posted December 12, 2010 04:53 PM            

This is a list of types of bullies. The link leads to the complete and interesting article.

Attention-seeking behaviour is surprisingly common. Being the centre of attention alleviates feelings of insecurity and inadequacy but the relief is temporary as the underlying problem remains unaddressed: low self-confidence and low self-esteem, and consequent low levels of self-worth and self-love.

Insecure and emotionally immature people often exhibit bullying behaviours, especially manipulation and deception. These are necessary in order to obtain attention which would not otherwise be forthcoming. Bullies and harassers have the emotional age of a young child and will exhibit temper tantrums, deceit, lying and manipulation to avoid exposure of their true nature and to evade accountability and sanction. This page lists some of the most common tactics bullies and manipulators employ to gain attention for themselves. An attention-seeker may exhibit several of the methods listed below.

Attention seeking methods

Attention-seeking is particularly noticeable with females so I've used the pronoun "she". Males also exhibit attention-seeking behaviour.

Attention seekers commonly exploit the suffering of others to gain attention for themselves. Or they may exploit their own suffering, or alleged suffering. In extreme forms, such as in Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, the attention-seeker will deliberately cause suffering to others as a means of gaining attention.

The sufferer: this might include feigning or exaggerating illness, playing on an injury, or perhaps causing or inviting injury, in extreme cases going as far as losing a limb. Severe cases may meet the diagnostic criteria for Munchausen Syndrome (also know as Factitious Disorder). The illness or injury becomes a vehicle for gaining sympathy and thus attention. The attention-seeker excels in manipulating people through their emotions, especially that of guilt. It's very difficult not to feel sorry for someone who relates a plausible tale of suffering in a sob story or "poor me" drama.

The saviour: in attention-seeking personality disorders like Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP, also known as Factitious Disorder By Proxy) the person, usually female, creates opportunities to be centre of attention by intentionally causing harm to others and then being their saviour, by saving their life, and by being such a caring, compassionate person. Few people realise the injury was deliberate. The MSBP mother or nurse may kill several babies before suspicions are aroused. When not in saviour mode, the saviour may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person or persons she is saving.

The rescuer: particularly common in family situations, she's the one who will dash in and "rescue" people whenever the moment is opportune - to herself, that is. She then gains gratification from basking in the glory of her humanitarian actions. She will prey on any person suffering misfortune, infirmity, illness, injury, or anyone who has a vulnerability. The act of rescue and thus the opportunities for gaining attention can be enhanced if others are excluded from the act of rescue; this helps create a dependency relationship between the rescuer and rescued which can be exploited for further acts of rescue (and attention) later. When not in rescue mode, the rescuer may be resentful, perhaps even contemptuous, of the person she is rescuing.

The organiser: she may present herself as the one in charge, the one organising everything, the one who is reliable and dependable, the one people can always turn to. However, the objective is not to help people (this is only a means to an end) but to always be the centre of attention.

The manipulator: she may exploit family relationships, manipulating others with guilt and distorting perceptions; although she may not harm people physically, she causes everyone to suffer emotional injury. Vulnerable family members are favourite targets. A common attention-seeking ploy is to claim she is being persecuted, victimised, excluded, isolated or ignored by another family member or group, perhaps insisting she is the target of a campaign of exclusion or harassment.

The mind-poisoner: adept at poisoning peoples' minds by manipulating their perceptions of others, especially against the current target.

The drama queen: every incident or opportunity, no matter how insignificant, is exploited, exaggerated and if necessary distorted to become an event of dramatic proportions. Everything is elevated to crisis proportions. Histrionics may be present where the person feels she is not the centre of attention but should be. Inappropriate flirtatious behaviour may also be present.

The busy bee: this individual is the busiest person in the world if her constant retelling of her life is to be believed. Everyday events which are regarded as normal by normal people take on epic proportions as everyone is invited to simultaneously admire and commiserate with this oh-so-busy person who never has a moment to herself, never has time to sit down, etc. She's never too busy, though, to tell you how busy she is.

The feigner: when called to account and outwitted, the person instinctively uses the denial - counterattack - feigning victimhood strategy to manipulate everyone present, especially bystanders and those in authority. The most effective method of feigning victimhood is to burst into tears, for most people's instinct is to feel sorry for them, to put their arm round them or offer them a tissue. There's little more plausible than real tears, although as actresses know, it's possible to turn these on at will. Feigners are adept at using crocodile tears. From years of practice, attention-seekers often give an Oscar-winning performance in this respect. Feigning victimhood is a favourite tactic of bullies and harassers to evade accountability and sanction. When accused of bullying and harassment, the person immediately turns on the water works and claims they are the one being bullied or harassed - even though there's been no prior mention of being bullied or harassed. It's the fact that this claim appears only after and in response to having been called to account that is revealing. Mature adults do not burst into tears when held accountable for their actions.

The false confessor: this person confesses to crimes they haven't committed in order to gain attention from the police and the media. In some cases people have confessed to being serial killers, even though they cannot provide any substantive evidence of their crimes. Often they will confess to crimes which have just been reported in the media. Some individuals are know to the police as serial confessors. The false confessor is different from a person who make a false confession and admits to a crime of which they are accused because of emotional pressure and inappropriate interrogation tactics.

The abused: a person claims they are the victim of abuse, sexual abuse, rape etc as a way of gaining attention for themselves. Crimes like abuse and rape are difficult to prove at the best of times and their incidence is so common that it is easy to make a plausible claim as a way of gaining attention.

The online victim: this person uses Internet chat rooms and forums to allege that they've been the victim of rape, violence, harassment, abuse etc. The alleged crime is never reported to the authorities, for obvious reasons. The facelessness and anonymity of the Internet suits this type of attention seeker. [More]

The victim: she may intentionally create acts of harassment against herself, eg send herself hate mail or damage her own possessions in an attempt to incriminate a fellow employee, a family member, neighbour, etc. Scheming, cunning, devious, deceptive and manipulative, she will identify her "harasser" and produce circumstantial evidence in support of her claim. She will revel in the attention she gains and use her glib charm to plausibly dismiss any suggestion that she herself may be responsible. However, a background check may reveal that this is not the first time she has had this happen to her.

In many cases the attention-seeker is a serial bully whose behaviour contains many of the characteristics listed under the profile of a serial bully, especially the Attention-Seeker. The page on Narcissistic Personality Disorder may also be enlightening, as may be the page on bullies in the family.

Feigning victimhood is common to serial bullies and this aspect comes to the fore in most cases once the bully has been held accountable and he or she cannot escape or rely on their support network. The tactic of denial followed by immediate counterattack followed by feigning victimhood is described on the serial bully page.

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted December 12, 2010 06:44 PM            

Thanks Juniperb.

posted December 14, 2010 03:42 PM            

So very impressed by this post. As it has lots of info.

I for one have seen lots of this around. Almost all acts. Well not the person that admits to crimes they have not commuted but roughly the rest.

At least they are starting to take actions agenst online bulling. That is a huge plus! May just be baby steps but still at least its in the right direction.

posted December 14, 2010 03:56 PM            

bul·ly 1 (bl)
n. pl. bul·lies
1. A person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people.

v. bul·lied, bul·ly·ing, bul·lies
v.tr.
1. To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner. See Synonyms at intimidate.
2. To make (one's way) aggressively.
v.intr.
1. To behave like a bully.
2. To force one's way aggressively or by intimidation: "They bully into line at the gas pump" (Martin Gottfried).

posted December 14, 2010 04:11 PM            

Manipulation is a way of bulling.

Manipulating some one is about control or to get the attention you were lacking els were. That or to just make your self feel whole or better. Lots of diff reasons for it.

posted December 14, 2010 04:13 PM            

What you posted is only the definition and not all that the act encompasses. There are several different types of bullies as well as bully-victim times that alternates between being both the bully and the victim at the hands of different people.

Several of the types that juni posted fall under the category of Antisocial Personality Disorder

"Traits include; a lack of empathy or remorse, disregard for others, tendency to violate social norms and often feel as though they are superior to others and therefore the rules do not apply to them (Hare, R., & Neumann, C., 2009). People with this disorder also have a high degree of manipulativeness , impulsivity and aggression (Gao, Y., Raine, A., Chan, F., Venables, P., & Mednick, S., 2010) . "

That is straight from my paper and an extensive (meta-analysis) review of literature on the subject of APD, PPD and child hood aggression / behavioral conduct disorders.

______________

Think of it this way, the little sister or brother that learns if they pinch you and you retaliate, they run around screaming 'He hit me, he hit me" until you end up being disciplined. How ever many times this occurs, they instigate, you retaliate, no matter how harmless you are to them, the more you are disciplined, the more reinforcement they receive to further the behavior.

That is carried into adult life and once again, they find themselves being shown for what they are doing and then run around screaming "bully... " or pretending they are the victim of other cruel acts.

As to a bully:

Bullying or aggressive behavior towards others is characterized by the repeated physical (attacks or intimidation), verbal (gossip, insults or spreading rumors) and mental (withdrawal of friendship or exclusion from social group) harassment towards an intended target / victim (Cho et al. 2009; Klomek et al 2010). The aggressor often targets another based on their sexuality, physical attributes or limitations or race (Barboza, G., Schiamberg, L.,Oehmke, J., Korzeniewski, S., Post, L., & Heraux, C. 2009). Bullies are often characterized as being physically intimidating, disruptive and hyperactive with limited positive social interactions with peers as a result of their aggressive behavior and disruptions within the context of school and home (Cho et al. 2009). Children that demonstrate bully type behavior are most likely to experience conduct problems along with delinquency in and out of school and have been linked to a 25% higher chance of having a criminal record by the time they reach the age of 30 than their non-bully type peers (Holt, M., Finkelhor, D., & Kaufman Kantor, G. 2007). Aggressive behavior in children, especially those that are considered to be bullies have an increased risk for depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, especially when bullying behavior occurs on a frequent basis (Klomek et al. 2010).

posted December 14, 2010 05:36 PM            

quote:

---

Insecure and emotionally immature people often exhibit bullying behaviours, especially manipulation and deception.

---

Which is a definite online act.

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted December 14, 2010 09:17 PM            

------------------
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted December 15, 2010 12:15 AM            

For instance, "the organizer" may do it for ego reasons, or may do it because she is great at handling the details. She may not be the center of attention at all. She may be a facilitator for someone else's ego. There's nothing inherently aggressive or coercive about organizing, so this definition of an organizer is quite a thin case for claiming she's a bully.

posted December 15, 2010 10:52 AM            

As people get older they are not the typical bullies from the school yard that calls a person names, instead they are more of the "behind the scenes" people that covertly act to twart their targets success.

As far as online, we see people that bully by stalking threads (which is overt) or calling out a person because they disagree with them and then making themselves out to be the victim (covert).

Not all people are affected by it. Most just move on and say "oh well, let the person act like an idiot life goes on". Whereas to others it really hurts their feelings and they are left feeling ostracized by the group because they were accused of something they did not do.

I have also seen manipulators pretend to have major issues in order to gain sympathy from others (even going so far as to pretend they were pregnant, posted ultrasound pics and when called on it, they pretended they were attacked, beaten and suffered a miscarriage). In that case, it took months to ferret out what the person was doing and in the meantime the people that called her out on it were considered evil and mean. I was on the outside watching the whole thing go down (another site) and couldn't believe the mob mentality towards the people that outed the other. Finally, when the person started posted on another site, with the same lies, they finally got banned.