EDUC105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Relational Aggression, Cyberbullying, Peer Group
1 Jun 2018
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Lecture 22- Week 12- Social Relationship Dimensions: Bullying and Aggression
Agenda
➔ What do we mean by bullying?
➔ When is what we may term bullying not bullying.
➔ What are the types?
➔ What are the causes of bullying and aggression from a psychological perspective?
➔ How can they be addressed?
Environmental control- classroom vs playground
• Whe youre i a lassroo ad youre i harge as a teaher you hae a degree of control what
occurs amongst students.
• A teacher is at the front or within the classroom and is seeing what is going on → interaction
between the students can be seen to a certain degree.
• Any inappropriate behaviour of students or comments to others can immediately been
addressed by the teacher.
• Teachers are in charger in the classroom → As a teacher you are in more control in the
classroom than on the playground.
• Adults are excluded from the playground → this is a sight for studets iteratio ad soe of
those interactions = socialisation.
• Socialisation → is significant and is of great consequence.
• Deliberate disconnected between adults and student in these times is important because this is
where students learn to socialise, learn rules of behaviour, learn to adapt and to cooperate with
each other.
• Students should be developing social skills → give and take, reciprocate amongst equals and
these are critical to learn to function in a civilised society.
• BUT sadly this is not always the case!
• The culture in a playground can be toxic → It can be where teasing, sexism, racism and fighting
and bullying occurs.
Statistics- latest studies
• 50% Australian students bullied sometime over school life.
• 15% of students reported being bullied on a daily basis.
• THESE NUMBERS WOULD BE HIGHER NOW- they are increasing for varies reasons
• Transition from primary school to secondary school → More prominent in the middle school in
years 7-10.
• 30% of Year 4 students (they have abstract thought- Piaget) reported bullying then increases in
primary/secondary transition.
• Decreases to 10% for Year 11 and 12.
• Simply teasing can then move on to full on bullying!
➢ Effects – physical problems, sleep disturbances, bed wetting, headaches, depression, loneliness
and at the end suicide (which is not uncommon)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Research into bullying- 2 types of research
• Correlation studies – where one thing is correlated to another → interpretation difficult and
difficult to evaluate.
• Also hard to isolate significant causes of bullying.
• Correlation is only associated to an effect not a cause
• Not about causes but about associations.
• Longitudinal studies – where they tract students over long periods of time → better than
correlation studies.
• More relieving → link between secondary students showing that bullying contributed to very
low feelings of self-esteem.
• Children and adults who are anxious, have low self-esteem and are socially withdrawn are more
likely to be the victim of bullying.
• Assertive and confident children who are presented as more of an opposition or challenge are
more likely to the bully.
• The bully has their own set of characteristics- they can have low marks at school, they are more
prone to substance abuse, they have a need for power and they usually come from an uncaring
home environment.
• OVERALL → there seems to be not difference between the victim and bully in terms of their
socioeconomic status.
• Bullies can come from both private and public schools.
• You can also have caring parents as well as a good upbringing – but still be a bully!!
• Bullies can come from lower - mid or higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
• There is also a big connection between animal abuse and bullying1
• That link is 20% of 12-16 year olds when a study was conducted.
• 20% of 12-16-year-old bullies had reported they were involved in animal cruelty.
What is bullying?
• Constant targeting of an individual.
• Power- imbalance of power- puts the bully at advantage.
• Example → student touching another student and then running away is NOT bullying → that is
teasing.
• There is a big difference between teasing and bullying
• Teachers have to deal with these certain situations all the time.
• Aggression → this the part of bullying that stands out from teasing – aggression is a big factor
which can be threatening.
• WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE AGGRESSIVE? MOTIVATION?
Aggression motivation
• Social approval
• Increased status (of the bully)
• Evidence of victim suffering
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
