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posted by cmn32480 on Monday May 04 2015, @01:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the won't-someone-think-of-the-children dept.

I found this recently-published article, Children who are bullied suffer worse long-term mental health problems than those who are maltreated interesting. Here are some excerpts:

A new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry shows that children who have been bullied by peers suffer worse in the longer term than those who have been maltreated by adults.

The research is led by Professor Dieter Wolke from Warwick's Department of Psychology and Warwick Medical School. The study is due to be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego on Tuesday 28 April.

[...] Professor Wolke said: "The mental health outcomes we were looking for included anxiety, depression or suicidal tendencies. Our results showed those who were bullied were more likely to suffer from mental health problems than those who were maltreated. Being both bullied and maltreated also increased the risk of overall mental health problems, anxiety and depression in both groups."

An abstract and full article (pdf) are available.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @06:25PM

    by Marand (1081) on Monday May 04 2015, @06:25PM (#178672) Journal

    While you might disagree with my one example, you definitely do not contradict my statement. You were bullied, and believe that it made you a better "more confident" person.

    You didn't make that statement at all. Your statement was that bullied people have "serious chronic problems" and "are not picked at random", claiming that it invalidates any random sampling. You said nothing nothing about long-term effects themselves, and definitely didn't make any claim that bullying is a net-positive behaviour that brings out better traits in people.

    So, no, I wasn't attempting to contradict your nonexistent statement about bullying improving people. Maybe you said it elsewhere, but I didn't reply to those, and I haven't even read them all. There's too much "I need to be right so I'm going to reply and argue with every response" floating around in this thread for me to have any desire to read through all of it.

    Hell, I'm not sure I'd fit that assertion even if you'd actually made it in the comment I responded to, though. I may be confident in spite of the bullying, but mostly that was regaining confidence after losing most of it to bullying. I also, as I said, never got over the cynicism from it, and even today I'm wary of good deeds or assistance from people because I assume they want something or will use it against me later.

    Sure, you could say it taught me something about survival, but I wouldn't say bullying made me a "better person".

    Doesn't matter, though. I was pointing out that bullying happens for all sorts of reasons, including no reason at all. All it takes is one person that, for whatever reason, derives pleasure from hurting people and a handful of cowardly types that think siding with that person will avoid his wrath, and you've got a perfect setup for bullying without needing any logic for the targets beyond "they aren't us, so they're fair game".

    One of the worst bully groups I ever dealt with was this type. They had their little bully clique with one sociopath-in-training leader and a bunch of cowardly guys that latched on to him for strength in numbers and immunity from his targeting. It was one of the few times bullying got physical for me; I'd gotten cornered and was about to receive a beatdown, so I grabbed the smallest of the group and slung him into a wall so I had an opening to get away. I knew enough to fight, but I was outnumbered and not particularly strong, so if he hadn't been tiny (the "short guy with huge attitude" cliché type) I would have been stuck. Thing is, most of the group were cowards at heart, and they all backed off of me after that except for their little alpha-male leader. He kept harassing me even after that, but none of his lapdogs would any more. The one I introduced to the wall was even friendly to me when his pals weren't around to see.

    Which I guess goes back to what I was talking about in the other comment: sometimes bullying happens because it's the bully that's flawed or insecure. Rather than being some instinct to cull the weak, it can just as easily be a way to try proving that you're the alpha, or to improve your standing in a group by belittling others. You see that sort of behaviour in workplace all the time, probably from the same sorts of people. Unable to excel on their own, they try try to cut down others any way possible so that they don't stand out as the weak link.

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  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday May 04 2015, @08:44PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <reversethis-{moc ... ksonsiwnohtanoj}> on Monday May 04 2015, @08:44PM (#178747)

    I did not mean to imply that I had made a statement about it improving people. Just that the sampling is non-random. Some people will be bullied and grow up fine others will have a higher chance of being bullied because they have psychological problems and they will skew the results.

    On a side note. Bullies aren't Alpha, bullies are betas who want to be Alphas. Violence is tool of the non-dominant, the people with an insecure status in the group. Studied have shown higher Testosterone in the popular, friendly, smart people than the bullies or their victims.

    • (Score: 2) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @09:30PM

      by Marand (1081) on Monday May 04 2015, @09:30PM (#178789) Journal

      On a side note. Bullies aren't Alpha, bullies are betas who want to be Alphas. Violence is tool of the non-dominant, the people with an insecure status in the group. Studied have shown higher Testosterone in the popular, friendly, smart people than the bullies or their victims.

      Oh, I wasn't meaning it like that. I just meant he was the leader/alpha of their bully clique, and they were subordinate to him. Suggesting that they were acting like a pack of animals within a group of otherwise civil human beings, basically.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:09PM

      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @07:09PM (#179208) Homepage

      In my observation, you are correct. Alphas do not fight or bully; they're completely socially secure and have no need to fight (not even with each other). Betas do not attack alphas. Only betas fight, and only with other betas, and in a fight, the socially-lower individual always loses. Betas come in a range from tough-guys always looking for trouble to a bottom-end type who snipe from a safe distance. Meanwhile gammas (who are ignored by all or, rarely, beat up by an overbearing beta since a gamma will not fight back) go "wha'happened??"

      In dogs, these social statuses are born (genetic), not made, and nothing you can do will change them.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.