In February 2012, a recent poll by Angus Reid reported that 65% of Canadian adults agreed that bullying should be a crime (Canseco, 2012). This overwhelming response is expected considering the epidemic of news stories regarding bullying linked suicides in Canada in recent years. The particular boy who Rick Mercer refers to in his ‘rant’ is of 15-year old Jamie Hubley who committed suicide as an escape from being tormented for being openly gay in high school. As a result of stories like Jamie’s, issues regarding bullying in Canada have provoked heated debate regarding legislation and prevention policy.
In terms of psychology, bullying is a learned behavior having a negative impact on the lives of the victim and perpetrator.
One of the most debilitating characteristics of bullying is its effect on a victim’s academic performance and engagement. In a recent study by The National Association of School Psychologists, bullying causes 160,000 students a day to skip school (Facts about Bullying). Classical conditioning provides an explanation for this adverse behavior towards school demonstrated by bully victims. In the same way that food elicited salivation in Palov’s dogs, so does the act of bullying elicit feelings of fear, pain, humiliation, stress and anxiety on bully victims. Being bullied is an unconditioned stimulus that leads to negative emotions (unconditioned responses). Additionally, similar to Pavlov’s bell, the act of going to school or school itself becomes associated with negative emotions and eventually school becomes a learned conditioned stimulus, which reminds the victim of negative emotions. From the victim’s perspective, the act of going to school is perceived as a form of primary punishment, which she or he seeks to escape via skipping school.
When most people think of bullying they usually only feel sympathy towards the victim, Even bullies, however, are negatively impacted from bullying behavior. As an explanation we rely on Operant conditioning, a form of active learning. Operant conditioning involves a stimulus, a response called an “Operant Response,” which is followed by an unconditioned or discriminative/conditioned stimulus if higher order. With bullying behavior not everyone who interacts with the bully will be at risk: it is discriminate. The key with Operant conditioning is that the operant response is voluntary, however, the stimulus (the victim’s response i.e., fear), or lack thereof, can act to reinforce bullying behavior such that it becomes more frequent. Psychologically the bully is being reinforced to continue bullying, which is a negative behavior and usually is punished. Punishment refers to any effects that decrease the frequency of a behavior. Punishment can negatively impact the bully by causing him/her to regress to another form of unacceptable behaviour (Brain, 2002). Additionally, if the punisher is a teacher then the bully may avoid or be uncooperative with them with in the future, thus, leading to detriments in the bullies education (Brain, 2002).
Although the reasons behind bullying are complicated, its consequences ultimately adversely affect both the victim and the bully.
