Others unwittingly get sucked into the psychosis (delusions) of their ringleader, the psycho bully, to form a "shared psychosis". These others become copycat bullies and can manifest themselves as members of a "gang" or "clique". Copycat bullying is known as "mobbing" which can be active or passive.
Active mobbing is where bullies recruit others to do their dirty work by spreading specious rumours and lies about the bully target using whispering campaigns. School girls are particularly adept at this. Bully cliques and gangs are commonly formed. "Smear campaigning" has been known to be carried out by newspapers.
Passive mobbing is where others turn a blind eye or deny that bullying is taking place - "bystanders".
An extreme example of mobbing is persecution of the Jews by the German people in the Second World War.
Bullying myths are perpetuated in our culture, for example, that it is at least partly the bullying target's fault or complaining about the more subtle forms of bullying is just paranoia.
Bully cultures have rules that are generally unwritten and may change from time to time. Someone who is compliant with the bully's rules at one time may at another time unwittingly transgress any changed bully's rules and is liable to being scapegoated.
In gangland-speak, speaking out or criticising the gang leader is referred to as "crossing". It could lead to very serious consequences. For example, the Kray twins got their gang members to perform acts of extreme violence on people who "crossed" or dared to criticise them. In other contexts, someone who dares to speak out or act against the leader can be accused of "insubordination".
A gang member may indulge in "fawning" or "synchophantic" behaviour to win the approval of the gang leader. This is also known as "sucking up" to the leader. A gang member who is seen as being in the same mould as the gang leader is a "protegee". Prominent gang members who do the gang leader's dirty work are sometimes referred to as an "attack dogs" or "hatchet men".
The gang leader may engineer "infighting" amongst his gang by spreading malicious rumours and turning the gang members in on themselves - "divide and rule".
A psycho bully won't benefit from emotional intelligence (EQ) training but mobbers, copycat bullies or gang members certainly could. As a result, the psycho bully will be far less tolerated and will cause far less havoc. The bully (or ringleader) will be disarmed; a gang leader without any gang.
At the democratic Summerhill School school they find that, "the most effective anti-bullying programmes depend upon the group approach of openly discussing the issues involved, creating a regime that it is OK to tell and removing from the bully any aura of respectability or glamour. It includes the non-aggressive confrontation of the bullying behaviour. At Summerhill this appears to work well. Others could do worse than replicate the Summerhill approach to this aspect of school life".
I believe that many bullying attitudes and psychopathic traits are deeply engrained and dissipated into our wider society, the seed first being sown somewhere along the line by psycho bullies, for example:
Active mobbing is where bullies recruit others to do their dirty work by spreading specious rumours and lies about the bully target using whispering campaigns. School girls are particularly adept at this. Bully cliques and gangs are commonly formed. "Smear campaigning" has been known to be carried out by newspapers.
Passive mobbing is where others turn a blind eye or deny that bullying is taking place - "bystanders".
An extreme example of mobbing is persecution of the Jews by the German people in the Second World War.
Bullying myths are perpetuated in our culture, for example, that it is at least partly the bullying target's fault or complaining about the more subtle forms of bullying is just paranoia.
Bully cultures have rules that are generally unwritten and may change from time to time. Someone who is compliant with the bully's rules at one time may at another time unwittingly transgress any changed bully's rules and is liable to being scapegoated.
In gangland-speak, speaking out or criticising the gang leader is referred to as "crossing". It could lead to very serious consequences. For example, the Kray twins got their gang members to perform acts of extreme violence on people who "crossed" or dared to criticise them. In other contexts, someone who dares to speak out or act against the leader can be accused of "insubordination".
A gang member may indulge in "fawning" or "synchophantic" behaviour to win the approval of the gang leader. This is also known as "sucking up" to the leader. A gang member who is seen as being in the same mould as the gang leader is a "protegee". Prominent gang members who do the gang leader's dirty work are sometimes referred to as an "attack dogs" or "hatchet men".
The gang leader may engineer "infighting" amongst his gang by spreading malicious rumours and turning the gang members in on themselves - "divide and rule".
A psycho bully won't benefit from emotional intelligence (EQ) training but mobbers, copycat bullies or gang members certainly could. As a result, the psycho bully will be far less tolerated and will cause far less havoc. The bully (or ringleader) will be disarmed; a gang leader without any gang.
At the democratic Summerhill School school they find that, "the most effective anti-bullying programmes depend upon the group approach of openly discussing the issues involved, creating a regime that it is OK to tell and removing from the bully any aura of respectability or glamour. It includes the non-aggressive confrontation of the bullying behaviour. At Summerhill this appears to work well. Others could do worse than replicate the Summerhill approach to this aspect of school life".
I believe that many bullying attitudes and psychopathic traits are deeply engrained and dissipated into our wider society, the seed first being sown somewhere along the line by psycho bullies, for example:
- authoritarian regimes
- excessive secrecy
- macho cultures
- hard-sell or high-pressure sales techniques
- adversarial systems
- managerial idea that people are naturally work-shy and it is necessary to "crack the whip"
- criticism of victim or dependancy cultures
- rudeness or discourtesy
- arrogance
- intimidation or intollerance
- glibness, flipancy, shallow emotions, over emphasis of style over content
- general harrassment
- sexism
- racism
- ageism
- homophobia
- idea amongst some schoolboys that it is not cool to be a swot.