Evolutionary Explanations for Bullying Behavior
In Jerome H. Barkow, Lance Workman, and Will Reader (eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior, Cambridge, 2020, pp. 284--298
Abstract
Research on bullying, mostly focusing on children of school age, has been active since the 1970s. Paralleling earlier work on aggression, bullying has often been described as maladaptive and dysfunctional behavior, and this has informed some intervention efforts. However, and again as for aggression generally, this view has been challenged in the 2000s (Ellis et al., 2012; Hawley, Little, & Rodkin, 2007; Kolbert & Crothers, 2003; Volk et al., 2012). It has been argued that bullying behavior is universal (historically and culturally, as well as in contemporary urban societies); that it is heritable, perhaps in part via temperament; and that it can have advantages for those who bully. The advantages would ultimately be for reproductive success, but via physical resources and social status, as well as attractiveness to the opposite sex.
