Downward Spiral of Bullying: Victimization Timeline From Former Victims' Perspective

The present study aimed to investigate how those who had been chronic victims of bullying perceive their bullying experience from their initial attacks to their bullying exit, how they understood processes and actions causing a situation to become progressively worse, and how they interpreted their own coping behaviors. Nine individuals who were victimized for at least 6 years were interviewed. The grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data, which generated a grounded theory of the downward spiral of bullying, demonstrating hidden aspects of bullying-the victim's inner process as a response to external victimizing and accompanying events. The interdependence of those processes is presented in a timeline to show their cumulative nature as new vicious circles of bullying involving maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., self-blame), which form an overriding pattern of behavior that renders victims unable to break it even if they enter a new peer group. In terms of policy implications, the findings suggest the need to introduce school transition programs supporting school adaptation, identify chronic victims, and take every victimhood narrative seriously.

Frenemy: A New Addition to the Bullying Circle

Greater knowledge on the social complexities of bullying is crucial to reduce actual bullying behavior. Two main approaches have been used to study bullying: the participant role approach and the bullying circle. In this study, we explored bullying through interviewing adults who had been victims of school bullying in the past, investigating how they perceived their experiences, and how they interpreted the bullying context and their surrounding peer relations. We interviewed 20 participants (more than 18 years old), all of whom had experience of being bullied for more than 1 year. The interview data were then analyzed with a thematic analysis. We found that participants had a different definition of bullying compared with the standard definition formulated by researchers. They also confirmed the fluidity of participants' roles and the changes in behavioral patterns toward victims, depending on the peer context. Most importantly, we revealed a new participant in the bullying circle: the frenemy, whose intervention style changes from pro-victim when alone with the victim to neutral or pro-aggressor when surrounded by members of the bullying circle. This new addition adds to our understanding of the bullying process and the relationships within the bullying circle, which may help with more effective prevention.