding and fleeing, in the case of the victim, and attacking and unloading on the weak, in the case of the victim. aggressor.

Bullying is a situation of mistreatment that generates terrible consequences on the victim, for example:

• 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.

The best prevention of bullying is to ensure a secure affective-emotional base to the boys and girls from the family and reinforced by the school. All in all, and taking into account the potential current dangers of suffering this type of bullying at age child-youth, it is essential that the family and the school work together to care for, protect and inform infants and adolescents about the dangers of being bullied.

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 in case of witnessing 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.

• Oñederra, J. TO. (2008) Bullying: Concept, causes, consequences, theories and epistemological studies.
• Barron, G. Social bullying.
• Molla, A. Aftermath of bullying that can last a lifetime.