Category: Anger Management

— Preschool-aged children who demonstrate fearless behavior also reveal less empathy and more aggression towards their peers. This has been shown in a new study that was carried out at the University of Haifa's Faculty of Education.

"The results of this study show that fearless behavior in children can be identified and is related to neurological and genetic predisposition. This type of behavior has less correlation — at least in infancy — with standards of educational processes or parenting practice," says Dr. Inbal Kivenson-Baron, who carried out the study as part of her doctoral thesis.

Under the supervision of Prof. Ofra Mayseless, the study set out to examine whether fearless behavior in children aged 3-4 is related to specific physiological and social-emotional characteristics and whether there is a relation to aspects of parenting, such as socioeconomic status, order of birth, parental well-being, child-rearing practices, and the like.

The study observed 80 children aged 3-4, along with their parents and preschool teachers. It reviewed reports given by parents and teachers, and made observations of the children at their preschool locations, at home and in the lab. The study monitored children's tendency to fearlessness and their social-emotional characteristics at the beginning and end of one year, so as to determine the stability of this tendency.

First it was revealed that the heart rate in children who showed a high level of fearless behavior was slow to start. Next, the correlation between fearless behavior and social characteristics was evaluated, finding that the more fearless children revealed less empathy towards their peers and also had difficulty identifying facial expressions of fear, while they had no problem identifying other emotions such as anger, surprise, happiness or sadness. These children also demonstrated higher levels of general aggression — especially tending toward antisocial behavior such as taking advantage of friends, emotional shallowness and a lack of regret or guilt after doing something socially unacceptable.

An interesting finding in this study was that despite their antisocial tendency, the children who show more fearlessness are quite sociable. "These children connect with other children, they are friendly and smiley; but they find it difficult to identify distress in a friend, and show less interest in helping that friend. It seems that fearless behavior includes in it both positive and negative aspects," Dr. Kivenson-Baron explains.

"Since fearless behavior correlates with genetic and neurological characteristics, it is important to find the most effective ways — through education at the preschool and at home — to assist these children in developing the ability to recognize and value social prohibitions. As a society, we must discern the optimal stimulation that can be provided in the child's natural surroundings, in order to awaken those emotions that are necessary for the development of empathy toward another and for refraining from aggressive behavior," Dr. Kivenson-Baron concludes.

— Anger is an interesting emotion for psychologists. On the one hand, it's negative, but then it also has some of the features of positive emotions. For a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers find that associating an object with anger actually makes people want the object — a kind of motivation that's normally associated with positive emotions.

People usually think of anger as a negative emotion. You're not supposed to get angry. But anger also has some positive features. For example, it activates an area on the left side of the brain that is associated with many positive emotions. And, like positive emotions, it can motivate people to go after something. "People are motivated to do something or obtain a certain object in the world because it's rewarding for them. Usually this means that the object is positive and makes you happy," says Henk Aarts of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, first author of the new study. He and his colleagues wanted to examine whether this also applies to the link between anger as a negative emotion and the desire to get your hands on something.

For the study, each participant watched a computer screen while images of common objects, like a mug or a pen, appeared on the screen. What they didn't realize was that immediately before each object appeared, the screen flashed either a neutral face, an angry face, or a fearful face. This subliminal image tied an emotion to each object. At the end of the experiment, the participants were asked how much they wanted each object. In a second version of the experiment, they had the person squeeze a handgrip to get the desired object — those who squeezed harder were more likely to win it.

People put more effort in action to obtain objects associated with angry faces. (They did not do this for items associated with fear.) "This makes sense if you think about the evolution of human motivation," says Aarts. For example, say there's limited food in the environment. In such a context those persons that associate food with anger and turn aggression into an attack response to get the food are more likely to survive. "If the food does not make you angry or doesn't produce aggression in your system, you may starve and lose the battle," Aarts says.

Interestingly, the participants in this study had no idea that their desire for the objects had to do with anger, Aarts says. "When you ask people why they work harder to get it, they say, 'It's just because I like it.'" That shows how little we know about our own motivations, he says.

Journal Reference:

1. H. Aarts, K. I. Ruys, H. Veling, R. A. Renes, J. H. B. de Groot, A. M. van Nunen, S. Geertjes. The Art of Anger: Reward Context Turns Avoidance Responses to Anger-Related Objects Into Approach. Psychological Science, 2010; 21 (10): 1406 DOI: 10.1177/0956797610384152

— Older brothers are more likely to bully siblings than older sisters. This is the finding of research by Dr Menesini from the Universita' degli Studi Di Firenze (Florence, Italy), whose findings were published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

The study set out to investigate the effects of birth order, gender, personality and family relationship qualities on sibling bullying. 195 children aged 10-12 years old who had siblings that were no more than 4 years older or younger completed questionnaires that gauged their experiences of bullying.

They were asked a range of questions regarding whether they had bullied anyone or been a victim. The results showed that children with older brothers were more likely to report being bullied at home and that boys were more likely to bully if they had a younger sister or brother. This was not the case with older sisters — they were more likely to bully a sibling based on the quality of their relationship rather than their older age.

Dr Menesini said: "It's likely that older sisters are raised to be responsible and protective towards their younger siblings. Older brothers are more likely to be hierarchical and seek to dominate these relationships and maintain this with daily bullying.

Journal Reference:

1. Ersilia Menesini, Marina Camodeca, Annalaura Nocentini. Bullying among siblings: The role of personality and relational variables. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2010; 28 (4): 921 DOI: 10.1348/026151009X479402

We are all aware that a bright day may lift our mood. However the brain mechanisms involved in such effects of light are largely unknown.

Researchers at the Cyclotron Research Centre (University of Liege), Geneva Center for Neuroscience and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (University of Geneva), and Surrey Sleep Research Centre (University of Surrey) investigated the immediate effect of light, and of its color composition, on emotion brain processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results of their study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the colour of light influences the way the brain processes emotional stimuli.

Brain activity of healthy volunteers was recorded while they listened to "angry voices" and "neutral voices" and were exposed to blue or green light. Blue light not only increased responses to emotional stimuli in the "voice area" of the brain and in the hippocampus, which is important for memory processes, but also led to a tighter interaction between the voice area, the amygdala, which is a key area in emotion regulation, and the hypothalamus, which is essential for biological rhythms regulation by light. This demonstrates that the functional organisation of the brain was affected by blue light.

The acute effects of ambient light on emotional processing might differ from its longer-lasting effects on mood, but the present findings in healthy subjects have important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms by which changes in lighting environment could improves mood, not only in mood disorders using light therapy, but also in our day to day life, by paying more attention to our light environment at home and in the work place.

Journal Reference:

1. G. Vandewalle, S. Schwartz, D. Grandjean, C. Wuillaume, E. Balteau, C. Degueldre, M. Schabus, C. Phillips, A. Luxen, D. J. Dijk, P. Maquet. Spectral quality of light modulates emotional brain responses in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1010180107

 Watching violent films, TV programmes or video games desensitises teenagers, blunts their emotional responses to aggression and potentially promotes aggressive attitudes and behaviour, according to new research recently published online in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

Although previous research has suggested that people can become more aggressive and desensitised to real-life violence after repeatedly viewing violent media programmes, little is known about how the extent of watching such programmes and the severity of the aggression displayed affects the brains of adolescents. "It is especially important to understand this because adolescence is a time when the brain is changing and developing, particularly in the parts of the brain that control emotions, emotional behaviour and responses to external events," said Dr Jordan Grafman, who led the research.

Dr Grafman, senior investigator at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA), and colleagues recruited 22 boys between the ages of 14-17 to the study. The boys each watched short, four-second clips of violent scenes from 60 videos, arranged randomly in three lots of 20 clips. The degree of violence and aggression in each scene was low, mild or moderate, and there were no extreme scenes. They were asked to rate the aggression of each scene by pressing one of two response buttons at the end of each clip to say whether they thought it was more or less aggressive than the previous video. The boys were positioned in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner that collected data on their brain function while they watched the videos. They also had electrodes attached to the fingers of their non-dominant hand to test for skin conductance responses (SCR). This is a method of measuring the electrical conductance of the skin, which varies with moisture (sweat) levels and is a sensitive way of measuring people's emotions and responses to internal or external stimuli.

Dr Grafman said: "We found that as the boys were exposed to more violent videos over time, their activation in brain regions concerned with emotional reactivity decreased and that was reflected in the data from the functional MRI and in the skin conductance responses."

Data from the SCR showed that the boys became more desensitised towards the videos the longer they watched them and also that they were more desensitised by the mildly and moderately violent videos, but not the ones that contained a low degree of violence. Data on brain activation patterns showed a similar effect. In particular, the area known as the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC), which is thought to be involved in emotions and emotional responses to events, showed increasing desensitisation over time, and this was most marked for the most aggressive videos (showing moderate violence) in the study.

The researchers also found that boys who had the most exposure to violent media in their daily lives, as measured by screening tests and questions in their initial meeting with the researchers, showed the greatest desensitisation.

Dr Grafman said: "The important new finding is that exposure to the most violent videos inhibits emotional reactions to similar aggressive videos over time and implies that normal adolescents will feel fewer emotions over time as they are exposed to similar videos. This finding is driven by reduced posterior brain activation and therefore the frontal lobe doesn't react as it normally would.

"The implications of this are many and include the idea that continued exposure to violent videos will make an adolescent less sensitive to violence, more accepting of violence, and more likely to commit aggressive acts since the emotional component associated with aggression is reduced and normally acts as a brake on aggressive behaviour. No prior study has examined this from the complete perspective we had that included behaviour, brain activation, and SCRs in adolescent brains."

As the study recruited only boys, it is not possible to say whether the same effect would be seen in girls. "The incidence rate of aggression in females, even in female teenagers that are exposed to some of the same biopsychosocial challenges as male adolescents, is low and raises the questions of what brain mechanisms and autonomic differences are associated with this gender difference," write the authors.

They conclude: "We propose that exposure to aggressive media results in a blunting of emotional responses, which in turn may prevent the connection of consequences of aggression with an appropriate emotional response, and therefore may increase the likelihood that aggression is seen as acceptable behaviour."

Dr Grafman believes that the findings of the study can be extrapolated to the way people would behave in real life situations. "The electronic media concerned with aggression does stimulate structures in the brain that are typically activated when people imagine being aggressive and, we assume, when they actually are aggressive. Most people can distinguish between playing a video game and real live behaviour, but given the right circumstances where the rules are a bit more ambiguous (what if a bully provokes me) and provocative (someone is trying to take my lunch money), would an adolescent tend to be more aggressive and accept that aggression as normal behaviour given prior exposure to video games? I think so. Particularly if they are a heavy user of games and, in our device-driven world, that will be more and more likely in the future."

Journal Reference:

1. Maren Strenziok, Frank Krueger, Gopikrishna Deshpande, Rhoshel K. Lenroot, Elke van der Meer, and Jordan Grafman. Fronto-parietal regulation of media violence exposure in adolescents: a multi-method study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2010 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq079

— Is an adult with a history of childhood bullying more likely to be homeless, a compulsive liar, or someone who scams another person out of money? According to a study collaborated on by an Iowa State University sociologist, the numbers indicate just that.

Matt DeLisi, an ISU associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice program, was part of a research team that examined the psychiatric correlates of bullying behavior in the United States. Data for this study was derived from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Six percent of 43,093 adults sampled indicated a history of bullying others.

"Within this large data file there are a lot of behavioral measures. This study looks at those who had a history of bullying and compared to those who do not. It is very simple. This study shows that bullies are more antisocial. They're engaged in problem behaviors that over time, add up." Delisi said.

DeLisi was one of seven scholars who collaborated on the study, which was led by Michael Vaughn from the School of Social Work at Saint Louis University. Their study "Psychiatric Correlates of Bullying in the United States: Findings from a National Sample," was published in the September 2010 Psychiatric Quarterly. The study compares a number of different kinds of antisocial behaviors with adults who had a history of bullying and those who did not have a history of bullying.

According to the study, adults with a history of bullying were 10 times more likely to lie than those with no bullying history. They were also six times more likely to get in a fight and two-and-a-half times more likely to harass or threaten someone than those with no bullying history.

The study also indicates conduct disorder as a childhood precursor of adult anti-social behavior.

"When you look at the odds and ratio differences in people who bully and those who did not bully, conduct disorder has the largest effect. Bullies are 11 times more likely to have had conduct disorder than non bullies. That giant fact shows you that bullies are antisocial anyway. When you get into personality disorders, you'll see that in anti-social personalities there is almost an eight times difference." DeLisi said.

DeLisi sees these numbers as showing children with these traits are more likely to commit more serious crimes in the future.

"They are six times more likely to get into fights they started and they are more likely to get into a fight with a family member or spouse," he said. "So when you start to look at some of these items where there are significant differences, what you are seeing are aggression violence behaviors, and when you couple that with the psychiatric diagnosis that they are demonstrating, you get a clear idea that these people have problems."

With these findings and numbers, DeLisi and his team try to explain why children with anti-social behavioral traits tend to hang around others with the same traits.

"Because bullies are so aggressive, they are viewed by peers to be so difficult to deal with, so they are rejected," DeLisi said. "Peer rejection occurs in early elementary school. These are also kids who are likely suspended in elementary, middle, or high school. They are sort of trapped, in a way, because of their aggression behavior and their ostracism they get trapped out of a normal childhood. This sets into motion the social circle of who is going to hang out with a highly aggressive bully. The answer is they will hang out with other kids with similar traits."

Journal Reference:

1. Michael G. Vaughn, Qiang Fu, Kimberly Bender, Matt DeLisi, Kevin M. Beaver, Brian E. Perron, Matthew O. Howard. Psychiatric Correlates of Bullying in the United States: Findings from a National Sample. Psychiatric Quarterly, 2010; 81 (3): 183 DOI: 10.1007/s11126-010-9128-0

NewsPsychology (Oct. 2, 2010) — Loners and antisocial kids who reject other children are often bullied at school — an accepted form of punishment from peers as they establish social order. Such peer victimization may be an extreme group response to control renegades, according to a new study from Concordia University published in the Journal of Early Adolescence.

“For groups to survive, they need to keep their members under control,” says author William M. Bukowski, a professor at the Concordia Department of Psychology and director of its Centre for Research in Human Development. “Withdrawn individuals threaten the strong social fabric of a group, so kids are victimized when they are too strong or too antisocial. Victimization is a reaction to anyone who threatens group harmony.”

Bukowski notes that the word victimization is related to the word for sacrifice and speculates the term remains relevant in establishing modern dynamics among kids. “Peers who are victimized are sacrificed for the survival of the group.”

The study, which focused on 367 English-speaking kids enrolled in grades five and six at public schools in Montreal, was undertaken to gain better insight into what makes some kids popular while others are perceived as victims or bullies.

The research team focused on social versus physical aggression among kids. “Using aggression in ways that are acceptable by peers is critical in children keeping their social status and, in turn, their social dominance,” says Bukowski, noting physical attractiveness and personality traits could also influence peer standing. “We found dominant children used organized, instrumental types of relational aggression to position themselves.”

To ascertain whether kids were leaders, victims or bullies, Bukowski and his team asked participants — 176 boys and 191 girls — to rate same gender peers on 17 characteristics. Bullies, for instance, were characterized as kids “who says bad things behind other people’s backs; who purposely keep others out of their group; who tell friends they’ll stop liking them unless they do what they want.”

Alpha-kids were described as “someone who others kids usually follow; someone who is often a leader; someone who always get their own way.”

Victims, for their part, were described as “someone who gets hit or kicked by other kids; someone who gets beaten up by other kids; someone who gets ignored; someone who other kids say mean things about behind their back.”

Bukowski, who observed many instances of peer victimization in his previous career as a math teacher in elementary and high-schools, says educators and parents can help protect children from being victimized and prevent alpha-kids from becoming bullies.

“No one wants to blame the victim, so teachers and parents always focus on bullies, but it’s important to treat symptoms in peer victimization and not only the causes,” he says.

To prevent victimization in classrooms and help neutralize bullying, teachers should foster egalitarian environments, where access to power is shared, he continues. “Parents and educators should also encourage children who are withdrawn to speak up and assert themselves.”

This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The paper, “Peer Victimization and Social Dominance as Intervening Variables of the Link Between Peer Liking and Relational Aggression,” published in The Journal of Early Adolescence, was authored by Ryan E. Adams, a former Concordia postdoctoral fellow who is now at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, Nancy H. Bartlett, who received her PhD at Concodia and is now at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia, and William M. Bukowski of Concordia University in Quebec.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by newsPsychology staff) from materials provided by Concordia University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Journal Reference:

1. R. E. Adams, N. H. Bartlett, W. M. Bukowski. Peer Victimization and Social Dominance as Intervening Variables of the Link Between Peer Liking and Relational Aggression. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 2009; 30 (1): 102 DOI: 10.1177/0272431609342985

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of NewsPsychology or its staff.

— In the first-ever study to assess the social impact of food allergies in children, Mount Sinai researchers have found that approximately 35 percent of children with food allergies, who are over the age of five, were reported to have experienced bullying, teasing, or harassment as a result of their allergies.

Of those experiencing teasing or harassment, 86 percent were reported to have experienced repeated episodes. Classmates were the most common perpetrators, but surprisingly more than 20 percent reported harassment or teasing from teachers and other school staff. The data are reported in the October issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Led by Scott H. Sicherer, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, researchers analyzed survey responses from 353 parents or caregivers of children with food allergies and food-allergic individuals. The survey was conducted at meetings of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network in Tarrytown, New York, Rosemont, Illinois, and Baltimore, Maryland in 2009.

"We know that food allergy in children affects quality of life and causes issues like anxiety, depression, and stress for them and their parents," said Dr. Sicherer. "However, our study is the first to explore teasing, harassment and bullying behaviors aimed at these children. The results are disturbing, as they show that children not only have to struggle with managing their food allergies, but also commonly bear harassment from their peers."

More than 43 percent were reported to have had the allergen waved in their face and 64 percent were reported as having experienced verbal teasing. No allergic reactions resulted from the bullying, but approximately 65 percent reported resulting feelings of depression and embarrassment.

"It was recently estimated that nearly one in 25 children has a food allergy," said Dr. Sicherer. "What is so concerning about these results is the high rate of teasing, harassment and bullying, its impact on these vulnerable children, and the fact that perpetrators include not only other children, but adults as well. Considering the seriousness of food allergy, these unwanted behaviors risk not only adverse emotional outcomes, but physical risks as well. It is clear that efforts to rectify this issue must address a better understanding of food allergies as well as strict no-bullying programs in schools."

A previous study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development showed that 17 percent of children in grades 6 through 10 reported being bullied. While this study was not designed to determine prevalence of bullying in children with food allergy, the number of patients bullied in the corresponding age group according to the survey is double that of the prior study. The authors suggest that school programs designed to reduce bullying should include information about the vulnerable population of children with food allergies.

 Homeless young people are victims of crime at rates that society would consider unacceptable for any other group, according to a new report by researchers at York University and the University of Guelph.

The report, Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth and Victimization in Toronto, highlights the degree to which it is street youth themselves − often perceived as delinquent and dangerous − who are vulnerable to crime and violence.

"The very people we are taught to fear are the ones who are most at risk," said Professor Stephen Gaetz, associate dean of research and field development in York's Faculty of Education. "More than 76 per cent of the homeless youth we surveyed said they had been victims of violent crime in the past year, and almost three-quarters of them reported multiple incidents."

In comparison, about 40 per cent of young people in the general population reported that they had been victimized in the previous year, when the Canadian General Social Survey last asked them about it in 1999 − and they experienced mostly property crime.

Gaetz and University of Guelph Professor Bill O'Grady interviewed 244 homeless youths across Toronto last year about life on the streets. Their report was commissioned by Justice for Children and Youth, a not-for-profit legal aid clinic that operates a Street Youth Legal Services program, providing legal advice and support to homeless youth in Toronto.

The solution to problems youth face on the streets lies in changing the way youth homelessness is addressed, according to the report. It calls for a balanced response that, instead of relying mostly on emergency services, would balance preventive measures, an emergency response, and transitional support to move young people out of homelessness quickly.

In the interviews, conducted at agencies serving youth in downtown Toronto and the suburbs:

• female street youth were more likely than males to report being victims of crime (85.9 per cent compared to 71.8 per cent).
• 38.2 per cent of the female street youth reported being victims of sexual assault. Reports of sexual assault were higher among black females (47 per cent) than white females (33 per cent).
• 60 per cent of lesbian and bisexual females reported that they had been sexually assaulted in the past year, making them perhaps the most victimized group among street youth.
• young homeless women reported extremely high levels of violence and abuse from their intimate partners.
• youths who had become homeless at a young age (16 or 17) were much more likely to have been violently victimized than young people who became homeless later.
• only 20 per cent of all respondents said they had alerted police about their victimization.

Much has changed since Gaetz first wrote a report on homeless youth in Toronto, also for Justice for Children and Youth, seven years ago. The City of Toronto and non-profit agencies have improved services, and the City has expanded its Streets to Homes program to move youth into housing. Street Youth Legal Services, a program of Justice for Children and Youth, has expanded its capacity to support young people with their legal and justice issues.

However, the report concludes federal, provincial and municipal governments should be addressing youth homelessness with an integrated strategy that includes: an adequate supply of supported, affordable housing for young people; efforts by health and mental health sectors, corrections and child welfare services to ensure their practices do not contribute to homelessness; crisis intervention and family mediation to help young people remain housed; and transitional approaches with income, social and health care supports for young people.

"Many people, including policy makers, believe that youth homelessness and crime are linked, and they use laws such as the Safe Streets Act to 'move along' young people," said Gaetz. "In fact, our findings show that young homeless people are among the most victimized people in our society, and they need our protection."

Young victims of electronic or cyber bullying — which occurs online or by cell phone — are more likely to suffer from depression than their tormentors are, a new study finds.

Traditional bullying, the kind that occurs in the school building or face-to-face, is different. Victims and bully-victims — those who both dish it out and take it — are more likely to suffer from depression than are those who are bullies, but not victims.

“The type of bullying we’re looking at peaks in middle school,” said study co-author Ronald Iannotti, Ph.D.

Researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child and Human Health Development looked at survey results on bullying behaviors and signs of depression in 7,313 students in grades six through 10.

Cyber bullying is a relatively new area of study. Lead author Jing Wang, Ph.D., said the greater depression in victims alone compared to others involved in cyber bullying was unexpected.

Jorge Srabstein, M.D., who has no affiliation with the new study, said the findings “really highlight the toxicity of cyber bullying.” He is medical director of the Clinic for Health Problems Related to Bullying at Children's National Medical Center.

In traditional bullying, “somebody writes an insult on the bathroom wall and it’s confined to the environment of the school,” Srabstein said. But with cyber bullying, “in the majority of victimization, there is a wider resonance of abuse, to all corners of the world.”

“Individuals can be more isolated when bullying occurs by cell phone or computer,” Iannotti said. “The mechanism for cyber bullying is ‘I’m making fun of you; I could have made a photo of you that’s not even true and it can go to Facebook.’ The audience is much greater. That can be devastating – not knowing how many people have seen that text message or photo.”

Data from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children 2005 Survey showed that more than half of students either had bullied others or experienced verbal bullying, like name-calling, at least once in the past couple of months and more than half were involved in relational bullying, like isolation from peers. About a fifth had either engaged in or experienced physical bullying, like hitting, and about 14 percent were involved in cyber bullying.

Gender was not a factor: boys and girls equally were vulnerable.

What was not clear is which comes first: “We can’t be sure whether depressed kids have lower self-esteem and so are more easily bullied or the other way around,” Iannotti said.

In 2006, Megan Meier, a Missouri teen, committed suicide because of online bullying. In a case that illustrates how the trend can cross boundaries of age and identity, her adult tormentors pretended to be a boy who first befriended, then insulted, and finally “dumped” her.

A new Missouri law requires school districts to add the terms “cyber-bullying” and “electronic communications” to existing anti-bullying policies and other states have enacted similar laws.

In his June testimony before the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, Srabstein gave recommendations to address student cyber safety in the context of the Elementary and Secondary School Education Act reauthorization.

In worldwide efforts, a common thread is that you cannot confront bullying without educating people and changing the community culture.

“Children might not be aware that they incidents they have experienced are cyber bulling,” Wang said.

Many kids are reluctant to speak up. “Unfortunately, it’s universally ingrained that reporting bullying is being a ‘snitch’ and trying to get someone in trouble,” Srabstein said. “Instead of punishing perpetrators, they should undergo counseling about the harm they have inflicted and understand that they must to stop the mistreatment.”

“Kids may be reluctant to tell their parents in case they lose their computer or cell phone privileges,” Iannotti said. On the other side, he said, “parents should monitor children’s phones and computers,” another tough sell.

Journal Reference:

1. Jing Wang, Tonja R. Nansel, Ronald J. Iannotti. Cyber and Traditional Bullying: Differential Association With Depression. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2010; DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2010.07.012