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6 Reasons Why Bullies Bully

Dan Thorne • Jul 13, 2021

There is more than one reason why bullies bully.


Youths who act aggressively towards others do so for a multitude of reasons. But to prevent bullying behavior, it pays to learn what sets bullying in motion. There’s a need, a desire for one youth to show dominance over another.


And there are different types of bullying. Among them are verbal, sexual, prejudicial, physical. Not to mention cyberbullying. Yet what leads one youth to try to show superiority over others comes from different motivations.


At least from the youth’s perspective, these different motivations appear to be true. And their perspective helps us to better understand how to develop prevention programs for youths.


Robert Thornberg published an article, Social Representations of Bullying Causes, in 2010 in Psychology in the Schools. In it, he discussed his research on school-age youths’ social representations of the causes of bullying. He wanted to look not only at how much bullying occurred, but how youths perceived it. And discussed it in their own words. They came up with six overall causes why bullies bully.


In order of most to least frequent, they are:


Reaction to Deviance- as the most prevalent cause, the victim was seen as different, odd, or deviant. Just not fitting in with everyone else meant a youth was a target of bullies. It could be appearance, behavior, characteristics such as odd or nerdy, or disabilities.


Social Positioning-youths saw this as bullying to reach status in a school or group’s pecking order. They described three different types.  In these cases, those acting aggressively picked youths who were seen as physically weak, shy, unpopular, younger, lonely, or new.

·       Bullying for status was for kids who wanted to be the coolest, the toughest. 

·       Bullying for power occurred when youths were struggling for authority. About being the boss. 

·       Bullying for friendship meant acting aggressively to win or keep friends. 


Work of a Disturbed Bully-youths perceived an aggressive youth as someone who has their problems. They had emotional or behavioral issues like attention problems, bipolar, poor impulse control. Or the aggressor was a representation of trouble at home. Alcoholism. Violence. Poverty.


Revengeful Activity-youths saw this as an excuse to blame the victim for some type of harm that occurred to the aggressor. They were snitched on. Their little brother got in trouble. They felt ridiculed. A youth told the teacher about them. An eye for an eye mentality.


Amusing Game-youths describe this happening when the aggressor decides they’re bored. They want to have fun at someone else’s expense. The youth at recess finds another youth and pushes them, ridicules them, or does some other activity purely to make themselves feel better. Without caring about the collateral damage. 


Social Contamination-youths say this occurs in a group format. Youths talked about how a student would be nice and kind to them. But once they were in a group and wanted to be part of the group, the comments changed. This shows how youths “change their stripes” depending upon who they’re around.


Understanding this behavior, aggressive in nature, help teachers as well as behavioral health professionals, deal with youths acting like bullies. They’re not this way all the time. But in social or emotional conditions, they need to prove themselves at the demise of another.  Developing assertive skills for youths helps them avoid bullying or being bullied.


PRAXES offers training on courses for BBS CEU’s, among them Bullying Prevention and Early Intervention. For more information on training for your organization, please contact us.

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