The DOI matches its Crossref record; 148 of the 148 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Is Adolescent Bullying an Evolutionary Adaptation?
Abstract
Bullying appears to be ubiquitous across cultures, involving hundreds of millions of adolescents worldwide, and has potentially serious negative consequences for its participants (particularly victims). We challenge the traditionally held belief that bullying results from maladaptive development by reviewing evidence that bullying may be, in part, an evolved, facultative, adaptive strategy that offers some benefits to its practitioners. In support of this view, we draw from research that suggests bullying serves to promote adolescent bullies’ evolutionarily‐relevant somatic, sexual, and dominance goals, has a genetic basis, and is widespread among nonhuman animals. We identify and explain differences in the bullying behavior of the two sexes, as well as when and why bullying is adaptive and when it may not be. We offer commentary on both the failures and successes of current anti‐bullying interventions from an evolutionary perspective and suggest future directions for both research and anti‐bullying interventions. Aggr. Behav. 38:222–238, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Cites
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Exaptation—a missing term in the science of form
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“While bullies may suffer from some negative consequences [Volk et al., 2006], this is particularly true for victims, who suffer from higher levels of depression, loneliness, generalized and social anxiety , and lower self-worth [Hawker and Boulton, 2000].”
BackgroundWellman, H. M., Carey, S., Gleitman, L., Newport, E. L., & Spelke, E. S. (1990) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/1811.001.0001 · Cited by 2,419
Cited by
Yeager, D. S., Fong, C. J., Lee, H. Y., & Espelage, D. L. (2015) · Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2014.11.005 · Cited by 472
Volk, A. A., Veenstra, R., & Espelage, D. L. (2017) · Aggression and Violent Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.avb.2017.07.003 · Cited by 266
Self-citationCyberbullying and adolescent well-being in England: a population-based cross-sectional study
Przybylski, A. K., & Bowes, L. (2017) · The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health · doi:10.1016/s2352-4642(17)30011-1 · Cited by 175
Cyberbullying: a storm in a teacup?
Wolke, D., Lee, K., & Guy, A. (2017) · European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1007/s00787-017-0954-6 · Cited by 145
An evolutionary perspective on paranoia
Raihani, N. J., & Bell, V. (2018) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0495-0 · Cited by 134
Metadata
- Authors
- Volk, A. A., Camilleri, J. A., Dane, A. V., & Marini, Z. A.
- Venue
- Aggressive Behavior
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2012-02-13
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 222-238
- ISSN
- 0096-140X (ISSN-L)
- 1098-2337
- OpenAlex
- W2104252614
- Cited by
- 344
- References
- 148
- FWCI
- 26.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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