Have you found this to be true: people who were bullied, tend to turn into bullies?

There is some correlation I think. Some people can rise above it, but some can’t. Discrimination follows the same trend.

Yes. But, it is not simple, it is a complex thing. Some people feel they were bullied even when other people wouldn’t feel bullied by the same things. I think people who seek control tend to bully, because they feel out of control.

Also, bullying can be anything from threatening violence and using it to being manipulating, sometimes it is not an overt manipulation.

I’ve no idea, but to flip it, schoolyard bullies wind up small fish in a very big pond & are often left alone & lost in the world. Maybe it serves them right, bad karma & shit.

I’ve only known a few, and seems like they came from fairly bad home circumstances, but I’m not privy to the details, I just went to school with these kids. I felt scared of them and sorry for them at the same time.

I see them here on this site!

It can happen, but it doesn’t necessarily always happen. Both my SO and I were bullied as children, to varying degrees. While I did not become a bully, my introversion became exacerbated and I did not trust others nor crave their company. My SO, however, joined the ranks of those who bullied him as a way to “fit in” and cope with his feelings of isolation.

Both of us, to some extent, internalized the real problem (neither of us effectively sought help to cope with with the bullying), but only one of us became a “bully”.

However, I was a rather irascible child in other ways. I did become physical with some students who bothered me, but I don’t think anyone would have described me as a “bully”. I do regret some things that I did as a pre-adolescent, though.

Not particularly. I do think that victims of bullying will usually carry mental health issues into adulthood though (I know I did).

I read an article that explained that correlation in a way that makes more sense to me.

It’s more of:
Those that bully and abuse very frequently were bullied and abused themselves—
But because a person was bullied and/or abused does not increase their chances of becoming a bully or abuser.

The article talks about how many people DO stop the cycle but don’t get recognized for it. We only hear about the correlation among the bullies and abusers who were abused, not the ones who didn’t ‘pass it on down.’

Well, yah. And those who were abused often grow up to become abusers.

@Dutchess_III. It has been increasingly shown in studies that “those that were abused grow up to be abusers” isn’t true— it’s more of “those that abuse often were abused.” It’s a different directionality- the original research that proved “those that abuse often were abused” made a faulty reverse correlation to “those that were abused grow up to be abusers,” which has shown to be inaccurate. I barely can follow my own writing! :-D

My dad was chained to a radiator and beat with a 1×4—but never laid a hand on his kids- he was scarred and had baggage but didn’t hit us. I was molested, bullied and abused in unimaginable ways but am hyper aware of hurting anyone. There’s not enough research on “cycle breakers” to fully and completely refute the “those that were abused grow up to be abusers” myth.

It may be more the case that those who act as bullies may be more likely to have been bullied in their own past. There is no direct 1:1 causal effect. If you see bullying happen, do something responsible to stop it.

I was bullied and abused. I do not bully or abuse.

Not if they know what’s good for them . . .

I was bullied myself throughout my childhood and teen years. I’ve never bullied others myself. There were two distinct types of bullies that I’ve noticed though from personal experience. The first one was the fact that the bullies were many times not the stereotypical poor abused kids with lower self-esteem, but the opposite. I can definitely say that about half of the bullies I’d dealt with came from well to do families, got good grades, played sports, had a strong social circle, etc. Definitely not the type of kids suffering from low self-esteem.

The first group of bullies were much easier to deal with because all it would usually take many times to get them to leave me alone was either talking down to them or a swift punch to the gut. The latter type of bully however was much more difficult to deal with. I quit school, despite getting good grades, because of these types of bullies. This is also likely why I got mixed with the wrong crowd myself.

I have noticed that some bullied kids I’d stuck up for would usually turn on me and side with the group harrassing them, only in turn to watch them get pounded again by their idols. Some of those kids whom were bullied would bully others, obviously because they were desperate themselves not to be targets. I never had a strong social circle or clique, so perhaps the bullied victims who decided to turn on me thought it would be easier to make me look bad in exchange of recieving potential mercy from the more powerful group, I don’t know.

@Paradox25 I saw the same thing as a high school teacher and agree. The “popular” bullies are far, far more difficult to deal with, even as a teacher because other teachers, administrators, coaches, etc often couldn’t see past the veneer. That made getting support to stop it near-impossible.

Most people have the choice how they respond to their circumstances.
The path of least resistance is to become a bully, or an abuser.
But you don’t have to.
I didn’t.

Thanks for your responses.

I was only bullied by one person as I was growing up. He was about two years older, two years behind me (in Junior High), and weight almost twice what I weighed.

I can’t say why he hated me but he certainly did. He tried to shoot me once and attempted to drown me at a city pool. Like I said, he wasn’t too smart. He forgot that he couldn’t swim. I let him “chase” me into the deep water. I swam away and went to the changing room. On leaving the room, I saw life guards working on him (he lived).

Anyway, I never bullied anyone and specifically tried to be the opposite of the person that bullied me.

No.

No.

I base this on the following. I knew the bullies when I grew up, and I knew their victims. To the extent that I have contact with them after several years, the bullies generally grew up and became sort of normal. Their victims also grew up and in most cases you would never know they were victims.

Plus, I will add this corollary. Some of the so called “Bullies” that I grew up with are jobbers, paid hourly and getting nowhere. I know I few “victims” who never got anywhere to be sure, but I also know a few who are fabulously successful. Apparently, their period of torment did not stop them.

Example. I know a guy who was unmercifully bullied as a kid. A sort of introverted nerdy type of guy, and now he is a PhD, and the Dean of a Graduate College in an Ivy League school. Well respected, successful and truly great guy.

You never know.

Where do abusers and bullies come from if not by examples set for them in the past?

@Dutchess_III Abusers and bullies learn it from someone, yes. They were most often victims first. They learned it, yes.
But if someone is abused, that doesn’t mean they will become abusers. Many victims don’t become abusers.

I agree @linguaphile. I wonder what percentage of abused kids break the chain as adults?

@Dutchess_III I wish I knew too. It could be a powerful indicator either way it goes…

Nope. I was bullied as a kid, was married to a narcissistic asshole forever and if anything, it has made me more self aware, compassionate and motivated me to strive for good communication.

They tend to be sensitive ninnies more than bullies. Home situations screw most people up like that.

I was psychologically and verbally abused and belittled as a child, and I did become verbally abusive in my teens and young adulthood, and still sometimes catch myself ready to reflexively pounce whenever someone shows a weakness.

I can’t say that it relates to the majority of bullies, but I believe that for many abusive people the roots of their behavior are actually a deep insecurity and a need to make themselves feel better. The only way they know how to do that is by putting others down.

Schoolyard bullying is not something I was involved in, either way; but I suspect that there is some other group or crowd mentality that adds to it. People often behave differently with an audience than they do one-on-one – such as the rioting after a city’s team wins a championship. There must be sociological and psychological studies on the phenomenon, and I think some of it carries over to public bullying, but I am no expert on the subject.

@hearkat So interesting what your wrote. Thank you for being so open about your experience. You wrote, and still sometimes catch myself ready to reflexively pounce whenever someone shows a weakness.

I can be quick to temper and get into an argument, and I used to want to win. Now, I don’t really care to win, just be heard. However, by contrast, when I see weakness I usually turn off and backdown or just don’t feel like going after the person. I have always been like that. My aggressiveness would only be with someone I felt was matched to me. I never thought about it like that before. I don’t think I am a bully, just sometimes too loud.

As I think about it more, the people I think have bully-like behavior definitely seem to look for the weakness, and in my life I see them as having to have their way. I perceived one in partiicular as not being able to identify when the other person is very distraught over the interaction. I couldn’t understand why he is so clueless in how he is really upsetting the other person, and now you make me think they do know. I had dismissed it as a lot of men cannot read faces and nonverbal cues well, but now I am not so sure.

@JLeslie – To clarify, what I meant by ”whenever someone shows a weakness.” I meant that when a peer or someone who I regard as stronger than I shows a chink in their armor; NOT that I picked on people who were generally weaker than I, as bullies are known to do.

For me it was an opportunity to one-up myself in comparison with those whom I looked up to, so it seems much like your experience. These were friends, relatives and romantic partners. The need to be heard and not just pushed aside was also huge for me back then.

The point I was trying to make was how as a child I learned the behavior of verbal abuse that had beaten me down and I reflexively did it to others; therefore, those who have been bullied may similarly learn and unconsciously adopt those same behaviors.

I do not consider my experience as having been bullied or having been a bully. My definition of bullying considers the victim as having a significant disadvantage compared to the bully – whether in physical ability, intellectual ability, or just being outnumbered by a group of bullies and singled out for being ‘different’ but not necessarily weaker.

As for the person you refer to and whether he is clueless or has knowledge of how he is upsetting someone else, there are many variables – such as whether he may indeed have weak abilities to empathize or read non-verbal cues (which I don’t consider a gender-specific ability, but maybe that’s because I am not a typical female and I do not have those innate social abilities, either. I am hoping that we will soon learn more about these skills from studying people with Autism and Aspergers, because I think that I have something missing in the social skills part of the brain, but I do not think I actually am on the autism spectrum). That may also be where nature and nurture overlap – people with these mental imbalances having offspring pass on their genes and also raise those kids in an imbalanced environment. I completely see that in my own life and others, like my alcoholic ex-husband’s family.

@hearkat Thanks for clarifying, I was off in how I interpreted what you wrote. I think it is pretty common to go for the chink in the armor when one wants to win. I bet it plays a part in how we push the buttons of the people closest to us. Although, I think some people are more deliberate about it than others. A relative of mine used to be very upset her husband would bring up her past that she has confided in him, which hurt her very much, made her not want to tell him anything. To her it felt like he purposely brought those things up during fights to kind of metaphorically push her legs out from under her. If the argument came close to relating back to something she was embarrassed about or had feelings about in her past, he would bring it up.

It really has to do with the end goal I guess. Wanting to win, or wanting to just come to a resolution.