Compliance and Empathy: What to do with bullies?

by Michael Peters

International School of Prague

No matter how much effort you put into education and prevention, eventually every school will be faced with a broad spectrum of bullying situations, cyber and otherwise. A range of responses will be required to support the victim, of course, but ultimately something must done with the aggressors.

The consequences that are set for this sort of behavior must both deal with the particular situation and those involved, but also must set an appropriate tone, and contribute to a school environment where victims feel protected and empowered. Aggressors must be punished, and deterred, while getting help and support of their own.

I think the best approach will consider the issue both in terms of building compliance, and also empathy.

Goals

Compliance with community norms and school rules, immediately and moving forward. Protection of the victim from continued abuse is paramount. Cessation of bullying behavior and the disruption it causes to the academic environment.

Empathy. Wherever possible, consequences should attempt to go beyond surface-level compliance and attempt to develop a deep awareness of the issues, and the possible negative consequences for everyone involved.  

Disciplining Bullies: Principles and Basic Understandings

1. To be successful, any intervention, or system of consequences must be part of larger, comprehensive anti-bullying strategy with includes components targeted at staff, parents, victims and bystanders.

2.  In addition to the negative impact on victims, and the larger school environment, it is well known that bullies are often victims in other situations.  Whether or not this is the case, studies show that bullies tend to be at higher risk of depression, addiction, criminality, and other sorts of antisocial behavior.  Therefore, our duty to protect must extend to bullies as well as victims.

3. Studies indicate that a system of firm discipline, characterized by clear, consistent and predictable consequences is one of the most important features of a successful anti-bullying strategy.  Dealing with situations in an ad hoc manner is not advisable, and tends to work  against its value as a deterrence.

4. Notwithstanding #3, there is little data which indicates a relationship between severity of punishment and its deterrent value.  Most studies suggest that overly-severe punishments and zero-tolerance policies can have a variety of negative consequences, including increasing bullying behavior by further alienating the aggressor.  

In criminology, researchers argue that increased severity does not increase deterrence because aggressors don’t believe they will be caught - punishment doesn’t even enter into the cost-benefit analysis. It is more effective to increase vigilance. Increasing the certainty of being caught has more deterrent value.

This speaks to the importance of creating a school environment where victims and witnesses feel empowered to come forward. To that end, of course, punishments ought to be severe enough for the victim to feel that their situation was taken seriously, and that “justice” was done.  

5. Punishments should be delivered in a reintegrative way (by shaming the action), not in a stigmatizing way (by shaming the actor) Re-integrative shaming is likely to reduce offending, whereas stigmatic shaming is likely to increase offending.

6. Overwhelmingly, studies recommend consequences with educational and social development components over solutions which are totally punitive in nature. Most children are not sociopaths - they have positive values to build on. Consequences should work to correct the “mechanisms for moral disengagement” that allow essentially good kids to justify mistreating others.

One researcher describes effective discipline as teachable consequences, with the following components:

Effective programs:

• Create reflection and acknowledgement that bullying is wrong by the bully

• Drive introspection by the bully to really understand why bullying is both hurtful for the victim and quite damaging to the bully himself

• Include a learning exercise where the bully is allowed to realize how bullying is damaging to our society

• Promotes alternatives to bullying to address their own issues

Reading / References / Resources

1. Helping Both The Victim and the Bully New York Times, July 8, 2010

2. A Case Study with an Identified Bully: Policy and Practice Implications Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, July 2011

3. Effectiveness of school-based programs to reduce bullying: a systematic and meta-analytic review  Journal of Experimental Criminology, March 2011

4. Teachable Consequences Blog, 08/2011

5. Deterrence: Certainty vs. Severity of Punishment The Sentencing Project, 2010

6. The Psychological Effects Of Bullying Last Well Into Adulthood, Study Finds Forbes, 2/21/2013

7. Punishment and Behaviour Change, Australian Psychological Society 1995

8. Cyberbullying: Using Virtual Scenarios to Educate and Raise Awareness ISTE, 1999

9. Influencing Positive Peer Interventions: A Synthesis of the Research Insight, EmbraceCivility.org, 08/2013