Bullying; Genes, Gender, Generation Meghan Williams I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Kathleen Stassen Berger ’s lecture on Bullying; genes, gender and generation. At first I was kind of confused on the topic. I wasn’t sure how bullying and genes were connected. As soon as she started talking, it all just clicked together. I became extremely curious and inquisitive. She said that bullying is defined; intended to be hurtful, repeated, and powerful; keyword being intended. This got me thinking about how people are compelled to want to hurt someone else. Why is this? What makes them want to? Is it genetic? Is it learned? Does it have to do with your environment? What creates bullies? More and more of these questions kept popping up in my head. I couldn’t wait to hear everything Dr. Berger had to say. In her lecture, she began with talking about bullying its self. It is effected by many variables, parents don’t notice if a child is a bully or victim, the child won’t say especially if they are a victim, the three different types of bullying; power of numbers, social, and physical, etc. We know quite a bit about bullying; however there is still a lot to be learned. She talked about studies from the UK in children daycares. In this study it shows that children are five times more aggressive at 24 mos., aka 2 yrs. This study makes the saying “The Terrible Twos” very literal. It also showed that out of all the aggressive acts performed; two thirds of them were instrumental, aggression over an object. We do know that at age two we might not know any better. At age 2 we are still in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. This means that we represent things with words and images, using intuitive rather than logical reasoning; and egocentrism which means it is all about ourselves (Myers pg 143). Perhaps this is why we are more aggressive, we don’t understand that we are hurting anyone else because we are so self centered; however, as we grow older we should know better. Bullying is actually a very common thing in school ages. All children in elementary schools either are bullies, victims, or neither. Dr. Berger, while giving her lecture, had everyone stand. Then she told everyone who didn’t remember any bullying in their school to sit; the whole room stayed standing. From this and many other studies, we can assume it happens in every school; it is highly common. Dr. Berger continued with talking about the four kinds of bullying. Physical, verbal, relational, and a newer type called cyber. Physical bullying is your typical hitting, spitting, pushing, etc. This type also has been found to decrease with age. Verbal bullying would consist of calling names; fat, stupid, ugly, etc. Relational bullying is actually the most hurtful. It consists of stopping the social interactions of the victim. It is devastating. As for the last type, Cyber, it is basically relational but using the internet, cell phones, and technology. This type actually i.