Introduction
Bullying
is a major problem in schools and workplaces all over the world. It is a
“multifaceted form of mistreatment, characterized by the repeated exposure of
one person to physical and/or emotional aggression including teasing, name
calling, mockery, threats, harassment, taunting, hazing, social exclusion or rumors” (17).
The World Health Organization has documented a wide range of bullying
prevalence worldwide. As all
public health and societal problems, bullying is the consequence of a complex
network of socially constructed image and personality stereotypes and ‘labels’
promoted and fueled by mass media, interconnected discriminatory behaviors and
actions against people from with different race/ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, body image, and even hobbies and interests. In the realm of public
health, bullying is an enormous problem—it is the emotional and/or physical
abuse that has detrimental effects not only in the physical and mental health
of the victim—even mortality, but also on their academic/professional
performance, self-esteem, continuous systematic and interpersonal
discrimination of ethnic/sexual minorities, and future of the victim as
possible victimizer.
The
U.S. government’s StopBullying.gov campaign is failing to protect victims and prevent
further victimization of individuals in schools, as most of its proposals are
innately misled from individual health behavior models, such as the Health
Behavior Model, the Transtheoretical Model, and the Theory of Planned
Behavior—as analyzed below, the approach towards bullied students fuels
victim-blaming and helplessness, the response towards bullies fails to address
the roots of the abuse, and the advice for parents and teachers is not strong
enough to change their behavior in a progressive, understanding, way, maybe
only their attitudes—then they become an authoritative figure nobody wants to
listen to. Today’s Western value system emphasizes the ability of the
individual to control his or her own personal fate. However, this focus on the
connection of social conditions to single diseases via single mechanisms at
single points in time neglects the multifaceted and dynamic processes through
which social factors may affect health and, consequently, may result in an
incomplete understanding and an underestimation of the influence of social
factors on health (11).
Social
epidemiologists and psychologists have continuously concluded
“multidisciplinary efforts are needed at a community level to provide effective
interventions” (13). There is also an urgent need to reframe the issue (22) in
the social construct of how bullies, victims, and bystanders react.
StopBullying.gov fails to acknowledge and respond to the intersectionality of
other oppressive systems that facilitate bullying, such as racism, discrimination,
sexism, homophobia, stigma, domestic violence, mass media reach and patriarchy.
We urgently need a “reconceptualization of lifestyle” (7) in collective action
instead of individual, self-interested competition. The intervention
#WeAreAllWorthy is a multidimensional movement using social networks, allyship,
the urge for safe spaces, good citizenship, and the prevention, protection, and
respect of basic human rights for all to defeat bullying.
Critique Argument 1: Victim
Blaming Is Counterproductive and Fuels Stigma
The Federal Government’s campaign’s advice to victims
is, “If speaking up seems too hard or not safe, walk away and stay away. Don’t
fight back. Find an adult” (19). This advice is innately flawed because of
three reasons, all connected to individual health models with wrong assumptions
or to a wrong approach to social health models.
First, asking children to walk away and not fight back
automatically gives more power and control to the bully. Control is a crucial
core value that people want in their lives, and by giving it to the bully, the
victim feels even more dependent on and further victimized by the system.
Second, this continued “victim-blaming” of the
campaign, through further Labeling, saying not to provoke or go near the bully,
not to fight back or speak back at them, only strengthens the victim’s
hopelessness: if he/she’s the victim and the system is telling him/her that
it’s impossible to fight back and one must only stay away, it’s turning the
blame on the victim for being in the same space as the bully. It’s like blaming
a rape victim for what she’s wearing or what party she was in instead of
blaming the rapist or the bully for the abuse.
Third, the campaign tells students to report to the
school, but often this reporting is not anonymous and the victim sufferes
further abuse—this point thus assumes that the victim is in a vacuum and that
the environment is receptive to reports. Social Cognitive Theory (15) is the
least restrictive of the individual models, but it still assumes a dynamic,
ongoing process in which personal factors, environmental factors, and human
behavior exert influence upon each other” (14). The intervention is asking too
much of the victims- if the environment is abusive, violent, and full of stigma,
its influence on the individual’s thoughts and actions will be negative and
victims will not feel comfortable or safe reporting to a school that continues
to fail them.
Critique Argument 2: Punishing the Bullies
Fails to Address the Roots of Abuse
The
campaign follows a traditional approach towards the bullies, or abusers,
punishing them in the same way that other students are punished for completely
different reasons. Bullying is thus treated in school rules as just one more
behavior that is forbidden, yes, but not adequately handled. Bullying is a much
more complicated problem than smoking, or eating in class, or speaking during a
test—this abuse permanently scars the emotional and physical health of another
human being. Following are three reasons why this privation of freedom is
counterproductive and also fails to address the roots of the abuse.
First,
bullies are punished through not being able to go outside during recess, or an
extra study period, etc. and also sometimes through forced instructions on how
to stop bullying other students. This is based on the Transtheoretical Model (9),
which concludes that a model where change takes place in stages is best
(Pre-contemplationà contemplationà preparationà actionà maintenance). Unfortunately, it not only
fails to find incentives for good behavior and maintenance of that good
behavior, but it also doesn’t even consider the roots of the abuse. Bullies
aren’t going to sit during lunch break on Monday contemplating how their abuse
might be hurting their victim, and by Thursday they’re Most Compassionate Student. Any trigger, such as being abused
themselves, can absolutely take them to an unpredictable jump, backwards or
forwards in this model. Furthermore,
the alternative model of Psychological Reactance (18) states that whenever an
individual feels that its freedom is being threatened, it will do whatever it
takes to restore that anxiety and get that freedom back. This means that
anytime a student is punished at school for bullying or breaking any other rule,
they’ll react to that threat or that punishment by exerting their power and
control over other students even more than before. The bully wants to maintain
his/her position of power and autonomy to call others names or beat others up,
so maybe
Second—and
maybe the most important failure of this campaign, is that it doesn’t directly
address the psychological causes of bullying. Teachers recognize that the abuse
may be a consequence for past or parallel victimization of the abuser, but in
the context of school rules and action steps, the bully is not a victim, but a
rule-breaker. Studies have continuously shown that the victim-bully cycle is
fueled by the Social Learning Theory (the most comprehensive of the individual
theories). Studies of violence and abuse have discussed the role of social
learning theory in the victim-offender cycle of abuse, finding that “victims of
abuse are often more likely to be disruptive, aggressive, and violent than
their non-abused counterparts” (12, 15).
Third,
the campaign explicitly tells kids to “be nice” (which again touches on
Psychological Reactance), but it fails to consider the social norms of schools
and of mass media telling kids that abuse and name-calling increases the social
status of the bully within their individual social networks. The campaign is
advocating for the Theory of Planned Behavior (9), where individuals should go
through a rational, cognitive decision-making process. However, this model
fails to consider subjective norms associated with that behavior. Even if the
bully considered decreasing or stopping the aggression, peer pressure of more
bullies or of the popular or ‘cool’ kids in the school would encourage him to
act irrationally and continue the violence.
Some bullies are bullied to bully, and individual models fail to
recognize the social network where students face this stigma, abuse, and norms.
Critique Argument 3: How Adults Are
Promoting the Wrong Values
StopBullying.gov
also has an unrealistic and incomprehensive approach towards teachers and
parents in the community. The campaign fails to understand the unrealistic
optimism of parents who don’t believe in bullying and teachers who choose to
ignore the problem; it also stresses the adults’ attention on victim-blaming
again; lastly, it fails to recognize the social norms of reinforced prejudice
and stigma that kids mimic from adults around them.
First, it is worth mentioning again
the Health Behavior Model’s (9) assumption that it’s the victim’s fault that he
or she is being bullied. The model states that each individual considers
his/her perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits of action, and barriers of
action—meaning the costs and benefits of particular actions, which should
result in rational decision-making. This
theory then rationalizes that a situation of youth violence is a consequence of
a victim not measuring the costs and benefits of their behavior correctly and
ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Second, this campaign fails to
acknowledge the predictable irrationality (1) of the parents and teachers who
are supposed to be role models and examples for their students and children. As
the adults in the community, these individuals are responsible for not only
advocating for kindness, respect, and equality, but also for showing these behaviors and actions by
example. The campaign fails to address the normalized and institutionalized
racism, sexism, prejudice, homophobia, and abuse within families, communities,
and workspaces also. If students are being told not to bully but they’re being
shown violence, discrimination, and injustice, they’re going to mimic the
behaviors and silence the advice. (15)
Third, the campaign is unaware of
the Theory of Optimistic Bias and of the Law of Small Numbers, therefore,
parents and teachers choose to ignore signs of abuse rationalizing it as
unlikely to happen to their students
or their children. These theories
have shown how that people tend to think they’re invulnerable, but they expect
others to be victims of misfortune, not themselves. Studies have repeatedly
confirmed that “cognitive and motivational considerations lead to predictions
that degree of desirability, perceived probability, personal experience,
perceived controllability, and stereotype salience would influence the amount
of optimistic bias evoked by different events” (21). Therefore, just as police
departments and administrators of universities deny sexual assault prevalence
in their schools because it must be sure
happening somewhere else, but not here, teachers and parents rationalize
that because they didn’t suffer bullying or because they’ve never seen
it—because they know only a few kids who aren’t bullied they assume nobody is,
especially their kids (Law of Small Numbers), they don’t assume the problem
with all of its complex causes and connections to other forms of violence,
aggression, and bad parenting or teaching.
Intervention idea: #WeAreAllWorthy
The
StopBullying.gov campaign is failing to recognize the importance of social
health behavior models. It isn’t acknowledging the negative impacts of victim
blaming, the strong propaganda-like effects of violent, disrespectful,
competitive behavior of celebrities and TV stars in their shows and movies and
in real life. The campaign also fails to recognize the victim-bully cycle and
the psychological causes of youth abuse. It doesn’t create safe spaces where
victims, allies, and victimizers can safely learn about stigma, about community
values, or about taking control of their own safety and actions through a
collective effort of everyone remotely involved. Most importantly, the campaign
fails to identify the real cause behind bullying, discrimination, and physical
and mental health consequences of the abuse: the real cause is the socially
constructed culture and space of competition, individuality, injustice, racism,
patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, and corporate control of people’s (including
children) identity and desires. The World Health Organization states “enacted
legislation has
placed the responsibility of prevention on the shoulders of organizational
(educational or workplace) management with no apparent input expected from the
public health sector” (17). This must stop as we re-think the role of
public health professionals and public health frameworks for public policy and
social norms. The intervention #WeAreAllWorthy is a multidimensional campaign
and movement the crucial function of understanding social networks, allyship,
the urge for safe spaces, good citizenship, and the prevention, protection, and
respect of basic human rights for all (freedom of expression, freedom of
speech, freedom from persecution and violence, etc.) in the fight against
bullying.
Intervention Defense 1: #TakingControl
First
and most essential, the campaign must be understanding and appealing. For
victims and allies, the intervention should not just be a policy or a new rule
or a new punishment for against their bullies and only in the classroom. The
intervention should be a movement that gives the victims of bullying the
control and autonomy that they lost from the abuse. It’s important to note that
in order for this movement to be appealing, it must be as inclusive as
possible. Using the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (16), it will start with
victims and their friends/siblings, but as soon as enough people consume the
product (or join the movement), then everybody will join as well. This movement
will be called #WeAreAllWorthy, #TakingControl. It would be not only a social
media campaign and also a very comprehensive, well-developed curriculum in
schools. The program would be branded (using Advertisement and Marketing
Theories) with a positive message, nothing about victims but about survivors,
not about bystanders but about allies, not about individuals but about a team.
The curriculum would have an extra class with discussions on different mental
health and community development topics, collective reflection, safe space
discussions, and conversations on diversity, acceptance, respect, body image,
stereotypes, etc. It would also have an anonymous confidential section where
students could speak to a peer ally and also a counselor about their experience
with youth violence or abuse.
Another
key point of this intervention is that the leaders of this movement will be
older peers who stand as allies to the younger student survivors. Malcom
Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (10) explains that “all epidemics have
tipping points,” as soon as a specific number of students join the movement and
become part of the campaign, everybody else will also join. Studies have shown
that in schools with severe bullying problems, students believe and are
committed to peer support systems, and teachers have a mostly positive view of
the intervention (3). Furthermore, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs explains that
unless students have their basic needs met—including safety, community,
belonging, love, etc., then asking them for personal development and
understanding of others is not realistic or reasonable. This is why the
campaign would have to address basic needs: after water, housing, food, there’s
family, community, security—these are the most important requirements for
children to develop as community members and leaders: belonging and love.
Intervention Defense 2: #AllyForSafeSpace
The
most critical point to address when including the bullies and victimizers into
the campaign above is to acknowledge the high probability that they have of
having been victims themselves, and of understanding the social norms and also
social community, environmental, psychological causes of their actions and
behavior. The victimizers would also be part of this campaign and group
counseling sessions—and it is essential that these conversations foster core
values of love, security, equality, role models, safety, and belonging. Older
kids will be trained and serve as the leaders of these groups along with mental
health professionals and teachers—however, these older “cool” or more popular
kids will be the ones passing the message on, with the theme and title
#AllyForSafeSpace, as Social Expectations Theory (2) has shown that people are
social beings, they depend on and follow those who they deem more fit, more
popular, more able, more attractive, more intelligent, etc. If this campaign
has as leaders, trained and educated older kids who will serve as mentors for
younger peers and talks to them about the above-mentioned topics, then it is
more likely to be attractive to young victimizers instead of a campaign where
the teacher reprimands all students who participate in aggression.
There’s
another important point to mention: discrimination and aggression against
sexual minority though is significantly higher than among heterosexual
populations. Homophobic bullying is pervasive among children and adolescents in
schools- as well as in workplaces:
“Students who frequently experience homophobic
bullying are at an elevated risk of several negative outcomes, including
depression anxiety, hostility, mental health symptoms, health problems poor
school functioning school absenteeism, substance use risky sexual behaviors
post-traumatic stress disorder self-harm and suicidal behavior…. Researchers
and practitioners have recognized the importance of a framework that considers
assessment of risk and protective factors beyond the individual-level, as
emerging evidence suggests that certain environmental factors have a profound
effect on homophobic bullying in school… There’s been some initiatives for
interventions in an ecological system of individual, micro, exo, and macro
actions and campaigns.” (17, 20)
Intervention Defense 3: #PassItOn
The
last point of this intervention would be a mass media campaign with celebrities
and personal stories aimed not only at changing kids behavior but also parents
and teachers’ behavior and attitudes with regards to their everyday lives.
These adults are examples/role models for their kids, and because of the
intersectionality of this problem—with racism, homophobia, discrimination,
individualism, etc. Parents and teachers thus will therefore learn from
celebrities about bullying, good citizenship, the extra class, and the
vulnerability of their kids to any form of mental and physical aggression by
other kids (because of Optimism Bias, they didn’t think their kids would be
bullied…). The message for teachers will also talk about the damage of bullying
and of allowing for a normalized level of youth violence in schools, because
studies have proven that “Teachers with stronger beliefs that bullying is
normative were less likely to intervene to stop bullying, and lack of
intervention was in turn related to higher levels of peer victimization in
their school” (8).
The
most important part of this campaign is that the message is not shooting
statistics and blaming adults of bad-parenting, but it’s going to show them,
with subliminal but well-structured messages, how to act in front of their kids
to be more consciencious about their words, behavior, and actions with regards
to race, gender, respect, violence, and conflict resolution. This campaign will
appeal to strong core values of family, equality, and safety, and it’ll be
successful due to Agenda Setting Theory (22) and also to Advertisement and
Marketing theories (mentioned above).
Conclusion
It’s important to
change the framing of this issue of bullying and stop blaming the victim,
punishing the victimizers with no rehabilitation or dialogue, and start
including parents, older kids, friends, and teachers alike in the movement to
end stigma, end discrimination, and end youth violence. “The scientific literature suggests that preventative interventions
should include whole community awareness campaigns about the nature of bullying
and its dangers. Efforts should also be made to enhance the emotional and
organizational environments in school and work settings by promoting
sensitivity, mutual respect and tolerance to diversity while prohibiting
bullying” (17). It is also important to remember that referral to appropriate
health services will be required to alleviate the physical and emotional
consequences of bullying. This campaign is branded; it’s a movement that people
want to join, belong to, and share stories in. Through social and behavioral science theories that aim to
change the community’s behavior, through marketing and branding, and through
understanding the multisectorial aspect of the problem, the #WeAreAllWorthy
campaign will end all the failures of the StopBullying.gov initiative. Let’s
#JoinTheMovement!
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