Beating up the Weakling
By: Keith
Non conformity is one reason some kids get picked on. Like I talked about yesterday, peer pressure causes school kids to try their best to act and look the same as one another. The kids spend so much time worrying about looking like their neighbor that education takes a back seat. But, the question today is, why do some kids get picked on more than others? I might have found a partial answer. Two psychologists, one from Cornell University and the other from Ohio State University ran some experiments on Cornell students to see how hard they would try on a task if they thought they were competing against either a superior opponent or an inferior one. The researchers told students they would be competing against another university, ranked either higher or lower than them, in team academic contests. For example, one contest was to write down as many uses for a knife as they could think of in some time limit. The researchers also added that the contests had nothing to do with academic performance and, thus, the rankings would not predict which team would win.
The Results:
It turns out that when the students thought they were competing against a perceived weaker opponent (even though it was a lie) they tried much harder to win and actually came up with more matches for, say, the knife question. When they competed against an opponent who they thought was better, they did worse. But why? It seems to me totally backwards. Why try less against an opponent that should be harder to beat? The researchers speculate it could have to do with conservation of effort. The students might have thought they should have tried hard to win the battles they were supposed to win but save their energy on the ones that would be tougher. After all, they wouldn’t be faulted if they lost the tough ones.
A Contradiction:
These recent findings contradict an earlier study that showed the opposite, that people try hard against stiffer competition. The difference, however, between the two studies is the previous study did not involve a threat to the competitors’ status whereas this most recent one did. Therefore, the difference in the results might lie in the students’ fear of losing status in their peer group. If they lose to an inferior opponent it would mean a shift in social status. In that case the results make sense.
How does this Relate to School?
I see bullying as at least partially due to peer pressure. A bully can maintain his status easier by beating up on a bunch of weaklings than if he were to seek out tougher competition. Because, after all, what if he picked the wrong mark and lost? That would mean an instant status collapse. He can’t risk it so he picks on the weakest kids first. If you’ve ever noticed how bullies behave, whether they are verbally or physically abusive, they always seem to be looking over their shoulder for some support from the throng of kids who invariably migrate towards the commotion. If the group is with him he’ll become more vicious. Obviously, his performance is strongly tied to what other people think of him. He wouldn’t put in the effort if nobody cared.
Peer pressure causes kids, and adults, too, to do all sorts of strange things. Our desire to maintain status can even psychologically cause us to throw in the towel in circumstances where we really shouldn’t. Without being reminded of your inferiority, do you think there are some people who are better than you (or the opposite — do you feel superior)? Has your level of effort, when competing with them, been affected by your assumptions about your chances of victory? I know someone who, ever since we were kids, thought he was better than me in most things. He intentionally chose to compete in only the things he thought he had the best chances of winning, wagering on an easy win to help his sagging ego. We were so equally matched though that even the simple competitions turned into major battles. Undeterred in his assumption that I must be inferior, the battles became more and more fierce. We still compete to this day but more playfully than in the past, and shockingly, we’re best friends. He has since learned, the hard way, that I’m no patsy. I always wondered why he seemed to try so hard to beat me on even the most playful just-for-fun competitions. This simple aphorism: hindsight is 20/20, fits well here. My suspicion is that we can all think of cases where this experiment might be applied to our own lives.
Note: I read the article describing the research in this Month’s Scientific American Mind Magazine.
No related posts.
Touche. There is a point when competition goes from being fun to being destructive.
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Interesting contradiction. I think the more recent results are an indication of a trend: it’s more important to not be embarrassed than it is to succeed these days.
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I think you’re right. I have a lot of experience with this stuff, having been the smallest kid in my class. Junior high was an absolute nightmare (I chose to cope by fighting, which isn’t the right answer.). I have found bullies to be some of the most scared people around — mostly scared of being mocked if they lose to a kid perceived to be much weaker.
Not to be bested by the small kid who was also the “Odd Man Out” were fuel for the fire that made for some fierce battles in Jr. High and even in High School. I was the only Mexican-American, Mormon Kid in my schools in Mississippi, of all places. I learned quickly to deal before being dealt. And while the experience gave me experience that has proven necessary in my life; I would never wish that on any of my children. Kids can be cruel and mean. My kids have been lucky to be big and powerful… not the usual targets of the cowardly bully. But I have taught my boys that part of being big is to protect everyone smaller. That way, when the bully looks over his shoulder for the support from the others as he begins to pummel a smaller child, all he sees is my son walking right up on his ass.
I don’t believe it’s enough to teach our kids to be strong and independent minded. There needs to be that next step… teaching them to stand up for those who can’t, against those who would prey on the weak. Ambivalence is just another form of cowardice. And justifying ambivalence by saying that it is a safer course for our children is promoting weakness as a society.
Bullies survive and get by on the ambivalence of others. Not in my house, though.
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Spuds: That is absolutely true. Knowing how to defend one’s self is always step number one but should not, of course, be the end of the road. We all should be able and willing to stand up for those who cannot. Very true. Thanks for that addition!
My bespectacled, braces needing son is one of the tallest in his class. He is also rather slender thanks to his aversion to most foods and a med that kills his appetite even further. His best friend IS the biggest in the class. At ten, he already has a football players build. You wouldn’t think that anyone would try to take him on! And yet, apparently he is picked on – often. Every time he gets into trouble, his mom tells me about how it was due to a much smaller child picking on her son. I know, I KNOW… The first thought goes to “well, how far is he pushing them before they turn on him?” But that is an unfair thought. The fact is that energy all of these little boys bound around with inadvertently creates occasional strife. When that happens, it’s the biggest guy that nearly always gets most of the blame put on him by the grown ups. Spuds is right that we have to teach our children to protect both themselves and the smaller ones around them. I’m trying very much to instill that attitude in my son not only because it’s the right and honorable way to live. Still, I worry because I know that as one of the biggest (even if it’s only height now that will likely change as he gets older) he will be one of the ones automatically seen as the “bad guy” by those who see size before anything else.
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I stumbled on to your blog through facebook. As I read your article on bullying, I was thinking of girls and the way they often form their small circle of friends. Bullying doesn’t always take on the same form with girls, but they are definitely responding to the same need for maintaining status. In working with girls from elementary school through high school, you see the same behavior in certain girls – they exclude or make fun of others in order to ensure that they are not the ones being excluded or made fun of. It’s not always physical, but it is certainly painful for those on the receiving end. Just a thought.
I think the results of this study are skewed a little. The sample population are people in academia that are interested in that in of research. People in Academia these days have spent a lifetime striving to attain mediocrity and calling in excellence. The attitude of not really trying when something is difficult is likely greatly enhanced in these folks and I doubt the study reflects reality in schools at all.
As to bullying, certainly there is peer pressure, there is also a strong natural drive to compete, and to show yourself as the strongest, and there is the current trend in education, and also in parenting, to tell kids there are no consequences for their action, that whatever they do is good. I think that bullying in kids shows us the kids that are failing to compete on any other level and so use what strengths they have against those weaker than them because that is the only thing they can succeed at.
Of course I have no formal study to demonstrate this, my data comes only from what I viewed in school in the 70s, and from asking a few friends about their related experiences.
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Vince: I disagree. The results of the study match what I have seen in my life. While many of use do try harder when faced with tougher competition, I don’t think it’s the rule. My experience is that most people’s performance is negatively affected by the perceived superior strength of an opponent. In fact, I have been a witness to this repeatedly in my running career (I used to make money running). I didn’t win because I was more athletic; I won because I caused my opponent to think I was better — winning is easy when the other is defeated before he starts. Maybe academics are a little different, but even so, the tests were done on students, not professors. College students are pretty normal people, right?
Wow, quick reply, thanks.
Since I only have anecdotal data I may well be wrong, that’s just what I’ve seen in my experience. Certainly many people do not try as hard when things are difficult, though it seems strange to find that among professional athletes as you describe. Myself, in competitive situations against weaker opponent I tend to put out enough effort to maintain control of the situation without putting in an all out effort to slaughter the other guy, against a stronger opponent I put out all the effort I can so that if I loose I will loose well, that seems to be the way to maintain a degree of self respect.
I think that study may show us a part of the equation, and certainly it may be a much more significant part that I suppose it is. Still, in the end, this sort of behavior in schools is a big part of why my girls are (or will be for the little one) home schooled and learning martial arts and other things to keep them athletic, confident and safe.
I would say that yes, college students in general are pretty normal people, though perhaps not wholly representative of the population in elementary and secondary schools, the vast majority of whom never go to college. However, I would say that students at an ivy league university that sign up for psychology studies are far from normal and probably not representative of much of anything outside academia.
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Vince: You might have a point about psychology study participants not exactly being a normal slice of the student body. I wonder how they were selected. Normally, I know you’d be right, they’d be selected in an unscientific random sort of way. A friend of mine, in college, wrote a paper about the psychology of running and how easy it is the manipulate opponents into losing even if they are superior athletes. After reading it, and trying it myself, I was surprised at how easy it actually is to make someone fail through simple suggestion. Of course, like you say, the more confident you are in your own abilities the less likely you’d be to fall for any of those tricks. I think that’s why self confidence is such an important part of growing up. Thanks for making those relevant points, Vince!
It sounds as if the best schoolyard self-defense is knowing how to subvert the bully’s fighting spirit, rather than grappling physically with their arms and legs. It’s too bad this is rarely taught–even to adults.
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