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Trying to Explain the Act of Bullying

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Bullying is repeated and habitual use of force, abuse, threat and intimidate or aggressively impose domination over others. The bullying in school has plagued many schools in United States. It is sad that a lot of bullying happened in school and victims are traumatized on daily basis. Numerous researchers, educators, and psychologists have theories about why bullying occurs. Although these groups have different semantics for explaining why bullying occurs, there is always a common theme: power and control. As Wolk (2010) noted, “Bullies are about power and control, and confronting them or stepping in to stop them usurps their sense of power.” Most bullies do it because they want to get noticed and be popular among their peers. Bullying is their way to boost their self- confidence. Because of lack of supervision they think it is cool to harm other people. Unfortunately, in many instances, school officials deal with incidents of bullying much too late. By the time intervention occurs, the psychological damage and pain has become almost indelible. This damage affects not only the bully and the target(s), it also affects the bystanders. Wolk (2010) states, “Most bystanders do not like witnessing another person being bullied. It puts one into an uncomfortable psychological state known as cognitive dissonance to witness a bullying incident and do nothing about it. Cognitive dissonance occurs when our actions do not match our internal code of ethics and morality.” The effects of

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