Nerds Still More Likely To Get Bullied 480
trashbird1240 writes "Reports on a recent meta-analysis of bullies and victims found that bullies and victims have similar personality traits, but that bullies tend to do poorly in school, as opposed to those who get bullied. Both bullies and victims are poor social problem solvers, but they resort to different tactics to handle their social ineptitude. To me this represents a huge leap forward in understanding nerd psychology."
Re:The key to not getting beaten up as a nerd (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not into martial arts of any kind, but I gotta disagree with the meme that Aikido is somehow non-violent or nicer than other arts.
Okay so some idiot comes at you and you flip him over your head... now if he's not trained on how to land he's likely to break his neck or arm.
Now on the other hand, if you throw a controlled punch or kick you can hit him just where you want and as hard or soft as you want... "just enough".
I'm sorry but the Aikido thing is like saying "I didn't hit you, the FLOOR did".
Re:The key to not getting beaten up as a nerd (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The key to not getting beaten up as a nerd (Score:3, Informative)
You're lucky you didn't try that today. You'd be expelled and probably have criminal charges brought against you. Kids today aren't allowed to defend themselves thanks to zero-tolerance crap.
Re:Perhaps... (Score:1, Informative)
Yes. Let's make jokes about bullied kids bringing guns to school.
Because things have turned out so well when *that's* happened.
Actually, school administrators started taking bullying seriously after Columbine and a few other similar incidents. The winking, boys-will-be-boys acceptance of bullying has stopped. Bullying awareness/prevention programs are shown to be effective in the schools that use them, not just in preventing shootings (because there's no way to statistically demonstrate that given the low numbers) but in actually reducing bullying. Those programs only exist because some bullied nerds snapped and killed some kids. So, yeah, there have been some positive outcomes from it. In the end, Eric and Dylan made life better for a lot of nerds.
After that, I sure hope this unlabeled checkbox means "Post Anonymously"
Re:Perhaps... (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad Eric and Dylan weren't nerds or goth kids or any of the other stupid stereotypes the media tried to paint them as in an attempt to turn a good old fashioned psychopathic killing spree into an emotional portrait of teenage angst.
Doom and Marilyn Manson weren't relevant either, btw
Re:Animal psychology (Score:5, Informative)
This is actually interesting from an anthropological perspective. Most pack mammals use a form of mock combat to establish position with the pack. They fight until one individual is defeated, then the winner takes the higher position in the pack hierarchy. This same behaviour is common among children (and some adults, although the 'combat' is typically less physical - adolescents typically do it by trading insults), and is incorrectly diagnosed as bullying.
When two animals from different pack meet, the combat is more serious. The loser must be completely defeated, rather than just back off. When you see this behaviour in humans, it is real bullying. The aim is not to establish dominance within the pack, because the aggressor does not see themselves as being in the same pack as the victim, so does not have the evolved responses to avoid permanently damaging members of the same pack.
I only ever encountered the first kind of conflict at school, but I responded as if it were the second kind, which is probably why I never had a problem with bullying. It sounds like you had a similar reaction.