Bullying definitions

Bullying comes in different forms such as:

Verbal

Verbal bullying is when someone is called names, threatened and made to feel bad [1, 3].

Physical

Physical bullying is when someone is hit, punched, pushed or have their personal items stolen and any other kind of physical, aggressive contact [1, 3].

When someone has some physical signs of bullying like cuts, bruises, torn clothes or personal belongings missing they just put it down to over active play or childish games. Many times this isn't the cause and people who are bullied will not tell an adult or someone they trust as they believe it will make the bullies mad and make the bullying a lot worse.

Social

Social bullying is when someone is left out of games, deliberately ignored and has bad things spread about them and made to feel like an outsider [1, 3].

Cyber

With the technology age a new type of bullying was born; Cyber Bullying.

This type of bullying can be chat rooms, online, instant messaging, on a mobile phone or even e-mails [1, 2].

 

References on this page:

[1] Smith, K Peter., Cowie, Helen., Olafsson, Ragnar F & Liefooghe, Andy P.D. (2002) Definitions of bullying: A comparison of terms used, and age and gender differences, in a Fourteen–Country international comparison. Child Development, 73(4), pp.1119-1133.

[2] Mora‐Merchán, Joaquín A and Ortega‐Ruiz, Rosario. (2007). The new forms of school bullying and violence. In: Ortega, R., Mora-Merchán, A, Joaquín. And Jäger, T. Acting against school bullying and violence: Acting against school bullying and violence. pp. 7-34. Germany: Empirische Paedagogik e. V.

[3] Wang, Jing., Lannnotti, Ronald J & Nansel, Tonja R. (2009) School bullying among adolescents in the United States: Physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45(4), pp.368-375.

 

Page last updated: 1 January, 2021