6mo ago

Study finds bullies have more children than non-bullies

phys.org

I didn't change the title, but without access to the original article, it seems like a correlation not causation.

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5mo ago

Study finds bullies have more children than non-bullies

phys.org /news/2025-02-bullies-children.html

22 comments

My guesses are that there ate multiple factors at play:
less educated people make more kids
"nice guys finish last" - assertive and more socially active people are more likely to find a partner and make children
forcing others to follow perceived social dynamics means internal pressure to follow them oneself; having children is a social norm and expectation that is expected to be followed
I'd try and look for papers to see if my guesses hold any water, but time eludes me.
- Rapists are definitely bullies also.
- We have 5 children, I was unaware that we are such terrible stupid people.
  
  Damn, sorry you had to find out like this fam.
  
  Have you not had your morning coffee yet? 😄 The study purports that bullies have more kids, not that people with more kids were/are bullies. It investigated the relation in one single direction, not both.
  
  Daily reminder that correlation isn't all or nothing.
- I think being assertive and more socially active meaning you're more likely to be a bully is a bit of a myth. Although the cliché school or work bully may be assertive and socially active, there are many unpopular and awkward people who bully those around them, and it just goes unnoticed.
  
  I think being assertive and more socially active meaning you're more likely to be a bully is a bit of a myth.
  You are reversing the implication that I'm guessing 😉
Is this evopsych bullshit?
"This study shows us that bullying seems to be associated with some meaningful outcomes that help explain why kids do it," Volk says. "This isn't just 'broken kids' doing bad behavior; it's getting them important things that matter."
Yeah, same as bandits.
Volk says the results support the idea that adolescent bullying is, at least in part, an evolutionary adaptation that may help individuals pass on their genes to future generations.
Yep, evopsych bullshit.
- Wouldn't surprise me. Unfortunately the study is behind a paywall.
- At least they managed to avoid mentioning “modules”.
- calling this evopsych is like calling freud the father of psychology
  this is just them saying something that they like the sound of, humans are fundamentally an extremely social species and there are way more things that go into passing on our genes than just having kids; being celibate and just raising the kids of your siblings is more efficient at spreading your genes.
I guess a purely statistical consequence of this would be that the typical child has a greater-than-random chance of having a bully parent, and that chance increases with the number of siblings.
The study seems to mention that the bullies have children at an earlier age. I'd be willing to guess that the relation between having more children and bullying is purely correlative and that neither factor has any direct impact on the other. Instead, it seems significantly more likely that impulsiveness drives both bullying behavior and unsafe sex, which then leads to more children.
It seems somewhat odd to me that, instead of addressing possible mechanisms of this correlation, the authors talk about how bullying is an evolutionary trait to pass on genes.
- It seems somewhat odd to me that, instead of addressing possible mechanisms of this correlation, the authors talk about how bullying is an evolutionary trait to pass on genes.
  Yeah, that's why I want to get my hands on the study. Maybe the authors did consider that but the article is misrepresenting the study.
Each has a strong inverse relationship with socioeconomics.

22 comments