Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
For about eight years, I have been a researcher studying bullying.
When I tell people what I do for a living,
they almost always respond by asking me why I chose this particular topic.
Was I ever bullied myself?
Or did I perhaps bully others?
Surprisingly, these questions are not so easy to answer.
I mean, in high school, I was far from being popular.
I did not have so many friends,
and there was this one guy
who would from time to time make comments about my short hair.
And this was surely not nice, but was this really bullying?
I'm not sure.
Then, a few years later, in college, it was the other way around.
There was this one girl who I did not really like so much,
and me and my friends excluded her,
and obviously this was not very nice behavior,
and I feel a bit embarrassed sharing this with you.
But was this then really bullying?
Even for me, someone who studies bullying for a living,
it's not so straightforward to answer these questions.
What about you?
Have you ever been bullied?
Or did you perhaps bully others?
How do you know that what happened really is bullying,
and not something else such as teasing?
How do you determine that?
Well, in theory it's simple.
There are three elements
that distinguish bullying [from] other types of negative interactions
such as teasing.
First, there is repetition.
Bullying does not happen once, but happens over and over again.
Second, there is a power difference.
The bully is stronger than the victim,
and it can be that the bully is physically stronger,
but it can also be that the bully is socially stronger -
for instance, by having more friends.
Third, there is an intention to harm.
Bullies on purpose hurt the victim.
So it's not an accident.
Now that you know these three elements -
so, repetition, power difference and intention to harm -
can you apply them
to the bullying situation you were just thinking about?
Does it change your conclusion
on whether it's really bullying or not?
As you may notice, in theory it's quite simple,
but in practice it can be difficult
to apply these three elements to real-life situations.
Let's try for the two examples I just gave.
So the guy in high school -
There was repetition
because he made comments about my short hair more than once.
There probably also was a power difference
because this guy was a lot taller and stronger than I was.
The third element is a bit difficult: the intention to harm.
I have no idea what his intentions were.
But we can say that at least two out of three elements of bullying
were present in high school.
But what counts perhaps the most
is that I did not feel bullied at that time.
Let's go to the example of the girl in college.
Also, this happened more often, so there was repetition.
There may have been a power difference as I think I had more friends than her,
but I am not sure.
And yeah, with respect to the intention to harm,
I don't know what my intentions were, but it was not to harm her.
So also here, two out of three elements were present.
And at that time,
it did not feel like bullying to me, but maybe it did to her.
Let's move from these two examples in my life
to a way larger group.
My colleagues and I asked hundreds of primary and secondary school students
and their teachers and their classmates
about bullying the in their classrooms,
and we found that their perceptions differed a lot.
So many students reported to be bullied,
but their classmates and the teachers didn't see them as being bullied.
Some of the teachers even said to us that they were aware of this,
that they had some students in the classroom who felt bullied,
but that these students were not really bullied,
that they were wrong, that they were exaggerating.
Based on my personal and professional experience,
the idea that I would like to share with you
is maybe we should let go a little bit of this scientific definition of bullying,
this idea of "actual" bullying,
and focus on people's feelings instead.
We spend a lot of time and effort
trying to find out whether someone is actually bullied or not,
whereas in practice,
it's often very difficult to reconstruct what exactly happened.
These three elements of bullying,
they provide useful and necessary guidelines,
but as we just have seen,
it's not so straightforward to apply them to real-life situations.
What counts perhaps the most is whether you feel bullied
rather than that you are actually bullied.
After all, it's the perceived bullying that affects you,
and, yeah, not the actual bullying.
So instead of spending so much time
on finding out if someone is bullied or not,
let's take feelings seriously.
When someone feels bullied, they feel bad,
even if the environment thinks that this person is not bullied.
In fact, if everyone around you thinks you're not bullied,
you may feel even worse.
My message to you is: you can make a difference.
Please be aware that there is bullying everywhere,
in almost every group -
also at your workplace, school, sports club.
It's everywhere.
You just may not see it.
What is a joke to you could be bullying to someone else.
When someone tells you that they feel bullied,
you can make a difference by taking this seriously
rather than starting a whole discussion on whether this is actual bullying or not.
Please be aware that for people who are bullied,
it can be very difficult to talk about the bullying
because they feel embarrassed
or they are afraid the situation will only get worse.
So when someone tells you they're bullied,
please be open and trust that this person is truly dealing with something,
and try to look for a solution together.
And if you feel bullied but are not taken seriously by the people around you,
please do not start to doubt your own feelings.
You believe that the people around you are treating you in a bad way,
and that is what counts.
Take your own feelings seriously as well.
And it's your reality -
nobody has a right to deny it.
Thank you.
(Applause)