Peer harassment or bullying is becoming a common topic in our society At the European level, an epidemiological study with a sample of more than 16 thousand adolescents determined that 20% of them have suffered bullying at some point.
These data reflect the idea that a considerable number of adolescents who attend secondary and high school education are under high levels of interpersonal stress, experiencing complex situations that can lead to emotional imbalance and alter, in some way, their psychological development.
The main objective of this article is to make bully-victims known that is, adolescents or children who have suffered or continue to suffer bullying and who, for various reasons, have ended up becoming aggressors (bullies) and victims (victims) at the same time.
Before describing what bully-victims are, we are going to provide a definition of bullying.
According to Olweus (1978, cited in Olweus, 1998), bullying consists of a type of violence that occurs in a relationship of power imbalance between the bully and his victim , is repeated and prolonged over time and includes behaviors of diverse nature (physical, verbal and psychological attacks). In this sense, bullying is a sequence of repeated actions between protagonists, aggressor(s) and victim, whose relationship persists over time and develops a certain and known dynamic.
Bully-victims would be those young people who, after having been direct victims of bullying, end up becoming aggressors themselves, while at the same time they may continue to be victims of bullying. In other words: minors who have been harassed by others and who themselves harass Their peers are called bully-victims.
The scientific literature specialized in the subject suggests that bully-victims make up a different typology within the aggressors who carry out bullying. In general, there are 2 fundamental types of aggressor s (in English “bullies”):
“Pure” bullies
They are the aggressors who trust themselves. They bully and harass others without hesitation. They fit better than the rest into the stereotype of an aggressive child wanting to express his will to dominate others. In general, These children or adolescents are not usually victimized by other aggressors
Bully-victims
As we have explained previously, in this group they can play both roles, both victim and aggressor, although As a general rule, they do not attack their aggressors, but rather other minors that they perceive as more vulnerable.
Characteristics of bully-victims
These victimized bullies suffer from a wide range of problems; Compared to “pure” bullies, bully-victims are more anxious, lonely, they are usually in high states of tension (hypervigilance) and tend to present more depressive symptoms than the rest. They trust others very little, which leads them to remain on alert in case an episode of bullying occurs again.
Andreou (2004) states that bully-victims show more “Machiavellian” attitudes : lack of faith in human nature, they tend to manipulate and deceive others more, they are more distrustful and tend to hide the truth as a form of protection.
According to Stein et al. (2007) bully-victims present more physical injuries and At the same time, they pose a greater danger to their colleagues As an example, in a study carried out by Kochel and collaborators (2015) it was found that bully-victims tend to be involved in more acts in which they play the role of aggressors than “pure bullies.”
Bully-victims, being victimized for so long, respond to their peers in a hostile manner Some American studies highlight that these young people are more likely to bring weapons to school since they consider that in this way they will be protected.
Psychological problems
Several studies have documented that victims of bullying tend to suffer from anxiety, depression (including suicide), social isolation, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder compared to other children who have not been bullied.
Furthermore, children who are aggressors within the bullying dynamic experience social rejection, behavioral problems, anxiety, academic difficulties and they tend to be defiant in front of adults.
When a minor is a victim and aggressor at the same time, apart from being able to experience all the symptoms described previously, usually has more difficulty than everyone else in “fitting in” within their social group (they have fewer social skills and difficulty establishing and maintaining positive friendships), suffer more intense states of overexcitement that they do not know how to manage, and more academic difficulties at school.
How to become a bully-victim (the bullying cycle)
Emler (2009) states that being a victim of bullying can have a negative impact on the victim’s empathic capacity who, far from understanding the aggressor’s behavior, will try to defend himself by showing equally hostile behavior. This would be the specific case of bully-victims.
Some authors (Carroll, Green, Houghton and Wood, 2003; Lereya et al., 2013) have developed an explanatory hypothesis in relation to the existence of “bully-victims”: when the adolescent is being a victim of bullying and does not have the emotional support from an adequate social protection network (group of friends, parents, teachers) or does not accept such help, you can resort to search for an informal alternative for protection against attack situations
In this way, the adolescent will try to achieve a social reputation based on an image of a rebellious, strong and antisocial person; The implicit message directed to the aggressors would be that she is a brave, strong person who has the resources to defend herself. It could be that the victims began to behave aggressively as a form of self-defense against future attacks
It has also been stated that bully-victims They usually come from violent or dysfunctional family environments They may have been abused by an older sibling, or have seen someone in their family abuse another family member. In fact, many of the negative behaviors related to violence are learned in childhood-adolescence within the family environment, and this is also the case in the case of bullying.
