Running head: VICTIM TURNED BULLY 1

When Victim Turns Bully: A Phenomenological Study of Bully-Victim

Roy Josef B. Cabrera

Bulacan State University

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Chapter I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Bullying is a significant concern for all schools (Gage, Prykanowski & Larson, 2014). It

is a wide-spread problem in almost schools in the world. According to Rivers, Poteat, Noret and

Ashurst (2009) bullying is part of the daily lives of the majority of students. But some high

school students dislike the term bullying and regard it as more appropriately referring to behavior

by younger children (Cornell, Gregory, Huang, & Fan, 2013).

Turner, Finkelhor, Shattuck, Hamby, and Mitchell (2015) ranked relational aggression as

the most common form of peer victimization, followed by peer physical assault and verbal

aggression while sexual assault was the least common form of victimization. Furthermore,

bullying is also changing its form and leveled up by moving to cyber space (Ozdamli, Hursen &

Ercag, 2011).

Even teachers also got involved in bullying because they are also got bullied from other

people in traditional from and cyber form (Ozdamli, et. al, 2011). Also, the people who are not

directly involved in the bullying episode are affected. Observing other people experiencing

bullying has a significant impact on the mental health (Rivers et. al., 2009).

Negative behavior coming from students is like natural attitude for them. Some major

causes of aggressive behavior of the students of secondary school are negative home and family

environment, like broken and divorced parents and family problems, unfriendly parents’

behavior, authoritative and dishonest behavior of teachers, poor teacher-student interaction,

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pressure on studies, unfriendly relationship with peers and injustice in society. This study tries to

understand more the bullying episode and what are the reasons why victims of bullying turned

themselves to become bullies or as they call them as Bully-Victim.

Review of Related Literature

Bullying is a common problem in schools. It is defined as the intentional harmful attitude

which is done by a student or a group of students on victims who are incapable of protecting

themselves (Yıldırım, Selçuk, Ocak & Sarıbaş, 2013).

Bullying has a significant effect not just to the victims but also to bullies. The victims

really suffer by the bullying. They feel depressed, and their self-esteem is decreasing steadily

Eleni (2014). Bullying, if it is not prevented, has an extreme impact to a person’s life. According

to Rivers and Noret (2013) suicide ideation was significantly associated among students who had

observed bullying.

It is not just a problem between the relationship of a student and their peers, it is also a

serious public health problem because it has significant impact on psychological health (Hong,

Davis, Sterzing, Yoon, Choi & Smith, 2014) and processing (Sharkey, Ruderman, Mayworm,

Green, Furlong, Rivera & Purisch, 2015), it is associated with some mental health problems like

depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, and emotional disorders, as well as

academic performance of a person or a student (AlBuhairan, Abbas, Sayed, Badri, Alshahri & de

Vries, 2017).
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Sometimes, students missed school because of the fear that they will be bullied again

(Turner et. al, 2015). This could result to a negative performance of the students in school like

low academic achievement, and school truancy and absence (Hong et. al., 2014).

Some researchers have studied different factors that could prevent bullying in the school

environment. They have found different factors that could help to solve bullying. Some of these

were family and school-connectedness (Duggins, Kuperminc, Henrich, Smalls-Glover & Perilla,

2016), role of family (Duggins et. al., 2016; Papanikolaou, Chatzikosma, Kleio, 2011) and strong

implementation of prevention and intervention programs (Eleni, 2014).

Students who have a strong family and school connectedness were less likely to lower the

level of aggression. Victimization was negatively correlated with measures of family and school

connectedness; and aggression was also negatively associated with family and school

connectedness measures (Duggins et. al. 2016).

Parents’ interaction and involvement on their child has an effect on the child’s

perception about bullying (Papanikolaou et. al., 2011). Eleni (2014) reported that when the

prevention and intervention programs were implemented, the number of victimization rate

decreased.

In addition, children may cope differently when victimized by their peers— some

reacting passively and other responding with aggression (Hanish & Guerra, 2004). Victims of
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bullying may just allow the bullies to bully them and some victims do not. The victims may

acquire the bully’s behavior and he or she may, too, bully others.

The characteristic that a victim can acquire the behavior of the bully is can be seen to the

bully-victim category. This current study would be focusing on the Bully-Victim category

because according to Hanish & Guerra (2004), Bully victim classification is less stable over time

than classification either as a bully or a victim and they often display worse behavioral,

emotional, and school adjustment than either bullies or victims and they are more prone to fail

subjects, repeat course and to have less academic future plans than victims (Felipe, García,

Babarro & Arias, 2011).

The purpose of this study qualitative study “Why People Change: A Phenomenological

Study of Bully-Victim” will be to discover the reasons or forces on why the victims of bullying

chose to become a bully to others; And why they tend on becoming more worse than the normal

bully or victim. Furthermore, this study aims to explore more about the social relationship of a

bully-victim category comparing with their counterpart categories – bullies and victims.

Conceptual Framework

Displacement Defense Mechanism

This defense mechanism may help in exploring and understanding the reasons why the

victims of bullying bullies other people. Displacement is defined as the unconscious transfer of

an intense emotion from its original object to another one.

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Students bully often those who are less powerful and they are socializing and accepted to

those who have the same power as them. This may use by the victims to shift their emotion from

their bullies, which is more powerful than him or her, to less powerful, which he or she can bully

without retaliating.

Psychological Resilience

This concept can help us to understand this research. This is all about the ability of

a person to adapt in a situation or task where he or she finds social disadvantage. Developing this

ability to face stressful situation makes a “rebound effect” by which the result will be an

effective response (Ortega & Saavedra, 2014). However, the response of the bully-victims may

have not the same response as others who have result a positive outcome for them because bully-

victims were manifesting also the negative behavior of their bullies.

Fight or Flight

This response is possible strategies a victim of bullying may use when he

experience victimization. This is not the real fight or flight response with the use of adrenaline.

This response has an association with the victims towards their reaction to bullying. According

to Hanish & Guerra (2004), there are aggressive and passive victims. The aggressive victims are

the one who retaliate while the passive victims are the one who do not lay their attention to the

bullies even they were being victimized.

Bully-victim people started from being the victim and they turn to be a bully. The

victim chooses to fight, not to his or her bully but to the other people.
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Problem Statement

For many years, researchers have studied about bullying. They only focused on

either bully or victim. Many people think that there are only three categories in bullying – the

bully, the victim, and the bystander. People have failed to notice that there is there is another

category – the Bully-Victim. That is why this current study wants to explore the world of Bully-

victim category. This study wants to know the reasons why the victims of bullying turn to be a

bully for others and why they are much worse than their counterpart.

Central Questions

1.) What are the reasons why the victims of bullying turn to be a bully for other students or

peer?

2.) What are the reasons why they display more worst behavioral, emotional, and school

adjustment than the normal bully or victim?

Sub-Questions

1.) Does the social relationship of a bully-victim is different from normal bully or victim?

2.) What did you do when you experienced bullying?

3.) How often you bully and experience being victimized?

4.) How you treat your peer?

5.) When did you start bullying other people?

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Chapter II

METHOD

Research Design

This study wants to use qualitative approach with the use of interview to gather deeper

information from the participants who were bullied and become the bully at the same time. This

study may use phenomenological style of research to understand and to know more the

experiences of the participants. The answers of the participants may be used to form a pattern of

the reason why they become a bully from victim.

Their answer may be subjective for the researchers and they can use their own

interpretation to sum up the answers of the participants. The result of this study will be base

from the participants’ perception of the aforementioned topic. This research may fall on the

Interpretivism category of a research paradigm because this study wants to look the reality

behind this social phenomenon and why this is happening to the victims of bullying.

Participants

The researchers target participants are secondary students in grade 7 through grade 10

from different public secondary schools. The researchers plan to administer this to secondary

students because bullying is more prevalent to secondary students.

The researchers will conduct this study on the participant’s schools from the provinces of

Pampanga and Bulacan, Philippines. Some students will be interviewed in the library while

others in guidance and counseling’s office or to any office or place the participants are
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comfortable and to keep the conversation private between the researchers and the participants.

Each principal or the head teacher of the public secondary schools must approve the letter to

conduct a research in their institution before the researchers will start gathering data.

Instrument

The researchers will interview the participants with the use of structured interview

questions and table of specifications where the central and sub-questions and the interview were

written. The central question in this study is: “What are the reasons why the victims of bullying

turn to be a bully for other students or peer?” Moreover, the researchers plan to ask follow-up

questions to seek and examine more information that is related and that could help the study.

Data Gathering

Only those who had a parental and informed consent were able to participate in the study.

We will assign each participant a code to maintain their identity and confidentiality. The students

should answer some questions about bullying and victimization to know if they are qualified to

give information regarding to the study.

After that, the participants or students shall complete the demographic items this includes

sex (male, female), grade, age, socio-economic status. This information from the students may be

use to get other useful data that could help our study.

Data Analysis

The answers of each participant will be interpreted and analyzed by identifying,

interpreting patterns and themes that will come out from the answers of the participants and

determining how these patterns and themes answer the central and sub-questions. It will be
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classified in order for the research to be much easy to understand. The researchers will also label

all differences and similarities of the data gathered. A subjective approach will be used to get the

result and to understand each answer of the participants and it is dependent on how the

researchers evaluate each answer.

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APPENDICES

Table of Specification

Interview Guide Research Problem

1.) How you bully others? Central Questions

2.) How other people bully you? 1.) What are the reasons why the

victims of bullying turn to be a bully

3.) What did you do when they bully you?
for other students or peer?

4.) What do you think why others bully you?

2.) What are the reasons why they

5.) Why you bully others? display more worst behavioral,

emotional, and school adjustment

6.) How is your relationship with your peer?
than the normal bully or victim?
7.) When you experienced bullying, how you cope with
3.) Does the social relationship of a
it?
bully-victim is different from normal
8.) Do you think bullying can change you behavior?
bully or victim?

9.) What are the characteristics of the people you

Sub-questions
bullying you? How about the people you bully?
1.) When did you start bullying other

people?

2.) What are the characteristics of

the people you bullying you? How

about the people you bully?

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3.) What did you do when you

experienced bullying?

4.) How often you bully and

experience being victimized?

5.) When did you start bullying other

people?