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“To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".” -Ayn Rand
Could you be a bully?
How do we
define “bullying”? According to Merriam-Webster, bullying means “to treat
abusively” or “to affect by means of force or coercion”. Does that mean
bullying has to be physical? Can it be verbal as well? And what about
cyber-bullying? The Centers for Disease Control and Protection qualifies bullying as anything including direct attacks such as
hitting, name calling or teasing, as well as indirect attacks, such as
spreading rumors. Is it possible that we could be bullying someone and not even
know it? Someone you know may seem like a stable, moral person, but if they
have ever spread a rumor about someone else, they helped make that person feel
rejected and humiliated, even if they didn’t start the rumor. Sometimes
harmless joking goes a little too far. Think about it, how often does the joke become
a serious matter? If it happens often, it might be time to re-evaluate your
thought process.
The act
of bullying dates at least back to the 1800s, when Sigmund Freud wrote his
famous paper, The Neuro-psychoses of
Defense. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of the defense mechanism is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a
mental process initiated unconsciously to avoid experiencing conflict of
anxiety”. There are seven major defense mechanisms used by psychoanalysts
today.
Repression
React Formation
Projection
Regression
Sublimation
Denial
Rationalization
(To find out more about defense mechanisms or
see where I got some of my information, visit Defense Mechanisms)
The
defense mechanism most prevalent to bullying is projection. Projection in this sense basically means that the bully
takes his or her feelings of anger or insecurity and subconsciously transforms
them so they recognize the feeling as if it came from someone else. For
example, if Billy really doesn’t like someone, he may project his feelings onto
him or her, and he will actually think that person doesn’t like him (Projection). The so-called bully
may not even be aware that they are experiencing feelings of hatred, low
self-esteem, jealousy or resentment.
This is
what makes bullying so dangerous. The people picking on others may not be aware
of the harm they are causing. Even if they are aware of the situation, they
probably don’t know why they treat others poorly. Something needs to be done to
make bullies aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it. The
psychological effects on children that have been picked on or abused by peers
are tremendous. This is not a problem only seen in the United States. Victims
of bullying are suffering in Asia, Latin America, Europe and America. Bullying
exists all over the world. Efforts have been made in every country to start
anti-bullying programs, but will this be enough?
Bullying
and harassment will be a part of every country, city and town in the world, no
matter how effective anti-bullying programs may be. It’s in our best interest
to spread the word and help people understand why kids get picked on by their
peers.
Challenge
yourself to recognize the signs. They could be coming from you, your
classmates, siblings or friends. Awareness is the first step to helping bullies
around the world come to peace with their emotions. It would be difficult to
learn to love others if they can't love themselves.
Below are links to a few articles and videos
about programs created around the world in response to bullying.
Once again, it is incredibly interesting to see the overlap between my own psych class and your blog (a trend I'm sure will continue due to the fact this is a psychology blog haha). In learning about defense mechanisms in class, I never made the connection to bullying, but now it is clearly there. I always took the defense mechanisms to correlate so directly to anxiety that I never took the time to see how these defense mechanisms can play out. Projection definitely plays a large role in bullying, especially as a form of justification. Do you think reaction formation has anything to do with bullying? I almost see an overlap where the projection of feelings is then used in reaction formation, so basically a bully justifies being mean because they have projected that someone else dislikes them. Further, I like your use of colors in the blog. Having gray be the color for projection makes a nice visual connection to how projection is associated with bullying, which is obviously a negative thing. Using bright colors for the other defense mechanisms makes a very nice visual contrast with some nice hidden meaning.
ReplyDeleteI think that being the victim of bullying may have gotten out of control. It seems like everyone wants to be a victim, and then certain people have to be treated with kid gloves because they were bullied. I think sometimes it goes the other direction and gives people their own personal pity party because they were bullied. I was bullied in grade school for being tiny and pale and flat chested, but I don't walk around saying that I was the victim, what would I gain? Kids are going to pick on each other and get picked on, it's a way of life. I'm not saying that it's ok to be a bully, especially to the point of harming another person, it's just my opinion that it happens if we want it to or not.
ReplyDelete