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Bullying · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Why we Do what we do. I am
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: your o'doyle rules host Abraham.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: And I am your Wedgie Giving host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: the things that humans and animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: talk about the way that humans treat each other poorly
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: and what that could mean and what we can do
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, we are today talking about bullying, a thing that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: has been in the common lex gone over the last
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: few years, especially in schools, and a lot of people
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: are talking about it. But do people really understand it?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know that they do.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: And so if you're joining us for the first time, welcome.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: We are so happy to have you here. We hope
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: that you enjoy what you hear today. And if you
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: do enjoy what you hear today, then you can consider
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: supporting us by picking up some merch, leaving us a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: rating and a review, liking, subscribing, joining us on Patreon,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: telling a friend, all that sort of stuff. And I'll
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: talk more about that at the end of this discussion.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: If you're a returning listener, thank you for coming back.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that we didn't scare you away. Hopefully you
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: will continue to stick with us and you've heard some
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: of the spiel. But nevertheless, we must acknowledge that today
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: is in fact a holiday, an important holiday. It is
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the Chinese New Year.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, it's also Curmudgeon's Day. I relate to that.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. It is also Free Thinker's Day, which is probably
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: one that we'll retire after this year because of how
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: things are going, at least in the United States.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's also Kansas Day. I don't know
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: if it's the band or the state, but either way
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I support it fair enough.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Or the movie or the play, I'm not sure. Yeah,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: all of it related to Chinese New Year. It is
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Korean New Year, both because they're in that part of
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the world and it's their new Year. Yeah, and I
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: guess I may as well just throw out that it's
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the lunar New Year, so New Year's for everyone, including
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the Moon.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year Moon. It's also National Carnation.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Day, sure, National corn chip Day. I don't know if
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that goes with carnations, but.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We could probably put them together. It's
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: National Puzzle Day, which is fun.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: That is fun. It is Seeing Eye Guide Dog Birthday?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: What all of them on the same day? Okay, yeah,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they were all born on the same day. It's wild
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to think that every Seeing Eye Guide dog was born
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: on January twenty ninth. It's Thomas Paine Day, so you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: eat your kids.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: It is a Oh we actually talked about this last week.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I had forgotten about this until now, but we did
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: a whole dive on this. Is that it is Cordova
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Ice Worms Days. So it's like a week of this.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: I think at the time we even said maybe we'll
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: dive into this a little further, maybe in the context
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of a mini Yeah, but that's what it is. So
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: for those of you who are participating in the Cordova
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Ice Worms Days, have fun.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And I imagine there's a group of people that are
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: listening to the show who have never heard that sentence
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in their life, which is great, very likely. Yeah, I
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: love that for them too. It's also International Hot Air
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Balloon Week, which is I think a beautiful sight.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: It is, although at the end of January, I feel
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: like this has got to be a Southern Hemisphere thing
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: because otherwise you're experiencing some weather. You try to do
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: that at the end of January.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true for.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Reasons that are totally lost on me and I think
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: most people. It is kiss a Shark Week.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe symbolically kiss a shark, kiss a toy shark. I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't feel like this is good advice.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a I feel like it'sing a
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  Speaker 1: shark is all teeth, you know what I'm saying. It's
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a national clean out your inbox week.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Sweet, I'm gonna delete all my emails without reading them.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It is National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Week, which I don't
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: know if this is specific to rural Nevada, but there
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: is a very large national gathering of cowboy poetry participants
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: in rural Nevada, specifically Elko, Nevada. For those of you
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: who are traveling for that sort of thing and also
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast, how but have fun listen.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: One thing, one thing I really love about the idea
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: of cowboy poetry is that cowboys are often touted and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: pedestaled as like the epitome of like masculinity. Sure, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: poetry never gets that rap, so putting them together probably
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: could uses so many people in Texas, Like I would
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: imagine there's so many people in Texas that are like,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: what does this mean? How can this be? And they
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: they can't wrap their head around this tradition, you know.
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  Speaker 2: Fair enough, and confusion is very frustrating for so many.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: So yes, anyway, none of those things have to do
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: with bullying, which is the thing we're trying to talk
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: about today and that we are now getting to. So,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: as I said, thank you for being here. Don't know
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: if there's more preamble we need to get to then
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  Speaker 2: we could just sort of dive into our topic. Other
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: than as I said, those are holiday things that we
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: talk about sometimes. At the end of this discussion, we
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: are going to be giving some recommendations. We do that
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: after every full length episode, and we release these full
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: length episodes on Wednesdays and on Mondays, where we release
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: short episodes Y're like ten to fifteen minutes ish and
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: we call them minis, so you can catch those there.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So I think that's all the preamble. I need. Probably
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: more preamble than I really need to start talking about this.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean I think we could probably dive in.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. So today we're going to unpack what
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: bullying is, the variety of factors that give rise to bullying,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the experience of bullying from the victim's perspective, and what
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: can be done about it, whether it's in schools, in
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: your communities, within family homes, whatever it might be. We're
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: going to talk about some different solutions or possible solutions
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: to that.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: We could spend some time on bullying, diving into any
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: one of these topics pretty in depth, Like we could
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: talk about just the people who are doing the bullying.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: We could talk just about the outcomes and the fallout
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: of bullying for the victims. We could talk just about
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: a single strategy that has been researched quite extensively and
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: what the findings have been to support or refine or
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: otherwise inform the implementation of that strategy. There's a lot
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: that we can unpack. So today is sort of broad strokes.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: We're going to more or less cover what it is,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: and then why it happens, what happens to people when
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: it happens, and what we can potentially do about it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And understand that we're not getting into superfine details on
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: any of them, but hopefully we'll sort of paint a
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: clear enough picture that people know at least something more
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: than when they came into this episode, as always the goal,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: and just for fun, like, we always record these ways
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: out from when they're actually published. So for those of
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: you are interested, we're recording this on the last day
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: that the US was a free country, so you guys
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: will hear it well after the democracy has fallen, but
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: at least from us coming to you from the past,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we will say goodbye democracy, goodbye civil liberties. It was
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: fun while it lasted.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And let's proceed, all right, So let's get into the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: background of bullying, because bullying itself, we wanted to find it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: We want to give some ideas around this, right, So
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the word bully has a really interesting journey. Actually, according
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: to the Dictionary, bully comes from the old Middle Dutch
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: word boil. That's it's close. I'm gonna be able to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: pronounce that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering if it's actually pronounced bully, So it's spelled
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: b o E l e. Actually yeah, bully is maybe
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: something locally yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Bully, which meant lover and could refer to either sex.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Eventually, though, of course, bully became more general, although
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: it did not quite evolve to what or devolve to
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: what we would think of it meaning today. So it
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: started out meaning lover, then it became more general and
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: simply meant a fine fellow. And then at some point
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: over several years or even generations, in the seventeen hundreds,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: it came to mean a swaggering coward. When I saw
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: that in direct quotes as to what that could mean,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: then it seemed to eventually be used, although there doesn't
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: seem to be a clear line of demarcation as to
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: when this change occurred, but it essentially came to be
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: used to refer to someone who is hired to do violence,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: which actually starts to feel a lot closer to what
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: we're used to now, because now it's sort of seemingly
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: someone who does violence without having been hired. But you
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: can see that sort of level of preying upon a
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: victim that's related in there.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Sure. According to APA, bullying is a form of aggression
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: or discomfort. So by that definition, boxing an mma could
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: also be.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Bullying, right, I was like, even maybe like a comedy
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: roast might almost count as bullying. I feel like this
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: definition is too inclusive for what they're trying to portray here.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it lacks the consent part of this.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Like I think that like boxing, there's consent. You agree
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: to punch me, I agree to punch you. We'll punch
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: each other for a few minutes, like that is an
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: agreement that is settled upon. But I think bullying lacks
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that informed consent piece.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think it does. I think that is one piece.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: You might make the case that like performing the duties
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: of a soldier could look like bullying when you're like
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: on the front lines as well, but that's like specifically
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: your job in that case. So it's sort of like
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: un like sanctioned versus unsanctioned bullying if you are a
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: activity that's aggressive or violent. So I'm going to try
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: and offer a slightly different approach to this definition. So
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: we're thinking about the person who's doing the bullying. This
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: is behavior that is reinforced by an indication of damage
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to another, which we sometimes call signs of damage, but
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: just meaning that like part of what they get out
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: of it is a demonstration that their attempts to cause
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: harm have been successful and seemingly without provocation. And often,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: but not exclusively, with a power dynamic favoring the bully.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is that the person
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: being bullied, like the recipient of the bullying, may not
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: be able to defend themselves because the bully for whatever reason,
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: has more people, or they're stronger, or they're more well armed,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: or they sort of came out of the you know,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: from behind sort of thing. So that's what I mean
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: by that. And then another important here is that like
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: bullying can have a social element in which the bullying
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: behavior is further reinforced by a sort of a close
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: peer group. So I think objective A is cause visible harm.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: And the second part of that is that that there
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: is sort of a group of people who then recognize, acknowledge,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: and maybe praise the successful accomplishment of that harm.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Right. And now, obviously any behavior that causes harm is problematic,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: particularly when it is non consensual and self motivated. So
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I think, as we kind of talk about this, it's
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: important to guard yourself against bullying in the form of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: ads so that they do not force you into buying
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: their products that you may not want.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So I kind of mentioned this idea of like when
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: you start just trying to think of examples and non
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: examples of aggression, we just start thinking of professions that
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: might involve aggression or recreational activities, and I think one
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: of them here is as a soldiers, as I mentioned before,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: because like, soldiers aren't usually considered bullies, although by the
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: APA definition possibly they would be. Right, but soldiers cause
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: harm to others, but they're specifically instructed to do so
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: by their commanding officers, and this receives like tacit approval
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: from the public, as that is the expectation for the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: performance of their jobs to carry out those violent activities.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: So there's an important distinction between like this is an obligation,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: one that we have all sort of agreed to as
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: part of a thing that you must do, versus this
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: is self motivated. I just want to go out and
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: cause harm.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Right And Likewise, even someone who harms someone else in
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: self defense is generally unders that's understandable to people around
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: them that somebody is as striking out to prevent harm
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to themselves. However, someone who takes a weapon out in
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the public to harm people just because they want to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: cause harm to other people is not only disapproved of
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: legally and socially, but will and should be promptly detained
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and prevented from causing more harm. The motives are important here.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: This is really kind of like the key feature harming
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: people by itself is not necessarily or inherently bullying. It's
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the intent with which they are trying to harm people
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and the context in which they are harming people.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: In yeah, yeah, exactly. The circumstances are very relevant for
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: whether we approach this as like a bullying activity versus
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: some other form of violence. And I think a lot
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: of people want to take things like that and slot
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: them all into no, just all violence bad. And I
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: do have some sympathy for that approach, and I think
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: I would point out that it's useful functionally to distinguish
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: sort of where the motives are as we try to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: understand what we can do about this from like a
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: psychological perspective, And that's thinking about the function like why
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: does this occur?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Because we when I have a different, like one solution
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: that will address one reason why, might actually exacerbate a
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: different reason why. And hence why we can't necessarily take
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: a blanket approach to solving this. I think we need
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to be nuanced right. I think recently bullying has received
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention because it tends to be I
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: mean recently, like the last several years, maybe decades, but
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you know, it is I think, prominently available in the
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: discussion around school and other areas, and it tends to
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: be persistent. Hence the ing on the end of bullying
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: as a rowing thing. There's a present progressive tense here
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and likely because it is particularly socially unacceptable to be
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: aggressive and non aggressive contexts, and I think specifically to
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: like victimize people who are often like we might think
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: of them as the underdogs or sort of like easy
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: targets for these people. It feels like that power dynamic
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: makes it grosser and less appropriate, right.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, the problem I'm a bullying is difficult and insidious
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: because of all the complexities, because of the lack of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to actually identify motive without somebody verbally expressing
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: what their motive is. All of these things create some
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: unique challenges to understanding and solving the bullying issue. It's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: difficult because bullying itself can have a wide variety of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: causal variables and be difficult to prevent or intervene effectively
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: on because of those resulting rewards for the bully themselves
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: or the lack of punishing constituencies that show up too.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And it can even be difficult to recognize because it
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: might be subtle and small and occur over very long
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: periods of times, like for years, or it could be
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: abrupt and violent and very very clear. So it's really
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: difficult because it's kind of like and there's probably a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: point in time where we probably have to do a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: series or a suite around the idea of like suicide,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: because it's the same type of issue where it's very complex,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: it's very hard to define, and because motive is such
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a private thing, it makes it really even more complicated
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: to find those causal variables than those outcomes.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that there are times too
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: where it's hard to draw the exact boundary around is
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: this like normal play, is this consensual sort of teasing, ribbing,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: rough housing, versus has this crossed the line into the
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: territory of like victimizing and bullying and violence, right, And
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: where you draw that distinction can be difficult in the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: moment to sort of make that call because you really
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: don't want to adversely stigmatize people who are actually engaging
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: appropriately socially in the sense that there's sort of an
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: agreed upon level of rough housing where everyone's okay and
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: like you don't want to stop that. That could be
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: very appropriate. It could even help them. It could help
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: teach them, like the boundaries of where you were pushing
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: people too far and interrupting that could then actually stunt
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the development of that skill. And recognizing that in another versus,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: like you also don't want to let someone just be
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: victimized because you think that what's going on is like play,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: but it's actually like harmful stuff that's being done, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: they can look very similar. Sometimes it can be really
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: tricky to tell them apart. Right, So speaking of telling
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: them apart, it's kind of worth unpacking a little bit
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: what the different ways that bullyon can play out, because
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: we've sort of been describing it as explicitly causing being violent,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: but we've also intentionally used the word harm because that's
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: kind of the critical feature here. Because bullink can have
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: different forms, it can be harm caused in a variety
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: of different ways.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Right, So of course many people think of physical harm
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: being pushed into lockers, wedgies, swirlies. I think maybe like
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the nineties have created kind of a unique archetype for bullying.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Like special vernacular just for bullion.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Like I feel like it was like
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: so emergent then, and you know, in every bully I
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: always kind of joke about like the nineties bully haircut,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: which is like the middle part bowl cut shaved underneath,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: like that like skater haircut that I also had, but
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: it's like very much so a nineties bully haircut, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: everybody knows what we're talking about in things like you know,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: being punched, being tripped, having your things broken, having your
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: books knocked out of your hand, like all the things
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that happen in like literally now I'm thinking about like
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm just using nineties examples from movies, but like
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that's but if that seems to be kind of the thing.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, like if you read it, the bullies in it,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I mean they take it a little bit too far, sure,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like carving initials and people's bellies and stuff, but they
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: did a lot of the same things physical harm, torment,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: chasing people, a lot of that stuff too.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And we saw some of that in Back to
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: the Future, and like depictions of the fifties and other
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: movies like from the era. So I think there's versions
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: of this have spanned a lot of time. But bullying
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: can also include things that are not necessarily physical. It
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: can be very legitimate to consider bullying when they're verbal,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: things like insults, threats, teasing, just generally otherwise putting people down.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And I mean, it's kind of ironic to me that
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: the people sometimes on the right will complain about how
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: sensitive everyone is and how easily offended, and I'm like,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: you guys, melt down if someone says happy Holidays.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: The war on Christmas persists.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like, you're so easy to emotionally damage. Like all
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I have to do is actually say that I'm offended,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and you are like crying into your pillow. I'm like,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: that's you're so fragile.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: My favorite argument recently is nah, and just watch what
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: happens na.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah right, yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So there.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I think there's there's sort of a lot of complaints
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: about like, oh, that's that's a bullion to just insult someone.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, I could probably insult you into
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a hole. If you really want to, really want to
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: try this experiment.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I can insult you into a hole like that's I love.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: You should put that on your resume, Like I am.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I've written this letter, I've written this dissertation, like I've
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: got these publications, I've done these presentations. By the way,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I can insult you into a hole. That's right, It's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a skill.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: We have it.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Why we do what we do, I.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Guess I'm particularly proud of. I just think that these
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: are people who are obscenely easy to offend.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, I don't want to bite people, but
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I could if I needed to, you know, sure, sure,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So some other things I think about too, though, when
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: it comes to bullying or things like social types of bullying,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: like maybe not even directly contacting the potential victim, but
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: like doing things that involve the public and kind of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: inciting people around them, like spreading rumors, sharing their secrets,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: public shaming, excluding people playing cruel jokes on them, stuff
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that happens in a public eye that produces kind of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: a ripple effect that will produce additional kind of collateral
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: bullying responses from people that are not the bully themselves.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That obviously does include like verbal behavior, but
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: arguably all of this does anyway. But anyway, yeah, I
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: think there's an important social part. And then of course
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of people talk about cyber bullying, which is
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of the times ads. Just kidding, cyberbullying is
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: not just ads, it's a lot of times other things.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: But I might consider ads a form of this. It
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: certainly feel pernicious sometimes. Anyway. Cyber bullying is basically a
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: lot of the verbal and social bullying, but doing it online.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And this is you might be sending messages, pictures, or
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: videos to the victim intended to frustrate, confuse, or offend
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: them or otherwise cause them some amount of distress or
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the other social bullying stuff that we mentioned, because you
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: can be spreading rumors, gossip, doing public shaming, excluding them
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: from things, et cetera. And another aspect of the online
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: version of this is it often comes with, or it
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: can come with the veil of anonymity, so that people
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: can get away with a lot of this without any
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: reapercuts on themselves because people might not even know the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: source in these instances, And to me, that indicates that
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: at least for those people who are specifically seeking anonymity,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: that they're not doing the bullying to earn the social support.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Like those other sort of circumstances we mentioned, that will
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: be relevant for some people for some bullies in some circumstances,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: But there are going to be conditions where people are
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: trying to bully anonymously, and online forums offer a gateway
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: to do that sort of thing, and I think are
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: particularly more likely to thrive in the current climate with
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Facebook or Meta or whatever it is and X being
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: essentially just spawning platforms for that kind of thing.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Right absolutely now. Researchers suggest that until age four, bullying
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: is mostly physical and indistinguishable between males and females. However,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: as children get older, girls bullying tends to be more
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: social and verbal aggression tailored to exact the most severe
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: emotional damage possible, where boys tend to be more physical,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: physically violent bully. As a matter of fact, I can
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: speak to being a parent and what I have seen,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: most of what I have seen towards my own children
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: has been verbal and also a lot of cyber bullying online.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, like we're dealing with like
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a court case right now as a result of cyber
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: bullying with a member of my family being a victim
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: of that. And like the anonymity around that, and it's
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: really complex. It's like we've learned that in the justice system,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: it's very complex to identify the cause, the concern, the behavior,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the severity. Like it's really difficult and we'll probably talk
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: about more about that later, but like it's really interesting
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to see that kind of play out in a forensic space.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting. I did not know about that. I have
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: pretty little experience with bullies myself. I think that when
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I was very very young, like elementary school, I was
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: kind of an aggressive jerk of a kid, so it's
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: possible I would have been considered a bully, but I
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: quickly grew into a pacifist by the time I was
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: in high school and have not. I've really avoided anything
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: remotely violent, I mean for almost as long as I
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: can remember at this point. Yeah, I don't think that
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I was really the receiving on the receiving end of bullies.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: I think they didn't care about me, and I was
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: not certainly not perpetrating it, at least not intentionally when
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: I was younger, So I have very little experience with
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: it myself.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: When you brought up this topic, I was thinking about
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: my own experience of bullying. And I was bullied a
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: lot growing up. But it's funny to think about what
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: because you know, like the whole thing, the whole thing
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: is like you know, they'll find some feature or something
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that you do or something about you, and they'll just
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of times what they'll do is the harp
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: on that thing. Sure my experience is and this is
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: going to sound so silly thinking back on it, but
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like I was bullied for being tall, like but I
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: was also like a foot and a half taller than everybody. Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I was bullied for being smart. So like I was
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like all the things that are like traits that people
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: look for as adults, like these are great things to have.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Like they're like, oh you're tall, Oh you're tall and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: smart and likable. Oh you're so nice. I'm like, uh yeah,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: those are good things to have. I'll never forget though
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I got. I went to I went to a predominantly
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: black middle school, and middle school I think in general,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: is challenging, and I just got like, like a lot
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of the bullying that I received there was just for
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: being white. Like I just got called white a lot,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: which you know, I was like, that's great. That you
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: have objective that you objectively you can identify that like
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that doesn't like But that was like a thing that was.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: It was persistent and I didn't get it a lot,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: but a lot of a lot of kids did get that,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and so but it went back and forth, right, So sure, Yeah.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I think the most I dealt with though, was I
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: got called the Jolly Green Giant a lot I got
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: called Shane the Brain. Those are good things, I think
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: so fair.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I was so average and so middle of the road
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that there was just I was. I was camouflaged by mediocrity.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: That's you know, you skate it through. That's great. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: did not. I was too tall to do that.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's either a good band name or
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: a good album name.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Capu fly by Mediocrity. Yeah, I love that.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's talk about the bullies and sort
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: of what's going on for them right now? Who are
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: these weirdos? And it's gonna sound for a moment as
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: though we are defending them. We are not. Bullying is
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: not okay, but it can be useful to understand what
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: is happening for bullies because, as I said, to address this,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: we want to be thinking about the function, what's going
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: on here? And so we're gonna start to unpack a
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: little bit of the variety of circumstances that could produce
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: bullying behavior.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Right, So, first and foremost, bullying can technically happen at
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: any age and is increasingly being recognized as it pertains
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to adults as bullies. A lot of times we think
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of bullies being children or being in and that's usually
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the context that's portrayed, but that is it's true for
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: adults as well, and we're starting to identify that more.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: One example is Trump. Trump is a bully. He uses threats,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: he uses lies, intimidation, aggression, he uses his resources to
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: get people to do things that they don't want to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: do or to just harm them out of retribution. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: he's geriatric, So yes, age can do this. It doesn't
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: matter that he's in his eighties. He could still be
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a bully.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, any any age is capable of it. Second,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: and although he said first and second, there isn't actually
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: any particular order to this. Although we mentioned this is
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: typically ongoing, there can easily be a bullying incident without
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: repeated further offenses. So it doesn't have to be systematic
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: to be bullying. You could have like a one off
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: sort of opportunity or time when it happens without it
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: necessarily being like occurring many times over many instances.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Right, And although the overall function of behavior is likely
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: very similar those circumstances basically things like to see the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: reaction to the harm done, or to recruit social support
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: for the harm done, or both. There can be a
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: lot of different reasons as to how this develops in
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the first place, and there can be overlapping reasons as well.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So it's never going to be as cut and dry
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: as this person likes attention, or this person has a
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: bad home life, or this person just likes to see harm.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It's never going to be that simple. It's going to
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: be a complex tapestry of variables that lead to these different,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: unique bullying behaviors across unique individuals.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: So one of those variables, one of the initial setting
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: events here may be someone who has low social status
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: that means they have few friends, they are not generally
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: treated with respect, they might be ignored, and so what
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: could happen is they either accidentally earn some social status
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: by aggressing towards someone for whatever reason, and then they
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: basically learn they that that's a way they can continue
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: to gain social status, and so they continue doing that
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: aggressive those aggressive behavior to try and maintain their social
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: status or even further elevate their social status. Or they
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: might rather than like accidentally stumbling upon this as a
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: method for elevating themselves in the social strata, they might
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: just believe that they can earn social status this way,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and so then they start aggressing in a bid to
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: gain friends' attention and notoriety right now.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Another reason is when people are victimized, they sometimes react
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: by victimizing others. So a description of this is the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: phrase hurt people, hurt people. They sometimes report that they
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: think they'll feel better by making other people feel as
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: bad as they do, and further report that doesn't work,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: so they'll make people feel bad and they don't feel better,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and it persists. It's a vicious cycle.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But essentially the outcome being that some people who
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: are bullied become bullies, and it's just sort of the
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: revictimization cycle that can occur. As we sort of alluded to,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: this can occur and children who are abused at home
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: or bullied themselves. It could also be people who are
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: suffering for other reasons, such as even if they're not
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: necessarily abused, they might have an unstable home life. So
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: if they have parents or siblings who are fighting with
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: each other or with them when divorce happens, and if
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: they're sort of commonly witnessing violence, aggression, or like bullying,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: like behaviors toward others, that can further sort of foster
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the development of this. It's like kids who essentially have
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: a non nurturing environment are more likely to end up
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: as bullies.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely, Now some people are surrounded by other violent
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: people who encourage violence, aggression, and fighting. They see violence
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: frequently and are essentially raised to see violence as a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: positive thing and might be pressured into acting aggressively. It's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: very normalized in their environment. So this is kind of
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the problem with the premise of the show Dexter. Right,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: the boy was taught to murder as an outlet, but
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: that's not how behavior works. Actually, it was more likely
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: practicing normalizing violence, and no one is beyond saving that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: behavior can change. But what has happened is that's become
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: kind of what they've always known, that violence is a
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: thing that exists in my world. I engage in this
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: behavior because that's what everybody around me does. I mean,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you see the same thing with like how people's relationships
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: kind of grow and emerge, right, Like people think that
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: like arguing in a relationship means that you're yelling and
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: screaming at each other because that's what they watch their
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: caregivers do. And that's not always the case. It just
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: gets kind of normalized a little bit.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so it's sort of like, this is
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: how people treat each other in a relationship, as how
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: that person who's observing that sort of comes to believe.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: And that's a pretty unproductive and toxic way of thinking
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: about how social relationships should form. I was also thinking
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: about another sort of pop culture reference this movie is
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: when did this come out? Like two thousand and eight
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: or something. Yeah, so it's old at this point, but
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: if people who who are listening have seen this, you'll
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: get the reference. I'll describe briefly. So, these kids are
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: raised in the household of this very successful NASCAR driver,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: and they're very spoiled, and they're very like verbally abusive
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: toward their grandfather. And he's protesting this, and he's like,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: you're gonna let him talk to me like that, and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the dad says, I am gonna let him. I love
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the way they're talking to you right now because they're winners.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And so that's just an example of them like specifically
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: fostering that type of attitude and the kids. And then
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: later in the show when his mom takes over watching
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: the kids and she teaches them to be like respectful
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and kind and they immediately pick up on that lesson
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: and start behaving more appropriately. I think that's just another
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: example of how that might play out.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: What a ridiculous movie that movie is.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: It's so great, it's so ridiculous.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: It's so ridiculous. And being in a town that's a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: NASCAR town, it's unbelievably accurate. It's kind of scary. Yeah,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: it's kind of scary.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Now, some may be seeking an outlet for aggression or energy,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: or just to enjoy the rush of a fight and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: seek opportunit needs to fulfill that desire, some might hunt,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: some might join sports, some might join karate, and some
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: might become bullies. It it's just that's the path that
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: they found for that particular set of reinforcing contingencies that
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they really enjoy. Right, those those are the circumstances like
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I could do this, maybe I don't have the means
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: to do this because sports can be expensive, or they
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: don't have time, or something's going on, so like while
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: they could be somewhere productive, they don't get the opportunity
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to a chance. So bullying tends to be the next
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: best thing.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talked about this in some other episode
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: we did really recently, Like, there are some people who
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: it seems like they're looking for an outlet where they
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: can be aggressive toward other people and it's socially acceptable,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and I sometimes just call that ads. All right, Well,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: back from the ads I was, I was obviously joking
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: that I call the ads. But the point being that
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: that does seem to be that there are people who,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason, they just enjoy the conflict, like the combativeness,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the competition of the conflict, and that gives them a
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: way to engage in it. And so some some of
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: them find an outlet that would be considered more socially appropriate,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: like like fencing and karate and sparring and mma and
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, and some of them become bullies, not
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: socially acceptable, but it is a way that they direct
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: that energy of theirs, right.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And I also think it's important to note that the
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Venn diagram of bullies to like athletes, there is overlap.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Likes bullies get into it because they can bully people
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: just in a more like we talked about that in
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the Competing episode. That's where that came from, right, Like
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that ven diagram of like bullies who end up in sports,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Like it's not a perfect circle, but there is overlap,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and you see that happen, Like it's so just to
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: be just so everybody is on the same side. Like
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: people don't go, oh, I'm going to go to football
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: or like you mentioned, which is such a specific sport
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to mention here, I love that I could go to
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: fencing or I could bully, Like I'm gonna go to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: bully club. Like that doesn't it's not quite as clear
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: for those of you who maybe have never experienced bullying.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not making They're not like going through a
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: menu of options and selecting the one that sounds the
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: most tasty for them that day.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bullying is an elective.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It sort of emerges naturally out of the circumstances that
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: direct them one way or another to something. That they're
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: gonna do.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Another circumstance that can happen is that bullying can emerge
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: in kids who just simply lack stimulation.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: They don't have a place, they.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Are eager to allocate their time and energy, and they
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: they kind of happen to land on bullying as like
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: a thing to do, which gives them something to do.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I think very shorthand colloquially, I'm saying like they get
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: bored and they they're trying to find something. And particularly,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: I think people who struggle with boredom without having learned
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: other ways to manage boredom, a easy solution is like
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: break things, do violence, attacks, starfires, start fires. I think
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: that can be a route that that goes. And not
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to say that that's the only route that leads to
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: those kind of behaviors, but I think that that is
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: a way that that can emerge, and bullying can be
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: an outcome of that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, there are a whole host of reasons that
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: someone might start bullying. Really, there are as many different
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: events to occasion bullying as any other social behavior. But
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: what does this mean for the recipients? Actually, what researchers
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: found was that when girls are bullies, they tend to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: be in higher social status groups like the Regina George's
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of the world, whereas boy bullies can be outside of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: any social groups or belong to a strata or of
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: social organization. Maybe they're part of a football team that's
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: kind of a bullying group. Maybe they're part of the o'doyles.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: There's lots of different places where kids can show up.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting that you kind of see that split.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like just roll information about bullies.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Right, So, as we said, like there could be a
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: lot of overlap. You could have people who are are
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: bored and we're also bullies. You can have people who
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: want an outlet for their aggression and they've sort of
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: been taught that like bullying and victimizing others is a
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: good thing. You can have people who were just raised
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: around a lot of bullying and they raised around observing
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: other people victimizing people around them, and they happen to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: be the case that like they I don't know, again,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: they were bored. You could really just take any of
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: these and plug and play any combination of some or
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: all of them to produce bullying. And probably several we
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: didn't even mention, But I think the point being we
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: were getting through some of the circumstances that are pretty
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: likely to result in that.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Right, So we have to ask a question because we
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: are talking about the bullies themselves. I think it's worth
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: talking about because without a person to bully, bullies don't
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: really exist. So we need that context, we need that target.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: So who are the people that are being bullied? And like,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: what's happening to those folks? Well, the effects of bullying
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: are wide ranging, but are generally of the same class
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and varieties any event in which people suffer. So examples
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of that include things like prolonged trauma, social withdrawal, poor sleep,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: low self esteem, substance abuse. All of these are different
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: things that might happen to those folks that are bullied.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: People who are bullied can also become violent themselves. They
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: might avoid work or school, they might appear to be
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: struggling with concentrating or they're just having that experience. They
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: can even have problems digesting, so you get people who
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: develop IBS or other things of that nature. They might
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: get poorer grades, They're at a higher risk for experiencing
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: depression and at a higher risk for suicide.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Right, and any of these problems can actually follow children
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: into adulthood. You have a lot of people that will
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: go to therapy for years and years and years to
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: undo the harms. And because what might happen is it's
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: not just oh, this was hurtful. What ends up happening
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is they might hear it so much they might internalize
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: those things. They might create scripts and rules for themselves
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: that are from the bully that are like, maybe I
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: am too tall, maybe I am this, maybe I am that,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: because that person said it so often, and so it
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: creates a lot of really confusing and complex kinds of
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: relationships with social structures and people.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Now anyone can be a victim of bullying.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Because we're trying to think, like, what is the profile
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: of someone who's going to be the victim of a bully,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: It kind of can be anyone. Bullies might specifically target
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: easy prey, such as someone perceived to be in a
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: lower social class, or are younger, or have few friends,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: or are shorter, or in your case, are taller, or
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: in some other way they stand out they are different
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: from the peer group, and so that can be a
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: way a thing that paints a target on their back
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: for people who are.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Already likely to be bullies, and sometimes they have a
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: specific target. Sometimes it was someone who happens to get
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: in their way. Sometimes bullies are seeking specific retribution, and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: bullies might even bully other bullies. As an example, you
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: can watch Elon Musk and Steve Bannon go back and forth,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, you don't want to watch that
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: because it's effectively like you'd probably rather not have eyes
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: than do that. But that is a thing that you
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: are that you can see is like one bully against
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: another bully, and they just it's kind of like a
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: snake eating its own tail.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: And of course this probably goes without saying, but we're
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: going to say it anyway. The most important thing to
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: note is that the victim is never to blame the bullied.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: The person being bullied does not deserve to be bullied.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe with that exception of Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, again,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: don't want to watch it, don't mind if it plays
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: itself out. It doesn't matter whether the bully perceives the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: victim to deserve it or not. The victim of bullying
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: is not at fault like and I think that a
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: lot of times, as you mentioned, they can internalize at
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: bullying as them being at fault. They caused it, or
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: they didn't avoid it well enough, or or whatever reason.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: It would just it's important to communicate that they're not
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: at fault, that it's never okay to bully people.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, like legitimately, I heard so often that I
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: was so tall from so many people that like when
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I go to concerts and shows, I make sure to
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: stand in the back because I don't want to be
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: an inconvenience to people because I am so much taller
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: than people. Like, So that is like, I mean, like
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I'm also I recognize that, and I've reframed that to
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: be like I'm being considerate, so I'm not like being
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the jerk that's blocking somebody's view, but like it is
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: like also in the back of my ham eye and
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: somebody going this tall, this tall freak, you know, there's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: just in front of me, blah blah blah blah. I
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: could hear that like that language, and I've had to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: like do some work to reframe that.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, Pushane, yeah, be nice to me.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not you specifically, Abraham, You're always nice to me,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: but everybody else be nice to me, we did get
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I do gotta say, uh, we did get a comment
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: that I thought was pretty wonderful on on one of
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: our on our episode about ivy leagues, one of our
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Australian listeners said that I said Havid like an Australian
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: would say it, and that felt pretty good.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Oh that's great. Love that.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nice, thank you for that. So yeah, send the
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: compliments in. That's what we should do. Don't don't send
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: complaints in, send more compliments in. We love that.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I accept constructive criticism of course, yes,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: of course. Well we've been complaining about bullying and let's
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: talk about how you might deal with that sort of thing.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: So there have been many strategies to manage or try
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: and mitigate or even prevent bullying in schools and workplaces.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: But one of the toughest things, as I mentioned before,
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: is even recognizing that it is happening. Because it can
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: be sneaky, it can be hidden, it can be insidious oftentimes,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: like because it's so clearly inappropriate and a violation of
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: expectations and taboos. Bullies will often be pretty good at
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: hiding what they're doing, and so it's very likely to
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: go unnoticed unless you catch it in the right moment.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: So in schools, teachers, as I mentioned, they're trying to
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: determine whether what they're witnessing is normal childhood teasing and
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: play or whether it has crossed that line into bullying
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: and what if anything they can or should be doing
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: about it. And so for this reason, bullying is very
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: very underreported.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so speaking of dealing with bullying, I don't
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: know whatever advice you ever got, but growing up, my
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: dad always told me that if you got bullied and
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: you were cornered, hit them in the nose. And I
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm not gonna I mean, I'm not gonna
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: fight because I'm bigger than everybody. But like he's like,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: well you hear knows, no bleeding in their eyes, all
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: tear up, and you'll be able to get away. I'm like,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that's sure, but I'm not gonna do that. So, like
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: dealing with so, what we're saying is that's not a
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: recommendation for everybody. Don't hit people. We don't have to.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's not the advice that I got. But interesting, okay, ah, Yeah,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: my dad.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Was a scrapper, like he grew up, he grew up
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: in a tough neighborhood. He was a scrapper. He's from Pittsburgh,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: so you know, it's like Steel City folks, are you know.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent? No, I think the culture in this
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: in the world has shifted from where it was at
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: when people were all suffering brain damage from lead poisoning
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: and just general lack of any education whatsoever. Not that
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: that I'm describing your dad, but I think like there
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: was a period in time where violence was just more
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: normal than it is today.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, it was a way, It was the
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: way of the world.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean they're trying to bring it back,
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: and maybe they'll succeed, but but that maybe maybe this
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: will feel in five years or four years or one
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: year like a weird archaic thing to say about how
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: violence isn't normal when everybody's just beating up everybody.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, some teachers went as far
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: as lecturing victims of bullying to not tattle on their peers,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: effectively reinforcing the bullying and revictimizing the students. So they're
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: basically making it feel making the victim feel like it's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: their fault. You shouldn't tell on them and then siding
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: with the bully effectively, Oh that's just normal blah blah
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and then leaving that person to suffer
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: in silence or suffer alone the slings and arrows of
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the bully and effectively kind of perpetuating this bully culture.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, one one of the most beautifully
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: simple litmus tests for the ambiguity that comes with witnessing
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: these things is like, if the student comes and complains
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: about being bullied, I'm like, just take it seriously, because, like,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: if it is the sort of normal rough housing and
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: horseplay whatever that is, people messing around, like they're not
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: going to come and complain about being bullied, So like,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: just take that seriously, and like you will be helping
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: at least somewhat. Now. Very commonly, historically, strategies around bullying
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: have been really reactive, which is mostly to say, like,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: watch for it to happen, when it happens, punish the
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: bully for it happening. But the effectiveness of that strategy
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: has been middling at best, which is to say, like
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: it seems like it was about as effective as doing nothing,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: and possibly did worse than nothing. We're not sure, but
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: it was not a productive way to manage it right now.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: One early strategy that was adopted was to try to
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: involve more people when bullying took place and to conduct
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: peer mediated conflict resolution, so that is, to bring friends
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: into the fray and include a lot of people. But
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: this not only didn't work, it largely backfired and increased bullying.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: One of the given reasons for this was that kids
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: are susceptible to peer influence and having them participate in
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: the mediation increase their participation in the bullying millieu.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Yes. Now important to note this can be misinterpreted to
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: mean that you shouldn't report bullying. That is false. You
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: should report bullying. But what we should not necessarily do
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: is let's take these two people who have had this
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: feud and then bring all their friends into it as well.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: That is not the way to do it right. Preventative strategies,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: as always, tend to be much more successful among the
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: various anti bullying campaigns. One ingredient that's really common, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: I mean there are a lot of them, and a
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: lot of them have this element and the prevention strategies
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: is focusing on social and emotional learning.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, you don't say that in Florida, that's right.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: No, No, in Florida, it's just kick them in the
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: shins and everyone's got broken shins.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Bunch of them in the nose, bunch of in the nose.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, punch them in the nose. I don't know, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: should have gone right to that.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: So SEL social emotional learning. This includes teaching emotional regulation,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: relationship management, empathy, and perspective taking. This might look like
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: having students talk about their emotions and give details and examples.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: It might also include imagining other people's perspectives and emotions.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can kind of imagine how this
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: might be effective if students are learning to recognize when
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: their own emotions are running high and that they can
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: do something about that, how they can effectively maintain friends
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: without feeling that they need to bully people to gain
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: that status and maintain that friend group. And also to
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: like be reflective on how and understand how their actions
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: impact others. And so just those ingredients of like, imagine
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: this happens to you. Would you also want that to
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: be the case? Probably not? And like always be warned that,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: like the tables can turn in these circumstances. When you
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: introduce violence, you increase the risk of violence happening to you.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: If you introduce kindness and peace, you increase the risk
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: of kindness and peace happening to you. The tables turn
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: like you bring to that situation what you're going to
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: get out of it as well?
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, like I'd love to practice this perspective
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: taking real quick. If you're good with.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: That, let's practice.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So like imagine, imagine you are working with a teacher,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: You're kind of working through these things. You're working on
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: perspective taking, and somebody says, Okay, we're gonna talk about
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: emotions today. We've talked about emotions when you are playing
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: games and you're doing well. We've talked about emotions when
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you get really good grades. How would you react or
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: how would you feel what emotions bubble up when you
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: hear ads.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Well, Shane, I feel bad.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I love I love that. Like our career is like, hey,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we're gonna try to make this podcast work, and then
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: we just talk trash about the one thing, like one
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of the things that helps give us revenue. It's like, yeah,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: the entire time, it's wonderful.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: It's very possible that it adversely affects us, and I
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: don't know. And I feel like at this point, like
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: it's become sort of our brand. Like if we were
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: to start cow telling to add advertisers now, then like
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: people would be like that's not authentic, and like we
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: have fun with it. So I feel like it's almost
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: like weird al making fun of your of your song. Yeah,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: is you should look at it as like we're bringing
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: you into the brand by insulting you to your face
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: because you're making us do something something terrible. The people
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: we like, yeah and like thank you for the money,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: but also you suck.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So let's go back and talk
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the social emotional learning and kind
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: of this uses as a proactive strategy. So this can
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: effectively be coupled with strategies that acknowledge and reward students
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: for peaceful and effective conflict resolution and other appropriate social interactions.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: So as an example, a meta analysis in twenty eleven
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: reviewed data from two hundred and seventy thousand plus students
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: across two hundred schools and reported that students experiencing the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: SEL approach had few conduct problems, more positive social behaviors
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: and even higher grades.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of bang for your book for some
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: basic prevention. Right as I'm like, you reduce office referrals
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: and students perform better, feels like a worthwhile investment, even
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: it's just time, so can that. I guess it is
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: important to note that this SEL approach seems to be
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: most effective for younger students eighth grade, and younger eighth
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: grade's kind of on the cusp of this not working
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: any longer. So the basic skill building was more effective
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: with students, and possibly for the reason that they're kind
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: of still navigating social dynamics and building those social skills,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Like they're still learning to even respond to the sort
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: of social cues from people in their environment. So it
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: kind of makes sense that like this is going to
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: be the kind of intervention that's most successful with them,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: because like that's the point where they're at and they're
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: learning versus kids who are older than that are kind
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: of past that point, and so this is like trying
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: to retread new ground that they've already sort of been over.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not repaving that driveway. It's done now, so
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: let's move.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: On right exactly, And as students get older, they've kind
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: of already developed a lot of strategies and orientations that
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: they're going to have and with respect the social skills,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: so they've already we've got some established routine stuff that
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: works for them, stuff doesn't work for them, and they've
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: kind of already they've been doing that for some time.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: They've got longer learning histories effectively, So instead, what they
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: found is that programs that were more effective for teenagers
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: focused on things like individual identity development, where they would
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: do things like reviewing the history of groups who have
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: been discriminated against and using the team's burgeoning sense of
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: responsibility to make an impact toward positive social engagement. So basically,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: what they're trying to look at is like, you're already
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: passed the part where we could teach you these skills
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: in a different way, like or at least like the
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: simple basic skills, and you've probably already established some skills
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: that work. What we're going to do is we're going
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to shift the focus a little bit. We're going to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: turn into making sure that you are self confident in
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: who you are. We're going to talk about putting you
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: as a context of self in the context of these
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: other things and talking about how you relate to these
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: social situations and not just the behaviors that you engage in,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: but who you are in relation to these people exactly.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: I think that it's an opportunity to leverage that at
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: that age, people are starting to get clearer on and
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: more oriented to what their values are, right, and you
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: can kind of lean on that to help show like
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: this is like place this line of activities in line
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: with where your values are, and you'll see that, like
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: there are better ways to go that you are going
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: to appreciate that you handle it this way in the
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: future and not look back on it and sort of
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: be filled with regret that you could have made different choices.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: So like, just be thinking about your values and involving
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: teachers in this campaign kind of across all grades is
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: really important as well, particularly as teachers may accidentally further
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: participate and bullying unknowingly. Teachers need to recognize signs of
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: bullying and know how to respond effectively. And also, like
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: I think teachers are when we're talking about in schools
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: in particular, they're on like the front lines of the
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: first people who will have an opportunity to observe this
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of the time, not always, but a lot
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: of the time. Now there is an important caveat here
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: where they specifically found some strategies for teachers to use.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: It was like, here's like a sort of flow chart
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: of things that you can or should do when you
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: see this conflict arise. And when they implemented this, they
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: implemented it in a few different countries. The two that
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: I saw some specific data for were Finland and in
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: the United States. And in Finland it worked really well.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: They had like spectacular outcomes reduction and bullying, all the
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: same benefits as the other the sel stuff with younger kids,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: but it had almost no effect in the United States
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: at all. And the researchers actually hypothesize here that it
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: was because in the United States the teachers were just
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: stretched so thin in terms of their time and energy
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: and resources that they just lacked the bandwidth to take
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: on the intervention with the kind of integrity it needed
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: with all of the components being implemented with fidelity for
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: it to be successful. And so it was like it
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: was almost like doing nothing. It was like basically that effective.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: It's like you had to have the whole package.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Right, That goes kind of like to like. A final
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: point that I'd like to make is that the most
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: important thing here is that talking about strategies is not enough.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Talking is not teaching, Talking is not doing. There has
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: to be active prevention and response strategies in place. There
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: has to be resources to be able to do that.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: There has to be an emphasis on positive social interactions
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: and a wide net of detection. So there needs to
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: be some expectation of what these bullying behaviors are versus
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: what they aren't, how to intervene on them, how to
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: prevent them, all these things. It has to be kind
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: of a not kind of It has to be a
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: very active process to have any sort of true effect.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, you know, when we support all students,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: I think we reduce those conditions under which bullying is
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: likely develop in the first place. With one major caveat,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: which is I think there are these people who are
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: the sort of hyper masculine and simultaneously incredibly fragile, people
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: who specifically each their children to be aggressive, violent, selfish
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: into like a dominant I guess as sort of how
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: is the values they try and impart to their kids
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: those kids, I think we're gonna have to just do
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: our best to reach by suggesting alternatives, like we don't
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: need to let the fragile overtures of their past bleed
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: into yet another generation and can teach them like we
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: can do better than this, Like some people they had
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: a bad upbringing, they're raised incorrectly, they're trying to raise
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: you incorrectly. We can do better, just help move away
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: from that. So the better we do it insulating everyone,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: the more everyone sort of benefits from that. And that
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: could be a sort of tough, uphill battle with a
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: culture that right now feels like it's largely supporting aggression,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: violence and victimizing people. And so let's keep doing our
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: best to move away from that and call out the
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: people who are pushing for that because they are wrong.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg right nailed it. Take that and the.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Variety of other people who kind of just suck who'd
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: have way too much power right now. But anyway, I
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: think that is what we mostly have to say on bullying.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: As I mentioned, this is a pretty broad overview. We
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: could take any one of those those prevention or intervention
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: strategies and just dig in on that. We could really
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: talk about like the history of how Bullyan emerges. But
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I feel like I felt pretty good about covering it
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: this way because I feel like it does capture most things.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: It just lacks specific detail, but it still felt like
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: it was It was giving me a pretty good overview
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: to the level which I was was trying to attain today.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought you nailed it.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, Well, if you think I nailed it, then
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: you can email me and tell me that, or you
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: can give me other constructive feedback or the whole team.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: You can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: You can also reach us on the social media platforms,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: mostly Blue Sky. I'm not sure how much time we
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: have left on Meta any longer or Facebook give you.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: That also is flushing itself down the toilet rapidly, but
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: we'll see, We'll see how things shake out. You know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: I even gave Twitter a chance for a moment before
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: when Musk took over, but the toilet flushing was complete,
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: and now it is just a septic tank, yes, and
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: one that badly needs purging. Anyway, you can reach out
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: to us on those platforms. That was more of a
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: stand I needed to take when simply advertising that we
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: are available for communication. But if you made it this
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: far and you're joining us for the first time, thank
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: you so much. We're happy to have you here. If
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: you're a returning customer, then we're glad you stuck around.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: You can support us by going over to patreon dot
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: com and if you do that, let me add the
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: whole thing patreon dot com slash WWD WWD podcast. If
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: you do that, you'll get all kinds of goodies, You'll
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: get bonus content at free content, early content, all kinds
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: of stuff and really helps us continue doing the show.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: And every full length episode, I'm gonna read your name
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: and it goes a little something like this. Mike m Megan,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, and Kiara.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you all so much. We really really appreciate your support.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we love you to pieces exactly.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: And if you don't want to support us financially, or
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: if you do but you don't want to join us
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: on Patreon, you can pick up some merchant our merch store.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Non financial things include leaving a rating and a review,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: which we do read, and you can always just tell
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: a friend like, that's one of the best ways to
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: spread information about podcasts. There are just so so, so
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: so so many podcasts, yes, and all of them are
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: advertising telling you to check out their podcast. But when
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: your friend says, hey, you should check out this podcast,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you're like, maybe I will, Like that's pretty much the
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: only way I even really listen to podcasts anymore is
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: from recommendations from others. So it could help us, but
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: doing that a lot.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: In addition, my team of people helps make this happen,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: writing and fact checking from Shane and myself. Our social
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: media coordinator is Emma Wilson, and the person who makes
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: the sounds good is Justin. Thank you Justin and team.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: You're the best and you're the best. When I say
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you're the best, I say we're the best, because it's
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: fair enough.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Speaking of because Emma Wilson, or social media coordinator, she
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: was looking she was helping to support with our Ivy
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: League episodes, and she emailed me. So I'm sort of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: counting this sort of as a listener mail, but it
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: is kind of unique because obviously Emma's part of the team. Sure,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I'll just read her her email here. She said, I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: just finished listening to your episode on Ivy League Schools.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: It was a fantastic listen and a specialist. Since I've
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: been talking with friends about the unseen rewards of working
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: on public schools, smaller universities, and community colleges, I appreciate
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: the brief inclusion of the relationship to diversity and thought
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: you might find this interesting. When looking for a public
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: domain image for Harvard, this Harvard KKK image is among
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: the first that pops up. And so she showed me
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: a image search of like a public domains image searches,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: and there are like multiple photos of people at Harvard
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: in clan robes.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: Now, to be fair, she did not fact check the
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: accuracy of the of the labels for those, so it
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: looks like Harvard. It might not be Harvard, but that
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: was a thing that popped up. I mean it was
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: at the top of the search, so yikes, whoops.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So take that as you will.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Is there anything I missed or anything that you
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: would like to add before we transition to our recommendations?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: No, not today.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: All right, Let's do one more ad break then, all right,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: and more sounds because we transition things now.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, recommendations. So a group of friends and I get together.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: We play Morkborg, which is like an easier entry to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a Dungeons and Dragons type of role playing tabletop game,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: except that it's all black metal and very evil, very evil, very.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Scary, lovely, so beautiful.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: I have a close group of friends. We all play
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: like every other Friday night, and and every year for
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Christmas we get our we get each other Christmas gifts.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: But the guy that runs it, he's our dungeon master.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: His name is Ray, and he is just a delight.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: He got us these really great gifts. Last year he
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: got his these metal dice that I was like, Wow,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: these are just really impressive and incredible and just such
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: a thoughtful gift because I'd been using resin dice. Yeah,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and just for those of you who don't know, they
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: use like polygonal I think, is what the phrase is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: dice where you know, like some of them are like
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: twenty sided, some of them are four sided, so you
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: have to have like a set of dice. And there's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: about seven different versions of these as like for your
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: typical play. Well, Ray got us this thing from a
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: a company called hacks Tech hax Tec Hackstech Dice hackstech
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: dot com is where you go and he got me.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: It's a single die that's about the size of a
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: golf ball, and every side of it it's six sided.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Every side of it has a dial that spins like
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: a spinner, and it represents one of the seven die
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: that you would have in your normal hand. So instead
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of carrying around seven or eight die or whatever, you
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: can carry around this one and use it for the game.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: And it does the same thing. And you don't have
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: to roll it either, you can just spin it and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: then that way you're not losing your dice across the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: table and all that stuff. So and hacks Tech has
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: a bunch of really cool designs and like some unique
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: types of dice out there, so it's just worth checking out.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: It's very cool, very interesting. If you're into that world
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: or if you just like dice, it's a cool place
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to check out. So that's my recommendation for this one.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: That's really fun. And as a board gamer, I am
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: enthusiastically curious about this. Yes, so I will be checking
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: that out. Yeah, I love it all right. I don't
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: think i've recommended this yet, have I Does this sound familiar? No,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: you haven't Okay, I'm recommending a TV show. It is
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It came in a little while ago.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: It is a recent Marvel entry in Disney, and this
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: is Agatha all along. I think you really have to
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: have watched at the very least WandaVision probably also Doctor
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but that's maybe it
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: isn't aside, but at least WandaVision was critically important for
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: understanding this. And it basically picks up with the which
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Agatha in a journey she's sort of going through, and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: it follows the events of the WandaVision series. And it's
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: just a fun show. I mean, it's just it leaves
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: so heavily into the sort of magic and supernatural realm
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: of like Marvel stuff, that I think it's just very
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: different from how most other people sort of approach superheroes like.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Rather than it being superpowered individuals, it's more about which
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: cre and witchcraft lore and the sort of supernatural phenomenon.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: So if you're into that sort of thing, I think
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: that you would enjoy it, although as I said, you
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: probably will really need the context of Wanta Vision for
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: it to make much sense.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: I thought it was great. It was a lot of
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: fun to I really enjoyed the season, so hopefully people
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: are enjoying it.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, same. That is what we have to say
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: about TV shows and dice. But as I said, reach
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: out to us to tell us what your thoughts on
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: those things. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: for recording with me today, Shane, thank you to my team,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: to our Patreon supporters. Anything else before we wrap up?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Nope, I think that's it.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: All right. This is Abraham and this is a Shane.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: We're out.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: See. Yeah, you've been listening to Why We Do what
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: we do. You can learn more about this and other
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: episodes by going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.