Hey, guys! Do any of you happen to be aware of papers on bullying

Almost forgot, just to make this an open discussion, do you consider bullying bad or strengthening for the individual?

>>8721345
Depends on the severity and on the subjects (Personality) and their environments (Family, friends). I would probably never say that it has any particularly "strengthening" effects. I have been bullied in my life and it made building trust and confidence harder. There of course always is reason for mistrust and self doubt, but usually it doesn't really help you in life. All it does is establish avoidant tendencies. The feeling that this might be advantageous at times is just part of the pattern.

>>8721374
I see...I've been subjected to bullying too, although I wouldn't say that it made up most of my life. Now I'd say it's just not that important anymore.

However, I've seen a massive shift in public mentality nowadays towards ostracizing the very bullies that were doing that themselves. I see that as proof of the fact that bullying is just a reality check at a much too young age to be socially acceptable according to what the norms in our modern society demand of the individual.

>>8721340
I don't know of any papers, but this interests me quite a lot.
I think bullying has been an important part of our evolution to punish deviant behaviours. If there are large groups of people with these deviant behaviours, they become subcultures, and they can challenge the orthodoxy of the mainstream culture, leading to changes in mainstream culture.
At the individual level, I think it helps normalize the deviant behaviours of children, so they conform. This erodes individuality, but that isn't entirely negative because we need some degree of sameness to work as a society.
I think bullying can be healthy for the individual, but my one stipulation is that is has to be about their behaviour, or some aspect about themselves which they can change, since the basic idea is they'll want to go the path of least resistance.
There are some nuances, like with the kind of bullying, or the reward for conforming, or who the bully is. There are important stages in childhood development where bonds between parent and child is essential, so I don't think it can be the parent bullying a young child. I also think bullying is most effective in the secondary socialisation part of childhood social development (doesn't work quite as well for a grown adult, or an extremely young child).

>>8721340
not really a paper but demonstrative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isfn4OxCPQs

>>8721384
>bullying is just a reality check at a much too young age to be socially acceptable

Often the things that aren't socially acceptable can't be changed. For example if you get bullied because you're autistic.

Also many parents have the attitude of letting their kids be who they want to be. So the kid is told at home that what they're doing is fine, but at school they are ostracized for it, it just results in the kid being upset and confused.

Your mates poking fun at you for doing something a little strange is one thing, but most bullies in school just want to dick on some kid that won't stand up for themselves, probably to make the bully feel better about him/herself. Most of it it just straight up schadenfreude.

>>8721374
>>8721384
Haha you got bullied.

>>8721404
Your point of view on this situation seems really interesting. I've only seen bullying advocated as helping the weak grow stronger, never heard about it as a social means of enforcing conformation.

Could this be a way for society to self sustain itself? I mean, in order to make sure these deviant groups don't actually surpass the mother cluster? And if yes, this is a rather interesting proof of natural evolution in artificial constructs that actually are still governed on a general level by the basic laws of self-preservation.

However, I digress. How would you say is the position of the bully itself in such situations? Given that most of the time the bully is just as deviant/unhealthy as his victim, would you regard the bully as just a natural step in deindividualization of the self by the society? They kind of resemble, so to speak, a police corps that's been stripped bare of its personality in the first place.

>>8721412
I see.

In the example with the society contradicting the standards a parent makes his kid have about the surrounding world, who would you say is in the wrong, the parent for portraying a perfect romanticized world, or the society for being as aggressive as it is? I suspect a middle way, something the likes of, let's say, the parents step by step introducing the kid to the surrounding world in a pace that is according to the evolution of the people around the kid, while in the same time, reducing the level of violence, be it verbal or physical, amidst especially young kids. Am I right?

>>8721433
I don't know, it's just an idea I have. I've read and heard a few things that seem to agree with it, but I could easily be wrong.
I do think bullying has the purpose of punishing deviancy, but this is at the macro-level. I think at the micro-level, people bully others for many reasons. I don't think they see themselves as a member of the dominant culture, and they're punishing deviant behaviour. Some people just think it's fun to bully weak people to feel better about themselves, or they are just having fun and don't think what they're doing is bullying... It's complicated.

>>8721451
>step by step introducing the kid to the surrounding world in a pace that is according to the evolution of the people around the kid

That would just be sending the kid to school, no? I think parents don't help by telling kids to 'just ignore it' and trying to wait it out. But its not like there's an obvious solution.

I think most of it comes down to the psychology of group-thinking in kids. There was an interesting study that I can't remember the source for involving sending kids to summer camp and assigning kids to 'teams' which were intentionally picked so that kids weren't in teams with their friends. Everything at the camps was then done in terms of teams, they'd only eat and speed with their team, all games were competitive, teams vs teams and the like. The kids ended up hating their old friends and refusing to speak to them for being in different teams. The experiment ended up being stopped early because one team did a 'night time raid' on another teams dorms, and things generally got out of hand. Bullying has a lot to do with group mentality and instilling a sense of belonging in the perpetrator.

>>8721340
I think you will see that a lot of bullied people will bully other people or are too weak to stand up for themselves. And people try to ignore bullies rather than avoiding them; sometimes they're attracted to the "bad" guys because they are "bad" gals. We get what we need to learn. It seems harsh, but it is the only way any of us will ever be "in control" of our own destiny. Lots of people will blame themselves and then lash out at me for confirming their feelings of self-contempt. They "literally" say they deserve to be raped and they are then surprised when they are. Every dead person so far has died because they wanted to age, sicken and die; their mind made it real. Most people never question what they were taught they ought to believe.