Bullying in School and Online Contexts: Social Dominance, Bystander Compliance, and Emotional Pain of Victims

This chapter examines the contextual conditions that give rise to bullying, the motives underlying bullying behaviors, the plight of victims, and the role of bystanders. First, it emphasizes the critical role of considering environmental features when understanding the motivation behind bullying. Second, the chapter accounts for bystander compliance and explains how the lack of public objection to bullying helps shape misperceptions of social norms that maintain it. Bullying does not just involve an exchange between perpetrator and victim; rather, a defining feature of bullying is that it occurs in front of an audience. In light of the strong associations between victimization, attributions of self‐blame, and subsequent distress, it is critical to acknowledge how various environmental conditions of a victim's experience may give rise to different interpretations of why they were targeted. Diversity of the student body is another important feature of school environments that might help curb bullying behavior.