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> They filled out two questionnaires, one in June 2017 and one in June 2018. I wish psychology would move beyond these lazy methods. Perhaps use school records

> They filled out two questionnaires, one in June 2017 and one in June 2018. I wish psychology would move beyond these lazy methods. Perhaps use school records with documented evidence of bullying by a third party or something. such studies based on subjective evaluations are blended with the behavioral and character traits of each participant

anonAndOn 6y ago
What are the chances that a kid who has had his/her lunch money stolen by the school bully is documented in an official school record? I'm sure it depends on the school, but based on personal recollection of schoolyard threats received, I'd say bullying incidents are hugely underreported and possibly not recorded even when reported.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  It's still a valid point that self-reporting is not really a very scientific measurement for everything out there.
  - ianai 6y ago
    It’s an even more valid point that bullying should be taken much more seriously and societal institutions to remediate it out in place - more scientific means of measurement would be just a paper thin start.
  - zachrip 6y ago
    I think in anonymous polling you'd find the results to be much more accurate than school records. Schools have awful track records of enabling bullies with things like "zero-tolerance" and the like.
  - ska 6y ago
    Self reporting has know problems, and some mitigations. Relying on institutional records with active counter incentives for accuracy and/or completeness is also problematic, probably more so.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    Self-reporting is a perfectly reasonable kind of measurement. It has some error margin and bias that must be corrected, just like any kind of measurement. It measures some things better than others, just like any kind of measurement. It must be applied with a serious and conscious understanding of its limitations, just like any kind of measurement. The underlying fact is that social sciences are hard. And science reporting sucks even for the easy stuff. Society would lose a lot if social scientists just placed a universal block on self-reported data, but maybe we would gain if journalists did it.
astura 6y ago
I'd imagine most bullying isn't reported or documented in any way.
Spooky23 6y ago
For this subject, it wouldn't work. Why do you think these kids act out with violence? Bullies are highly manipulative and work the system. Constant, low-level harassment makes the victim a squeaky wheel that the local authorities ignore, or even makes the authority figures appear to the victim as working with the bully. Undermining trust in the system is part of how bullies operate in general. I was systematically bullied in grades 3-4 by a group of about a half-dozen classmates in a NYC Public School. I never struck and rarely spoke up -- in fact I was terrified to go to school, and would invent illnesses or hide in the bathroom to avoid lunch. Guess who had a disciplinary record? Me. One time I literally ambushed -- a kid jumped on me from on top of an iron fence and beat me with a metal bar. 2 "witnesses" said I attacked him and I was suspended. My parents were called to some bureaucrat's office and threatened them with expulsion. They don't like squeaky wheels. I was fortunate that a science teacher took notice and was skeptical. He took me under his wing, arranged for me to eat lunch in the science room, and did something to get those kids away from me. In some ways, he saved my life and I am eternally grateful for that man caring enough and sticking his head up to do the right thing when he didn't have to.
fao_ 6y ago
> Perhaps use school records with documented evidence of bullying by a third party or something. That's actually less likely to be an accurate source, because it depends on the school documenting everything, which to be quite honest, a lot of schools do not do -- I remember when I was bullied it was a literal uphill battle with the school to get them to recognize it in the first place, let alone do anything about it. How much of the bullying you saw in school, was documented by a third party? I would wager zero, but I'm up for being surprised. Psychology has a bag of tools, questionnaires are useful tools that fit a specific purpose and objective. They are relatively simple to create, perform, and get a lot of reasonably accurate data from them. And after all, what they're trying to assess here is the impact of bullying, so it doesn't actually matter what the exact bullying act is, in this case. They're simply trying to find a causal link between being bullied and negative behaviour. I think it's always amusing when people on hacker news think they know more about fields than, you know, people who have spent decades studying and working in that field. It says a lot about this website that it attracts folk who have no respect for other professions.
manicdee 6y ago
You'd have to be very familiar with the way authorities perpetuate abuse and protect the abuser before you start down that road. Who ends up in detention, suspended from school or sent home? The victim. The abuser will have a sob story to tell, will claim their victim "started it", and then through various effects such as the Othello error the authorities will come to view the victim as the person who needs behavioural adjustment. How do you determine the "behavioural and character traits" of someone you don't know? You're asking an awful lot of a science you don't understand, in a field of social interaction you are clearly not familiar with.

anonAndOn 6y ago

What are the chances that a kid who has had his/her lunch money stolen by the school bully is documented in an official school record? I'm sure it depends on the school, but based on personal recollection of schoolyard threats received, I'd say bullying incidents are hugely underreported and possibly not recorded even when reported.

ekianjo 6y ago
It's still a valid point that self-reporting is not really a very scientific measurement for everything out there.
- ianai 6y ago
  It’s an even more valid point that bullying should be taken much more seriously and societal institutions to remediate it out in place - more scientific means of measurement would be just a paper thin start.
- zachrip 6y ago
  I think in anonymous polling you'd find the results to be much more accurate than school records. Schools have awful track records of enabling bullies with things like "zero-tolerance" and the like.
- ska 6y ago
  Self reporting has know problems, and some mitigations. Relying on institutional records with active counter incentives for accuracy and/or completeness is also problematic, probably more so.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Self-reporting is a perfectly reasonable kind of measurement. It has some error margin and bias that must be corrected, just like any kind of measurement. It measures some things better than others, just like any kind of measurement. It must be applied with a serious and conscious understanding of its limitations, just like any kind of measurement. The underlying fact is that social sciences are hard. And science reporting sucks even for the easy stuff. Society would lose a lot if social scientists just placed a universal block on self-reported data, but maybe we would gain if journalists did it.

astura 6y ago

I'd imagine most bullying isn't reported or documented in any way.

Spooky23 6y ago

For this subject, it wouldn't work. Why do you think these kids act out with violence? Bullies are highly manipulative and work the system. Constant, low-level harassment makes the victim a squeaky wheel that the local authorities ignore, or even makes the authority figures appear to the victim as working with the bully. Undermining trust in the system is part of how bullies operate in general. I was systematically bullied in grades 3-4 by a group of about a half-dozen classmates in a NYC Public School. I never struck and rarely spoke up -- in fact I was terrified to go to school, and would invent illnesses or hide in the bathroom to avoid lunch. Guess who had a disciplinary record? Me. One time I literally ambushed -- a kid jumped on me from on top of an iron fence and beat me with a metal bar. 2 "witnesses" said I attacked him and I was suspended. My parents were called to some bureaucrat's office and threatened them with expulsion. They don't like squeaky wheels. I was fortunate that a science teacher took notice and was skeptical. He took me under his wing, arranged for me to eat lunch in the science room, and did something to get those kids away from me. In some ways, he saved my life and I am eternally grateful for that man caring enough and sticking his head up to do the right thing when he didn't have to.

fao_ 6y ago

> Perhaps use school records with documented evidence of bullying by a third party or something. That's actually less likely to be an accurate source, because it depends on the school documenting everything, which to be quite honest, a lot of schools do not do -- I remember when I was bullied it was a literal uphill battle with the school to get them to recognize it in the first place, let alone do anything about it. How much of the bullying you saw in school, was documented by a third party? I would wager zero, but I'm up for being surprised. Psychology has a bag of tools, questionnaires are useful tools that fit a specific purpose and objective. They are relatively simple to create, perform, and get a lot of reasonably accurate data from them. And after all, what they're trying to assess here is the impact of bullying, so it doesn't actually matter what the exact bullying act is, in this case. They're simply trying to find a causal link between being bullied and negative behaviour. I think it's always amusing when people on hacker news think they know more about fields than, you know, people who have spent decades studying and working in that field. It says a lot about this website that it attracts folk who have no respect for other professions.

manicdee 6y ago

You'd have to be very familiar with the way authorities perpetuate abuse and protect the abuser before you start down that road. Who ends up in detention, suspended from school or sent home? The victim. The abuser will have a sob story to tell, will claim their victim "started it", and then through various effects such as the Othello error the authorities will come to view the victim as the person who needs behavioural adjustment. How do you determine the "behavioural and character traits" of someone you don't know? You're asking an awful lot of a science you don't understand, in a field of social interaction you are clearly not familiar with.