Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying

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Tuesday February 15, 2011 · 5:11 AM PST

2011/02/15 · 05:11

The article Web of Popularity, Achieved by Bullying is fascinating. I recommend highly that you read the article. The following is worth thinking about.

Highly publicized cases of bullying typically involve chronic harassment of socially isolated students, but the latest studies suggest that various forms of teenage aggression and victimization occur throughout the social ranks as students jockey to improve their status.
The findings contradict the notion of the school bully as maladjusted or aggressive by nature. Instead, the authors argue that when it comes to mean behavior, the role of individual traits is “overstated,” and much of it comes down to concern about status.

As I read the article, I couldn't help but think that bullying is not limited to high school years. I think bullying happens all the time to most of us and by most of us. I see it here at DailyKos where people use "Troll" ratings to bully. Another form of bullying is making comments personal and attributing the personal to what should be the intellectual.

I was fortunate in high school and received very little if any bullying. I hung with the "smart" crowd not the "popular" cloud. I was also fortunate as an undergraduate. The only bullying I received was when members of the swim team tried to shave my beard. I was rejected from the team, but the team members who attempted the shaving were never disciplined.

In graduate school, I remember being bullied by professors. I remember writing a report on work I had done and one professor insisting that his name be put on the report despite not having done any of the work or the writing. The PhD thesis was a unique form of bullying with professors insisting on changes for the sake of proving their value. Oh yeah once I passed the oral examinations and the final set of laborious changes they wrote excellent recommendations, but they added little or no value.

At my first job after getting my PhD one department head threatened to break my fingers if I didn't do what he wanted. At my second job I was bullied when I wrote a paper and failed to put draft on the paper (I didn't know that was necessary) and sent the paper out for comments. A colleague whose language I did not recommend saved my ass. And yes I was bullied when I worked in the federal government at a prestigious and excellent research laboratory.

Yes bullying happens. Yes we are all subject to it. Let's all try not to bully.

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