Nerds Still More Likely To Get Bullied

trashbird1240 writes "Reports on a recent meta-analysis of bullies and victims found that bullies and victims have similar personality traits, but that bullies tend to do poorly in school, as opposed to those who get bullied. Both bullies and victims are poor social problem solvers, but they resort to different tactics to handle their social ineptitude. To me this represents a huge leap forward in understanding nerd psychology."

Comments

Re:Animal psychology

[AnonymousClown]

So basically, if you can't develop social skills you do what every other animal does: Become a predator. And if you fail at that, you're dinner.

FTFA:

Victims share much of same, negative attitude, conflict in the family.

It looks as though the victims are the other side of the same coin.

And what's not mentioned in the article is how the ramifications of bullying stick with someone for the rest of their life - there the "mousy ones", the ones without "self confidence", the ones that "don't fit in", etc....

It wouldn't surprise me the least if many of the permanently unemployed are part of this group. So, I think it costs society too.

Stand up for yourself

[MetricT]

I was the typical introverted high school nerd (5'4 at the time), and had a 6'5" upper-class psychopath following me around and finding new ways to harass me.

I talked to my principal over it (God bless you Roger Hood!). He told me next time it happened, kick his ass and he (the principal) wouldn't punish me.

A few days later at PE we were playing soccer, and whenever I had the ball he would "accidentally" kick me in the leg as hard as he could. For days, it felt like a knife every time I put weight on that foot. Hurt so bad it took my breath away.

Two days later I spotted him in the hall. I kicked him in the jewels, and laid him flat on the ground. I proceeded to spend the next 3 minutes kicking and punching him in the balls, the sides, the head, anything I could hit. I didn't feel any pain in my foot at all during this. Eventually he was bawling so loud that the girls in a nearby classroom came out and rescued him (and had the gaul to ask why I was picking on the poor psychopath and being such a mean person).

Two things happened: the psychopath transferred out of the school a week later, and *no one* ever messed with me again.

I wish we could all get along. But some whack jobs only understand the language of violence, and you have to be willing to speak their language to teach them a lesson.

Re:The key to not getting beaten up as a nerd

[Kijori]

I think the biggest challenge in Aikido is finding a club that offers unrestricted sparring. Without that, you can never learn to actually defend yourself.

I briefly practised Aikido having trained in Sambo and Muay Thai. What shocked me (and caused me to leave every club I joined) was that everything was very slow and everyone always knew what was coming; as a result everyone thought that they were great because they didn't know how little they actually knew. This is in contrast to the other arts I have trained in, where (mostly) free sparring from the very first lesson means that you're acutely conscious of the limitations of what you know.

If you can find an Aikido club that shares premises with other martial artists and lets practitioners of different arts roll together then I can see Aikido being an effective discipline. Unfortunately this sort of practice, which isn't uncommon for judokas (who often spar with BJJ fighters or crosstrain for MMA), seems to be unheard of in Aikido, at least everywhere I've tried. It's similar to the problems in Karate and Taikwondo - if you don't allow any influence from outside the ecosystem then you can easily end up with an art that is useless when the rules of that ecosystem are removed. (That's not to say Karate or TKD are useless by nature, just that in their modern form they are normally taught by someone who has never learnt the weaknesses of the art. )

Re:Animal psychology

[AnonymousClown]

The kids that got picked on were the small kids with napoleon complexes and would seek out fights.

I really can't blame the small kids. Size matters in this society. I don't remember if it was Crick or Watson who said this, but when asked if they were for genetic engineering of children, they responded with this (to paraphrase):

Ninety percent of CEOs are over the height of six feet. A man who's five four and a woman who's five foot even may want something a little more for their kids.

His point being that tall people have an edge, of course - not that every parent want's their kids to be CEOs.

I once worked for a guy who insisted that he got where he was by hard work. He was 6' 3", handsome Italian guy who was also a Yale football star who graduated with a degree in Economics - I don't know how well he did. Anyway, business opportunities just came to him - yes, he was a multi-millionaire. I saw his books. He was always telling me that I need to develop some "self-confidence". Easy for him to say.

When Dave Chappelle was on the "Actors Studio", he kind of chewed out a white guy about the opportunities he got because he was white and he probably never even realized what they were.

I understand. People are basically primates. The taller you are the better. The whiter you are the better.

It's not blatant. It's just how folks react towards you on a subconscious level. Blacks do it to other blacks - ever hear of the "brown paper bag" rule?

Here's an example that's a little more conscious: hot chicks. Everybody kisses the ass of the hot chick.