Problems with Traditional Approaches

Traditional bullying definitions contain inaccuracies including the notions that aggressors intend harm; behaviors must be repeated to qualify as bullying; and bullying involves a “power imbalance.” In addition, the traditional definition focuses on the aggressor and not on the target. These inaccuracies and misplaced emphasis on the aggressor lead to ineffective policies and procedures for addressing bullying issues. This section of the Information Center is intended to help a school or district understand the problems with the traditional definitions.

Updated: 12/4/2023

While notions of repetition, intent to harm, and power imbalances have finally been rejected by researchers, they remain in current, published definitions relied on by schools, organizations, and even the US government. In addition, these definitions fail to include the understanding of bullying as a behavior driven by a need for social status. This results in definitions that use vague language and phrases that sound scientific but are obvious and redundant. Furthermore, the focus is often placed on the behavior and the aggressor, not the harm and the target. A perfect example is the following definition, taken from www.stopbullying.gov, the official bullying prevention website of the US government (accessed 10/11/2023). The superscript reference numbers have been added, with the key below the definition.

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior¹ among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance.² The behavior is repeated,³ or has the potential to be repeated,⁴ over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.⁵

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive⁶ and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength,⁷ access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others.⁸ Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.⁹
• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.¹⁰

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.¹¹

While this definition has discarded the notion that students intend harm, the definition is still problematic because it is inaccurate, abstract, vague, and full of redundancies:

1. unwanted, aggressive behavior: Much of the aggression among school-age children is unwanted; however, it is not bullying. Only aggression that causes harm is bullying.
2. real or perceived power imbalance: What this phrase is trying to say is that the aggressor generally has a higher social status than the target. Physical strength is often cited as a “power” that is out of balance, but that is not true; it is the ability of the aggressor to intimidate and instill fear in a target that makes dominance aggression successful. This phrase is extremely counterproductive because it can lead adults who deal with a bullying problem to try to find and address “powers” that are out of balance. An extreme example is a school that made a list of “powers” that could be out of balance and then set a threshold for how many powers needed to be involved in instances of aggression for the aggression to qualify as bullying. The scholarship on this point has evolved, where early scholarship closest to the time of Olweus’s work cites definite powers such as physical strength while later scholarship claims that powers are definitely there but may not be perceptible to adults. This is a good example of the bullying research paradox, where instead of admitting that this notion of a power imbalance is wrong, the definition implies that the notion is a fact but says the powers simply aren’t apparent, i.e., it’s a matter of faith.
3. behavior is repeated: Repetition is certainly a characteristic of some types of aggression, but not all types, and repetition is not necessary for harm to occur. Repetition is common in dominance and rejective aggression but is hard to distinguish in relational aggression. Repetition may be collective (e.g., isolated instances of rejective aggression directed at a target by an entire class). Repetition has some value in identifying bullying and is most valuable when identified as it pinpoints behavior that can be stopped or changed; however, its inclusion in definitions fails targets who are harmed by aggression for which adults cannot identify or perceive repeated aggression from the same individual.
4. behavior . . . has the potential to be repeated: Any single instance of just about any behavior has the potential to be repeated, but that doesn’t make it bullying.
5. both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems: Given that almost all students at one time or another have used aggression that caused harm and/or were bullied during their school years, the link between bullying and serious lasting problems is tenuous. Bullying that is a result of a mental health issue, such as a personality disorder, that would affect a person for their entire lives is limited to a very small subset of the students who use aggression or are targets of it. If this part of the definition of bullying were accurate, then almost everyone will have or does have serious lasting problems.
6. in order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive: This is a fallacy based on the idea that bullying can be determined from observed behavior. What exactly does it mean to be “aggressive”? A student glancing at another can appear innocuous, but to a target of dominance aggression it can cause overwhelming fear. A student walking past another in silence can be devastating if one of them is a target of relational aggression. A whole host of behaviors involved in bullying would not fit the definition of “aggressive” to a reasonable observer. Based on this phrase alone, a significant percentage of instances of bullying would not meet the definition.
7. kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength: If this were true, then the solution to bullying involving dominance aggression would be to send targets to the gym to get stronger. But any reasonable person knows that’s just plain silly. Silly statements do not translate into effective policy.
8. kids who bully use their power . . . to control . . . others: What does that even mean? A student with a higher social status can indirectly influence the behavior of the target to try to gain the approval of the aggressor. An aggressor can, for example, threaten to release embarrassing information online if the target doesn’t do certain things, but that’s blackmail. And a danger that this phrase actually introduces is that it can allow targets to claim that they are not responsible for their actions that were in response to bullying because, by the definition, the aggressor was using his power to control the target. A definition that absolves a student of responsibility for his actions based on the behavior of another student is dangerous.
9. power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people: While a student’s position on the social hierarchy can change over time, and a changing social standing can enable him to be the aggressor at one point and cause him to be the target at another (or even both at the same time), how does this statement help a school administrator define policies and concrete actions for addressing bullying problems?
10. bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once: As noted above, this is just repetition that fluffs the definition.
11. bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose: Bullying is actually any behavior that is intended by the aggressor to have a positive effect on social status that causes harm to the target. The behaviors that can cause harm are infinite. Providing a limited list risks educators dismissing behaviors that cause harm but are not on the list.

Arguably the biggest problem with definitions of bullying like those similar to the one found on stopbullying.gov is that they say nothing about the target and the harm suffered beyond a general statement about suffering lifelong problems and that bullying will “harm others.” This problem with the definition is occasionally noted in academic works, e.g., “. . . the response of the victim is the determinant of severity and impact. A perpetrator may justify his or her actions by thinking they are trivial or humorous, but if the recipient is hurt, that is the measure of impact that matters” (see Sources, ref: Bauman).

In other words, bullying is not just the behavior of the aggressor like the traditional definition implies, but occurs when aggression causes harm. Harm is what determines when aggression can be classified as bullying. And, respectfully, Professor Bauman should note that “justification” for aggressors’ actions is not needed because harm is not intended. A better way to say it would be that a perpetrator [aggressor] may not realize the harm caused by his or her actions because, from the perpetrator’s perspective, they appear to be trivial or humorous and are not intended to cause harm.

The critical need for educators to take action is not because students are using aggression, as implied by the behavioral focus of the stopbullying.gov definition. Instead, action is critical because of the instances of aggression that result in harm to the target. Acknowledging the harm caused to targets, however, would then require actions to help support the target by reversing the harm. Unfortunately, widely used traditional definitions of bullying barely acknowledge the harm.

Updated: 12/4/2023

Coming soon.

The term “power imbalance” is frequently included in definitions of bullying and is often the basis for approaches to address a bullying problem. This term is confusing because it suggests that there is a concrete characteristic, such as physical strength, that is unequal between the aggressor and target that allows the aggressor to act with impunity and prevents the target from getting the bullying to stop. This misunderstanding of what a power imbalance is can lead to unfortunate and ineffective policies and procedures, such as having a list of powers that can be “out of balance” and taking action to “restore” the balance of these powers as a solution to the bullying problem. But a power imbalance is not caused by any concrete characteristic or power of the aggressor, such as physical strength, background, popularity, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.

What the term “power imbalance” refers to is the fact that the aggressor and the target occupy two different places in the peer group social hierarchy. This results in the higher-status aggressor being able to direct aggression at the lower-status target without fear of having peers come to the defense of the target. This difference in social status and peer support is what creates a power imbalance. A contributor to the power imbalance is that targets often haven’t been taught how to respond to aggression to render it ineffective at providing a social benefit to the aggressor. Empowerment techniques can, in a sense, create a balance of power by compensating for the social hierarchy difference.

Adults actually create a power imbalance between the aggressor and target when they fail to respond to a target’s request for help. An educator who decides that the aggressor’s behavior is not a problem creates a feeling of powerlessness in the target. A popular student who is well-liked or favored by educators may be able to get away with harmful aggression against a target without consequence. Similarly, an educator’s negative feelings toward a target may result in the educator inadvertently allowing aggression to be directed at that target. Such failures to respond to requests for help make targets feel powerless.

Adults also create power imbalances through their responses to bullying problems. Educators who punish students for bullying may actually increase the bullying. Worse, educators who investigate bullying problems and conclude that the harmed targets are not really being harmed are essentially telling targets that they won’t get help from adults, which makes targets feel powerless.

The power imbalances as described above can be eliminated through social status changes, empowerment education, and changes to adult actions. A target who manages to increase his social status may no longer feel the peer rejection caused by the aggression and may be able to enlist peer support in the face of future aggression. A target who learns ways to render the aggression ineffective at providing the aggressor with a benefit to social status may get the aggression to stop. And schools that implement effective mechanisms for resolving bullying problems and providing target support immediately establish a balance of power for all students in that students are able to engage an adult for support at the first instance of harmful aggression.

Updated: 12/5/23

Many schools use a reporting mechanism such as an online form specifically for reporting bullying issues. These reporting mechanisms are sometimes required by district policy and are advertised to the school community. Some of these reporting mechanisms allow for anonymity and some specify that all reports will be investigated. The problem with this approach is that it creates a barrier to reporting as the mechanism runs counter to what targets need.

Bullying is a personal problem that can make a target feel ashamed or embarrassed. Targets fear that others, particularly peers, will find out about the problem, which can result in a significant social cost. Targets also fear losing control over how a bullying problem is handled. Targets are most likely to report a bullying problem if they can talk to someone they trust who they know will keep the information confidential, will not take unilateral action, and will discuss options before collaboratively deciding on a plan for resolution.

An impersonal online reporting form meets none of those needs. Targets fear that reporting via an online form will result in wider awareness of their problem. And once reported, they may lose control over how it is handled. While students are routinely counseled not to share private or embarrassing information electronically since doing so risks losing control over who sees it, online reporting forms require them to do exactly that. Since targets don’t know who sees or accesses the information and how the problem will be handled, they are reluctant to report bullying problems through an online form.

Anonymity is also not a benefit. Educators need to know who is being harmed in order to provide effective support and provide targets with an opportunity to handle the problem on their own if they wish. Treating bullying reporting mechanisms like a confidential tip line to the police where an informant provides information and then lets the authorities handle it is not effective for bullying issues. Certainly this approach would seem logical to educators who treat bullying as a discipline code violation and apply punitive consequences in order to ensure no retaliation against the target. But as noted in other articles in the CirclePoint Information Center, punishment for bullying is not just ineffective, but counterproductive. An anonymous bullying reporting mechanism is an indication that the school’s approach to handling bullying problems is also flawed.

The solution is to implement a reporting mechanism that enables students to talk confidentially to any adult in the school, the person they feel most comfortable engaging, about a bullying problem and that adult will listen, provide suggestions for resolution, and work with the student on a plan to get the bullying to stop. Schools can repurpose their current informal reporting form to align with target needs by letting students know exactly who sees the information and how reports are handled, specifically that the principal first talks to the target to learn more and to develop a plan on addressing the problem. Targets will feel comfortable using the mechanism knowing that reports are confidential and that they will not lose control over how the matter is handled. This approach, however, may require an update to the policy on how bullying problems are handled to replace problematic resolution steps (e.g., punishment) with effective ones.

Updated: 12/5/2023

Many traditional approaches involve or require an investigation by the principal to determine whether or not bullying is occurring. The investigation is stipulated because the consequence for bullying is punitive, and only the principal can determine if a student should be punished. The principal is required to take time to gather “facts” that will enable a judgment.

While the investigation is ongoing, a target and often his parents are left waiting anxiously to learn whether or not the principal will believe the target and provide a measure of relief. This wait and associated anxiety are unnecessary. The principal should take the target at his word that the aggression is causing harm and pledge to get the aggression to stop, which provides instant relief to the target.

 Investigations may be required if targets are reluctant to share information out of fear of retribution or the problem becoming worse, but otherwise the principal will have all the information she needs from talking with the target to take the next step in getting the aggression to stop. Taking action without delay allows the target and parents to avoid unnecessary anxiety and the principal to save significant time in resolving the bullying problem.

Updated: 12/5/23

After a principal conducts an investigation, she will then render a judgment as to whether or not bullying is occurring. The need for a judgment generally stems from the use of a traditional bullying definition that sets thresholds for bullying behavior based on the false notions of intent to harm, repetition, and/or a power imbalance, and the policy of leveling punitive consequences for bullying, which are ineffective and often counterproductive.

The principal either decides that bullying is occurring and applies a punitive consequence to the aggressor, which the aggressor views as an injustice, or the principal decides that bullying is not occurring, which essentially tells a harmed target that adults don’t believe him, the aggression is approved to continue, he has no recourse through school policy, and educators will not help him. The “ruling” is always an injustice for one student and likely requires the principal to spend additional time in meetings with at least one set of unhappy parents. And the principal has made the problem worse for the target.

The solution is for the principal to listen to the target and take him at his word that the aggression is causing harm. No one can dispute that fact. And no one can dispute the aggressor’s contention that he did not intend harm. A judgment becomes unnecessary because the goals are to get the aggression directed at the target to stop and to provide support to the target, neither of which is achieved through the use of punitive consequences.

Updated: 12/5/23

Traditional approaches to resolving bullying problems often focus on the behavior of the aggressor, as though a crime may be occurring and the principal needs to either stop the crime and punish the perpetrator or acquit the aggressor of all charges. That the focus is on the behaviors is understandable because traditional definitions of bullying try to define the problem in the context of the behavior and not in terms of the harm to the target. Administrators who are trying to determine if bullying is occurring spend their time trying to discern “power imbalances,” identify repetition of behavior, and somehow deduce what is going on in the mind of the aggressor in order to judge the intent.

This focus on the behavior of the aggressor takes the attention away from the real problem, which is the harm that is being inflicted upon the target. This results in programs and policies that focus on what to do with the aggressor once found guilty of bullying but say nothing about how to help the target who has been harmed. This is akin to police hauling off the perpetrator of a violent crime but doing nothing to help the injured victim.

When the focus is flipped to the target, policies and procedures become clear. Targets need help and a way of confidentially asking for it. Targets need support to get the aggression to stop and to reverse the harm caused by the aggression. Targets also need education on bullying so they can learn ways to effectively respond to it. Targets will not reach out for help if the actions the adults take result in wider awareness of the problem, retaliation by the aggressor against the target, a social cost to the target, or risk of dismissal of the problem as not being a problem. This is the lens through which policies and procedures should be viewed and either adopted as being helpful in solving the problem (harm to target) or discarded due to being ineffective or counterproductive.

Schools seeking to resolve bullying problems should change their focus from the behavior of the aggressor to the harm being caused to the target. Starting with the target can confirm that bullying is occurring, allowing administrators to immediately stop the harmful behavior if necessary, and can provide educators with an opportunity to help targets heal and empower them with responses to aggression to render it less effective in the future. And in some instances, target empowerment enables the target to get the bullying to stop without administrators having to engage the aggressor.

Updated: 12/5/23

Traditional approaches often use punitive consequences for bullying. The use of punitive consequences is often based on the erroneous notion of “intent to harm” and also due to the fact that aggressive behavior may appear to be mean and cruel to an observer. But because punishment as a solution to bullying is based on a flawed understanding of the problem, punishment as a solution is likewise flawed and ineffective and often makes the problem worse.

Punishment as a consequence for bullying is ineffective for the following reasons:

• Since aggressors are not using aggression to intentionally harm targets, a punitive consequence is viewed by the aggressor (and his parents) as unfair and unjust. An aggressor may legitimately (from his perspective) claim innocence, convince his parents of this fact, and enlist their support against the school’s administration.
• An aggressor who directs identical aggression at multiple individuals, including friends, or sees peers engaging in identical behaviors, views punishment as inconsistent and unreasonable.
• Punishment that is based on the word of the target makes the target responsible for the punishment and can result in retaliation by the aggressor and peers against the target.
• In a peer group with a high level of acceptance of aggression and where the target has been chronically bullied and aggression has been normalized, peers view the aggressor’s punishment as unjust and blame the target, causing a further reduction in status of the target and reinforcing any belief by the peers that the target deserves the aggression.
• Punishment can raise awareness of the bullying problem among the peer group, something the target wants to avoid since greater awareness can further reduce social status.
• Punishment of the aggressor can actually boost his social status, which provides an incentive to continue the aggression.
• Punishment serves as a very strong deterrent to reporting bullying problems because students know that reporting on a peer who then gets punished will result in retaliation or a social cost.

When punitive consequences are used to address bullying problems, no one in the process—aggressors, targets, parents, or educators—is satisfied with the result. Aggressors consider punishment an injustice. Targets, who have lost social status from bullying, experience an even greater reduction in status from getting a peer in trouble. Targets frequently suffer increased bullying when the aggressor and his friends retaliate for the punishment. Parents of the aggressor generally defend their children and view the punishment as an injustice. Parents of the target, who may feel initial relief for getting a measure of justice for their child, become frustrated that the bullying doesn’t stop or gets worse for their child. And educators are left to deal with a more complicated problem that is harder and more time-consuming to solve. In short, punitive consequences serve the needs of no one and make the problem worse for everyone.

The solution is to replace punitive consequences with constructive consequences, where the aggressor is given an opportunity to avoid any consequence if the behavior stops but gets a consequence that results in a loss of social status among peers if the behavior continues. Leveraging the driver of aggression to get it to stop is an effective approach that is satisfactory to everyone involved in the process. See related articles in the Modern Strategies section of the Information Center for more information on Constructive Consequences.

Updated: 12/5/23

The misguided behavioral focus of traditional policies leads to the problem of schools believing that a bullying issue has been resolved once the aggressor’s behavior has been stopped. Stopping the aggressor’s behavior, however, is just one step in resolving the problem. What traditional approaches neglect is helping the student harmed by the aggression.

Schools must provide support to targets to help them recover from the harm caused by bullying and by empowering them through education so that they can avoid harm in the future. Unlike wounds caused by physical harm, the wounds caused by bullying do not necessarily heal on their own over time. Intervention is sometimes required to help students through the healing process. Schools should implement a target support framework to help reverse the harm caused by bullying and to educate and empower targets to avoid harm in the future.

Updated: 12/5/23

One problem stemming from a traditional definition of bullying is that schools mistakenly believe that they can prevent and reduce bullying through actions that focus on kindness and empathy. Schools might try to teach students to be kinder or more empathetic and to raise awareness of the harm that bullying causes by holding school assemblies, having students hang antibullying posters, passing out bullying awareness bracelets, and inviting students to take antibullying pledges.

These solutions are simply not effective. The feasibility of being able to teach students kindness and empathy notwithstanding, aggression is not driven by a lack of kindness or empathy. Aggression is driven by a need for social status, and the effect of the behavior on the target is generally not a consideration of the aggressor. The aggressor is focused on the personal benefit the behavior provides. Aggressors may change behavior when they are made aware that their behavior is causing harm. However, some aggressors will continue to use aggression even after being told that it is causing harm. Lessons on kindness and empathy will have no effect.

Another reason why teaching kindness and empathy are ineffective is that students do not always make the connection between bullying as a concept and their own behavior. Since students are not intending harm when they use aggression that results in bullying, they don’t connect a lesson on being kind or how the other person feels to their own actions. Further, aggression directed at a target by a peer group becomes normalized over time such that the group won’t recognize their own or their peers’ behaviors as bullying. Lessons on kindness and empathy are certainly beneficial in the context of social emotional learning and personal growth; however, they are not solutions to the problem of bullying. This inability of students to make the connection between bullying as a concept and their own behavior is also why rules against bullying are ineffective.

The solution is for schools to use the same driver of aggression—to positively affect social status—to get it to stop. Students use aggression to get a social benefit; students will stop aggression in order to avoid a social cost. Depriving the aggressor of the peer audience that provides the boost in status and temporarily severing the connection to peers, which is needed to sustain social status, will motivate the aggressor to stop.

See related articles on Constructive Consequences in the Modern Strategies section of the Information Center.

Updated: 12/5/23

Some districts and states require schools to publish their bullying policies. The idea is that schools are demonstrating that they have a formal policy and thus the problem is under control. Publishing the policy also conveys that the school is transparent about how they handle bullying problems. A published policy implies fairness and equity in how bullying issues are handled.

Unless a school has discarded traditional policies and adopted effective mechanisms, however, the published policy is simply advertising that the school is using outdated and ineffective methods to address the problem. Publishing such policies also serves as a barrier to student reporting as students know that traditional policies are ineffective. A published policy gives educators (and elected representatives) a false sense of security that bullying issues are handled effectively and that the larger school community is confident in educators to effectively address the problem.

If schools are required to publish policies, they should ensure that they are effective. Policies based on traditional definitions need to be discarded and replaced by ones based on an accurate definition. And to give the larger school community even greater confidence in the effectiveness of these policies, educators should help educate parents on bullying to dispel myths and misunderstanding so that the rationale behind the policies is clear.

Updated: 12/5/23

Western society is permeated by myths and misinformation about bullying. This misinformation includes the ideas that bullying is “mean” or “cruel” behavior intended to cause harm; that children learn bullying behavior at home or as a result of poor parenting; that punishment is an effective way to deal with bullying; that bullying occurs due to one or more “powers” that are out of balance between the aggressor and target; that some kids who are bullied are “powerless” to get the bullying to stop; that rules against bullying can work; that adults can somehow judge when bullying is occurring between students based on observed behaviors; that students who bully are “evil” or “bad characters” who go on to a life of crime, drug use, or are unable to have positive relationships; and that the solutions to driving positive behavioral change in students include putting up posters, wearing rubber bracelets, and “teaching kindness.”

A primary source of these myths and misinformation about bullying is a legacy definition of bullying initially proposed by Norwegian researcher Dan Olweus in the 1960s that evolved to include the erroneous ideas that bullying involves an intent to harm, involves repetition of behaviors, and is characterized by a “power imbalance” between the aggressor and target. Researchers have used this flawed definition for decades as the basis for subsequent bullying research, which in turn has led to the development and use of flawed policies.

Although some researchers recognized the flaws in this definition, the lack of widespread recognition and acceptance of those flaws meant that Olweus’s ideas stood as a basis for subsequent work. Recently, however, researchers have formally acknowledged the problems with the traditional bullying definition. This awareness and a history of the evolution of the understanding of bullying can be found in the article titled “Bullying and the Abuse of Power” in International Journal of Bullying Prevention (see Sources, ref: Andrews, et al.). While researchers have finally come to recognize that these early ideas of Olweus are inaccurate, the definition’s influence remains, meaning that educators must take it upon themselves to understand the flaws and identify and replace problematic policies based on it.

Updated: 12/5/2023