Authored By: Angelica Aguirre, PhD, BCBA-D

Minnesota Land Academy, Mankato

Image by Soumil Kumar on Pexels

The old children's rhyme "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words volition never hurt me" was used every bit early as 1862 to refrain people from engaging in verbal bullying (Martin, 2020). Since technology is now more accessible in homes, work, and schools, this phrase seems to have lost its meaning. While access to engineering science provides an easier way for individuals to socialize (Kowalski et al. 2014), the cyberspace likewise makes it easier for individuals to engage in aggression towards others (also known as cyberbullying). Although cyberbullying tin can occur in a number of different forms and settings (eastward.g., internet, phones, video consoles), cyberbullying is generally divers as "aggression that is intentionally and repeatedly carried out in an electronic context (e.g., e-mail, blogs, instant messages, text messages) against a person who cannot hands defend themselves" (Kowalski et al. 2014, p.1073).

What Does the Data Say About Cyberbullying?

Nearly cyberbullying research to date has been focused on youth. Co-ordinate to a meta-analysis on cyberbullying, the prevalence of cyberbullying victimization ranges between ten-40%. Recently, the National Center for Education Statistics (2019) reported cyberbullying was the highest among eye school students (33%), followed by high school students (thirty%). Adolescents that have experienced cyberbullying reported bug such as poor school omnipresence and academic achievement, depression self-esteem, anxiety, social issues, depression, assailment, self-damage, and suicidal ideations (come across Bradbury et al, 2018; Gardella et al., 2017). In addition, those that appoint in bullying behavior accept as well been shown to take poor bookish achievement, conduct issues, hyperactivity, and lack empathy (Arseneault & Shakoor, 2010; Gini, 2008).

Unique Issues Related to Cyberbullying

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Cyberbullying has grown exponentially in contempo years, and social media accounts have taken several measures to try to fight against it. Withal, there are a number of issues that get in difficult to reduce cyberbullying (StopBullying.Org). 1. Bullying content tin can be viewed not only past the victim, merely also by others depending on the digital forum. For example, if a negative image is shared on a public account on Instagram© the content can be shared to the bullying victim and all of their followers. This gives the bully a larger audience.two. Bullying content is immediately and consistently bachelor, which may not allow a victim any relief from the bullying. This is different from "traditional bullying" where victims feel bullying in unmarried episodes. three. Digital advice is more permanent. If cyberbullying content is not removed, it could impairment the reputation of the victim, and even the bully if shared in a public forum. iv. Cyberbullying can exist subtle and difficult to track, making information technology difficult to block the behavior from occurring. Parents and teachers typically do not know cyberbullying is occurring unless reported by a victim or if they run across the bullying content past accident. Furthermore, some cyberbullies create fake social media accounts, making it hard to identify them.

How Can Behavior Assay Help?

As our social club becomes more than digital, behavior analysts can play an important role in the understanding and reduction of cyberbullying. Although the interactions in cyberbullying do not occur in person, linguistic communication plays an important role. As noted in previous posts in this web log, B.F. Skinner (1957) defined language or exact beliefs from a functional perspective, equally any behavior of a speaker that is reinforced by a listener trained by their exact community to practice then. In his analysis, he divers several elementary verbal operants. One operant that I retrieve plays a large factor in cyberbullying is the mand. In basic terms, a mand is essentially a asking from a listener for a preferred event. This event could exist attention and access (or removal) of a tangible item(s). In the case of cyberbullying, the speaker (bully) who is not receiving much attention, may tweet a listener (the victim) on Twitter© "you are stupid" (or something much worse), which may pb the victim and the larger audience to respond negatively. This result may lead to tons of positive and negative attention for the cyberbully, which may issue in future occurrence of similar posts in the futurity.

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) can also help us empathize the furnishings of cyberbullying, specially for the victim. A complete summary of RFT is beyond the telescopic of this entry, only I encourage interested readers to visit the Symbolic Language and Thought weblog for additional content on this topic. Specifically for cyberbullying, transformation of stimulus part may be the most important property of relation framing when it comes to the victim. Transformation of function in relational framing occurs when the office of a stimulus is transformed in relation between ane stimulus and some other. For instance, when a victim reads the tweet "you are stupid" (or something much worse) they may relate the word "stupid" to themselves forth with a multitude of private behaviors (feelings) that results in negative consequences (e.thou., fugitive piece of work and peers, increasing negative self-talk). Although there is some beliefs analytic literature in reducing bullying behaviors (Ross & Horner, 2009; Stannis et al., 2019), much work remains to be washed in this surface area (read Take a Seize with teeth out of Bullying with Beliefs Analysis).

Over the concluding couple of years, my research squad has taken involvement in this area of research. Last yr, we successfully used a stimulus equivalence protocol and in-situ grooming to teach immature children to identify dissimilar types of bullying (Sowle & Aguirre, in prep). Currently, nosotros are evaluating Acceptance and Delivery Therapy (Act) by examining mindfulness and values-training on its outcome on self-reported cyberbullying with higher students. ACT, which is derived from RFT, focuses on increasing an individual's psychological flexibility in social club to live towards their values (Berkout et al., 2019). By continuing to examine a functional approach to language, "sticks and stones may break my bones, merely words will never hurt me" may come to accept meaning once more.

Dr. Angelica Aguirre is an Banana Professor in the Department of Psychology at Minnesota State Academy, Mankato. She received her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis and Therapy from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She has worked in the field of ABA and autism/learning disabilities for over 12 years. Her inquiry focuses on evaluating bones and complex verbal beliefs, private events (i.e., thinking and problem-solving strategies), derived relational responding, and social skills. Her research has been published in a multifariousness of behavior analysis journals and she currently sits on the editorial lath of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior and The Psychological Record. She is Co-Editor of the Verbal Behavior Matters Blog.