the social-ecological theory

Introduction

Even though state laws tend to be inconsistent in defining bullying, the U.S. Department of Education defines bullying as any unwanted physical or verbal aggression, directed to a person or a group of persons, involving an imbalance of power, aimed at excluding the person from a group or the group from a gathering (HRSA, 2021). Bullying is characterized by the bully misusing their high social status in exerting power and hurting the victim (HRSA, 2021). There are various types of bullying, including verbal, physical, relational, and reactive bullying. Many people believe that bullying is more profound in schools; however, bullying is also prevalent in workplaces where aggressive behaviors such as verbal abuse, sabotaging, and misuse of authority behaviors are dominant. Comment by Pamela Humphrey: Is this a direct quote? If so, it should be in quotation marks. Comment by Pamela Humphrey: You say this quite a bit, but it doesn’t matter what people believe, just give the facts.

The topic of bullying is overly sensitive. Bullies are often looked at as the bad guys when in fact, bullying stems from built up aggression. Studies show that people hurt others for many reasons. Anger, aggression or reacting towards past bullying acts triggers the urge to bully others in some bullies. With aggression being a major result of mood swings and build-up of anger, it can present itself through various forms (Wrangham, 2018). Comment by Pamela Humphrey: The meaning of this is not clear.

For this reason, some think that aggression is both built and biologically placed. For example, if someone steps on another person pinky toe, that individual will automatically react (Wrangham, 2018). The reason why this person reacts is because of the response to being hurt. This is called reactive aggression (Wrangham, 2018). Reactive aggression is the type of aggression that is impulsive and happens out of emotions. Everyone, whether they want it or not, has this type of aggression. This type of aggression comes naturally (Wrangham, 2018). Studies also show that aggression can also be because of cultural influences. According to the social learning theory, people tend to conform to their environment (Tapper & Boulton, 2005). If people are bought up in a hostile environment, they tend to become hostile, which eventually turns into a personality trait (Tapper & Boulton). This will differ from different groups and places where people live. Another type of aggression is proactive aggression (Wrangham, 2018). This is when someone goes out of their way to intentionally harm someone for no reason at all. There are many factors that can play into this. When it all boils down, anger sometimes just can happen out of nowhere, and the people who are most impacted are the victims. It would be good to discuss anger from a psychological perspective – what happens when a person gets angry and how does that lead to bullying?

Anger can also stem from other reasons. Being angry can also be linked to borderline personality disorder (Border personality disorder, 2019). This personality disorder causes mood swings and violent, impulsive behavior against other individuals (Border personality disorder, 2019). These mood swings are very intense and oddly frequent. This can also cause major bullying. The thing about this disorder is that people do not realize that they are bad behaving badly in most cases. This can be awful for kids because they would not comprehend why they behave the way they do, especially if it is undiagnosed. Comment by Pamela Humphrey: This seems odd to me – how prevalent is borderline personality disorder and how much bullying can be traced to it?

Although it is known that bullying is bad behavior, many do not consider the effects that it has on the victims (Smith, 2018). Bullying has a huge negative psychological effect on victims. This can cause them to internalize anger and become bullies themselves. According to studies, when individuals experience bullying, they also become aggressive (Smith, 2018). They start to become ashamed, and without even knowing it, they start to take it out on others. This gives them a temporary sense of empowerment when they are just treating someone else horrible. Also, sometimes physical effects happen such as weight loss, sleep disturbance, illness, headaches etc. This behavior can also result in violent responses from victims (Barcaccia et al., 2017). Comment by Pamela Humphrey: Name all authors the first time you cite it.

When it comes to bullying, most only think that it only happens in schools or to kids. Many believe that bullying happens in schools more than anywhere else (Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017). In reality, bullying can happen at just about anywhere at any age. Many adults go through the experience of being bullied (Munir, 2019). Studies show that workplace bullying is on the same level, if not more prominent within the workplace (Munir, 2019). In other cases, many adults are the actual bully and do not even realize it. Even though people at an older age feel like they can handle being bullied, it still has negative effects on them too (Sauer & McCoy, 2017).

Organization Relevant to the Topic

StopBullying.gov is a web-based organization that provides education on what bullying is. Not only do they educate on what bullying is, but they also provide resources on how to prevent bullying. This organization gathers information from several government agencies to educate on what bullying is, who is at risk of being bullied, and how to respond to the act of being bullied. This organization will help identify solutions that can help develop training and develop policies that will mitigate bullying. Give a citation for the organization and add it to your reference list.

On the organization’s website, there are links to educate the community on state laws/policies, training, and what adults/kids can do. The website goes into detail about statistical data such as bullying in schools and at the workplace. The site also provides research data on cyberbullying and how the act of bullying can eventually turn into violent crimes if continued. Although the organization, in general, can be beneficial to this research, the resources provided about the different training can be the most helpful. The training resources that the website provides have several strategies on different training materials to help train and educate any audience on bullying. This includes PowerPoint slides and handouts that every professional can benefit from. These are tools provided to help teach and train preventive measures against bullying.

What is unique about this organization is that it aims to educate professionals and aims to educate victims. On the website, there is plenty of advice for those who are being bullied. This advice will help victims recognized when they are being bullied and help them to build resilience. All of this will be helpful for the recommendations that will be made during this study.

Literature Review

Learners, educators and interested parties can source much knowledge on bullying and related behaviors from research studies conducted by expert, reliable and credible scholars from past years. Research on bullying has been done in many countries, including the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia, among other countries. This literature review provides research articles on bullying across contexts conducted by participants in different countries. With the current complexity in bullying and victimizations, the social-ecological theory of bullying further elaborates on my problem statement . According to the social-ecological theory, bullying is regarded as an outcome of an existing, specified social group at different power levels. The theory focuses on the typical differences with a historical and cultural basis like gender, race, ethnicity, or social classes. Include a citation Comment by Pamela Humphrey: Can find? Comment by Pamela Humphrey: This isn’t clear

Bullying results from a person's aggressive behavior. In the source Two types of aggression in human evolution, Wrangham shares his research findings on two types of aggressions. The two types of aggression that he speaks of being proactive and reactive aggression. Reactive aggression happens when someone is provoked. Proactive aggression happens when a reward of some sort is expected; thus, it is intentional. He compares chimpanzees and humans. He pointed out that humans are more proactive aggressors compared to chimpanzees. Overall, the information presented is very much relevant to the topic of bullying since bullying is more intentional than unintentional. Bully-like traits stem from inner aggression that has never been addressed (Wrangham, 2018). This is a relevant, credible and valid source for my research on bullying because it builds on the argument that bullying emanates from anger and aggression. It also provides more information on the behavior of bullies and the triggers of bullying.

Furthermore, bullying is associated with anger and aggression stemming from a borderline personality disorder. Based on the findings in Borderline personality disorder, (2019), bullying can result from anger issues. From this source, anger can stir up the occurrence and development of borderline personality disorder. People with such disorders tend to experience frequent mood swings, which sometimes matures into violent, impulsive behaviors towards others (Borderline personality disorder, 2019). People need to understand what this mental health issue is. Therefore, the information in the Borderline personality disorder, article reflects bullying because it provides insights on Borderline personality disorder, as a trigger issue to bullying among individuals.

Bullying can be presented through various types; hence, it requires different interventions when addressing them. In Commentary: Types of bullying, types of intervention: reflections on Arseneault, Smith (2018) provides a commentary on bullying, interventions and a reflection on Arseneault. Arseneault is known for providing strong evidence on the impacts of school bullying. Arseneault argues that bullying does not only affect the victims but the people around the victims as well. According to this study, bullying causes low self-esteem and depression in the victims. Smith argues this point using Arseneault's findings of bullying. The resource also points out that bullying can occur to pure victims, individuals who are bullied but do not bully others or bully/victims who are individuals who are bullied and bully others as well.

From the HRSA (2021) Stop Bullying Home Page article posted on Stopbullying.gov, bullying is unacceptable behavior that should be stopped. This is a web-based organization that provides essential insights on what should be done in case of bullying. More specifically, it provides information on what children and adults can do to keep themselves safe and away from bullying, such as treating others with respect, standing up for others and getting involved in bullying (HRSA, 2012). With such details on how to stop and overcome bullying, the Stopbullying.gov organization is essential under my recommendations on stopping, mitigating, or preventing bullying in schools, workplaces, and the world in general.

Over the past decades, bullying was believed to be more profound in schools than in other places. According to research findings presented by Kathleen Wade and Mary E in Public School Uniforms: Effect on Perceptions of Gang Presence, School Climate, and Student Self-Perceptions, the psychology of children who bully others is complex and challenging. Wade and Mary provide in-depth knowledge about kids who tend to be aggressors and how aggressive behavior is usually a personality trait. The authors attempt to clarify the relationship between wearing public school uniforms and the results they have on students' self-worth and staff perceptions on gang presence and school climate (Wade & Mary, 2003). The findings from this source do not show variance among students across the uniform policy. However, teachers from schools with uniform policies indicated a lower gang presence in their schools. More so, students from schools without uniform policies indicated higher self-perceptions than those from schools with uniform policies.

In recent years, workplace bullying has become more common as compared to bullying in schools. Munir (2019) provides insights on reducing incidences of workplace bullying and how to mitigate the impacts of bullying on the performance of employees. The workplace environment plays a role in the life of employees. Bullying leads to low employee performance among workers. Therefore, this source points out that the incidence of bullying should be controlled and mitigated to ensure increased performance. Munir argues that anti-bullying interventions can be essential in mitigating incidences of bullying among workers.

In most cases, victims of bullying find it hard to forgive their oppressors because of the pain they might have been subjected to during the act. Research shows that un-forgiveness is detrimental to the psychological being of the victims. According to Barcaccia et al. (2017), victimization from bullying is connected to psychopathology. The mental health of the bullied individuals determines the ease at which they forgive their oppressors. The consequences of bullying affect the development of children and adolescents. The authors of this source argue that victims of bullying experience higher levels of depression and suicidal thoughts (Barcaccia et al., 2017). It is believed that forgiveness helps reduce the negative effects of bullying on the mental health of the victims. However, the bullied individuals find it harder to forgive their oppressors, and most of them prefer seeking revenge instead of forgiving them.

The essence of Social Learning Theory bloomed out of the learning and behavior traditions (Tapper & Boulton, 2005). Bandura focused on aggression in social learning, specifically in modeling as a role, leading to his components of observational learning (Tapper & Boulton, 2005). He believed that adults or children learn how to behave from what or who they are surrounded by. When it comes to this refence, it is another perspective on aggression. Although this perspective is very brief, it is still useful for this study.

Recommendations

The stopbullying.gov organization is a great organization with helpful resources. Although this organization has plenty of helpful resources, they could use a bit more helpful resources that will be more beneficial not only for people, but also for the organization. One way that this organization can benefit is to include resources on anger management. This is because this website more so addresses the victims of bullying but does not address the reason for bullying. As discussed earlier in this paper, bullying behaviors emanates from anger and aggression. Therefore, if such organizations provide platforms, resources, and training on anger management, then their efforts towards bullying prevention will be fruitful. I’m going to elaborate on the social-ecological model.

Another way that this organization could benefit is by expanding its efforts from bullying prevention in schools into workplaces. This organization more focuses on prevention inside of the schools, and it also provides materials for teachers to teach. Although this is great, addressing bullying inside of the workplace is equally as important. This is because verbal, and relational bullying is common in workplaces. Even though many organizations have policies against discrimination, stereotyping, and inequities, little is being done to prevent bullying in organizations. Having policies against bullying in organizations will help prevent employees and employers from bullying each other. Also, although this organization provides training materials for schoolteachers, training materials should also be made for workplaces that is tailored to bring awareness to adults on what bullying is, and how it can create a toxic environment for employees.

Plan of Action

The recommendation that will be implemented is addressing bullying in workplaces.

I am a bit confused on the plan of action, am I supposed to come up with my own plan of action and find resources that support? Yes. For example, what kind of resources should stopbullying.com provide. How would the get the resources and how would they be distributed/marketed? Would there be a cost involved? Etc.

Conclusion

Bullying is an issue of concern in schools and workplaces. Many people suffer from the consequences of bullying because it is more than what meets the eye. Research studies show that bullying affects not only the victims but also the onlookers and the bullies. As illustrated by Wrangham (2018), bullying results from anger and aggression, which can be presented through verbal, physical, relational or reaction forms of bullying behaviors. Psychologists, teachers, governments and organizations are trying their best to lay measures essential to prevent bullying. Stopbullying.gov organization plays a vital role in the prevention of bullying in schools. However, bullying is not only rampant in schools; workplaces also have issues of bullying. Therefore, the organization can expand its efforts into workplaces to help prevent and sanitize bullying issues because it causes negative impacts on the mental, psychological and physical health of the victims.

References

Barcaccia, B., Schneider, B. H., Pallini, S., & Baiocco, R. (2017). Bullying and the detrimental role of un-forgiveness in adolescents' wellbeing. Psicothema, 29(2), 217-222.