What constitutes bullying?

Question

The answer to that question seems to vary from person to person. Some say bullying is confined to physical abuse, whereas others say it also entails constant verbal abuse. What do you think?

Answer 1

I think it's both physical and verbal. It's anything that intimidates, humiliates or demeans another person. Bullies are very insecure people with poor social skills. They don't know how to be a friend and to hide their insecurity, they bully. A lot of times, they have been bullied them self!

Answer 2

Bullying occurs whenever someone tries to dominate another person into doing something that otherwise they might not otherwise do either verbally or physically. The degree and reasons for it should get considered, and ones safety above all else. Can't recall anything specific to go on so will stay general. Not all verbal abuser become physical, but many do. When either reaches point you don't feel safe bail out.
OOps made mistake focused on family life bulling and not school yard bulling. When it comes to school yard bulling need to walk gently because if it were my child might feel differently, but some recent court cases seem ridiculous. Sure hope any child under my care could take getting called names. Guess one where parents repeatedly ask for intervention had some merit. Forget how much they won. Verbal name calling sure can pay off if school doesn't take some action. So because of some court case would say verbal is bulling, but personally don't agree with amount won.

Answer 3

Bullying takes many forms. Personally I would say that it is any behaviour designed to humiliate the victim, whether psychological, physical or emotional abuse. It doesn't have to be constant either for it to have a negative effect on the victim.


According to Wikipedia:
In colloquial speech, bullying is most often used to describe a form of harassment perpetrated by someone who is in some way more powerful, physically or socially, than a weaker peer.

Researchers generally accept that bullying contains three essential elements:[1]

the behavior is aggressive and negative;
the behavior is carried out repeatedly;
the behavior occurs in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power between the parties involved
the behavior is purposeful
Bullying is broken into two categories:[2]

direct bullying
indirect bullying, also known as social aggression
Direct bullying is the form most common to male bullies.

Social aggression or indirect bullying is most common to female bullies and young children, and is characterized by forcing the victim into social isolation. This isolation is achieved through a wide variety of techniques, including:

spreading gossip
refusing to socialize with the victim
bullying other people who wish to socialize with the victim
criticizing the victim's manner of dress and other socially-significant markers (including the victim's race, religion, disability, etc).
Bullying can occur in situations including school or college/university, workplace, contact with neighbours, and between countries (see Jingoism). Whatever the situation, the power structure is typically evident between bully and victim. To those outside the conflict, it seems that the bully's power depends only upon the perception of the victim, with the victim being too intimidated to put up effective resistance. However, the victim usually has just cause to be afraid of the bully due to threats.

Answer 4

it is both... An abuser or bully is always the 'leader' of others.. in which the 'others' are doing the physical or verbal abuse - which eventually comes down to the main guy/gal giving the leads to the abuse, whether physical or verbal/emotional - all is the same.

Regardless, it is wrong.. in the same sense of a spouse physically or emotional abusing their partner.. both are equally detrimental

Answer 5

I think that bullying always comes in ties with verbal abuse, it's not always physical abuse. Verbal abuse is probably MUCH worse then physical abuse, some people can't take it, and even suicide because of it! It can ruin someone for the rest of their life.

Answer 6

Anything a person does to try and devalue the worth of another person on a consistant basis is considered bullying.

These can be either physical displays of aggression, or verbal.

Answer 7

Bullying is not just physical abuse. It's not possible to define it for all cases as there are many gray areas. Many offices have a bully or two that do there abuse verbally. Ridicule, humiliations, condescending, racial slurs, intimidation, etc. define verbal bullies.

Answer 8

A bully is someone who uses any technique possible to persuade you to do what they want. It can be physical or mental control, but it all boils down to control. Example: They could get something of yours that you dearly like and use it to bribe you to do their bidding. Or, try hard to tell you someone hates you and that you need to listen to only them. Again, that's a form of being a bully.

Answer 9

Bullying is anything that harms another human being or sometimes animals. Be it verbal or physical.

Answer 10

Iron Pumper looks like he's been smokin' dope.

Bullying is anything that is done with intent to make another feel uncomfortable, degraded, or threatened.

Fit your situation into that statement and see if it applies. Good Luck.