Indirect Power: Bullying as Social Control
Bullying is often treated as a problem of personality or temperament. It is described as cruelty, insecurity, or lack of empathy. When addressed, it is frequently framed as a failure of individual character rather than a patterned social mechanism. This framing obscures the fact that bullying is not merely interpersonal aggression. It is a form of indirect social control that relies on repetition, audience alignment, and structural permission.
Bullying governs not by force alone, but by making certain costs predictable. It teaches through exposure. Targets learn what happens when boundaries are crossed. Observers learn what happens when norms are challenged. The lesson is rarely stated explicitly. It is demonstrated.
Unlike isolated conflict, bullying is sustained. It depends on recurrence. A single insult may wound, but it does not regulate. Bullying regulates because it is patterned and because it unfolds within a social field that permits it to continue.
This permission is often tacit. Bullying does not require universal approval. It requires tolerance. Silence, minimization, or reframing are sufficient. When bullying persists without interruption, it becomes instructional.
Bullying operates through asymmetry. The bully need not hold formal power. What matters is relative position. This position may be conferred by social capital, institutional protection, group alignment, or reputational insulation. The target’s position is defined by vulnerability rather than weakness.
This vulnerability may be situational. Newness, deviation, visibility, or lack of allies can all create exposure. Once exposure exists, bullying exploits it.
One of bullying’s central mechanisms is uncertainty. Targets are never quite sure when the next act will occur or in what form. This unpredictability creates vigilance. Attention shifts from participation to monitoring. Energy is diverted from expression to self-protection.
This diversion has regulatory effects. As vigilance increases, risk-taking decreases. Targets modify behavior preemptively. They speak less. They withdraw. They conform.
Bullying also operates through audience calibration. The presence of others matters. Even when acts occur privately, the implicit audience remains. Targets know that narratives circulate. Reputation is at stake.
Observers are also regulated. They learn which behaviors attract negative attention and which are safe. They learn who is protected and who is expendable.
Bullying often relies on ambiguity. Acts are framed as jokes, teasing, or feedback. Intent is deniable. This ambiguity protects the aggressor while destabilizing the target.
When challenged, the bully can retreat behind innocence. The target is reframed as sensitive or reactive. The burden of proof shifts. Harm must be demonstrated repeatedly to be acknowledged.
This dynamic discourages reporting. Targets learn that naming the behavior may increase risk rather than reduce it.
Bullying also interacts with moral framing. Targets may be depicted as deserving correction. Their deviation is framed as provocation. Aggression is reframed as accountability.
This reframing legitimizes harm. It converts cruelty into discipline.
Bullying also interacts with normalization. Repeated acts become routine. What once felt shocking becomes expected. The environment adapts.
This adaptation is dangerous. As bullying normalizes, thresholds rise. More extreme behavior is required to register as harm.
Bullying governs time. It is cumulative. Each incident alone may seem minor. Together, they erode confidence, agency, and belonging.
This erosion is often invisible from the outside. Targets may continue to perform adequately. The cost is internal.
Bullying also reshapes identity. Persistent targeting alters self-concept. Individuals may begin to see themselves through the bully’s lens. Doubt takes root.
This internalization deepens control. Regulation no longer requires external action. The target self-regulates.
In institutional settings, bullying often hides behind performance metrics or hierarchical authority. Criticism is framed as standards. Humiliation is reframed as rigor.
Institutions may tolerate bullying because it appears effective. Productivity may rise. Compliance increases. The costs are deferred.
Those costs eventually surface as attrition, disengagement, or psychological injury. Yet by the time they appear, the pattern is entrenched.
Bullying also thrives in environments where accountability is diffuse. When responsibility is unclear, harm persists. No one intervenes because no one is assigned to.
This diffusion protects the mechanism. Bullying becomes a feature of the environment rather than an action attributable to anyone in particular.
Recognizing bullying as indirect power does not require denying the role of individual behavior. People do harm. Intent matters. The issue is not excusing cruelty, but understanding how it functions.
When bullying is treated solely as bad behavior, its structural role remains intact. When it is recognized as a regulatory mechanism, its persistence becomes intelligible.
Bullying governs by teaching limits. It instructs through consequence rather than rule. It shapes behavior by demonstrating what happens when deviation is noticed and punished.
Because it often appears interpersonal, it is easy to underestimate its reach. Yet bullying does not only regulate its targets. It regulates the field.
Bullying is not a failure of social order. It is one of the ways social order is enforced.
