43 44 Furthermore, being bullied in primary school has been found to both predict borderline personality symptoms 30 and psychotic experiences, such as hallucinations or delusions, by adolescence. Furthermore, victims of bullying are at significantly increased risk of self-harm or thinking about suicide in adolescence. Internalising problems was found to have increased over time only in those who were bullied, 32 providing strong evidence that bullying rather than other factors explains increases in internalising problems. 31 Genetically sensitive designs allowed comparison of monozygotic twins who are genetically identical and live in the same households but were discordant for experiences of bullying. 39 40 Victims have also been reported to more often develop internalising problems and anxiety disorder or depression disorder. Children who were victims of bullying have been consistently found to be at higher risk for common somatic problems such as colds, or psychosomatic problems such as headaches, stomach aches or sleeping problems, and are more likely to take up smoking. 12 In contrast, victims have been described as withdrawn, unassertive, easily emotionally upset, and as having poor emotional or social understanding, 17 19 while bully/victims tend to be aggressive, easily angered, low on popularity, frequently bullied by their siblings 20 and come from families with lower socioeconomic status (SES), 18 similar to children with conduct disorder.Ī fully referenced summary of the consequences of bullying during childhood and adolescence on prospectively studied outcomes up to the age of 17 years is shown in table 1. Moreover, unlike conduct disorder, bullies are found in all socioeconomic 18 and ethnic groups. 17 Hence, bullies most likely do not have a conduct disorder. 16 Thus, pure bullies (but not bully/victims or victims) have been found to be strong, highly popular and to have good social and emotional understanding. 15 Bullies are often bi-strategic, employing both bullying and also acts of aggressive ‘prosocial’ behaviour to enhance their own position by acting in public and making the recipient dependent as they cannot reciprocate. It is considered an evolutionary adaptation, the purpose of which is to gain high status and dominance, 14 get access to resources, secure survival, reduce stress and allow for more mating opportunities.
10 Being bullied by peers is the most frequent form of abuse encountered by children, much higher than abuse by parents or other adult perpetrators 11 ( box 1).īullying is found in all societies, including modern hunter-gatherer societies and ancient civilisations. 9 Rates of cyberbullying are substantially lower at around 4.5% for victims and 2.8% for perpetrators (bullies and bully/victims), with up to 90% of the cyber-bullying victims also being traditionally (face to face) bullied. 7 8 Between 2% and 5% are bullies and a similar number are bully/victims in childhood/adolescence. One in three children report having been bullied at some point in their lives, and 10–14% experience chronic bullying lasting for more than 6 months. 5 6 Recently there has been much interest in cyberbullying, which can be broadly defined as any bullying which is performed via electronic means, such as mobile phones or the internet. 2–4 Children can be involved in bullying as victims and bullies, and also as bully/victims, a subgroup of victims who also display bullying behaviour. 1 Bullying can take the form of direct bullying, which includes physical and verbal acts of aggression such as hitting, stealing or name calling, or indirect bullying, which is characterised by social exclusion (eg, you cannot play with us, you are not invited, etc) and rumour spreading. Bullying is the systematic abuse of power and is defined as aggressive behaviour or intentional harm-doing by peers that is carried out repeatedly and involves an imbalance of power, either actual or perceived, between the victim and the bully.
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