Harassment or bullying can be learned at home

The insistence on making another person uncomfortable, denigrating him or her, highlighting certain characteristics or negative attitudes, can be learned, and not corrected, in the family environment. Since the home context encourages outward behaviors, if there is a history of psychological, physical, or any other type of violence within the home, a member of the family will be more likely to suffer or inflict aggression.

Bullying also has to do in large part with our culture and is a sign of the general problem that humanity is going through. Aggressions are the result of the accumulation of frustrations, of unfulfilled needs in different aspects.

When someone provokes you, you can react aggressively because there are personalities that find it easier to react to violence, they have even found reinforcers to maintain these behaviors because they give them results that are satisfactory for them: to be the popular one, the one who controls, to obtain something in function of maintaining these attitudes.

Bullying is not a new phenomenon, because it has accompanied the development of human beings in a sense of survival, "may the strongest win"; however, it has spread to other areas or "new" ways, such as digital.

The latest figures published last year indicate a significant growth in the phenomenon. Based on data revealed in the First World Report by the International NGO Bullying Without Borders, corresponding to 2020-2021, Mexico registers up to 180 thousand reported cases of bullying and cyberbullying.

The former can occur from an early age, in childhood; on the other hand, the other phenomenon is more related to young people because they are the ones who have more interaction with technologies.

The International Day against Bullying or School Bullying is commemorated on May 2.

The objective of this commemoration is to raise awareness worldwide about the risk of this phenomenon (face-to-face and digital) in minors and young people, as well as to seek mechanisms to prevent it. This initiative, proposed in 2013 by Javier Miglino, founder of the non-governmental organization "Bullying Without Borders", was approved by UNESCO the same year.

A favorable situation

Cyberbullying has grown exponentially due to confinement and the rise of technology. As a result, this facility is exploited to reach thousands of people. As it is a virtual environment, sometimes in the victimizer's mind it is considered a game. They hide by saying: "no, that's not happening". Some people are not aware that there is psychological damage.

Cyberbullying, which takes place on the Internet, social networks, gaming platforms, messaging, and even on cell phones, is largely based on anonymity. This psychological phenomenon, where people can hide, allows them to do a series of perverse things more easily.

It is recent because it is aligned or related to new technologies, here there is not a single form of how it presents itself, it can be through intimidation, offenses, mistreatment, insults, blackmail, or pressure. The aggressor tries to humiliate, frighten and embarrass the victim. Sometimes they can even impersonate his identity and threaten to expose images or content that affects them.

There are regrettable cases. After all, they can affect mental and even physical health because people begin to isolate themselves, they can alter their sleeping and eating habits, there have been cases of self-harm because they become so sad, afraid, lonely, that it is a way to let off steam, to let off some of the stress.

Source: UNAM