Pony Psychology: Diamond Tiara · 11:11am Oct 15th, 2015
An interesting discussion brewed up over on Bookplayer’s blog. Bookplayer is of the position that last weekend’s episode fundamentally changed Diamond Tiara’s character, while my position is that it is a natural continuation of it and that the character hasn’t changed beyond reacting to circumstance.
Bookplayer asked for specific things in canon that show this, so I’m going to an inquisition on Diamond Tiara as she appeared in season 1 episode 12: Call of the Cutie.
Let the analysis commence:
Pony Psychology: Diamond Tiara
Before Diamond Tiara ever so much as has a line, what we see of her is a smug look of superiority while the other ponies chatter amongst themselves. Aside from Silver Spoon, the rest of the ponies are actively shown as expressive and lively, and even Silver Spoon herself (the named embodiment of being privileged) is actively looking sideways at Diamond Tiara (wearing what we can assume is an actual diamond tiara – implying a spoiled princess). The visual makes for a quick and dirty power-dynamic: SS takes her cues from DT, while DT sets herself apart from the average ponies and focuses on the teacher – the one pony in the room who is supposed to have actual authority.
That’s the setup we’re shown. Of course, we have no idea what she gets from focusing on the teacher at this point, so on we go.
The first thing she says is ‘Boring’, with a tone and expression of mild exasperation. This shows her as willingly putting her personal preferences and feelings above everyone else’s. If she’s bored, everyone gets to know it. On its own, that’s fairly normal child behaviour, but the presentation is actively pushing the narrative that she’s all high-and-mighty, so it’s reasonable to take the context into consideration, I think.
As Cheerilee lectures the class, Diamond Tiara actively pesters Apple Bloom. Now, there are a few things this could imply on its own, but since Apple Bloom doesn’t want the interruption, we can take it as a demonstrated lack of consideration, which in turn implies a lack of consideration for Diamond Tiara from her parents/guardians. Since empathy is skill learned through exposure, a noteworthy lack of it is grounds for assuming it is not present in her environment in any significant way.
When the prank unfolds, we see Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon revelling in putting Apple Bloom down. There are two primary sources of this form of bullying behaviour: a) to artificially raise one’s relative self-esteem by treading on others (if I can’t feel intrinsically good about myself, I’ll settle for being better than someone else), or b) seeking approval by espousing the values of those she seeks the attention of – most commonly parents or immediate guardians. One of these two is very likely to be true, but that’s a pretty broad statement since everyone works the same way.
After the title music, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon go straight back to work on Apple Bloom. By holding up cutie marks as something so vital to being a complete pony worthy of respect, Diamond Tiara is establishing herself as someone worthy of respect. More importantly, the continued need to point it out establishes her need for some kind of validation.
Basically, we are seeing a lion-sized portion of insecurity. In children, insecurity overwhelmingly means a lack of parental attachment, since good parental attachment is what allows children to function without worrying about all the other stuff they’re not equipped to deal with. Similarly, we can make the same assumption about Silver Spoon and Apple Bloom, since neither would have any need for their behaviour save for some extremely unusual conditions. For Apple Bloom, this manifests in the fact that comments about her lack of cutie mark are able to undermine her self-esteem – notice how Twist doesn’t seem to care the bullying beyond her empathy for Apple Bloom? Twist’s self-confidence is demonstrably higher than the other characters depicted so far.
Moreover, Diamond Tiara’s systematic approach to bullying implies a lack of external constraint. Either she is not curtailed by her home environment, or or she has zero respect for any boundaries set down by whatever passes as her father figure. Given her general insecurity, the implication is that neither of her parents are emotionally available or intimate with her, and so she respects neither.
So, thus far we have a Diamond Tiara who is insecure, puts herself above everyone around her, and knows very well how to make someone feel bad (likely a case of knowing what that’s like first hand, but that’s still speculation at this point). We’ve also seen her abusing hierarchy for her advantage, which strongly implies that she is used to an adversarial home life where she either uses the arbitrary rules of others, or their emotional weaknesses, to get what she wants, or her parents do that to her and that's where she'd learned it.
Given that there is a strong implication of her family being rich and/or powerful and the comments about having a party to celebrate her cutie-mark, it’s also a natural leap to assume that her parents’ idea of showing affecting is spending money on her – like a diamond tiara, for example. Consciously, she is likely more concerned with what she can get out of her parents, but subconsciously she still needs them, probably desperately. Again, this is fairly generic bully psychology.
Fast forward to party.
I think we can pass over Diamond Tiara calling Snips out for eating her party cake (stop giggling, damn you). Dick move, Snips. Dick move.
While it’s fair to say that it’s more of a function of brevity, the fact of the matter is that Diamond Tiara goes straight for the cutie-mark comments at the first opportunity. The girl is obsessive, but again, we can give her some leeway as she’s just recently got hers. That’s relevant, of course: a demonstrably insecure filly who just got a cutie-mark is revelling in belittling another filly who observably lacks one.
When Apple Bloom claims to have gotten a cutie-mark, Diamond Tiara first looks at Silver Spoon with what I can only determine to be some degree of distress. As Apple Bloom’s monologue goes on, Diamond Tiara goes through wide-eyed panic and into fear/anxiety before her emotional defenses kick in and push her into frustration/anger. So Apple Bloom getting a cutie mark – particularly a good one – is something that Diamond Tiara actively fears. Observe:
Concern – What Apple Bloom is saying runs a serious risk of upsetting her applecart.
Distress – That stings. Diamond Tiara knows what this feeling is and she does not want.
Panic – Abandon ship. All hooves, abandon ship!
Fear – With nowhere left to run, the fear is on show in full force. I want to point out that this is the shortest animation of any of her body language. She covers it up very fast. She can't risk letting anyone see how she really feels because she's not experienced with intimacy.
Feigned indifference – The go to of anyone seeking to hide their vulnerabilities.
Pouting to maximum – Note how she seems to be staring into empty space? She's genuinely nonplussed, likely trapped in her own mind trying to furiously process the unfolding events into something less painful.Then, I note that Diamond Tiara bails on pushing Apple Bloom any further, almost as if she just didn’t have any interest in trying to bully Apple Bloom over anything else. Apple Bloom’s claim appeared to invalidate her as a target. This hints towards a genuine focus on cutie marks, rather than just using them as an excuse to bully Apple Bloom. The mark itself is absolutely the focus here, and she herself was sans-mark just recently, meaning that she thought she herself was inferior until now, or the belief has been fed to her externally. Both of these are extremely dark twists that say a lot about her upbringing.
Look at how happy Diamond Tiara is when Apple Bloom’s deception is revealed. It just doesn’t follow that that’s hate for Apple Bloom; Diamond Tiara has her pinata back – someone demonstrably beneath her in standing. Crisis averted!
Looking back through this in detail, I also notice that it isn’t Diamond Tiara that says not having a cutie mark makes a pony ‘not special’. Silver Spoon, essentially Diamond Tiara’s groupie, vocalises the basics of their belief directly because she’s actually less insecure than her role-model. Also less confident, perhaps, but definitely less insecure, too. She had no reason not to say it plainly because it’s not her fear – she's not emotionally invested in it. Sure, that’s a big dose of speculation, but it fits very snugly with how real people work.
Even more fine-detail is that she closes her eyes when Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo have their say about unlimited potential. She’s extremely defensive here – it’s looks like it’s actively hard for her to hear, even while her prior scowl says she’s not consciously accepting a word of it.
No, sir. Not buying it.
Same situation, same feigned indifference (poorly feigned, mind you, because she can't not keep that severe frown)
But it's okay, because once the anger kicks in she hasn't got to deal with all those other pesky emotions.Diamond Tiara is actively showing signs of distress that ponies without cutie marks might not be inferior. My gut instinct says that this represents her inner belief that she was somehow inferior or incomplete before getting her cutie mark. If she’s leaning on her mark to validate her as being special, then her belief is being challenged. What’s worse, if Apple Bloom and co. aren’t inferior without their marks and Diamond Tiara felt that she was, then that would imply that either she was either unfairly held in low esteem by her parents or she actually is inferior as a pony to those around her – a very bleak mental space to live in.
Silver Spoon may carry on trying to insult the socially-victorious fillies, but Diamond Tiara is already in a funk. Bullying just isn’t cutting it because the very basis of that bullying has been stripped away, just as it was before when Apple Bloom lied. Look at her face when she’s up on the staircase leaning over the balcony. She’s in serious turmoil, while Silver Spoon doesn’t seem to be affected at all. Silver Spoon has no investment in proceedings beyond being a mouthpiece for what Diamond Tiara has been selling her. She’s the parrot, nothing more.
Welcome to the world of Diamond Tiara, the invisible pony – the loneliest pony in the world.And that’s it. No more Diamond Tiara.
So, what’s really eating Diamond Tiara? Well, let’s look at what what wasn’t in the episode: negotiation. At no point did she do anything other than state how it is (according to her understanding, of course). Again, this is a very common trait that heavily implies a lack of negotiation at home. The only real question she asks in the entire episode is ‘Why aren’t you paying attention to me?’ Even then, she mostly states it as an absolute: “It’s my party! You should be paying attention to me!”
Also, we can clearly see that she’s in distress, but who actually pays attention to it? No-one. Not a soul. Not even Silver Spoon. Nor has anyone paid a lick of attention the whole way through; the class-bully routine is already a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more she acts out, the less attention she receives. The less attention she receives, the more she lashes out.
At this stage it’s a given that her parents aren’t big on emotional interactions. There’s demonstrably no intimacy or empathy in her life. She literally doesn’t understand it, but she clearly knows enough about pain to be able to inflict it on others as a way of sparing herself from it; she doesn’t inflict suffering for its own sake. Nor do I see any evidence that she enjoys inflicting the damage. What she seemed to enjoy is the wider implication that comes with it. Every aspect of her behaviour is crying out for intimacy, and the closest she gets is Silver Spoon, who inadvertently says more than Diamond Tiara could ever say herself because she has emotional distance from it. Silver Spoon doesn’t actually understand her role-model at all, parroting what she sees and not what Diamond Tiara actually feels. She puts ponies down directly, whereas Diamond Tiara actually relies heavily on implication and not having to actually say what she means.
There is a wellspring of hurt that is piling up and waiting to explode.
As Commander Invonva said: “No boom today. Boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow.”
With regard to Bookplayer's inquiry, the result of my analysis is that Diamond Tiara's bullying antics are not something she enjoys for the sake of it: she does it to suppress and control whatever is causing her to suffer so. But frankly, this is an assumption you can make about any bully the instant they're shown as such. To do otherwise is just willful ignorance.
So Diamond Tiara's first episode leaves us with the big question of 'What's eating Diamond Tiara?' In season five we finally get a direct answer.
Dots connected, consistency established.
My work here is done.
P.S. Fuck Applejack. She has all the empathy of discarded tin can in this episode. No wonder Apple Bloom is insecure.
P.P.S. Top marks to Twist's parents. The only ones demonstrated to be doing parenting right. At least Apple Bloom's parents get a pass for being... you know, dead.
Really interesting analysis here, I like it. Hope you do more of things like this, it's a really good way of getting to know how a character ticks. I may have to write Diamond Tiara one day...
Also, does any character in this dang show have good/not dead parents?!
This was fun. :D I do honestly believe all those visual cues are intentional, too.
3471626 3471635
Antsan has it right. Good parents are extremely rare, which means that relateable characters are ones that share deficiencies that real people commonly share in our society. Bad Horse has already asked for the low-down on Fluttershy, so expect to see that in the future.
3471653 Me too. Personally, I think this is the direct influence of Lauren Faust, because this is the kind if detail and magic that the show lost after she left. The accuracy of the emotions is genuinely staggering.
3471662
I wasn't gonna say it, but I was definitely thinking that!
Well this post was a pleasant surprise. Thank you for putting it together. I love this sort of analysis. I just have no education, experience, or qualification save introspection to do it myself. And who puts stock in the person who knows something because it may have been accurate for the one person he's most biased about?
Eee! I'm excited for your look at Fluttershy.
3471635
I came here for analysis, not for the feels.
Is true though.
3471656
Well if it's anything like this blog post, it'll focus on season one Fluttershy, which was when she didn't suck and was equal to the other characters.
All assumption, of course.
3471662
Do you think the quality of the show has degraded over the years?
I would like to offer a different analysis, starting from a different place. The goal is not to say "this is how Diamond Tiara is" but rather to say "this is how I saw Diamond Tiara here" and find out why you think I was wrong for this, prior to Crusaders of the Lost Mark.
At the point this episode aired, we'd already met Apple Bloom in Bridle Gossip. It was clear she was not a submissive personality, she had no problem standing up to Applejack and defending Zecora when she thought she was right.
Enter Diamond Tiara here. Diamond Tiara is a dominant personality, and wants to be the dominant personality in the school. This is typical young girl behavior, not connected to parenting (in my case, and for many other girls, often the bully was a close friend shortly before the bullying started.) It's more like;y to be related to perception of social position as being important as adolescence approaches. I experienced it myself, and you can check out the book Queen Bees and Wannabes for more info on it, but basically kids naturally establish social hierarchies and where as boys are more likely to do that through straightforward aggression, girls do it through social aggression.
Apple Bloom is Diamond Tiara's most likely challenger for Queen Bee, so she specifically has to be neutralized as a threat. For Diamond Tiara, the easiest way to do this is to establish that Apple Bloom is not worth being taken seriously as an adult-- she shouldn't have a place in the adolescent hierarchy because she's still a child. Diamond Tiara is afraid of the day Apple Bloom gets a cutie mark and can challenge her, so for now the goal is to wreck her self-esteem so when that day comes she'll be afraid to challenge her.
When Apple Bloom claims to have a cutie mark, and is proud of it, Diamond Tiara is scared. Her tactics have to be reconsidered. Apple Bloom is a threat DT is now afraid of, and challenging her directly might result in failure.
And when the CMC are formed, Diamond Tiara is really upset, because they're getting the attention. They are dominating her at her party. So she's going to have to establish other ways of keeping Apple Bloom (and her friends) low (like, say, about her family in Family Appreciation Day, or as editor of the school paper. This also fits with being nice to the CMC in Twiight Time-- if they have social capital she doesn't, DT can try to get back on top by forming an alliance and potentially acquiring that capital for herself.)
When I watched this episode, all of it looked perfectly familiar to me. My tormentors came from perfectly nice families-- like I said, some of them were my best friends before social politics kicked in (around fourth grade) and they had nice siblings. If that was the case with Diamond Tiara, what would be important was keeping her parents in the dark by pretending that she would never stoop to those kinds of tactics (like her "perfect angel" impression for her father in Family Appreciation Day, which she only drops at the end when he's trying to force her to do something that could lower her status.)
So, what in this episode is incompatible with my analysis?
3471675 And nor do I expect people to see it all – either in general or to see it the same way as I do. But when people miss this stuff and talk about the characters as if these details didn't exist, then I get feisty, and at this point I think we all know how feisty. Not being aware of such cues is not the same as them not existing.
And... you're welcome :)
Honestly, I enjoy getting to flex my empathetic muscles every now again. A little too much, if you catch my drift, so I try not to do it too often. If people actually enjoy reading it, I'll probably do more. I always wanted to do the main sic anyway.
In other words, they get a pass for having passed?
Great analysis. The range of facial expressions is one of my favourite aspects of this show. And while I think that you are right (3471662) that some of this attention to detail has been lost after Faust left (I have a long rant on the plot structure of Season 1 that I really should finish polishing), expressive characters is still one of the strongest aspects of the animation, and something they seem to have gotten better at during S5. Just look at amending fences, for instance.
3471757 Oh yes. I wouldn't question that the quality of the animation itself has been constantly increasing – it's the consistency of what they're expressing that doesn't quite have the same spark.
Glad you enjoyed the analysis, though.
3471690
Well, I hardly think I presented it as 'This is how Diamond Tiara is'; I provided plenty of information on where I was making assumptions and leaps, and provided logical connections where appropriate to my interpretation.
As in directly contradictory? Nothing. But then, you haven't actually touched on motivation so you can't establish agency, either. All these character traits you've assigned her are apropos of nothing. They're arbitrary. At no point have you made a case for why these goals are self-actualisation (i.e. agency). Basically, it's not an analysis at all – it's just assertions.
Specifically, though, there is one major issue with your case:
Unless you can provide some reasoning for why this is not connected to parenting, then I reject your assertion. Even a social trait expressed by 100% of the human population would not necessarily be an inherent human trait. It's quite possible that all humans experience environmental factors that bring out the same traits, but that with different environmental factor that trait may be missing or altered. Since we have real world examples of parenting systems that avoid or minimise this 'typical girl (and boy, if we're honest) behaviour', then we can't reasonably define it as an absolute.
Again, this is not correct. Kinds 'naturally establish social hierarchies' where no prior hierarchy is present. Kids with strong parental attachments do not require such hierarchies. And trust me, the majority of boys do it through social aggression, they just have different weak spots.
Bullies are a result of insecurity. This is a fact. This also goes for both sides: secure people don't bully, nor are they common targets of bullying because bullies knowing pick on the insecure who can't/won't fight back or call in reinforcements. A secure child does not feat 'losing status' by calling in outside help – bully the confident kind and you're asking for an airstrike to get called in.
I believe I have done this.
If my interpretation of her character in S1E12 is compatible with S5E18, then we have consistency. Her character hasn't been re-interpreted. If your interpretation of the character doesn't appear to match, then it doesn't mean that the character has changed.
3471974
Self-actualization has nothing to do with agency in fiction. Nothing. At all.
Edit: Sorry, missed this:
The fact that behavior can be changed with certain parents techniques doesn't mean that it won't appear independent of specific circumstances. More than parents affect kids, including other kids and their perceptions. At this period in a kid's life, those are becoming the most important influences.
3471981
Clearly, the fact that you're talking about agency as way of understanding a character through their actions means that it does. You're the one saying that we need to know who a character is acting on behalf of to say that he has agency. You've already said that Diamond Tiara acting to fulfil her needs doesn't constitute agency (otherwise the last episode wouldn't 'reduce her agency' as you have claimed). So if merely fulfilling needs isn't agency, then self-actualisation as all that's left.
You can't have it both ways, which seem to be what you're trying to do. If acting to fulfil her own needs is agency, then she has it where you claim she doesn't. If acting to fulfil her own needs isn't agency, then self-actualisation is the only place left where it could apply – that is, everything that is above fulfilling needs.
Pick one.
No, but it does mean that the claim that it isn't related is baseless. You didn't say it might not be connected, you said it is not.
3472089
It has nothing to do with fulfilling needs or self-actualization.
Character agency is:
The character has a goal:
Sonata Dusk wants a taco. The text lets us know this. This gives us information about the character: when attempting to take over the world, she gets distracted by Taco Tuesday. She has enough agency to express to the audience, in text, what she wants.
Scootaloo wants Rainbow Dash to be her mentor. The text lets us know this. This tells us what Scootaloo aspires to be-- cool, confident, a talented flyer, brave-- it tells us that she doesn't have a pony in her life with those attributes already, at least not that she sees. It tells us that she doesn't think she has all of those attributes already.
The character can act towards that goal:
Sonata Dusk can not have a taco. We learn that she follows Adagio, but not how she would aquire a taco if left to her own devices. Would she pay for it? Brainwash someone into giving her one? Try to trade her magic necklace for one? Get a job at Taco Bell to have access to unlimited tacos? We don’t know. The fact that she follows Adagio means that Sonata doesn’t have full agency, and we don’t learn as much about her as we would if we knew how far she would go for a taco.
Scootaloo can pressure Apple Bloom to be invited on the camping trip with Rainbow Dash. She can do what Rainbow Dash asks her. She can react to being scared by pretending she's not scared. She can eventually open up to Rainbow Dash and tell her that she's scared, and that she wants a mentor. We learn a lot about who she is because she has full agency to act towards her own goal.
In these scenarios, Sonata Dusk has partial agency, Scootaloo has full agency.
Now, it's stated in the text that Diamond Tiara wants to be editor of the school paper. That was her goal, and it would tell us something about her, her need for control, her need to be important. What would she do towards that goal? She would print gossip, the dirtier the better. She would blackmail ponies into getting it for her.
Except:
It's not what she wanted. Her desire to be editor of the Foal Free Press only tells us she wanted to please her mother. That's not nearly as much information as it would be if it was a goal she had for her own personal reasons. And it's not what she would do. It's what she was always told to do. She was not acting with full agency as a character.
If Diamond Tiara had been acting with full agency, like Scootaloo was in trying to get Rainbow Dash to mentor her, we would be able to tell what she would do in a similar situation now, even if her priorities shifted. She wouldn't be "somepony else" she would be like Discord, for example: an established character with new goals.
This is the usual assumption when we see any character state a goal; that it's their own, and the actions they take towards it are ones that will fulfill it. We don't assume that Scootaloo is only saying she wants Rainbow Dash as a mentor because her mom is a big Rainbow Dash fan; we don't assume that Apple Bloom wants a cutie mark because it's important to Granny Smith, and we don't assume that Twilight wants to make amends to Moondancer because it will look good for Princess Celestia. Unless the text tells us differently, views and readers have to be expected to assume that what the text shows about the characters is true for the characters.
But in Diamond Tiara's case, she has agency from the time she rejects her mother. Before that, everything she said she wanted was a lie (according to her song.) After that is the only time in the show when what she says she wants is actually what she wants, and could tell us what she might want going forward.
So a character with full agency is a character who can show what they want (from ice cream to world domination) and act towards that goal. That's it.
3472180
Nope. That's your take on it, but it's certainly not the be-all and end-all of views on the topic.
The majority of opinions only refer to characters being active, consistent, and driving the plot rather than being driven by it. I can't see anyone else mentioning goals. You may be conflating that with narrative conflicts.
The song doesn't even imply that. There is no apparent logic to this conclusion.
Yours, perhaps. Not mine. if you want two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs, you go right ahead; I'm not interested.
Irrelevant. We don't have reason to suspect those things. What we do do is look for clues that tell us about the character.
You can believe that if you like, but you still haven't made a case for it.
Again, no, not really. That's your definition, not the definition.
She acts, she's consistent, and her personality as it was then can still be used to gauge her character as it is now. You may know less about Diamond Tiara, but that doesn't make her previous characterisation suddenly invalid.
And I can't help but notice that your other blog-post states that there is a canon inconsistency, but you don't explain how or why. It's just holding up two things and saying they're inconsistent. I don't think there's any more mileage to be had here as you're not making whole arguments. There's no value in that kind of dialogue to me.
3472661
You know, it's really amazing that you're the only one reading my blog who can't understand this concept as I laid it out.
I'm very sorry I can't explain it to your satisfaction, but I'm done trying.
I re-watched that episode, and its gotten me thinking: Before the show started, did Diamond Tiara used to be friends with Apple Bloom? Filthy Rich certainly acts like he respects the Apples, and he expects DT to as well. And the fact that Apple Bloom at the beginning of this episode trusted Diamond enough to pass a note, and show up for Diamond Tiara's party (which Diamond invited her to anyway) suggests to me they were once friends, if only because their families encouraged them to be friends.
Given how insecure DT has always been, I wonder how much of her behavior is actually to make Silver Spoon feel part of a special club that they are a part of and that Apple Bloom (and later the rest of the CMC) are not.
Just realized something. You reminded me that the party meant that Diamond Tiara just got her cutie mark, but Silver Spoon already has hers. Had to be some pressure on DT in that situation, where your best friend and lackey gets their cutie mark first.
3471626
¡1 Word!
⸘Interrobang‽
3472829 I'd have to question whether Filthy Rich is actually friends with anyone. You know, kinda like how Facebook have diluted the concept of friend down to 'vague acquaintance' as a baseline. Given his personality, I bet his 'friendship' is exactly as plastic as a used-car salesman's. Business is business after all, and sociopathy (and to a lesser degree psychopathy) are common factors in such people.
The question about Silver Spoon is very interesting, though. My guess would be that Diamond Tiara has to lay on her airs as thickly as she does because SS is much more stable and confident throughout. Playing the lead role is an active and continuous effort, whereas her sidekick takes her role effortlessly. As 3473446 says, that must be an awful lot of stress to cope with, yet it could be that very disparity that brings them together – maybe Silver Spoon has a sidekick that takes care of all that stressful thinking for her.
3474189 Yeah, it's a great point that Silver Spoon seems a lot less insecure most of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if on some level Diamond Tiara feels like Silver Spoon might be better than her, so she works constantly to establish herself as the dominant one in the relationship.
Hold on there. I Googled "cause of bullying", and found lots of pages listing lots of motivations for bullying. Only one person mentioned seeking approval, and in that case it wasn't like what you're positing for Diamond Tiara, but seeking approval by acting outrageously just to get attention. The motivations mentioned most often are:
- Natural low empathy for others
- Violent environment or frequent observation of aggressive behavior in others; their parents are bullies or aggressive (whether toward them, or towards others); watching television; violent video games
- A desire to be in control and have power over others
- Being large and strong makes a boy likely to become a bully
- Bullying makes them more popular
I didn't find a single mention of bullying because of parental pressure.
There are not many studies of the causes of bullying! I looked for studies of bullying on PubMed, and there are 20-40 studies of the common traits of victims of bullies for every study on the common traits of bullies. The emphasis appears to be on reducing bullying by changing the behavior of victims. Most of the studies of what causes people to become bullies are studies of adults in the workplace. Perhaps because workplace managers are actually interested in reducing bullying, whereas school administrators are more interested in making public displays of sympathy.
The theory that bullies come from poor families has been tested repeatedly, and is at most a weak and inconsistent effect. See for example here.
This paper said that men who bully people in the workplace say that they're aggressive.
(Einarsen 1999) cites other studies as saying, "Perceived reasons for bullying were also addressed in a survey among employees at a Finnish University (BjoÈrkqvist et al., 1994a). The three main reasons were competition concerning status and job positions, envy, and the
aggressor being uncertain about his/her self. A high proportion also felt that the personality of the victim contributed to the bullying. The victims themselves were uncertain whether or not this was the case. Another Finnish study among 95 victims who were members of the Union of Municipal Officials (Vartia, 1996), showed similar results. In this study 68 per cent saw envy as an important reason for why they were being bullied, followed by a weak superior (42 per cent) and competition for tasks or advancement (38 per cent) or the superior's approval (34 per cent). Envy was also the most common factor mentioned by 278 victims in a Norwegian survey (Einarsen et al., 1994a) followed by a general negative evaluation of the leadership style of one's immediate superior."
All in all, there's not many specific conclusions, but a general one that I make from the literature is: There's no evidence that we should have sympathy for bullies. They aren't acting out of poverty, under duress from their parents, or because they don't understand how to act. All the evidence is that they're assholes.
3477262 Very good question(s?).
The first thing I noticed is this:
To me, that's a contradiction. Seeking the approval of one's peers is a common substitute for seeking the approval of a parent figure – almost always because a parent–child bond has failed. The roots of this come from the work of psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, progenitor of attachment theory (1958), which cites evolutionary biology as a source for survival strategies based on a mother–child bond. In it's simplest form, the evolutionary explanation is this: if a child is separated from it's mother (that's where the milk comes from, after all) then it experiences discomfort, causing it to cry and acquire the attention of the mother; however, if the mother is gone too long, the child's body chemistry will alter to quiet it in order to avoid attracting predators. In essence, lack of parent = heightened probability of death = insecurity. Any alterations in body chemistry at this stage are effectively permanent (see epigenetics).
So what's the next best thing for a child (or pretty much anyone) without a parental attachment? Peer bonding – a.k.a. tribe. So a child with a weak/no attachment is will seek approval from a parent to feel what little security they have more intensely (If I earn the approval of mother/father, I'll be safe) or build that security elsewhere by either popularity (social bullying) or might (physical bullying) – likely a combination of the two based on the subject's particular skillset.
I first found attachment theory through the evolutionary work of Richard Dawkins, and took interest after discovering the extended work on the theory by Gordon Nufeld (and more tangentially via Gabor Mate, who works on child development and addiction therapy).
Out of interest, I put 'causes of bullying' into google to see what came up, and the third article (accepting that the first five entries were for the same site/article) had this in it:
One can't say that everyone who is insecure turns to bullying, but one can say that everyone who turns to bullying is insecure. Insecurity, in this context, literally means a lack of assumed protection from a parent.
Now, as it goes, I did present the case badly because point 2 is really just a re-badged point 1 – that's a fair cop. I tried to highlight the likely ways in which a single trigger can manifest and possibly made it less clear as a result. Bullying is always the symptom of insecurity (well, assuming that overt mental defects are rules out), but what changes is how the individual seeks to address that insecurity – putting others down or raising yourself up. At this point, I hope I have sufficiently explained the basis for the assertion.
I'm going to recommend this video before I actually watch it, because if I'm wrong I deserve a public slap!
Gordon Neufeld on What Makes a Bully
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That's basically the "acting out" theory. That doesn't mean someone bullies to seek approval from her parents because her parents want her to be a bully.
One often-listed correlate of becoming a bully is parents who are inattentive, absent, or who administer "inconsistent" discipline. But this is just one correlate. You can't say that everyone, or even most people, who turns to bullying are insecure.
(Also, never trust anyone who puts the word "expert" in their name.
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Sorry, I'm not going to watch the video. It's over an hour long.
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Conflation. The text you're referring to was 'seeking approval' not 'seeking approval from parents'. And I didn't say anything about parents wanting the child to be a bully (although they probably do insofar as they don't realise they are essentially bullies themselves, just whitewashed with dogma – forcing an opinion on how to think of other people, for example, is bullying).
The science says otherwise.
(Edit: suffice to say, if anyone can provide an example of bullying without insecurity, that would invalidate my assertion. I am perfectly confident that you can't.)
3478915 I can't provide "an example" because the literature doesn't have that kind of numeric data. But if I'm allowed to cite studies that list causes of bullying, or that survey people and ask them why they think people bully other people; and that either don't list insecurity as a cause, or list it as a minor cause, then I'd say that either you've read lots of them too, or you haven't done your homework, because that would be most of them. Insecurity didn't register as a major cause in the papers I looked at.
3480906 But in those cases, are the explanations themselves merely symptoms of insecurity presented by people who don't know any better?
3481350 I don't know. The data in this field is really bad. Compare it to studies of what early environment correlates with later violent crime, or child abuse, or good performance on intelligence tests. Those studies are still inconclusive, but at least they've constructed standardardized measurement scales, counted data in the field, done twin studies, family studies, and genome surveys, gathered tables of data, and used standard methodologies like factor analysis or multiple regression analysis to factor out confounding factors and estimate impact coefficients.