Psychology Today: An Adolescent Bullying Update
- Patricia Gail Bray
- Feb 9
- 7 min read
Bullying is defined as the systematic abuse of power. It is an aggressive and/or intentional behavior to harm by peers that is carried out repeatedly. There is typically an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully, whether actual or perceived (Olweus, 1993).
Bullying can take the form of direct bullying, which includes physical and verbal acts of aggression, or indirect bullying, which is characterized by social exclusion (e.g., you cannot play with us, you are not invited, etc.) and the spreading of rumors intended to frighten or harm (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, & Kaukiainen, 1992; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Wolke et al., 2000).
Both habitual and occasional bullying by peers is a frequent phenomenon worldwide, affecting an estimated 30 percent of children and adolescents (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Yet, bullying is a social phenomenon that is found in all societies and in all socioeconomic and ethnic groups. While it is considered an evolutionary adaptation for attaining status and dominance, acquiring and accessing resources, creating more mating opportunities, securing survival, and reducing stress, the costs to individuals and societies are significant (Wolke & Lereya, 2015; see also Olthof et al., 2011; Volk et al., 2012).
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2024) found that bullying in schools dropped slightly from 20 to 19 percent from 2013 to 2023. During 2023, girls reported a small drop in bullying, from 24 to 22 percent, and the percentage for girls remained significantly higher than that for boys, which increased from 16 to 17 percent during the same time frame.
Cyberbullying, which includes texting, Instagram and Facebook, and other social media, has remained about the same and increased only slightly from 15 to 16 percent from 2013 to 2023. However, the rate has remained the same for girls but has increased for boys from 9 to 12 percent.
Bullying behavior is complex in its tactics. Bullies often use multiple tactics, with acts of subtle aggressive "prosocial" behavior to enhance their own position by acting in public and making the recipient dependent and unable to reciprocate (Hawley et al., 2008). Counterintuitively, bullies may be strong, highly popular, and have good social and emotional understanding (Woods, et al., 2009).
Effects
There is increasing evidence of persistent negative consequences of victimization, including mental health problems and social consequences in childhood, with reports of persistent impacts such as increased use of mental health services into adulthood for treatment of anxiety (Stapinski et al., 2014), depression (Copeland et al., 2013), suicidal behaviors (Takizawa et al., 2014), poor general health (Sigurdson et al., 2014), and even psychosis (Wolke et al., 2014).
There are also downstream impacts of bully victimization on employment, income, and being in poverty (Brimblecombe et al., 2018), as well as lower educational attainment, lower economic attainment, and poorer social and academic adjustment (Foshee et al., 2014).
Baams et al. (2017) identified direct links between bias-based bullying and school absenteeism because of feeling unsafe at school, which resulted in the loss of funds for school districts in California. Data from 2011–2013 estimate a loss of $276 million of unallocated funds because of student absences resulting from feeling unsafe at school.
Neuroscience
The neuroscience of bullying has documented the neurological underlining of bullying behavior and how bullying and abuse harm the victim’s brain.
Neurobiological studies of adolescents who endorsed higher rates of bullying have demonstrated structural and functional differences in areas associated with reward learning, salience monitoring, and motivational processes (Perino et al., 2019).
The relationships between bully victimization and neurobiological response are complex and at an early stage of investigation, but the deleterious effects of bullying have been documented on emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social functioning, from early childhood to adulthood. Neuroendocrine correlates of bullying victimization have been related to patterns of cortisol dysregulation in bullied targets. Both hyper- and hypo-secretion of cortisol have been identified and are implicated in the development of psychiatric disorders (Ehlert, 2013).
Thus, being bullied has been associated with mental health problems in childhood, with increasing evidence of persisting negative impacts and increased mental health service use into adulthood. Such changes in neurobiological functioning in adolescence have significant effects on this critical stage of development.
Intervention
There is good evidence that resiliency-focused instruction in coping skills and effective social communication is a promising approach for reducing a range of disruptive behaviors in schools. The premier format for such programming is called social and emotional learning (SEL). Data show that SEL enhances school engagement and climate, interpersonal relationships, well-being, and academic achievement (Divecha & Brackett, 2020; Gravesteijn et al., 2013). Specifically, research has also shown that SEL reduces bullying and aggression in schools (Smith, Pepler, & Rigby, eds., 2004).
The volume on Adolescent Public Mental Health (Bray and Maerlender, 2024) supports the school-based, multisector, proactive influence of preventive (prosocial) education, universal well-being screening, effective communication, and early intervention when needed. Developing resilience, coping skills, and effective social communication are posited as desirable outcomes to reduce victimization. When implemented within a framework of multitiered educational structures, the early identification of both victimizers and victims is feasible and efficient for targeting interventions. This approach can provide a means for restorative justice together with direct access to mental health services.
It is important to note that Isolated, independent programs with good evidence for effectiveness are vulnerable to politics, resource limitations, and program drift. When programs such as those described here are guided by a committed and responsive multisector, collaborative governance structure, schools are not left to fend for themselves but have access to expertise and clinical resources to support their mission over longer time horizons. This last point cannot be emphasized strongly enough.
Arthur Maerlender, Ph.D., is a research associate professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and St. Anselm College.
References
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Bray, P.G. and Maerlender, A. (2024). Adolescent Public Mental Health. Springer.
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