Bullying Dynamics

Prevalence of Bullying Nationally and Internationally

A meta-analysis of 80 studies of traditional and cyber bullying in middle and high school found a prevalence rate of 35% for traditional bullying and 15% for cyber bullying. Data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) is shown in the table below. YRBSS rates underscore bullying victimization as nothing less than a public health epidemic, with a low of 38% of youth in Rhode Island and 54% of middle schoolers in West Virginia reporting victimization.

Rates of bullying decrease across middle- and high-school. Perhaps as youth mature and gain more sophisticated social skills they are able to relay on these skills as opposed to bullying to navigate complex social situations. It is also possible that when youth transition to middle school (in sixth or seventh grade depending upon the school system) that rates of bullying are high as they jockey for social standing. Perhaps early on in middle school, bullying is used as a means of establishing a social pecking order and as social positions solidify across middle- and high-school, bullying becomes less necessary as a means of establishing dominance because the pecking order is established.

In this explanation, the damage is already done in middle school and high school roles are largely set. It is also possible that bullying changes forms as youth age. Perhaps traditional bullying between peers (e.g., physical pushing and hitting, rumor spreading) decreases and other forms of bullying like dating violence increase and in a sense replace traditional bullying. Rather than taking their aggression out on their peers, youth who bully might set their sights on dating partners.

Indeed, according to the YRBSS, rates of dating violence increased across high school with 8.1% of ninth graders, 9.6% of tenth graders, 10.1% of eleventh graders, and 10.5% of twelfth graders reporting physical dating violence (CDC, 2015a). Youth might not consider or label dating violence as bullying and therefore do not endorse bullying victimization when they are victimized by dating partners. Thus, it appears that rates of bullying decrease as youth age, but it could just be that the bullying takes a different form (e.g., dating violence) that youth fail to recognize and label as bullying.  

A collection of resources and services aimed at stopping dating violence: https://www.thehotline.org/

Frequency of Bullying Around the Globe

It is also interesting to examine bullying internationally as rates of bullying victimization and perpetration vary across countries. The 2013/2014 HBSC found that rates of bullying victimization were highest in Lithuania where 29% of 11-year-old girls and 35% of 11-year-old boys; 29% of 13-year-old girls and 31% of 13-year-old boys; and 22% of 15-year-old girls and 29% of 15-year-old boys reported being bullied at school at least two or three times per month in the past couple of months. Rates for 11-year-olds (3% of girls, 4% of boys,) and 13-year-olds (1% of girls, 4% of boys) were lowest in Armenia and for 15-year-olds were lowest in Iceland (1% of girls, 2% of boys; World Health Organization, 2016).

). For bullying perpetration, rates were highest for 11-year-old girls in Latvia (14%) and highest for 11-year-old boys in Greenland (26%); rates for 13-year-old girls and boys was highest in Latvia (20% girls and 33% boys); and for 15-year-old girl’s rates were highest in Latvia (19%) and for 15-year-old boys were highest in Lithuania (34%). For 11-year-old girl’s rates were lowest in Sweden and Iceland (0%) and lowest for 11-year-old boys in Sweden, Iceland, and Malta (2%); rates for 13-year-old girls and boys were lowest in Iceland (0% of girls, 1% of boys); rates were lowest for 15-year-old girls in Sweden, England, Italy, Ireland, and Norway (1%) and lowest for boys in Ireland and Sweden (3%).

Economic Impact of Bullying

In 2016, there were 49.7 million youth in the United States between the ages of 6 and 17. If 20% of this group was victimized, then 9.94 million youth required mental health service at an average cost of $3,384 per child. That represents a potential cost of $33,636,960,000 for society each year due to bullying victimization just for mental health services.

An individual who bullied others cost society an additional $951,327 compared to someone not engaged in bullying and an individual who was bullied cost an additional $461,668 per year based on data collected from the Highmark Foundation. Once again, with 49.7 million youth in the United States in 2016, we can estimate 20% were victimized (9,940,000 victims) and 15% were bullies (7,455,000 perpetrators). Thus, there is an estimated annual perpetration cost of $7 trillion (7,455,000 x 951,327 = 7,092,142,785,000). The estimated annual victimization cost is $4.5 trillion (9,940,000 x 461,668 = 4,588,979,920,000).