What Happens Over Time To Those Who Bully And Those Who Are Victimized? (continued)

• Some researchers have found that in the school setting these behaviours (bullying and being victimized) are fairly stable across 1-4-year intervals (26, 27, 28, 29).
• Victim status has been observed to be particularly stable, even after switching to new classroom environment (30).
• Over an 8-year span from age 8 to age 16, 5% of students bullying at 8 were still bullying at 16, and 9% maintained their status as victims (31).
• Boys were much more likely to stay in their role as bully or victim than girls.
• In contrast, Olweus (9) found no relationship between being a victim in school (grades 6, 9) and being harassed or socially isolated at 23 years of age.

Olweus viewed instability in the victim role as encouraging, suggesting that maybe the wider adult social world provides an escape for adults who were victimized in school. Yet, there is a clear connection between being victimized in the workplace and reporting that you were bullied in childhood. For example, in one study over half (57%) of individuals who report being bullied at work also reported having been bullied as children (32).

In one of our recent studies, we were able to collect information from a group of grade 12 students who we had surveyed six years earlier when they were in grade 6. We had 83 students tell us about how frequently they bullied others at school as well as how frequently they were bullied. In addition, we collected peer reports, asking students in the same grade to confidentially identify students who bully and/or who are victimized at school.

• We were happy to see that in general, there was less bullying and victimization going on for these young people in grade 12 as compared to grade 6.
• When we looked at what students said about themselves, almost 2% of bullies in grade 6 continued to report that they bullied in grade 12.
• In contrast, 5% of the students who reported they were victimized in grade 6 still experienced victimization six years later.

When we considered reports from peers we saw that 3% of students continued to be seen as bullies and 2% of students continued to be viewed as victims.

• Seeing oneself (or being seen by others) as a bully in grade 6 was tied to being more outwardly aggressive in grade 12 whereas believing you had been victimized was tied to greater loneliness 6 years later.
• Although we were heartened to see that the stability in bullying and victimization was not extensive, we nevertheless see that those who persist in these roles are of concern.

What’s On Our “To-Do” List Next?

Well, counter to the notion that “children grow out of bullying”, our working assumption is that at least some school bullies move through life continuing to use aggressive strategies in romantic relationships, in the workplace and in other areas of their lives. In the case of victims, we would argue that there may be different pathways that people follow. For example, we expect that under the most extreme circumstances of school bullying, some who are victimized never truly recover and continue to have difficult and troubled lives well after they finish (or leave) school.

We think it is possible, however, that how victims fare will depend on how they see themselves and how they make sense of what happened to them. Stated simply, people who do not see themselves as a victim may be better adjusted in adulthood. In order to test out some of our thinking, we’re working on a study to keep following those same kids that we saw in grade 6 and grade 12 who are now young adults.

By tracking people forward in time, and being able to document connections between early experiences and adult outcomes, we think our research might well make a contribution to the planning of intervention and prevention programs.