Factors That May Lead to Bullying

Why do some people think it’s their right to harm others less powerful than themselves?

Bullies are prevalent in all aspects of society and at all societal levels. They permeate all life stages from childhood to adulthood.

According to the Cambridge English dictionary they define the act of bullying as:

“The behaviour of a person who hurts or frightens someone smaller or less powerful, often forcing that person to do something they do not want to do.”

There are various reasons why people become bullies and I quote from the Australian Government website health direct

‘Why do people bully?

There are different reasons why people bully, including:

wanting to dominate others and improve their social status

having low self-esteem

having a lack of remorse or failing to recognise their behaviour as a problem

feeling angry or frustrated

struggling socially

being the victim of bullying themselves’

source: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/bullying

I would like to delve a little deeper in this article to reveal the reasons why some people have low self-esteem, because through my own life experiences and observations, as well as scientific papers I have read, this seems to be a key driver of the bullies that I have observed.

This article will focus on the motivations of bullies and the common thread that seems to link them. I have based my findings on my own life experiences and observations, confirmed by the scientific literature. I have noticed commonalities in background and methods of bullies. Background factors in their childhood development are the common threads that links the bullies I have investigated.

Having observed several bullies in my life, I will make a case that bullies are made, and not born. Like most social and psychological problems, the bully is formed in childhood. Long before the bully releases his wrath on his unsuspecting victims, his emotions formed and were refined in childhood and his resultant bullying manifests during childhood and later in life.

Bullying has become an overused term in a delicate and over sensitive society, so when I speak of bullying, I will distinguish between emotional bullying and physical bullying. By physical bullying, what I mean is someone physically beating up someone else to force them to do something they don’t want to do, like give up their lunch, or their lunch money.

By emotional bullying, I am referring to the undermining of someone’s confidence, or attacking their character privately or in an act of public humiliation.

Common approaches bullies use

The commonalities in methods of bullies that I have observed is that they look for support amongst those that will witness the bullying. They will manipulate others to support them in their actions. Their supporters may or may not be aware that the bully has manipulated them, and most would rather look on and watch the bully, while secretly grateful that they are not the focus of the bully’s attention.

I have observed that the act of bullying amongst younger people seems to be more physical, but is not only physical. Observations in older people is that bullying is more emotional, but not exclusively emotional.

Irrespective of the type of bullying, it impacts the lives of the victims. The rise of social media and the rise of ‘key board warriors’ with no accountability has exacerbated the problem for the more sensitive members of society.

Scientific studies show that emotional bullying can be just as impactful and even more detrimental than physical and sexual abuse. It is difficult to make a judgement on the full impact of bullying because each individual and how they perceive being bullied is different.

We do however, know from many studies that emotional abuse because of being bullied, being a bully, and witnessing someone being bullied causes long term psychological problems.

I quote from a scientific study below:

‘Studies show emotional abuse may be the most damaging form of maltreatment causing adverse developmental consequences equivalent to, or more severe than, those of other forms of abuse (Hart et al. 1996). Therefore, this article discusses the need for public awareness campaigns to raise public and community awareness and evidenced based treatments that help with the psychological consequences resulting from emotional abuse.’

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33269040/

Two golden threads that link bullies

I have found two common ‘golden threads’ that link the behaviour of bullies and their motivations based on my observations and scientific and social studies.

The golden threads are two-fold, but they are inextricably linked to each other.

The first is an emotionally absent father, and the second is the search for relevance.

My observations of a childhood bully and an adult bully, was that they had similar backgrounds and formative years, and this is why I propose that bullies are formed and refined at a young age.

Both the childhood bully and the adult bully had emotionally absent fathers, who did not build a loving relationship with their sons. They did not support their sons or give their sons the attention they craved. Their sons acted out seeking relevance amongst their peers by bullying and belittling others.

If you would indulge me, I would now like to elaborate on the two bullies and my personal experiences.

A childhood bully

The childhood bully I observed, who I will name ‘Chris’ had a hardworking ‘blue collar’ dad, and Chris found out early, as soon as he could understand that he was adopted. He developed feelings about not being good enough, as his own biological parents had rejected him and his adopted dad never once watched any of his soccer games. He loved playing soccer, and he was good.

His adopted dad was a man who would tinker in the garage with car engines and heavy machinery, but never had time for Chris. He took no interest in Chris’s soccer talents or anything that he was interested in.

Chris felt like he wasn’t good enough for his adopted father. The garage and the car engines were more important. This resulted in Chris bullying others, seeking relevance from his peers. He found he could get attention from others through his actions of bullying and he could even get negative attention from his dad, who would reprimand him. Even the negative attention from his dad was better than being ignored.

This is one incident amongst many others, was how Chris would act out.

I first encountered Chris when we moved to a new suburb. He lived across the road from me and all of us children on either side of the street would play together. We played various sports or we would ‘build a camp’ by tunneling underground in the nearby bushland. This was very dangerous, as the tunnels we dug could have collapsed in on us. We were lucky not to incur such a fate.

All our parents worked, so after school we were free to do what we liked and we would all get together after school and that’s when I first witnessed Chris bullying one of our friends. His name was Greg. Chris was a year older than me and the oldest and biggest kid in the group. Greg was a year younger than me and was the smallest in the group. He had blonde hair and was a cheerful kid. Chris was surly and calculated.

I watched as he would push Greg around, and wrestle him to the ground and make him plead for mercy. On one occasion, Greg was excited to tell us all that he had discovered an ant nest. He had broken the top of the nest open and was peering into it, mesmerized by the ants going about the busy business of being ants, working frenetically for the good of the ant community.

Christopher pounced on the opportunity to give Greg a face full of ants, by walking up behind him and pretending that he could not see any ants.

‘There aren’t any ants there.’ Chris protested, all the while setting the trap for innocent Greg, who was adamant to show Chris what he saw. Greg got closer to the nest and pointed the ants out to Chris. Chris then lifted Greg up by his legs and pushed his head into the ant nest, to screams of ‘No! Don’t! Stop it!’ The ants bit Greg and he ran around screaming, trying to remove them from his face and hair.

We all laughed, and Chris seemed to delight more than all of us at Greg’s expense.

I was lucky enough to never experience Chris’s wrath. He left me alone? But it always intrigued me that he took pleasure in the pain of others.

The adult bully

The adult bully I observed, we will name him ‘Hilton’ was one of a twin, Hilton and his brother were identical. Hilton’s dad favoured his brother in everything. Hilton was never good enough for his dad. The brothers would compete against each other in athletics at school and his father would applaud his brother when he won, but he gave no such attention to Hilton when he accomplished the same.

Hilton was similar to his dad, excelling in business, just like his dad. What is unclear is if his dad saw him as a threat, or perhaps saw Hilton as a younger version of himself and that perhaps he too was dealing with self — loathing issues? I am speculating here.

Hilton’s brother was different to Hilton, not as ambitious, and his brother had a bubbly personality. Hilton was very surly and serious.

The result was that Hilton, just like Chris, was searching for relevance and approval from his dad.

Hilton interviewed me and hired me for a position in a global company, the interview and his subsequent behaviour in board meetings highlighted his deep — seated emotional problems.

I ask once again for your indulgence as I elaborate on my experience with Hilton.

I was early for my interview. I remember walking into the colossal chrome and glass building. The rain was horizontal, being driven by the icy wind. The gigantic automatic doors slid open and then closed behind me, shielding me from the lashing wind and rain. It was as if the weather was trying to assault me and was angry that I had escaped its clutches.

The security officer at the desk, unlike the weather, was pleasant and warm.

Jeff directed me to the elevator and when I stepped out onto the eighteenth floor, I walked towards the end of the hallway, where I could see an office light beaming into the hallway.

As my shadow darkened the doorway, a slim, tall man dressed in a suit greeted me. He looked immaculate and ‘accountant like.’ He held out his hand.

“Hilton.”

His perfect hair styled in a side path, his eyes framed by silver rimmed glasses, that looked high tech and modern, they were a face-hugging, futuristic design.

After the exchange of customary greetings and formalities, our discussion moved to small talk about the weather, our families, and which football teams we supported.

Then the conversation took on a more serious tone. Hilton looked directly at me with crystal clear, light blue eyes, framed in silver. Eyes that looked like glass, they seemed cold and lifeless. I felt very uncomfortable as his eyes stared right through me. I felt a cold sweat trickle down the back of my neck.

“Personally, I question your ambition, I mean look at me, I’m the same age as you, and here I am, marketing director of a global company. And where are you? You are two levels below me in a local company. I want you to understand something. There are two kinds of people in this organization, those on a career path and those on an exit path. Now with that as background, tell me, why should I hire you?” He never blinked as he spewed his rhetoric, his eyes piercing, challenging me.

I included the above to give a sense of the type of personality I was dealing with.

Later that day the Executive Placement Agency surprised me with a job offer from Hilton.

I started at the global company a month later.

The first few days were wonderful and for the first two weeks, I was the happiest I had been in a corporation for years. My colleagues were friendly and professional. My portfolio was challenging but exciting.

That all changed in an instant. Hilton walked into my office one day and he closed the door. My colleagues were aware of his presence and my closed office door.

He pulled up a chair and slowly sat down. Everything he did was slow and deliberate, like a reptile, like a crocodile positioning itself on a river bank.

“You know, I was just thinking that Sue is a bit of a dinosaur in this company. We need people like you, people who are quick thinkers, more mobile and agile and flexible. People who adjust to changes in the industry. What do you think?”

This is the way Hilton operated, he would isolate and divide and manipulate others to try to lobby them against their colleagues.

He would often use this type of tactic, but we, as his subordinates, discussed this amongst ourselves, agreeing that we would never turn on each other. And as long as we were united and achieving results, there was nothing he could do. It was incredibly stressful and emotionally draining working in a defensive type environment.

Hilton loved to engage in mind manipulation tactics to instigate division amongst his subordinates, and he used threats of termination as an intimidation tactic.

Every board meeting would be the same. Hilton beating his chest and belittling his subordinates. Bullying others made him look strong in his own twisted mind.

I would sit and watch many of my colleagues go down in flames as Hilton would unleash his fiery wrath, spewing condemnation and character assassination like balls of fire from his mouth.

The boardroom was where he would ply his trade. This was his gladiatorial arena, where he, like the emperor, would watch the suffering, the only difference being that he would also be the one directly causing the suffering.

I only came to understand, to some extent, the minds and motivations of both Chris and Hilton, when I found out about their backgrounds. A father’s absence does not have to be physical, it can be emotional too. Both men lacked relevance and attention and emotional support and love from their fathers.

I quote from a scientific study.

‘We find strong evidence that father-absence negatively affects children’s social-emotional development, particularly by increasing externalizing behaviour. These effects may be more pronounced if father-absence occurs during early childhood than during middle childhood, and they may be more pronounced for boys than for girls. There is weaker evidence of an effect of father-absence on children’s cognitive ability.’

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904543/

Both Christopher and Hilton would look for relevance with their peer group by undermining others and exerting power over them. They looked for the approval and relevance they lacked growing up. The study quote perfectly aligns with Hilton, as he was cognitively unaffected. In fact, he was an astute and strategic CEO, and he has to this day had a distinguished career, with reputable companies in various leadership positions.

Fathers are so important in the life of their children, particularly in the lives of their sons. They should commission more studies on the effects of absent fathers, and the emotional and psychological development of their children. I conclude that my observations have shown that emotional connection and love from fathers in early childhood is crucial to solving some of the broader social issues like bullying that we face as a society.