The phenomenon of bullying used to be viewed as a rite of passage, fortunate or not. However, when the U.S. Secret Service linked bullying as the motivation for a number of school shootings, educators, parents and others began to take bullying much more seriously. According to Whitted and Dupper (2005), ôBullying is the most prevalent form of low-level violence in schools today and, if left unchecked, can lead to more serious forms of violenceö (p. 167). Bullying also results in negative effects on the cognitive and behavioral level in middle- and high-school students subjected to it. This analysis will examine the concept of bullying from both a cognitive and behavioral perspective.
According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), approximately 16%-20% of middle- and high-school children are the victims of bullying on a daily basis (Whitted, & Dupper, 2005). Bullying can take the form of physical aggression or verbal abuse. The NICHD also maintains that bullying is beginning to emerge as a pattern of behavior in children at a much younger age than in the past. Bullying can result in a number of deleterious outcomes, including fear of going to school, physical injury, lower academic performance and others. The issue has become serious enough that eight states have adopted legislation that requires public schools to implement bullying education, awareness and prevention programs, with Massachusetts leading the way by ôàallocating 1 million dollars to bully-proof its schoolsö (Whitted, & Dupper, 2005, p. 167).
Henry (2004) maintains that the phenomenon of bullying is an act that ôàoccurs by the powerful over the powerless, and involves repetitive psychological and/or physical attacks upon a victim by an aggressorö (p. 23). The aggressor reinforces his or her status of power over the victim at every opportunity, by inflicting fear in the victim of an attack itself and also of ...