Bullying: Pursuit of status and affection

Pursuit of status and affection drives bullies' behaviour ScienceBlog.com

Researchers questioned almost 500 elementary-school children ages 9 to 12. Based on their findings, they conclude that bullies generally choose to gain status by dominating their victims. But at the same time, they try to reduce the chances that they'll end up on the outs with other classmates by choosing as victims children who are weak and not well-liked by others. In short, even bullies care a lot about others' affection and don't want to lose it.

Gender also plays a role. For example, the study finds that at this age, bullies only care about not losing affection from classmates of their own gender. So when boys bully boys, it doesn't matter whether girls approve or disapprove. The same holds for girls. Moreover, boys will bully only those girls that aren't well liked by other boys, regardless of what girls think about it, and girls will do the same in their bullying of boys.

"To understand the complex nature of acceptance and rejection, it's necessary to distinguish the gender of the bully, the gender of the target, and the gender of the classmates who accept and reject bullies and victims," according to René Veenstra, professor of sociology at the University of Groningen, who led the study.

Wiley InterScience: In Pursuit of a Reading Application to assist Dyslexic Readers

Reading Application Study - Summarised

This is a story about the fate of a psychological application: from its conception to the optimistic vision surrounding its future.

We hope that this application – an enjoyable learning game (www or mobile phone-based, available free of charge to the end users) for children – can at best help millions of children in their reading acquisition in the future.

Its basis was created by following intensively the development of children with and without genetic (familial) risk for dyslexia from birth to puberty in the Jyväskylä Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD)-project.

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