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Commentary III. Bullying in Life

Span Perspective: What Can Studies
of School Bullying and Workplace
Bullying Le...
Pancho Espejo

Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

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Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)

Commentary III

Bullying in Life-Span Perspective:

What Can Studies of School Bullying
and Workplace Bullying Learn from Each Other?

PETER K. SMITH*
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London SE14 6NW, UK

Key words: bullying; school; workplace; definition; policy

INTRODUCTION

Bullying can be described most succinctly as the systematic abuse of powerÐ

persistent and repeated actions which are intended to intimidate or hurt another
person. Bullying embraces many different types of direct and indirect aggressive
behaviour, such as name-calling, rumour-mongering, social exclusion, extortion and
physical violence; and also some types of discrimination and harassmentÐaggressive
behaviours directed at a person or group of people because of their identity. But a
conflict or disagreement between two individuals or groups who have equal status or
power would not be classed as bullying behaviour.
In popular use, bullying is most commonly associated with schooldays, and
bullying between children, as in the novel Tom Brown's Schooldays. Academic
reports on school bullying can be dated back 100 years, to an article by Burk on
Teasing and Bullying in the Pedagogical Seminary (1897). However, the systematic
research of school bullying only started in the 1970s (Heinemann, 1973; Lowenstein,
1978a,b; Olweus, 1978). Much of this work was in Scandinavia, and the Norwegian
school-based intervention project against bullying in the 1980s had considerable
success (Olweus, 1993a). By the late 1980s this work was influencing studies in the
UK (Besag, 1989; Tattum and Lane, 1989). In England an evaluation of school-
based interventions was reported by Smith and Sharp (1994); this latter project

* Correspondence to: P. K. Smith.

CCC 1052±9284/97/030249±07$17.50
#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
250 P. K. Smith

resulted in a pack, Don't Suffer in Silence, published by the DfEE and requested by
about 19,000 schools. In Scotland, the Scottish Council for Educational Research
issued two packs (Johnstone, Munn and Edwards, 1991; Mellor, 1993, and Munn,
1993). During the 1980s and 1990s, concern and research on school bullying has
extended to many other countries, including The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA (see
e.g. Roland and Munthe, 1989; Rigby, 1996; Ross, 1996; and a special issue Journal
of Emotional and Behavioral Problems, 5(1), 1996, on `Bullying and victimisation').
As the studies in this Special Edition eloquently demonstrate, bullying is not
restricted to schools. Why should it be? Potentially, bullying behaviour can occur
wherever groups of people meet together. Crawford (this issue) describes it as
`endemic in our lives'. The pioneering work by Adams (1992; and this Issue,
posthumously) put the issue on the map in the UK. Again, the Scandinavians were
active early in this area, and the special issue of the European Journal of Work and
Organisational Psychology, 5(2), 1996, contains articles by Norwegian, Swedish,
Finnish, Austrian, and German contributors. Bullying can be common in the
workplace, and in prisons. Bullying can happen in the home too; but so far this has
been discussed in the somewhat separate areas of child abuse, spouse abuse and elder
abuse.
Rayner's first article in this Issue gives an excellent overview of the literature on
adult bullying, drawing attention to the major issues which have been investigated.
The subsequent articles fill this out with case studies, survey results, and discussion
of what can be done to reduce adult and workplace bullying.
In this commentary I would like to relate the work on adult bullying to the work
on school bullying. What can these two traditions learn from each other? Despite
some differences, there are many similarities and, indeed, continuitiesÐresearch by
Olweus (1993b) has indicated that persons who persistently bully others at school are
likely to do so later in adult life, and work by Farrington (1993), indicates that there
are intergenerational continuities in bullying tendencies. I also believe that there are
useful lessonsÐideas for potential research, warnings of potential difficultiesÐto be
learnt, in both directions.

DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES

In both areas, understandably, an initial thrust of research has been descriptive. In

part, this is necessary to make a case to policy-makers that the phenomenon is real
and not infrequent. In part, it provides an essential base of normative data for
further research. In the area of school bullying, several studies have looked at the
frequency of bullying, age and sex differences, characteristics of those who bully or
are bullied, different types of bullying experienced, who is told and what action is
taken. Similar work on adult bullying is described in this Issue, in Rayner's second
article; and for Young Offender's Institutions, in the article by Power, Dyson and
Wozniak. These are important first steps in helping us get to grips with the
phenomenon.
This work highlights both similarities and differences between school bullying and
adult bullying. Whether in the school, workplace or YOI, bullying is worryingly

#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)
 Commentary III: Bullying in life-span perspective 251

frequent. There are correspondences in the main types of bullying (physical, verbal
and indirect), although there is a clear shift to more subtle forms of bullying in the
workplace, as illustrated by Thomas-Peter (this Issue), and documented
quantitatively by Bjorkqvist, Osterman and Lagerspetz (1994).
In the workplace situation, Rayner's statistics (this Issue, her Table 4) make it
clear that the person doing the bullying is often in a line management position to the
person being bullied. In school bullying, however, most bullying is by the peer group,
about one-half or more within the same year group (Whitney and Smith, 1993).
Peers who bully may be physically stronger, psychologically more confident, or more
numerous. However, the straight analogy to the workplace situation would be
bullying of children by teachers. This has been a relatively neglected topic in the
study of school bullying, but one which needs to be confronted.
Much of the work on school bullying has taken a rather individualistic
perspective, but bullying is always a social phenomenon too. Another theme
which is more prominent in workplace bullying research, is the emphasis on
organizational structure and climate (Crawford, this Issue; Garrett, this Issue). This
needs to be developed further, but the numerous studies in organizational
psychology on work climate and organizational structure provide a ready source
to facilitate this. There are studies of school climate, too, and there are certainly large
variations between schools in incidence of bullying, but the study of which
organizational characteristics of schools facilitate or inhibit bullying is only starting
to make systematic progress (Thompson and Sharp, 1994).
Besides quantitative surveys, the contributions in this Issue include a number of
case studies (Lockhart; Crawford). Lockhart's cases illustrate the process of three
cases over time and, to some extent, their resolution. The use of more qualitative
data such as this can give insight into processes, and the dynamics of bully±victim
relationships, which complement the quantitative survey statistics. The school
bullying work could make more use of qualitative methods and case study material;
given the overall volume of work, we know surprisingly little about the dynamics of
school bullying relationships and their change over time.
There are two other areas where adult bullying may take some ideas from school
bullying. One is the study of attitudes. Attitudes are important, especially in the large
majority of persons who are often bystanders, both in school and adult bullying. Do
they feel sympathetic to the victim, or do they despise the victim? There are
characteristic age and sex differences in attitudes of pupils to school bullying;
interestingly, pro-victim attitudes are high in younger children but decrease up to
around 15 years, when they start to increase again (Menesini et al., 1997; Rigby and
Slee, 1991). Of course, attitudes need to find expression in a social and
organizational context, but equally, changes in the organizational environment to
reduce bullying depend on a basic willingness in the pupil body or workforce.
Further study of attitudes to adult bullying and their dependence on age, sex,
personality characteristics, and work experience, may be worthwhile.
A second area is of the effects of bullying. It is important to document this
reliably, both as part of the campaign to demonstrate the seriousness of the problem,
and as a first step to understanding how to help those who have been seriously
victimized. A number of studies of school bullying have indicated effects on self-
esteem (Boulton and Smith, 1994), physical health (Dawkins and Hill, 1994; Balding
et al., 1996; Williams et al., 1996) and school attendance and concentration at work

#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)
252 P. K. Smith

(Sharp, 1995). There may be longer-term effects on depression (Olweus, 1993b) and
confident sexual relationships as an adult (Gilmartin, 1987). These studies are mainly
correlational, and as such open to possible alternative interpretations. A study by
Kochenderfer and Ladd (1996) on academic effects of victimization in kindergarten
children in the USA, uses a short-term (1-year) longitudinal design to look at effects
of moving in and out of victim status, which narrow down the possible viable
alternative explanations. It is likely there will be similar adverse consequences of
being bullied as an adult, as are now documented in childhood, but we do not know
how similar these will be, or whether they will be more or less serious in various ways
than childhood experiences.

INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE BULLYING

Besides understanding bullying, we need to change itÐspecifically, to try and reduce,

if not eliminate, serious and prolonged bullying. This should be a common aim in the
school, and the workplace or prison.
The school-based interventions in Norway and in the UK have tended to follow a
multi-faceted approach. The central aspect has generally been a policy or code, class-
based in Norway (Olweus, 1993a), school-based in the UK (Smith and Sharp, 1994;
Smith, 1991; Pitts and Smith, 1996). Additional interventions have included
awareness-raising about the issue (related to attitude change, but also an
important first step in policy development); ways of working with individuals, for
example assertiveness training for victims of bullying; and making changes in the
organization design or environment, whether physical changes in the playground or
social changes in the classroom.
Assertiveness training is helpful for child victims of bullying (Sharp and Cowie,
1994), and assertiveness skills are likely to be useful through the lifespan. In both the
school and the workplace, a common problem is how to encourage the majority,
who dislike bullying, to take a stance and not be passive bystanders condoning
bullying behaviour. Conflict mediation and peer counselling are other approaches
(Cowie and Sharp, 1996).
So far as bullying individuals are concerned, many schools have made some
successful use of the Pikas method of shared concern, or the `no blame' approach
(see Smith, Cowie and Sharp, 1994). In these approaches, bullying persons are not
confronted directly, but are made aware of the victim's suffering and asked what
they can do to help the situation; this avoids confrontation and denial, and can be
useful as a first step. Variants of this sort of approach might be considered in adult
settings.
Survey studies show that the most common site for school bullying, in the UK at
least, is the playgroundÐthe most difficult area to supervise. Changes in the
playground environment, as well as the training of lunchtime supervisors, can have
an important impact on playground bullying (Higgins, 1994; Boulton, 1994). In
particular organizations, it may well be useful to find out where bullying is most
frequent, and see if changes to the physical environment, or to the flow of people in
the environment, as well as supervision arrangements, can contribute to reducing
bullying.

#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)
 Commentary III: Bullying in life-span perspective 253

Changes in the social environment of the classroom, such as organizing curricular

activities in cooperative groups, can impact on bullying (Olweus, 1993a,b; Cowie et
al., 1994). Again, the social arrangement of workplace activities may be an important
variable to consider in examining the opportunities for adult bullying, and ways of
reducing these.
All of the above methods are helpful, but the consensus in school-based
intervention work is that ultimately, a policy is the core of an anti-bullying
approach, and other methods such as those summarized above are most effective as
supports of this. Generally, a similar view seems to prevail in the approach to
workplace bullying (Thomas-Peter, this Issue) and prison bullying (Tattum and
Herdman, 1995). Without a policy, other initiatives are likely to have localized and/
or short-term effects. Only a clear policy, seen to be implemented effectively, is likely
to both give victims the confidence to seek redress, and reduce the benefit/cost
balance for those tempted to bully others.
While work on school bullying supports this position, it should not be assumed
that policy work is quick or easy. The experience of the intervention project which I
was involved in, based in Sheffield (Smith and Sharp, 1994), was that schools often
took a year to get their policies in place; wide consultation through the school
community appeared as a correlate of effectiveness. A more recent follow-up of four
schools (Eslea and Smith, submitted for publication) suggests that policies can
continue to reduce bullying, but only if kept `on the agenda'; also, this work suggests
that over time, boys' bullying is proving easier to reduce than girls' bullyingÐmaybe
because the latter is more indirect and less obvious, or less targeted in intervention
work. This suggests the importance for workplace bullying too, not only of
monitoring the effectiveness of policy and related work, but also of seeing how it
impacts on different types of bullying, by different persons. This will be especially
important in workplace bullying, given the variety of complex kinds of bullying
occurring in adult settings (Garrett, this Issue; Thomas-Peter, this Issue).

SUMMARY

I have suggested that the traditions of research on school bullying, and more recently
on workplace bullying have sufficient similarities and continuities that they can learn
from each other. Specifically:

. Descriptive studies are an important first stepÐbut only a first step.

. School bullying, like workplace bullying, should take a broader perspective than
just pupil±pupil bullying.
. School bullying should, like workplace bullying, take fuller account of the social/
organizational climate and structure.
. School bullying might profit from detailed case studies and qualitative methods, as
workplace bullying is doing.
. Workplace bullying might pay attention to attitudes to bullying and correlates of
attitude variation.
. Workplace bullying might investigate effects of bullying, using longitudinal as well
as cross-sectional methods.

#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)
254 P. K. Smith

. Some methods useful in tackling school bullying, such as assertiveness training,

`no blame' approaches, and changes to the physical and social environment, may,
with suitable adaptation, be useful in the workplace.
. Having a policy is a central approach in both school and workplace interventions;
but school-based studies suggest that policy work needs considerable attention
and renewal, and impacts differentially in different conditions and perhaps on
different types of bullying.
As Crawford (this Issue) suggests, the backcloth to concern about bullying has
been the increased emphasis on individual rights, including rights of not being
harassed or discriminated against, by virtue of sex, race, disability, sexual
orientation, personality or circumstance. All too often these rights are abused. The
studies of school bullying, extending over two decades, can give some ideas to the
newer field of adult bullying, as well as learning something in return. Research and
concern about adult bullying is now taking off, and the papers in this Special Issue
are another welcome step in this process.

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Boulton, M. J. (1994) `Understanding and preventing bullying in the junior school
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Dawkins, J. and Hill, P. (1994) `BullyingÐanother form of abuse?', in T. J. David (ed.),
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#1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 7, 249±255 (1997)