Strollerderby
The Painful Reason Bullies Bully
There’s an idea that kids who bully lack empathy or simply don’t feel for their victims. But a new study indicates the truth might be more disturbing than that. Researchers took an admittedly small sample of eight boys, ages 16 to 18, with aggressive conduct disorder, and a group of eight adolescent boys with no obvious aggressive behavior. They showed both groups video footage of someone inflicting pain on another person, and used MRI to track the brain patterns of both groups.
What they found was pretty creepy: The boys with aggressive conduct disorder showed high activity in two areas of the brain that regulate pleasure, but less activity in the region involved in self-regulation. In other words, the bully group actually derived pleasure from seeing others in pain. This might seem somewhat obvious, but it does counter the theory that bullies simply feel nothing towards their victims. In fact, they may just get off on hurting others.
The researchers say more investigation with a larger sample is in order. However, they were impressed by the striking difference in brain activity between the two groups of kids. And boy, am I grateful I’m not in high school any more–though I’ve met some adults who probably fit this description as well.
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5 Comments
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI’m not sure it’s so cut and dried, necessarily – or that children who do experience pleasure from hurting others couldn’t benefit from some therapeutic help, for reasons like Alice suggests. It doesn’t mean they’re bad or evil people – or even that they can’t be taught impulse control. It might be useful to understand, but I worry about comments like the initial ones which suggest we ought to just give up on these kids from the start. I mean, in many cases in America, we do just give up on kids (poor kids, minority kids, kids with disabilities or chronic illnesses) – but hopefully we can start to turn that tide back.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 am“Getting off” and feeling pleasure are not the same. A child who acts like a bully is usually the viticm of bullying themselves. Naturally they would feel pleasure at the control and power they feel seeing someone else in a submissive position or pain. It is not just them anymore. You have to understand the child to understand the reaction. Bullies are not born, they are made and usually through a painful process. Let’s think here and think like rational adults.
Anonymous commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 am“though I’ve met some adults who probably fit this description as well.”
Yeah, the bullies parents! I have no doubt that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
diera commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amI freakin’ *hate* children’s programs in which bullies are portrayed as insecure and just in need of a little love. I was a kid myself once upon a time, I was bullied, and it didn’t take an MRI to convince me that bullies like to make other people feel bad (and they also get off on the respect it gets them from their own equally dysfunctional friends). My mom used to tell me, “Oh, they just want to make friends with you and don’t know how,” and it was so utterly wrong that it made me doubt everything else she said.
Knitty commented on Jan 01 70 at 12:00 amThis seems pretty common-sense to me. It’s completely obvious to anyone who spends time around children that they bullies bully because they enjoy hurting others. Even so, it’s nice to see research like this rebuffing all the nonsense about bullies having “low self-esteem” and needing constant praise and attention.
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