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Alan Khou
Prof. Kimberly Strickland
English 1010
24 November 2014
Bullying Among Adolescents & Increase of Cyberbullying
Bullying is repeated, systematic efforts to inflict harm through physical, verbal, or social
attack on a weaker person (Berger, 2010, p. G-2). It occurs in every nation, at any age, and in
both genders. Bullying among adolescents is challenging because not only is there the typical
physical, verbal, and social abuse, but now cyber bullying has made a huge impact. Bullying has
major effects, on both the bully and victim, but it is mostly the victim that has to suffer. I have
always been interested in learning the types of psychological problems that the bully victims
come across during their years of torment and abuse among adolescents. I have my own
experiences with bullying during my adolescent years in junior high school and I can recall that
it definitely left me with trauma issues that I am still working out today.
Researchers Ersilia Menesini, Marco Modena, and Franca Tani, from the University of
Florence, have selected 537 of the 1,278 Italian students ranging from thirteen to twenty years of
age to write down their responses to a self-report bully and victim questionnaire. The students
were enrolled in 13 secondary schools in the city of Lucca, Italy. The researchers then compared
the concurrent psychological symptoms of 4 participant groups: bullies, victims, bullies who
were also victims of bullying, and uninvolved students. Of the participants, 157 were in the
bullies group, 140 were in the victims group, 81 were in the bully/victims group, and 159 were in
the uninvolved students group. The results show that bullies reported a higher level of
externalizing problems, victims reported more internalizing symptoms, and bully/victims
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reported both a higher level of externalizing problems and more internalizing symptoms.
(Menesini, Modena, & Tani) These researchers had two goals in mind while doing this
experiment. The first goal was to analyze the relationship between involvement in bully/victim
roles and concurrent instability symptoms in adolescent secondary school student. The
researchers hypothesized that bullies would show mainly externalizing symptoms, victims would
show internalizing symptoms, and bully/victims would show both types. (Menesini, Modena, &
Tani) Their hypothesis was indeed right. Their second goal was to examine the continuity and
discontinuity of the bully/victim role over time. They evaluated how the stability of that role can
relate to the nature and severity of the individual’s psychopathological symptoms. The
researchers predicted that stable bullies, victims, and bully/victims would show more severe
symptoms of being unable to adapt properly to your environment with resulting emotional
instability, than would adolescents assuming these roles at a later stage. The researchers found an
externalizing profile of bullies and no support for some of the more recent reports highlighting
comorbidity for internalizing problems in these individuals. The results these researchers have
found showed me that depending on one’s environment have a lot to do with higher rates of
bullying.
Bullying might be of relevance for child psychiatry as it, apart from the suffering, might
be a cause of future mental and relational problems in the victims and a correlate or an
expression of mental problems in the bullies (Arvidsson, Broberg, Gillberg, & Ivarsson). These
Researchers studied adolescents in junior high school by having them complete a questionnaire
on bullying as it relates to victims, and to perpetrator status, suicide rates and biographical data.
Psychological symptoms were assessed by the Youth Self Report (YSR) and the Depression
Self-Rating Scale (DSRS) supplemented by school health officer’s blind assessments. The results
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from the questionnaire showed: bully 18%, victim 10%, and bully/victim 9%. Bullies had mainly
externalizing symptoms, which include delinquency and aggression. Those of the bully/victim
group had both externalizing and internalizing symptoms as well as high levels of suicide.
(Arvidsson, Broberg, Gillberg, & Ivarsson) Also from the result, it showed that adolescent boys
were more likely to be in the bully group and to have attention problems. However, a substantial
proportion of the adolescents in the victim group were judged by school health officers, it
resulted in them having psychiatric symptoms and to socialize less. The results these researchers
have found provided me with the knowledge of how boys would be in the bully group. I would
have not assumed that because it would seem more likely that boys would act that way when
they were children, but not as adolescents.
Being teased on a regular basis due to appearances has been associated with psychiatric
morbidity in children and adolescents. The objective of this qualitative study was to explore the
experiences of teasing and bullying in patients with acne, psoriasis and eczema, and the role of
appearance-related teasing and bullying as mediators of psychological morbidity in these patients
(Adams, Heading, Magin, Pond, & Smith). The data collected consisted of 62 in-depth semistructured interviews with patients that have acne, psoriasis, or atopic eczema. They were
recruited from both specialists in dermatology and general practices. Bullying that consisted of
teasing and taunting was a considerable problem for patients with a significant minority of acne,
psoriasis and atopic eczema. For those who had suffered from the bullying and teasing were
linked in respondents’ accounts with psychological conditions that is the consequence of a
previous disease or injury, especially self-consciousness and effects on self-image and selfesteem. These researchers have found that bullying in teasing and taunting towards appearance
may represent an underappreciated source of psychological morbidity in children and
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adolescents with these common skin diseases (Adams, Heading, Magin, Pond, & Smith). The
results these researchers have found make complete sense to me because teasing someone of
their outward appearances will have major effects on that victim in the long run.
Within the last five years many news stories have covered the outbreak of cyberbullying.
Earlier this year in Vermont, sophomore Kylie Kinney came forward with her story of
harassment. While Kylie was in eighth grade, threats and homophobic remarks were made about
her on a Web site titled "Kill Kylie Incorporated". Then, another classmate allegedly created an
instant message screen name similar to Kylie's, and began writing sexual innuendos and offers of
dates to her field hockey team. Consequently, Kylie quit going to school, was home-schooled for
a period, and then transferred to a new high school. In response, Kylie said "I had no escape,
everything followed me to school" (Broache).
In Canada, teenage Ghyslain was bullied when a group of his peers got a hold of a video
he created. The video showed Ghyslain reinacting a scene from "Star Wars", flinging and
twirling himself around his room. His peers then edited his video, adding special effects and
sounds while splicing Ghyslain into movies such as "Chicago", "The Matrix" and "The
Terminator". Then in turn, they uploaded it to the internet for everyone to see. Within two
weeks, over 15 million had seen the two minute video. Now known as "the Star Wars Kid",
Ghyslain dropped out of school and has had to seek psychiatric help (Paulson).
Another example of flaming and harassment by electronic means is the case of Ryan
Patrick Halligan. Thirteen-year-old Ryan was bullied for months by his classmates who started
rumors that he was gay. He was constantly receiving harassing instant messages. One exchange
even encouraged Ryan to end his life, which he did, a few days later. Ryan's parents never knew
of this struggle until a few days after his suicide. "He just went into a deep spiral in eighth grade.
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He couldn't shake this rumor", said John Halligan, Ryan's father and cyberbullying activist
(Ascione).
Cyberbullying seems to be on the rise. A survey conducted in New Hampshire in 2000
found that only 6 percent of teenagers had been cyberbullied (Finkelhor, D., Mitchell, K.J., &
Wolak, J). Six year later, according to a national study by Opinion Research Corporation nearly a
third of the nation's K-12 students have experienced cyberbullying.
The difference between cyberbullying and traditional bullying is that the cyberbullying
lacks the physical hurt, skeptics of cyberbullying feel it is not as harmful as traditional bullying.
For example, it is very difficult to know who is behind it because you’re not actually face-to-face
with the person. However, victims of cyberbullying may also experience depression, sadness,
low self-esteem, anger, thoughts of suicide and stress. Sociologist Robert Agnew maintains that
those who experience this stress or strain are more likely to participate in "deviant or delinquent"
behaviors in order to cope (Ascione). This is especially important to note because of the potential
for delinquent behaviors affecting peers, school, work, family and the community.
Some of the things I have learned from doing my research on bullying among adolescents
were that teens that live in a certain environment could be more likely to have higher bullying
rates than other places. This could be for many reasons. Another thing I have learned while doing
my research is the fact that teasing someone about their outward appearance could cause that
person to have severe damages, physically and mentally, which can include skin diseases. I
would like to know more about why certain places have higher rates of bullying than others. The
type of research that could be done in order to get my answer would be to visit the places with
either high or low rates of bullying and observe the teens in their own environments.
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My reaction to the process of doing research and writing about it was typical because I
knew what bullying was about and the effect that come with it, but I was surprised when I found
all the research articles that have been done on bullying among adolescents; each one was
different and each study was different. It was also very interesting to read on the increase of
cyberbullying. Technology has become so huge that it’s opened that door for bullies. With
cyberbullying, it is more crucial in the fact that you can be making fake profiles to bully others
and they would never know who you are. Cyberbullying is so common and I see it almost
everyday online. One of the most common places to see it is Youtube. It’s very disappointing to
see that this is the type of world we live in.
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Works Cited
Ascione, Lindon. “Bullying and Suicide.” Bullied to Death. 10 Aug. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Adams J., Heading G., Magin P., Pond D., Smith W. “Experiences of Appearance-Related
Teasing and Bullying in Skin Diseases and Their Psychological Sequel.” Scandinavian
Journal of Caring Sciences. 23 June 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
Arvidsson T., Broberg A. G., Gillberg C., Ivarsson T. “Bullying in Adolescence: Psychiatric
Problems in Victims and Bullies.” Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 18 Aug. 2005. Web. 22
Nov. 2014.
Berger K. S. “Invitation to the life span.” New York, NY: Worth Publishers. 10 May 2010. Web.
22 Nov. 2014
Broache, Jamison. “Bullying in Schools.” Kill Kylie Incorporated. 13 May 2006. Web. 22 Nov.
2014.
Finkelhor, D., Mitchell, K.J., & Wolak, J “Bullying Beware.” Bullying Statistics. Opinion
Research Corporation. 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Menesini E., Modena M., Tani F. “Bullying and Victimization in Adolescence.” The Journal of
Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development. 16 Feb. 2009. Web.
22 Nov. 2014.
Paulson, Troy. “Cyberbullying among teens.” Cyberingbullying among teens. Canada News. 24
June 2003. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.