Adolescents Who Experienced Bullying More Likely to Think Violent Thoughts [STUDY]

Bullying and other forms of aggression could seriously affect a person. A new study found that people who suffered bullying as adolescents or young adults tend to have violent thoughts or fantasies of hurting or killing someone.

The study, entitled "The association of polyvictimization with violent ideations in late adolescence and early adulthood: A longitudinal study," published in the journal Aggressive Behavior, showed that significant numbers of people who experienced bullying fantasize about inflicting harm.

The researchers from the University of Cambridge tracked the self-reported thoughts and experiences of 1,465 adolescents from schools across Zurich, Switzerland, at ages 15, 17, and 20.

Violent Thoughts Worse Among Bullying Victims

The researchers recorded whether the participants had violent thoughts in the past 30 days or whether they have experienced or what types of bullying and aggression they experienced over the past year. In the study, bullying is defined as "interpersonal, intentionally harm-doing."

Psych News Daily reported that scientists asked the participants about their experiences of the 23 forms of becoming a victim of bullying. These forms include taunts, physical aggression, and sexual harassment by friends.

The participants recorded their experiences on aggressive parenting, such as slapping and yelling, and their experience in dating violence, like being pressured to have sexual intercourse.

Most of them reported being victimized in at least one of the different forms of bullying. However, the researchers said that those who experienced a wide variety of maltreatment had a higher likelihood of fantasizing about humiliating, attacking, and killing other people.

Boys More Prone to Violent Thoughts

The study also found that boys were more prone to violent thinking, according to EurekAlert! But they noted that both sexes have violent fantasies brought by multiple victimizations.

Particularly on 17-year-old boys who experienced victimization in the past year, 56% of them reported engaging in violent fantasies. Meanwhile, 85% of adolescent boys who experienced five forms of bullying and aggression reported having violent fantasies in the past month.

Lastly, 97% of those who experienced ten forms of victimization said they have violent fantasies of hurting others. The probability of bullying victims thinking of aggressive thoughts increased by 8% every additional type of maltreatment.

On the other hand, girls of the same age who indicated no victimization had a probability of 23%. It increases to 59% as they experience five types of bullying and aggression. Then it also rises to 73% to those who experienced ten forms of maltreatment.

Fantasies Are A Way Of Rehearsing Future Actions

Professor Manuel Eisner, the University of Cambridge's Director of the Violence Research Centre, said that one way to think of fantasies is the brain's way of rehearsing future scenarios. It might be a psychological mechanism to help them prepare for violence to come.

"These fantasies of hitting back at others may have roots deep in human history, from a time when societies were much more violent, and retribution - or the threat of it - was an important form of protection," Eisner said.

But researchers said that their study did not examine whether violent thoughts caused by victimization could lead to violent behavior, Yahoo! Finance reported. Although, a consistent finding in criminology showed that victims often become offenders and vice versa.

Eisner said that studying the mechanisms behind violent fantasies, especially at a young age, may help targeted interventions to stop obsessive rumination that almost always turns horribly.

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