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Dylan Allison
Adam Padgett
English 102
April 5, 2016

Why do People Bully Others and What Happens to the Victim?

Bullying is something that ruins the lives of many people all over the world. There is so
much discrimination when it comes to bullying, things alike race, weight, personality and
so much more. Anyone can be bullied and most people are at sometime through out their
life. It is something that I had to put up when I was in elementary and middle school.
There are many types of bullying all over the world but they all do just about the same
thing, they make someone feel horrible and can lead to horrible instances in their life. It is
something that can lead a person to their breaking point and lead to them ultimately
ending their own life. Bullies do this to make their self feel more secure about themselves
and it makes them feel popular, the victim usually has physical and mental problems.
Gender is one big factor on who gets picked on. Statistics show that females are at
a higher risk of being bullied than are males. The big population that gets bullied has a
little of both genders in it. The LGBT kids are the most likely to be bullied. If you fall
into this category it says you are more likely to be bullied due to the fact that you are not
seen as normal. This is because most of them have different personalities, dress
differently, and are not attracted to the opposite sex. Most of the people that are the ones
doing the bullying here do this because they say that the people they are bullying are
different. They say that they are not like your average person and they stick out so they

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are easy to pick on. This can cause many problems in the lives of these people and can
cause problems down the road. (Too Cruel for School: LGBT Bullying, Noncognitive
Skill Development, and the Educational Rights of Students)
One Study (Bullying in Schools: Why It Happens, How It Makes Young People
Feel and What We Can Do about It) shows that bullying is directly linked to the status
goals of whoever the bully is. If they want to fit in with a certain group of people then
they will make fun of people that that specific group does not like. For example if you
want to hang out with the rich kids then you would make fun of the poor ones
because they dont fit in with that group. It has also been proven that they use bullying to
achieve dominant positions in their society. This is a direct example of the big bully
that nobody messes with in middle school because everyone is scared of him or her. This
showed that bullying is also directly licked to popularity. This is because everyone wants
to be friends with the bully because if you two are friends then you dont have to worry
about him coming for you. This basically will keep you safe from being bullied, but
makes the bully want to pick on others even more so he can gain even more popularity.
This is a big reason why kids bully and it is sad if you think about it, having to be mean
to someone to gain popularity or make friends.
One source says something that I think is very true; it says the myths and realities
of bullying. One of the myths of bullying is that the bully thinks that bullies feel higher
than their targets. They also say that they believe they are more attractive, smarter, and
better than the victim. The reality is that the bully feels inferior to their target. They also
feel that they lack traits about themselves that that see in the people they are bullying.
They see strengths in the people that they are bullying that they want to break them from

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having so they try too. There is a myth that If I try harder or be nicer, I can get the bully
to change. This is not true at all because the bully has a low self-image. This has nothing
to do with the target its just that the bully is not self confident. If you know this about a
bully then sometimes what they say is not so hurtful. One is that bullies in the workplace
need to control others. The reality of it is that they try to seek power for their own sake.
They dont bully in the workplace to control you they do it because they want to feel
powerful. The Fact of the matter with a bully is that a lot of the time they do not want to
cause physical or mental harm it is just that they feel insecure about their self. Most if the
people that bully in the workplace have been through some type of bullying through out
their lifetime and have always felt insecure about what they were bullied for. It is
honestly kind of sad if you think about it. (Work Bullies: Debunking Some Myths about
Why People Bully)
This source talks about statistics of workplace bullying. The job that reports the
most on the job bullying is health care a close second is education. This surprised me a
good bit because I did not think that there would be a lot of bullying within the health
care system because they go to school to know hoe to treat people. I dont see why they
would bully someone one the job. A lot of the bullying in the health care is when
someone gets moved up fast in nursing so they get a higher ranking. With this higher
ranking the people they will be working for do not accept mistakes and since they got
moved up so quick it is easy for them to make a simple mistake. With this simple mistake
the higher-ranking person, maybe a surgeon will be rude and fuss at them because they
are not ready for the job they have. This can actually hurt someone more than it can help
him or her. This study also says that the best way to stop it is to confront them because a

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lot of people that bully dont even know that they are doing it. They just simply think that
that is something that their job title gives them the right to do. If you confront them and
they are not trying to be a bully then they will change there ways and they way they act
towards people. One example in this study is that a woman that trains nurses was
confronted about her attitude toward the new nurses she was studying. When confronted
by her boss she was not even aware that she was being so rude. This bullying in hospitals
causes the extremely high leaving rates within the jobs inside a hospital. They say 25 to
45 will leave within the first 18 months. This is due to some of the people that have been
working there for a long time and they think that they know exactly how the work place
is supposed to be run and they wont accept anything else. The high bullying in jobs is a
direct result of just someone being ranked higher than you and they feel like they are in
charge. (Work Bullies: Debunking Some Myths about Why People Bully)
Today bullying in schools is a huge problem and needs to be dealt with. An
estimated 16 children in the UK commit suicide annually as a direct result of bullying
(Where the Bullies Are). This is not a big number but when you think about it that is 16
kids that should have still been alive. They could be changing the face of the earth with
explorations and studies but instead they were pushed to their breaking points and killed
themselves. They took a small body of teenagers and asked them what type of bullying
that they have been encountered in their lives; not being the bully but being bullied. All
of them said they have had someone bully them verbally; two said they have been cyber
bullied, and 6 said they have had physical bullying. This is just a pool of 8 teens and the
percentages are high on verbal and physical bullying. Bullying in schools need to be
stopped because all the detrimental instances that are done to a teen will effect them for

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the rest of their lives. As read earlier it might even lead them to taking their own life.
School is where bullying all starts and it leads them to possibly bullying when they get
older on the job. This is a devastating fact that most of the kids being bullied in school
will grow up to be a bully in their workplace. Most of them wont know it because they
just think it is normal behavior but it will affect the people on the job with them. This can
lead people on the job to become depressed or have many more issues. In school it is
possible for the kid to slip off into a deep depression and shut everyone out. That is
something that would be horrible to ruin a kids life when he is so young and so fragile.
To push someone to a point to when they are 20 years and under to not thinking that the
rest of their life is worth living because of what someone has done to them. (Bullying in
Schools: Why It Happens, How It Makes Young People Feel and What We Can Do about
it)
Cyber bullying is on the rise and it is an aggressive attack on someone who cant
really defend him or her. Even with it on the rise it is still not as high as traditional
bullying. A study found that 27% of year 4 to 9 students had been traditionally bullied
every other week while only 10% had been cyber bullied. In the UK it was reported what
anywhere from 7 to 10% of students have been bullied using the Internet in some way. In
Canada it was found that the rate of cyber bullying there was 35% and that number is
staggering. This for of bullying is definitely on the rise through out the entire world. They
do it over the Internet because they dont have to do it in front of the person and it makes
them feel better about themselves. Cyber bullying is far more aggressive than traditional
bullying. This is because anyone in the world can see what you do to someone on the
Internet but only a handful can see what you do in person. The humiliation that comes

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with being bullied online is tremendous. It can lead someone to not want to live anymore
because they feel that no matter where they go it will always follow them. This study also
shows that most of the bullies through out the world are males. With this being said the
amount of female bullies are on the rise. There was however no difference in how the
victim felt when being bullied by a girl or a boy. This study shows that bullies do this
because they want to fit in and they think that is how they do it and it makes them friends.
It does not make them true friends because they are more scared of them than anything.
(An Exploration of the Reasons Why Adolescents Engage in Traditional and Cyber
Bullying)
Bullying is a big problem. This is a problem that should concern almost every
person out there and should make you want to change the way that you act towards
people because you never know what that person is going through. Through all of the
research done the main reason bullies bully is to feel like they fit in. Some more reasons
are that they dont even know that they are doing it and they are insecure about
themselves. This is honestly sad because they feel bad about themselves so they make
someone else feel horrible because the way they are feeling. Bullying is something that is
extremely hard on someone and needs to be stopped. Through out the world the rates are
steadily rising higher and higher. Bullying works in mysterious ways. One way is that a
good many of the bullies in grade school will become bullies on the job where they work.
To answer my question I dont think there is one specific answer to why people bully one
another. There are many reasons why they do it and that is based on what they are
personally feeling and what is going through their head. They might not even know that

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they are being a bully. Bullying causes a lot of problems through out the world and we
need to do something about it.

Sources

Lee, Jason. "Too Cruel for School: LGBT Bullying, Noncognitive Skill
Development, and the Educational Rights of Students." N.p., n.d. Web.
Christian, Berger, and Caravita Simona. "Why Do Early Adolescents Bully?
Exploring the Influence of Prestige Norms on Social and Psychological Motives
to Bully." Http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/eds/detail/detail?
sid=8195a11f-d3e9-4b44-8d68-726cc038872f
%40sessionmgr114&vid=0&hid=103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU
%3d&preview=false#AN=S0140197115002535&db=edselp. N.p., n.d. Web. 04
Apr. 2016.

Cade, Valerie. "Work Bullies: Debunking Some Myths about Why People Bully."
Http://web.b.ebscohost.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/ehost/detail/detail?sid=628c36e05af1-4558-bf8d6f91a4b186a5%40sessionmgr115&vid=0&hid=106&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3
QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d&preview=false#AN=108221343&db=rzh. N.p., n.d. Web. 04
Apr. 2016.

Wilkie, Dana. "Where the Bullies Are."

Http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/eds/detail/detail?sid=1e06f16ad309-4f77-91ffd0cd0505c321%40sessionmgr198&vid=0&hid=103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzL
WxpdmU%3d&preview=false#AN=113488979&db=f5h. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr.
2016.

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Side, Jeremy, and Kelley Johnson. "Bullying in Schools: Why It Happens, How It
Makes Young People Feel and What We Can Do about It."
Http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/eds/detail/detail?sid=0c152e509412-4ccf-9d03a46ccd872c85%40sessionmgr4005&vid=0&hid=4208&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRz
LWxpdmU%3d&preview=false#AN=97508460&db=pbh. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr.
2016.
Wilton, Courtney, and Marilyn Campbell. "An Exploration of the Reasons Why
Adolescents Engage in Traditional and Cyber Bullying."
Http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/eds/detail/detail?sid=f857abd8c37c-4aa3-8dcb-ae8c31b2005c
%40sessionmgr4003&vid=0&hid=4208&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU
%3d&preview=false#AN=113853014&db=a9h. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.