Characteristics of Bullies and Victims of Bullying: 

Creating an environment where all students feel safe is extremely important to learning. Schools should ensure that students never feel they are being bullied by other students. Bullying refers to repeated aggressive behaviors (physical, verbal or psychological) meant to hurt another person. Bullying is signified by an imbalance of power, often the result of differences in physical size and/or cognitive abilities.

Characteristics of Bullies
There typically are three types of people involved in bullying behavior: bullies, victims and bystanders. Bullies can best be defined by their personality style. Researchers describe bullies as having the following characteristics:

• Enjoy aggression and the rewards gained from aggressive acts;
• Lack empathy for their victim;
• Lack guilt for their actions;
• Are dominating and like to be in charge;
• Have aggressive role models; and
• Think unrealistically about how the world should meet their needs.

Victims of Bullying
There are two types of victims: passive victims and provocative victims. Passive victims generally do not defend themselves and can be characterized by:

• Being isolated during the school day;
• Lacking social skills;
• Being physically weak;
• Crying or yielding easily to bullies;
• Suffering from past trauma; and/or
• Having learning difficulties.

Provocative victims generally tease and provoke bullies, but do not have the social or physical skills necessary to defend themselves. Provocative victims can be characterized by:

• Being easy to arouse emotionally;
• Behaving in a manner that maintains the conflict; and/or
• Possibly having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

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