Why Does Bullying Escalate?:

Focusing on the Benefits for Bullies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect the escalation of bullying.

The subjects were 446 students in the 7th and 8th grades. The main findings were as follows: (1) The percentage of children who had experience of bullying someone from entrance into elementary school until the time surveyed was 28.6%. (2) The reasons for bullying someone were divided into five aspects. Firstly, “for the reason that the victims of bullying were different from ourselves.” Secondly, “for the reason that the victims of bullying engaged in bad behavior.” Thirdly, “for reasons that had no relation to the behavior of the victims of bullying,” for example the desire to resolve stress, or that speaking ill of the victims of bullying in the bully group was entertaining, and so on. Fourthly, for the reason that the bullies were simply following their friends. Fifthly, “for the reason that the stress of family life was reduced by bullying victims who were vulnerable. (3) The feelings of bullies came to change to “being sorry for bullying” or “being aware of the benefits of bullying” as they continued bullying. (4) The condition of the bullying came to change as compared with the start of the bullying. The changes were divided into two aspects. Firstly, the level of “speaking ill of victims of bullying” and “ignoring victims of bullying” became worse. Secondly, the number of children who took part in bullying increased. (5) The factors that affected the escalation of bullying were the gender of bullies, the reasons for bullying (“for the reason that the victims of bullying were different from ourselves,” “for the reason that victims of bullying engaged in bad behavior,” “for reasons that had no relation to the behavior of the victims of the bullying,” and “being aware of the benefits of bullying”).

These findings suggest that it is very important to focus on the excuses for bullying and the benefits for bullies.