Andrew Faas
Andrew Faas is a management advisor and senior executive with Canada’s two largest retail organizations and now heads the Faas Foundation which focuses on health care, education and medical research. He has made bullying in the workplace a passion and helping prevent it a reason for being. Faas is a philanthropist and author of “The Bully’s Trap – the definitive guide to creating psychologically safe workplaces.”
What are some of the common behaviors associated with bullying?
- School and workplace bullying can include publicly humiliating, isolating from others, excluding from meetings, discrediting, forcing unreasonable expectations, threatening, constant badgering, withholding information required to fulfill expectations and gossiping.
- Sexual bullying usually starts with flirtation and become more aggressive depending on how the target responds.
What makes someone turn into a bully? How do bullies choose who they will treat in this way?
- Bullying in the workplace is usually about power and control.
In over 70 percent of the cases, the bullying is boss to subordinate. - Bullies bully because they can. They work in cultures that condone, accept, and in many cases, even expect managers to bully.
- Bullies target those who are a threat to them and/or those they can intimidate.
What are some of the emotions that the victims of bullying experience?
- Most people who are severely bullied suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Emotions targets experience include loneliness, loss of confidence, blame, low sense of self, anger, fear, depression, loss of control and confusion.
- Being targeted becomes all-consuming and it is usually impossible to think about anything else while it is going on.
- One of the most disturbing aspects is the inability for targets to find closure even after the bullying has stopped, because of the scars it leaves.
Is there anything someone being bullied can do?
- Do not deal with it alone, go to someone you trust and strategize on how to confront it.
- Do not go to human resources unless you have total and absolute trust in their ability to remedy the situation, because in many cases, human resources offices are viewed as part of the problem versus part of the solution.
How can bullying be prevented?
- By creating psychologically healthy and safe work environments.
Jonathan Fast
Jonathan Fast is an Associate Professor at Wurzweiler School of Social Work of Yeshiva University in New York and an internationally-prominent authority on mass shootings and school violence. His research focuses on the developmental process by which people come to be violent. He is the author of eight novels and two books of non-fiction: the highly-acclaimed “Ceremonial Violence,” which presents a new way of understanding school rampage shootings; and “Beyond Bullying: Breaking the Cycle of Shame, Bullying, and Violence,” which will be published this month by Oxford University Press.
What are some of the common behaviors associated with bullying?
- Male bullies pick on kids who are smaller and weaker than they are and usually attack verbally, questioning maturity, intelligence, strength or gender presentation, or they assault them physically.
- Female bullies more often resort to relational bullying. They spread rumors about the victim or isolate them.
What makes someone turn into a bully? How do bullies choose who they will treat in this way?
- Dan Olweus, a Swedish psychologist identified five risk factors that contribute to a boy becoming a bully:
1. The parents did not bond well with the child when he or she was an infant.
2. Parents failed to inhibit the child’s aggression.
3. Parents modelled aggression and physical force as primary problem-solving strategies.
4. The child has an inborn penchant toward aggressive and impulsive behavior.
5. The child is larger and stronger than other children his age. - Children who become bullies have often been shamed by their families and are trying to manage their shame by displacing it on another child.
What are some of the emotions that the victims of bullying experience?
- When the bully questions the victim’s maturity, intelligence, gender presentation, cleanliness, wealth or success, part of the victim believes the insults.
- Victims may retreat into themselves, and becomes smaller and more fearful
- .Targets create a low-status version of themselves, feeling shame.
- Some victims, having been bullied over time, become depressed and anxious adults.
Is there anything someone being bullied can do?
- It is not the victim’s responsibility to protect themselves in school; it is the duty of the school to create a non-hostile atmosphere where students do not have to worry about hurt or humiliation and can concentrate on their learning.
How can bullying be prevented?
- We can’t prevent bullying any more than we can prevent interpersonal aggression, but we can reduce the incidence and the viciousness of bullying by moving our school communities away from retributive behavior.
- “Restorative processes,” such as making affirmative statements, leading proactive circle conferences, using reintegrative shame management, and a restorative approach in family conferences can help build more civil school societies.
Dr. Marlene Seltzer
Marlene Seltzer, M.D., is an obstetrician-gynecologist and the director No Bullying Live Empowered (NoBLE) Center, at Beaumont Hospital – Royal Oak.
What are some of the common behaviors associated with bullying?
- Physical bullying is hurting someone or taking/destroying their possessions.
Verbal bullying includes making disparaging comments, taunting, threatening, writing cruel things, and intimidation. - Social bullying involves hurting someone’s relationships or reputation via rumor, gossip or exclusion.
- Cyberbullying takes place using electronic technology and can involve cruel messages, rumors, embarrassing pictures or videos and threats.
What makes someone turn into a bully? How do bullies choose who they will treat in this way?
- There are a variety of risk factors and reasons, including violence in the home, previously being a victim, desire for attention or to attain/maintain social status.
- Some bullies view aggression positively, show little empathy and have anti-social tendencies.
- Bullying is about power, and the person bullying is trying to meet a need in a maladaptive way. Bullying requires a perceived power imbalance—whether it is physical, social, etc.
What are some of the emotions that the victims of bullying experience?
- Some emotions victims experience include depression, anxiety, loneliness and decreased self-esteem.
- Youth who bully are also at increased risk for depression and anxiety.
- Targets are at increased risk for suicidality and substance abuse.
Is there anything someone being bullied can do?
- Bystander intervention has been shown successful.
- Targets of bullying are encouraged to tell a trusted adult to obtain help, as adults have the authority and ability to address such behavior.
- Friendship has been shown to be a protective factor from the consequences of bullying, and resilience a product of positive, caring relationships with adults.
- Ignoring a problem does not make it go away.
How can bullying be prevented?
- Bullying is a problem that occurs well beyond the school years and prevention will take a comprehensive societal approach. There are evidenced-based bullying prevention programs and social-emotional learning programs for schools that have been shown to be effective in reducing bullying.
STOP BULLYING 