What percentage of school bullies end up pursuing careers in positions of authority?

From the article:

“Bullies might be more likely to engage in risky or illegal behaviors in adulthood. When they grew up, bullies were more likely to have been convicted of felonies and to have abused drugs, and they actually tended to be poorer and lonelier than their former victims. However, when researchers controlled for childhood hardships like divorce or psychiatric problems, they found that a bully’s situation didn’t look quite as dim. In other words, bullies tended to have more troubled childhoods—and that may explain both their bullying and the greater likelihood of engaging in illegal behaviors down the road. ”

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/bullied_children_grow_into_wounded_adults

Perhaps if you consider that narcissists are also bullies of a sort, this study would have very different results. That’s because narcissists tend to do quite well in business. And there are a zillion nightmare stories of narcissistic bosses and coworkers.

In my experience, bullies grew up to be more or less worthless adults. They pump your gas. The kids who were heavily bullied ended up with life-long psychological problems. The people who became cops were your beta-ish preppy kid. They ran with the popular crowd, but nobody really noticed if they were not around. They were just average, except they had strikingly little imagination or curiosity.

Most school leavers end up in positions of authority of one sort or another even if they don’t like that role. The exceptions are the artistic types or those who prefer to work alone.

I would think so.

Define Bully.

Someone who barges around making people feel bad and they just don’t care.

@Dutchess_III That could be anyone these days. Our world is turning into one where getting offended is posh and hip. Merely being white or straight can make others feel bad these days.

I know. It’s a mess.

If you just look at the qualities of a bully, I would say they wouldn’t make a good cop. I’m sure there are cops that are bullies but maybe some narcissism too? The reason why I would say that just a bully might not do well is because generally bullies are rather cowardly. They like to pick on the weak and others who they feel won’t stand up to them. So when you look at the situations a cop has to go into, that’s not going to work out well, I wouldn’t think.

@seawulf575 A bully in school is not like a bully on the internet. A bully in school will generally demean others for their clothing, their weight or other appearance issues, calling them names like “baby” and stuff like that. That’s a school bully. School bully is specifically what the OP is asking for.

@jca2 Using my previous examples, those are all from real life. If you use someone’s wrong pronouns you could be considered a bully. And all of these things are filtering down to school. We’ve seen people get triggered because a kid had a Gadsden Flag patch on his back pack. And when he refused to take it off it became a big deal. He was told he couldn’t come back to school with the patch on the backpack because he was making people feel bad and he didn’t seem to care. Isn’t that a definition of a bully? Actually in this case it was a bully both ways. The kid was accused of being a bully (or of the attributes of a bully) and the school administrators were being bullies for targeting this kid and making him feel bad about himself and they not only didn’t care, they were enjoying it. Right up until mom came in and read the administrator the riot act.