Slashdot Mirror
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."
If this isn't "news for nerds" I don't know what is.
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
In extreme cases, such as people with actual social phobias, being able to better control their disorder with anti-depressants sounds fine, but I hope this doesn't get turned around so that the "treatment" for bullying is to medicate the victim and ignore the actual cause (the actual bully)
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
But.... Bullying is what made me the man I am today. I can easily pick out the "bully" in a group and then I can use intelligence, postioning, and execution to cull that person (or personality) from my work environment. It makes my life easier and the workplace easier to go to.
On a side note, if we can treat true depression and PTSD with a gene therapy, GREAT! It will allow Veterans who went through a horrible situation to undo the psych damage and return to a normal life. Same with clinical depression. Remove the behavioral restrictions and open that person up again. I see a much happier world if this actually comes to pass!
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
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?
Isn't this Slashdot? News for Nerds?
I think this crowd knows very well the effects of bullying.
Improved anti-depressant treatments are nice and all, but how about a treatment for the source of the problem: the bully. There are enough cases of kids picked on past the breaking point, that we should learn to focus on treating the cause not the symptoms of social abuse. Give the drugs to the jerks who feel the need to dominate and humliate.
We are all just people.
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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"Without BDNF in the circuit, an animal can't learn that a social stimulus is threatening and respond appropriately," explained Nestler. I hope nobody thinks this is a good thing... Still, it's strange that the BDNF-enable gene ssurvived natural selection. If the mice avoid social situations, it would be hard to reproduce.
This article is saying that being bullied leads to social discouragement. This leads to social self-estrangement -- the person (mouse, actually, but by extensions it may apply to humans) who has been bullied repeatedly eventually gives up trying to form social relationships and becomes more of a hermit.
The implications are that this is a neurochemical change because some of the effects of this discouragement can be reversed either by genetic differences or by anti-depressents that probably repress the mechanisms that change the brain chemistry towards social isolationism.
---- I'm out of your mind!
The slashdot crowd has been through that, I assume :)
I'm a nerd or certainly was for one for sure. A number of years ago I started studying Buddhism (no seriously). One of the more difficult concepts of Buddhism is something called Emptiness. Basically its a philosophy that none of this crap really matters because, well, it does really exist - hence emptiness. At least not in the way we think it does.
It is our attachment to what others think (social status) that causes our unhappiness, shame and embarrassment. So if it doesn't exist then there's nothing to be attached to and nothing to be fearful of. Once I came to deeply realize this I was able to exploit it (OK, it is not what the Buddha had in mind) and achieve a much elevated social status. Even though I don't care about it, it does make my life a little easier.
So the next time someone put you on the spot just shrug your shoulders and say "what ever".
No, we use Linux for the same reason a dog licks his balls: because we can. If we were the submissives, we'd be afraid of learning anything new and just stick to the environment we're accustomed to, regardless of the cost.
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.
Could someone please translate this into lay speak? Damn it, Jim, I'm a computer scientist, not a biologist!
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.
It's well known that abused children often grow up to be abusers themselves... Same thing going on here?
Why is it that the bullied person must change? They are harming nobody through their actions. It is the violent bully who harms others. 'Fighting back' makes you feel better, but does nothing to solve the inherant problem: bullies.
In your own words, you thought less of yourself until you changed your behaviour to match that of the bullies who did you harm. You became one of them, in a way.
I think you are cheating yourself.
Blar.
Violence that begets violence never ends. Violence that results in financial and social penalties has a limited life span.
Pining for the fjords
That is because this slashdot-linked review is an over-simplification of the actual study. The mice lacking the gene probably have lost the ability to remember they were subjected to aggression previously. That is they are behaving naively. They aren't kissing up, they just don't know they were picked on previously. You should read the F study RTFS http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;311 /5762/864 but your conclusion is supported by the article, from what I can see, maybe the article should RTFS.
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.
There are loads of people in this discussion who seem to think this treatment is bad because punishing the bully should come first. The issues you describe are more of a rational "take a step back" view on things, while reacting with anger, wanting to punish the bad guy, seems to be an emotional reaction, something the victim would see as the problem before he's had a chance to calm down.
Consider this; a bully pushes you in the schoolyard, you fall, scrape your knee and start crying. A teacher saw the whole thing and walks up. What would you want to happen? Revenge!
Now, you're the teacher and the same thing happens. A little kid pushes another. The other scrapes his knee, starts crying. He's now on the ground, bleeding and crying. Which kid do you handle first?
To bring it back to he left/right thing; "That bully nees a good ass-whupping" would be a right-wing view, imo.
Ok, first of all, I was bullied all the way through school. In public school, the bullying took the shape of beatings and physical attacks. In particular, a mean little shit named Scott D---- used me to "build his rep" (New York public schools work like prisons, socially). After I almost killed one of the bullies in the seventh grade (I got him in a chokehold and turned his face purple, then was attacked by twenty of his friends in, basically, a riot) I got pulled out of school.
I went to a private school in New Jersey, where the bullying wasn't physical, it was mental. I was one of the only poor kids there, and the rich kids would make fun of my clothes, my mannerisms, my lack of money, the fact that I wasn't invited to their parties, etc. I turned inwards, focusing on science and math and became one of the best students in the school; I drew comfort from the fact that I was one of the three smartest kids in the whole place. We geeks hung out together, and for the first time, I actually had some friends. This was very instructive.
When I went to college, I was again picked on off and on, but it was much more subdued. I knew some karate by that point but it wasn't enough. I was getting really tired of being so weak that other people could actually CHOOSE to pick on me and finally, I did something about it. I figured, if I can make myself so tough that the bullies THEMSELVES were afraid of me, maybe everyone would leave me in peace. So I did.
I joined the Marine Corps as a grunt, and found myself in a raid unit. This was essentially an infrantry unit which was almost (but not quite) special forces, whose duty it was to attack and destroy enemy bases at night, taking no prisoners and leaving nothing functional. Blowing up SAM sites, fire bases, things like that. That's what we were taught, anyway. We weren't used in combat, which I was quite happy about. But I did learn how to fight (and kill) on a level much more aggressive than most civilians ever do.
Smack dab in the middle of my enlistment, my unit was on float when Gulf War I happened. Again, we weren't used, we ended up floating offshore for 110 days, in a ship's berthing which had no air conditioning. It was like, 120+ degrees during the day and 70 at night. We were miserable. The tougher marines (keeping in mind that at six feet tall and 220 pounds, I was only mid-size for my unit) started beating on me because I was a "goddamn college kid" and so on. The longer they went without drinking, the more pissed off they got. I won't tell you the rest of that particular story, but eventually when I returned to the civilian world, I was quite a bit meaner and tougher than when I'd left it.
Luckily, for some reason, at 6' and 250 (when I got back) with skull tattoos and all that, people just didn't seem to want to pick on me anymore. Over the course of several years, I gradually relaxed and became more peaceful. I went back to college and studied Mechanical Engineering, but that didn't work out for me (no career prospects) and I switched to something I found more fun, i.e. computer science. I got my degree, had my dot-com experiences, and ended up working for the government.
It took me TEN YEARS to heal over all the mental scars I picked up in the marines (and earlier, in school). It's only been in the past few years that I've really started to feel relaxed, without the sense that ANY MINUTE something terrible is going to happen to me. Only lately have I been comfortable trusting someone who wasn't a blood relative (and then, only if I can determine that our interests are aligned enough that the person won't be tempted to screw me).
To this day, I don't trust people in general. I see the human race as petty, selfish, nasty, and fickle, with a mean-streak a mile wide that only needs an opportunity to show itself. I do my best to avoid crowds, gatherings, any sort of grouping of people... I try to be invisible, someone you wouldn't even look twice at. And I avoid others as best I can.
Sometimes I think a great crime has
Yes, namely you. Which is why must change: otherwise, you'll keep getting bullied.
Fighting back (succesfully) solves the problem of getting bullied. Doing it in a brutal enough fashion might also discourage the bullies from picking a new target out of fear of getting the crap beaten out of them again, neutralizing that particular source of evil permanently.
Succesfully defeating your tormentors will also fill you with confidence, since you have proven that you can take care of itself, and therefore refer to that incidence whenever you need reassurance; on the other hand, not being able to protect yourself makes you avoid social situations because you (correctly) learn that you have a good chance of getting physically harmed in them, and that the institutions (such as courts) of the society won't help you (they're too busy making excuses for the bullies, trying to make the little demons seem like unfortunate victims of broken homes or some other bullshit like that).
People who have been bullied often have problems with social situtations, feeling threatened in them, and these problems are often treated with medicine. However, what these people really need is to learn some particularly nasty fighting techniques, and do so before the bullies disappear from their lives - they need to prove to themselves that they can handle an attacker, and the only way to do that is to actually handle one. The bullies are an ideal target, since they deserve to get beaten up by their victim.
Getting beaten up daily is a pretty inconvertible proof that you're less than whoever is beating you up, since if you weren't, you could stop them. Becoming strong enough to stop them, or even to beat them up in turn, is proof that this is no longer the case.
As long as society refuses to put bullies to prison where violent criminals belong, any claim that the ability to win a fight doesn't make you a bigger man than others directly contradicts observed reality and will thus be rejected as bullshit. As long as the law of the jungle is allowed to reign supreme, it is foolish to except anyone to care whether or not something is right or not according to some other law. After all, it might be illegal for others to beat you up, but that won't stop them; beating them up, however, does. What other conclusion than "might is right" can be drawn from this ? Why would anyone who lives under the law of the jungle believe anything else ? They can, after all, see for themselves that it is true in their lives and that no other law can protect them.
No, he has adapted to the situation in a way that enables survival. The method of adaptation (getting tough enough to whitstand it) may or may not be ideal, but it has nothing to do with self-deception.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
But I choose solitude. Is it not the geeky thing to do? I don't mean, fortifying myself in my room, switching off the lights, and avoiding outside contact with the universe, I mean, generally keeping away from the "ordinary populace".
I'll be honest, normal people annoy me. Perhaps it is elitism, or maybe I just see myself as "different", although that seems to come straight from a book on politically correct speech. I don't like normal people. I don't like interacting with them, not because I fear them, but because they're just SO boring. I don't care about football, or "like, how totally scandalous Sarah's new hairdo" is. Normal people seem shortsighted and keep nothing below the surface, and have an interest in whatever the media and pack mentality pushes on them.
I go to a school for "gifted" children, or supposedly the top ten percent in any case, an English Grammar School, and I was bullied, I really was, but it taught me so much about humans and how society operates. I saw how countless "leaders" of packs coerced and forced others, who I could see did not want to bully me, get pushed into it, and happily tried to apply pain to me, simply to save their own skin, stay popular and not stand up for their own opinions. Over time, I could see them get intoxicated with the power over me and happily coerce others into it. Some people are such simple creatures, that socialising with them would just be boring. The bullying stopped once I just stood up for myself, because, hey, no bully has any real courage when confronted, they enjoy picking on the weakest in the largest possible pack, which they're always attempting to increase in size, after all.
I have friends, but I choose a few good, non-normal friends over the armies of "friends" everyone else has, who are nice to each other simply to save face and not be socially outcast, the worst possible punishment of all.
I would be seen as socially outcast, and perhaps with a "social phobia", but this is all by choice, to avoid people I just don't care about, and I'm not the only one, there are more than a handful in my school. For example, one of my female friends and I were discussing something geeky, along the lines of whether stargates were physically possible, when some girl swanned up to her (because she was female and OBVIOUSLY part of a pack, by standard) and said,
"OOhmigawd, did you see what Gwen Stephanie wore at the MTV awards? I mean, totally disasterous!"
"....I didn't watch it."
"Oh, poor YOU, don't worry, I think it's like, repeating on sunday or something."
"No, I just really don't care about it."
*Girl stands there for a minute, with a half puzzled, half offended look, before spying someone else to go and verbally assualt and rushes off*
Perhaps I'm an extreme, and very pessimistic, but why is avoiding branches of society always seen as an illness? Us geeks and nerds, we tend to make up a large proportion of the excellent minds of humanity, the open minded sector, why is it that they try to "treat" us? We affect humanity more with our research and interests, more than the guy who's going to lay bricks for a living, but is socially accepted ever will? Why not try it the other way around? Why arn't THEY at fault?
I guess for several reasons. People don't like to think they're wrong, and when most people don't want to be wrong, groupthink makes sure they're right, and their society is best. Management likes us to comply. Different thinking people only cause problems, whereas cattlepeople are easy to manage and handle. This works on every level, even some parents would prefer their children to be non geeks and normal, so the punishment of "go to your room, and you're not going out for three days" would actually work. Society also doesn't like splinter cells, they are scary, and different. If they can be forced to comply, the threat is gone, and obviously the status quo. was therefore correct.
I have geeky interests. I have a few close true friends. I like so
Right. 1785 and Burns describes depression perfectly. He's plowing a field when he turns up a mouse's house, sending her scurrying in panic. But there is no safety, there's no more building material to make a new house and Winter's on its way. The mouse had built a refuge and filled it with provisions to survive the cold months, and now everything's gone, there is no hope to rebuild. All its hard work destroyed. And still the mouse --who lives only in the present --is better off than the man, because he can remember and relive his failures and defeats, and look to the unseen future and "guess and fear".
I am not a crackpot.
I don't think I see what you mean. Isn't this the very institute that the "Rats of NIMH" were named after? Seems more like a... non-coincidence, then.
An alternative to this chemical is a good combat handgun, an assault rifle with a grenade launcher, and body armor - and of course the training to use them. And if they don't work, a sniper rifle, an IED, or poison can also be made to work well.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
See John Taylor Gatto:h tmt m
"The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher's Intimate Investigation
Into The Problem Of Modern Schooling"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.h
For example:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2e.htm
"I have little doubt the fantastic wealth of American big business is psychologically and procedurally grounded in our form of schooling. The training field for these grotesque human qualities is the classroom. Schools train individuals to respond as a mass. Boys and girls are drilled in being bored, frightened, envious, emotionally needy, generally incomplete. A successful mass production economy requires such a clientele. A small business, small farm economy like that of the Amish requires individual competence, thoughtfulness, compassion, and universal participation; our own requires a managed mass of leveled, spiritless, anxious, familyless, friendless, godless, and obedient people who believe the difference between Cheers and Seinfeld is a subject worth arguing about."
The biggest problem with compulsary "public" education is that unlike "public" libraries, you can't (easily) escape by just walking out the door. (Well, you could for a day or two and then the police machinery related to truancy will start grinding on you, unless it is appeased in other ways.) Most "private" education is little better in the compulsary aspects or preventing bullying.
While this may seem paradoxical, as you continue your quest for spritiual growth, consider the idea that the bullies you faced are in some sense just as much victims of those systems as you were.
A good resource:
http://www.bullyonline.org/
http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/index.htm
http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/myths.htm
Example from the myths page: "Children have it drummed into them from the moment they are born that they must not hit, punch, kick, bite, scratch, pull, push, poke or use any form of physical violence. Children are often punished - sometimes brutally and humiliatingly - for exhibiting any form of violent behaviour. Some adults then criticise children for not using violence when faced with a thug. Child targets of bullying also know (better than adults) that if they retaliate physically, the bully will feign victimhood (often with a convincing flood of tears) and the responsible adults will be fooled into believing that the target is the bully and the bully is the target. The (real) target is then punished by the adults whilst the bully looks on, enjoying every moment. Once the adults turn their backs, the bully starts on their target again. Targets are also people with high moral integrity, a well-developed sense of moral values, and a clear understanding of the need to resolve conflict with dialogue. This is how we teach children to behave and how society demands that children behave. We should therefore not be surprised when targets of bullying display their maturity by going to great lengths to resolve the violent acts committed towards them with dialogue rather than with fists or feet. Trying to resolving conflict with dialogue is a hallmark of integrity and strength of character. Bullying is a hallmark of lack of integrity and weakness of character."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Please enlighten me. If someone is repeatedly attacking me and beating me up for his own fun, and moving away isn't an option, how will I make it stop without physically defeating him ?
Fighting back doesn't make the victim the bully. I'm not suggesting that he go and beat up the bullies; I'm suggesting that he beat them up when they next attack him. Self-defense doesn't make anyone a bully, attacking innocent people does.
As I said, beating up someone who began the fight by attacking you does not make you a bully. Attacking him as revenge might, but simply beating him up rather than letting him beat you up does not.
Bully bullies others because he enjoys their torment and pain. Word "evil" sums that up nicely; and, since people who have been bullied sometimes go and take their anger out on other, innocent, people, or causes them grief through the psychological damage done to them, the original bully has acted as a source of behavior best descriped as "evil".
Please explain what is melodramatic about this ?
It makes you stronger and therefore means that they are not a threat to you.
It is. If it was not, the bully would be carted to prison or psychiatric ward the first time he tried bullying others, and we wouldn't be having this conversation since bullying wouldn't exist. Since it does, and we are, it is rather difficult for me to see how this society is any different from that neanderthal one, since obviously beating others up with sticks is accepted in this society, since it doesn't get the bully punished.
I haven't claimed that it is. I have claimed that being "worthy" by some standard doesn't stop you from being bullied, while being strong does. Therefore, the question of worth is simply completely irrelevant to the discussion about bullying.
My manager isn't regularly attacking me with the intent of causing me physical harm and pain. Having your argument relay on a ridiculous strawman does make it "less of an argument". And if I I answered a potential question before it was asked, is that something to complain about ?
Actually, all legal codes that I know of specifically state that you are allowed to protect yourself, someone else, and yours or their property against a violent assault. Therefore, self-defense is not illegal. And even if it was, that law must be one of those silently ignored - after all, the bully isn't being punished by it, otherwise the whole problem of bullying would go away.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.