Bullying: Where to Draw the Line Between Play and Aggression

Bullying is a widespread problem in U.S. schools, with more than 16 percent of school children reporting being bullied by other students during the current term, according to a survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The study, which appears in the April 25, 2001, Journal of the American Medical Association, found that bullying is not just an unpleasant rite of passage through childhood. People who were bullied as children are more likely to suffer from depression and low self-esteem well into adulthood, and bullies themselves are more likely to engage in criminal behavior later in life.

The NICHD researchers surveyed 15,686 students in grades six-through-10, in public, parochial, and other private schools throughout the U.S. The nationally representative survey was part of the U.S. contribution to the World Health Organization’s Health Behavior in School Children survey, an international effort in which many countries surveyed school-age children on a broad spectrum of health-related behaviors.

For the purpose of this study, researchers defined bullying as a type of behavior intended to harm or disturb the victim. This behavior occurs repeatedly over time and involves an imbalance of power, with the more powerful person or group attacking the less powerful one. Bullying may be physical, involving hitting or otherwise attacking the other person; verbal, involving name-calling or threats; or psychological, involving spreading rumors or excluding a person.

The children were asked to complete a questionnaire during a class period that asked how often they either bullied other students or were the target of bullying behavior. A total of 10.6 percent of the children replied that they had “sometimes” bullied other children, a response category defined as “moderate” bullying. An additional 8.8 percent said they had bullied others once a week or more, defined as “frequent” bullying. Similarly, 8.5 percent said they had been targets of moderate bullying, and 8.4 percent said they were bullied frequently.

Out of all the students, 13 percent said they had engaged in moderate or frequent bullying of others, while 10.6 percent said they had been bullied either moderately or frequently. Some students-6.3 percent-had both bullied others and been bullied themselves. In all, 29 percent of the students who responded to the survey had been involved in some aspect of bullying, either as a bully, as the target of bullying, or both.

Unlike traditional forms of bullying, youth who are the targets of cyberbullying at school are at greater risk for depression than are the youth who bully them, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The new finding is in contrast to earlier studies of traditional bullying, which found that the highest depression scores were reported by another category of youth involved in bullying – bully victims.

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