Want to know what constitutes bullying and what doesn’t? Here are several examples of what it is and what it isn’t.
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It’s important to know how to distinguish bullying from incivility, differences of opinion, or healthy arguments and debates. Why? So you can point it out more clearly when you see it, without any confusion.
As someone who was a victim of bullying in the past and has researched it for almost thirty years, I’m giving you several examples of what is and isn’t bullying.
You will learn exactly what constitutes bullying and what doesn’t.
Once you learn these differences, you will be able to pinpoint a bullying situation more accurately and with less difficulty than before.
This post is all about what constitutes bullying and what doesn’t so that you can know if people are, in fact, bullying you or if you’re witnessing someone else being bullied.
What Constitutes Bullying
People use the term “bullying” so widely today. In fact, many misuse and abuse it. People throw the word around loosely, sticking its label to situations that do not fit its use.
In other words, many are too quick to stick the “bully” label on anyone who says anything they don’t like. Moreover, people also mistakenly call anyone who disagrees with them “a bully.”
As a result, this has caused so much confusion about what constitutes bullying and what is just rudeness, arguing, debating, being a jerk, or voicing an individual opinion.
Therefore, I feel an obligation to point out the definition of bullying and to clarify what truly is and is NOT bullying.
The Definition of bullying:
Bullying – an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical, and/or social behavior that intends to cause physical, social, and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening (https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents/definition-of-bullying/)
In other words, bullying is unwanted aggression that is repeated, over a long period of time, against the same individual target or targeted group because of an imbalance of power.
What constitutes bullying: Bullying has 5 Characteristics.
1. Power imbalance.
Bullying always thrives on an imbalance of power, with the bully usually having more power than their victim. For example, bigger bullies in school ride roughshod over much smaller victims. The power these bullies have over their victims lies in their size and physical strength.
Another example would be the tyrannical manager at the office or a brutal county sheriff. The power the manager holds over his subordinate victims stems from his position in the company.
Moreover, his power is the fact that he holds their ability to feed themselves and their families in the palm of his hand. Therefore, he bullies employees at will because he can, and there’s nothing they can do about it without losing their jobs.
It’s the same with the bad sheriff. His position in the county government is his power, and he can plant drugs in the vehicles of his targets and possibly ruin their lives.
So, who’s going to believe the targets when they claim innocence? Who’d take the word of a perceived criminal over an officer of the law? This is the power this sheriff holds. People know he’s evil, but they stay out of his way to avoid becoming the next on his list.
Therefore, bullying always involves a power imbalance. Also, the bully is ALWAYS the one with the most power.
2. Repetition.
The bullying aggression is repeated. Moreover, they are repeated over long periods of time (anywhere from several weeks to several years). And because bullying continues over time, it can escalate if left unchecked.
3. What Constitutes Bullying:
Seeks to do harm.
Bullying seeks to hurt its victims deliberately. It not only harms them physically, but also psychologically and emotionally. It tears down confidence, crushes self-esteem, and ruins the lives of many innocent people. It’s just what it’s designed to do.
4. It targets the same victim.
Bullying singles out one target or targeted group. Therefore, bullies repeatedly target these individuals over time. This aggression only ends when the targets leave the bullies’ environment either by relocation, transfer, or death.
5. The repeated aggression persists for a long time (over several weeks, months, or years).
Bullies repeat harmful acts of aggression against their targets over the long haul. Moreover, it lasts for weeks, months, or years until the targets somehow leave the bullying environment and are no longer within the bullies’ reach.
Therefore, in short, the bully has more power than the victim. Moreover, the person must carry on repeated acts of unwanted and harmful aggression against the same victim over a long period.
What constitutes bullying and what doesn’t
Bullying is often confused with:
1. Disagreements, arguments, and debates
Disagreements aren’t bullying because everyone disagrees- couples, siblings, parents may disagree with children and do, quite often.
In other words, someone who doesn’t agree with you is not bullying you. They only have a difference of opinion or perspective. Understand that we all have different life experiences, backgrounds, and belief systems.
Though it doesn’t always feel good when someone disagrees with us, that doesn’t make it bullying.
However, it would become bullying if you begin repeatedly singling out the person who disagreed with you and launch a two-month-long string of ad hominem attacks. Then you would be the bully for doing that.
Therefore, we must learn to accept each other’s differences.
2. Someone says something you don’t like or voices an opinion you don’t like.
This isn’t bullying. People say things others don’t like every day, but it doesn’t make them bullies.
For example, a person is voicing an opinion. When someone asks them what they think of their new next-door neighbor, the person answers by saying,
“I think he is an arrogant, egotistical jackass.”
Again, this is NOT bullying. It’s only voicing an opinion.
However, if the person continued this behavior for a length of time and smeared the new neighbor to everyone in the neighborhood in an attempt to turn everyone against her, then yes! It is bullying.
3. What constitutes Bullying and what doesn’t:
Misunderstandings
Here’s another example: if a 6’5” tall and muscular knucklehead on the street bumps into you and says, “Hey, idiot! Watch where the hell you’re going!” then keeps walking. This isn’t bullying either.
Is the person a total jackass? Absolutely.
Does he think you might have run into him on purpose? Probably. However, he isn’t necessarily a bully.
Now, what if he deliberately ran into you and shot his mouth off to you every day, every time he saw you on the street? Also, what if he made a habit of it by continuing to harass you?
Then, the answer is yes! He would be a bully. Because he would be using his size and height to intimidate you, and he’d be repeating the behavior every day, only against you but not against anyone else.
4. Stubbornness
For example, if I warned my next-door neighbor that one of the tires on his car was low and he waved me away like he was shooing a fly. He wouldn’t be a bully. A stubborn ox, maybe. But not a bully.
5. what Constitutes Bullying and what doesn’t:
Incivility and jerky behavior
For example, a driver pulls out in front of me on the road, I slam on my brakes and blare my horn at him, and he flips me off.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t make him a bully. Does it, however, make him an asshole? Absolutely, but not a bully.
Moreover, if two people are arguing over different beliefs, it’s not bullying, even if the argument is heated.
Only when one of the arguers resorts to repeatedly (notice I said repeatedly) calling their opponent names and shaming them for not agreeing with or sharing their beliefs, and the harassment goes on for a long time, against the same opponent! That, my friends, is bullying!
To prevent innocent people from being labeled as bullies, we need to be clear on exactly what constitutes bullying. Only then will we be able to apply it to those who are truly deserving of the label.
In Conclusion
Bullying has become a blanket term for many people to describe anyone who says, does, or believes anything they don’t find comfortable. This is wrong and must stop because not only will the terms bully and bullying lose their meanings, but bullies will only continue to fade into the crowd while innocent people end up with a label they don’t deserve stuck to them.
Moreover, the words bullying and bully are beginning to lose their meaning because people abuse and misuse the term today now more than ever.
Understand that people say things without thinking. Some say foolish stuff, and others are quite distasteful with their words and actions. However, this doesn’t necessarily make them bullies. Jerks, yes. But not bullies. Bullying is abuse. Being a jerk, on the other hand, is just being foolish and not thinking.
Remember, incivility does not equal bullying.
This post is all about what constitutes bullying and what doesn’t so that you can better distinguish between bullying and ASSHOLEERY, stubbornness or debating.
Related posts you’ll enjoy:
1. Why do Bullies Bully? 7 Reasons They Won’t Leave You Alone
2. Examples of Nonverbal Bullying
4. Bullies in School: 5 Ways They Tell on Themselves Without Realizing It