Bullying and Victimization Across the Lifespan

Abstract

The news is replete with stories of youth bullied to death: children and adolescents who endured physical and verbal harassment day in and day out who eventually could not take it anymore and chose death over continuing to suffer at the hands of their peer group. Bullied youth of all ages have resorted to suicide: A 7-year-old boy in Detroit hung himself on his bunk bed due to constant bullying at school; 11-year- old Ty Smalley shot himself with a 0.22 caliber pistol after repeatedly being shoved into lockers and tormented from name calling; 13-year-old Ryan Halligan hung himself after enduring years of bullying; 15-year-old Amanda Cummings threw her- self in front of a bus following ongoing bullying and cyberbullying; and 17-year-old Tyler Long hung himself in his bedroom closet after his classmates repeatedly spit in his food, called him “faggot,” and stole his possessions. No matter the age, vic- tims of bullying are at risk for serious negative consequences. The Process–Person–Context–Time model, the third phase of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory (Rosa & Tudge, 2013), helps organize and make sense of the negative outcomes associated with bullying involvement. Bullying is an intensely negative social interaction between peers; the social Process of bullying can prevent victims from engaging in positive social relationships and results in overall negative peer relationships. Other negative outcomes of bullying victimiza- tion occur at the individual Person level including poor mental health and disrupted neurobiological processes. Further, because bullying usually occurs in the school Context, victims often have negative perceptions of school. Finally, bullying that happens over Time is most detrimental, thus considering how the duration of bully- ing impacts victim outcomes in the short- and long-term is important. According to ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), human devel- opment is impacted by multiple environments (e.g., home, school/work, commu- nity) and the social interactions (i.e., proximal processes) that occur within and between these environments (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Ecological systems theory was revised throughout the course of Bronfenbrenner’s career and the third and final version, the Process–Person–Context–Time (P-P-C-T) model, is also referred to as bioecological theory and the bioecological model of human development.