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Bullying Affects Social Status?
An anonymous reader wrote to mention a ScienceDaily article about the social status effects of bullying on mice and men. From the article: "The results reveal neural mechanisms by which social learning is shaped by psychosocial experience and how antidepressants act in this particular brain circuit. They also suggest new strategies for treating mood disorders such as depression, social phobia and post-traumatic stress disorder, in which social withdrawal is a prominent symptom ... He and his colleagues also discovered that social defeat triggered an upheaval in gene expression in the target area of the circuit, the nucleus accumbens, located deep in the front part of the brain -- 309 genes increased in expression while 17 decreased."
Why it always assumed that social withdrawal is a sign of individual sickness - but not the group itself which should stand in judgement?
I suggest you read Slashdot
This study is interesting because it ties antidepressants right back to behavior. The percentage of Americans who use antidepressants is at least 15% and rising. Taken together, this means a sizeable segment of society is acting differently than they would have before. What, I wonder, are the aggregate impacts on society?
I'm not saying Republicans are bullies and Democrats are victims or anything, but there sure seem to be a lot of people who just don't "get" the need for judicial oversight, fair representation in court or congress, support for the poor, or the concept of a truly open marketplace.
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For a much more in depth look at this check out Howard Bloom's "The Lucifer Principle". It is an amazing new insight on how evolution really works, as competition between groups (superorganisms). He analyzes in depth the mechanisms that make drive this process. One of the main mechanisms is the pecking order, and the affect of an organism's (including a human) status in the pecking order on its biology is significant and surprising. I thought this book was amazing, revolutionary, and jam-packed with new ideas that ring true, supported by research from all corners of science.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
What this appears to infer is that bullying is an effective social strategy. Perhaps I should say, of its own and in a limited social context.
Effective down to the biological level.
If we can acknowledge that, perhaps we can stop some of the frustrating rhetoric about how the bully is "wrong" and should be "understood".
So, the bully has something tangible to gain from their behavior. (And I mean not just the immediate response but the long term social implications.) Does "correcting" that behavior address the sole root of the problem? Or do we also need to give those bullied effective tools for dealing with the bullying and for maintaining self esteem? Do we let them know just how important it is to maintain that self-esteem? (The article is saying that in failing to do so, they essentially become hard-wired for a different and seemingly less satisfying social role).
The bullying exists within a social context with constraining bounds. The parent of a bullied child can't go an beat the cr*p out of the bully -- not without going to jail. There are already limits that have been decided upon. So, we get to make choices. Can we then also choose and foster, at least to some extent, the types of personalities we wish to see succeed? The type of society we with to propagate?
For my part, if I ever have kids, they will have martial arts training. That part is a simple decision for me. It won't solve every problem, but it will increase the odds considerably that they won't find themselves forced to be pushed around, at least physically. And perhaps a good instructor can help with some of the mental aspects, as well -- I understand that is an essential component of good training.
How is this a good thing? It says that if they turn off your ability to learn the signs that a situation is potentially dangerous, you won't develop "social avoidance behaviour" due to bullying. That's nice, but wouldn't that mean you have to give the treatment BEFORE the subject is bullied? What does that due to being able to cope in real life? Would the subject end up being more prone to being mugged, raped, or caught in various violent situations due to his/her inability to recognize threatening behaviour and respond appropriately? This doesn't seem at all useful or even particularly enlightening. People know extensive bullying as a child often causes those social issues, and it'd be nice to get rid of them, but the only real solution is to get rid of the bullies - NOT to cripple the poor kids' ability to learn on the suspicion that they might be bullied later on.