Bullying's Harmful Effects on Individuals

Bullying is a social vice perpetrated by individuals who perceive themselves as strangers than their targets. Therefore, the essence of bullying is to assert this strength on the perceivably weaker people. There are various underlying reasons behind each case of bullying, but the effects on the victims are consistent, including physical harm, emotional distress, and developmental challenges. Despite the many studies and interventions intended to eradicate bullying, especially among school-going children, multiple cases are still reported. A 2018 report prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that bullying is a common phenomenon in US schools. According to the report, which analyzed responses from the CDC's 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 19 percent of high school students reported being bullied on school grounds in the twelve months before being surveyed. Victimization rates were higher for female students (22.3 percent) than male students (15.6 percent). A 2017 report prepared by the National Center for Education Statistics found higher victimization rates among middle school students (31 percent of sixth-graders and 22 percent of eighth-graders) than older students (16 percent of eleventh graders and 15 percent of twelfth graders) during the 2015-2016 school year (Bullying). Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. The bullied kids experience adverse, including depression and physical effects. Thet may also develop self-harm behavior as feedback of their trauma also, these kids who are bullying people, the adverse impact on them are an abuse of violence, or drugs, or criminal activities.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Bullying is a broad topic which necessitates a proper understanding of its causes and effects. Nonetheless, psychological studies have revealed that a bully's primary aim is to asset some sense of authority on a weaker individual, which leads to systematic physical, social, developmental, and mental impacts, some of which may have lifelong effects.

Emotional Trauma: The consequences of bullying are many and often far-reaching. Bullying causes emotional trauma, which is just as harmful as physical injuries. The intensity of the "emotional pain" that bullying causes and the fact that other people underestimate how much hurt they feel makes the experience incredibly traumatizing (Baier, Dirk, et al. 2348). It can lead to significant "emotional scars," for example, failure, rejection, guilt, and other everyday psychological injuries. For instance, extreme cases of bullying manifest among students include forced by a bully to sleep outside the dormitory. This experience makes the victims develop a "feeling of inadequacy" defenselessness, worthlessness, and despair. Their "sense of wellbeing" is dwarfed. In fact, at a later stage in life, emotional distress may make the victims develop a sense of isolation, fear, high irritability, or even desire to also bully as a means of getting even.

Physical Symptoms: Bullying occurs in various ways, including aggression, including physical attack, which may hurt the victim, being forced to do obstinate things, deprivation of personal items, or sheer insults. The aggressive attacks may cause injuries such as bone dislocation or loss of eyesight, which can be "permanent injury." Again, the emotionally inflicted pain also manifests physically through symptoms such as sleep disruptions, chronic pain, and psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, heart palpitations, and dizziness. Bullying victims also tend to produce higher levels of the "stress-related hormone cortisol," which can interfere with normal brain function.

"The other": Just like other targeted social vices such as racism, bullying is also motivated by the bully's feeling that he or she is not the same as the victim. In this case, the "feeling of not being the same" motivates them to be aggressive towards the victims. Anything that creates a sense of " social stratification," such as sexual orientation, predispose individuals to bullying. In this regard, young people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) community have high chances of being bullied by their peers (Russell et al. 224). Racial, ethnic, and religious minorities also tend to attract higher rates of attention from bullies than members of majority groups. For example, black students are bullied at higher rates than both white and Hispanic students (Earnshaw et al. 1003).

Research and proven analysis sources are all from sociology, psychology, and statistics. These sources have shown many adverse effects of bullying on the victim, which have far-reaching consequences.

In the article, Baier et al. 2019, the author shows that bullying should not only be looked at as an ordinary misdemeanor since its effects on the victim are often far-reaching. Young people who are bullied are at increased risk for harmful psychological and emotional impacts including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, alcohol and drug abuse, hostility, delinquency, self-harming behavior (particularly for girls), and violent or criminal behavior (particularly for boys) (Klomek, Andre and Henrik 930). Those who are severely bullied are also statistically more likely to attempt or commit suicide, and studies have shown that suicidal ideations are particularly common among bully-victims. Bullying can trigger mental health problems in victims who did not previously have any, and it can exacerbate problems in young people with existing mental health issues. Research has also shown that bullying victims tend to suffer declines in academic performance.

Dane et al. 2017, p. 113 show that bullying has long term social effects. The author also demonstrates a unique form of bullying called "relational bullying." Relational bullying causes harm by destroying an individual's peer relationships and social status. Klomek, Andre, and Henrik (2015) show that exposure to aggression in the form of bullying at the early stages of life affects the circuitry the victim's brain and affects the brain's ability to adapt to the demands of its environment. Neuroscience also shows that those changes are permanent. They become part of the baggage they doomed to carry despite all efforts to leave it behind. Some industries exist to deal with these things.

Works Cited

Baier, Dirk, et al. "Consequences of bullying on adolescents' mental health in Germany: Comparing face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying." Journal of child and family studies 28.9 (2019): 2347-2357. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2016.07.004.

Dane, Andrew V., et al. "Physical and relational bullying and victimization: Differential relations with adolescent dating and sexual behavior." Aggressive behavior 43.2 (2017): 111-122.

https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21667

Klomek, Anat Brunstein, Andre Sourander, and Henrik Elonheimo. "Bullying by peers in childhood and effects on psychopathology, suicidality, and criminality in adulthood." The Lancet Psychiatry 2.10 (2015): 930-941. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00223-0

Russell, Stephen T., et al. "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adolescent school victimization: Implications for young adult health and adjustment." Journal of School Health 81.5 (2011): 223-230. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2011.00583.x