Loners and antisocial kids who reject other children are often bullied at school — an accepted form of punishment from peers as they establish social order. Such peer victimization may be an extreme group response to control renegades, according to a new study from Concordia University published in the Journal of Early Adolescence.
“For groups to survive, they need to keep their members under control,” says author William M. Bukowski, a professor at the Concordia Department of Psychology and director of its Centre for Research in Human Development. “Withdrawn individuals threaten the strong social fabric of a group, so kids are victimized when they are too strong or too antisocial. Victimization is a reaction to anyone who threatens group harmony.”
Bukowski notes that the word victimization is related to the word for sacrifice and speculates the term remains relevant in establishing modern dynamics among kids. “Peers who are victimized are sacrificed for the survival of the group.”
The study, which focused on 367 English-speaking kids enrolled in grades five and six at public schools in Montreal, was undertaken to gain better insight into what makes some kids popular while others are perceived as victims or bullies.
The research team focused on social versus physical aggression among kids. “Using aggression in ways that are acceptable by peers is critical in children keeping their social status and, in turn, their social dominance,” says Bukowski, noting physical attractiveness and personality traits could also influence peer standing. “We found dominant children used organized, instrumental types of relational aggression to position themselves.”
To ascertain whether kids were leaders, victims or bullies, Bukowski and his team asked participants — 176 boys and 191 girls — to rate same gender peers on 17 characteristics. Bullies, for instance, were characterized as kids “who says bad things behind other people’s backs; who purposely keep others out of their group; who tell friends they’ll stop liking them unless they do what they want.”
Alpha-kids were described as “someone who others kids usually follow; someone who is often a leader; someone who always get their own way.”
Victims, for their part, were described as “someone who gets hit or kicked by other kids; someone who gets beaten up by other kids; someone who gets ignored; someone who other kids say mean things about behind their back.”
Read more here.
We’ve been told school’s purpose is to prepare us for the workplace, right? Apparently it’s true. From Marge Mueller’s interview with family therapist Chauncey Hare:
Like child and spousal abuse 30 years ago, work abuse is still ignored by society.
“It’s everywhere and it’s highly denied,” Hare says. “Right now, there’s no way for a person to make the distinction between something that’s not work abuse and something that is—-until he or she goes through an enormous, highly traumatic situation.”
“In any organization that is authoritarian work abuse is prevalent. But because of denial people aren’t acknowledging it.”
Hare and co-author and wife Judith Wyatt, both licensed psychotherapists in San Francisco, coined the term work abuse in a 1988 report to the California legislature’s task force team on self-esteem. According to The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research’s statistics, 95 percent of all work organizations are authoritarian.
“That’s where work abuse happens” says Hare “In those 95% of organizations that are authoritarian.”
Four Types of Work Abuse
According to Hare, four types of work abuse exist. Neglectful or ongoing abuse occurs when employees’ basic needs are not met or they are blamed for expressing these needs. Ongoing abuse often happens in the midst of the other three types of work abuse.
In chronic scapegoating one person is chosen for abuse by the group. Everyone joins in as a way to vent negative feelings that can’t otherwise be addressed in the work system. If the scapegoat leaves the company, another employee usually assumes the scapegoat role.
With acute scapegoating one person receives the negative treatment–usually because the person’s behaviors don’t match group norms. The scapegoating stops when this employee leaves the organization.
Denial of due process, the fourth type of work abuse, occurs secondary to the other forms of abuse. With denial of due process the employer prevents or undermines appropriate means to resolve conflicts. Most work “horror stories” are cases of scapegoating resulting from unresolved conflicts.
Read more here.
Filmmaker, musician, and former psychotherapist Daniel Mackler sees an even bigger picture:
A traumatized child is safe to broken parents because he does not threaten their dishonest authority. Thus he earns his crumb of love. A traumatized student is safe to broken teachers because he does not question their unearned authority. Thus he earns his right to gain a false education.
A traumatized worker is safe to broken bosses because he follows their numbing orders. Thus he keeps his dead job and perpetuates a dead system.
A traumatized soldier is safe to a bloodthirsty military because he will mindlessly kill anyone when ordered. Thus he perpetuates grand horrors and retaliation in the world, which proves to the world hell-bent on violent revenge that his criminal presence is required.
A traumatized spouse is safe to broken partners because he never really looks them in the eye and utters those dangerous and honest truths that destroy false relationships. Thus he stays married, never has to be alone with himself, and earns society’s approval.
Mackler references traumatized soldiers. The military’s suicides rate has been rising recently. And that brings us back to the bullied kids I mentioned at the outset. Read the other side of his equation here.