Social Psychology in the Information Age: De-escalating bullying

Monday, November 14, 2016

De-escalating bullying

Since there has been an increase in incidents of hate related bullying in the wake of the election on November 8, I want to provide a link to an article about how to shut down all types of bullying. Your individual mileage may vary, but it does help to eliminate one huge problem in emergency situations: the bystander effect (a topic we always discuss in social psychology courses). There is always the possibility that the aggressor might turn on you instead, and the article offers some tips for dealing with that as well. We may not be able to have the kinder, gentler nation that many of us would want, but each of us can make a commitment to help out as we can in the meantime. Here is the comic illustrating the steps you'll need to take if ever confronted with a bullying situation:

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About

Hi! I am A. James Benjamin, Jr., PhD. Most folks call me James or JB eventually.

I am an educator trained as a social psychologist. I work as an Associate Professor at University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. I earned my PhD from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2000. Much of my research has touched on cognitive and behavioral effects of aggression-related cues (e.g., video games and weapon images), increasingly from a critical and skeptical perspective. I have also examined person variables such as authoritarianism and short-term media exposure in relation to attitudes toward violence and toward torture. My more recent interests involve the psychometric properties of various measures of aggressive cognition that are commonly used by aggression researchers. My work intersects with that of related researchers in areas such as Media Communication.

As an educator, I primarily teach methodology courses and the undergraduate survey course in social psychology. I also regularly teach the introductory psychology course. I make a point of introducing students at all levels to the replication crisis. Increasingly, I am trying interactive activities to engage students to become more critical readers of the research literature in my field.

I use this blog to express my own professional and personal perspectives. This blog is completely independent of any organizations with which I am affiliated. Assume that the views I express here are exclusively mine and do not reflect the views of any employer.