BULLYING: Personality type with a tendency to bully others? Type of the victims?

[Aphex]

Every bully I've ever observed has been an ESxx. No exceptions.

 

[JustHer]

I think the ultimate bully stereotype would be ESTP, and for victim probably INFP.

 

[OrangeAppled]

1. What is considered to be the personality type/s associated to a bully?

Can you rank them from 1, being the one with the strongest tendency to bully others.

Some stereotypes:

ESTP - beats you up and steals your lunch money bullying
ESTJ - mocks you for being weird bullying
ESFJ & ESFP - "mean girls" type of bullying, cattiness, spreading rumors
ISTP - sarcastic comments under breath, mocking what seems stupid & unrealistic to them
ENTJ - psychological warfare bullying...think Jeff on "Flipping Out"
ENTP - general smartass behavior, putting people other people down to seem "better"
NTs - online trolling bullying

2. What is considered to be the personality type/s associated to the victims?

Can you rank them from 1, being the perfect victim.

ISFJ - they want to be accepted (SJ), can have a hard time standing up for themselves, and are sensitive. They also express emotion more openly, which can make them targets.
ISFP - sensitive, often offbeat and attract negative attention because of it.
ISTJ - they can be "nerd" types
All INxx - because we are the "weirdos", right? I've never been bullied though. It just doesn't work on me.

 

[miss fortune]

I got taunted for being a smart kid in elementary school so by the time I'd gotten to middle school I was pretty good at kicking ass. I reserved my ass kicking for bullies and spent the next few years of my school career bullying bullies... other than that, I fit in in any social group I wanted to fit in, but I hated other bullies and took a variety of approaches (including bribery, taunting and occasionally kicking thier asses) to teach them their lesson

from my experience a majority of bullies were ExFJs... their bullying was emotionally driven instead of for any other reason

 

[tcda]

If you don't stand up for yourself and succumb to bullying without doing something, then yes, I'd say it is unhealty. There is always something that can be done.

I don't agree with this really.

It's fashionable these days to talk about "co-depndency" and the rest of it - some psychologists even claim that both abusive and abused partners in a relationship can have different varieties of "Narcissistc Personality Disorder".

It really strikes me as a worrying trend in psychology to pathologize suffering abuse.

In many cases there really isn't much a person could reasonably be expected to do. For example if you are, like, 10 years old, and some older kids decide to threaten you with a knife for fun, and every time they see you they will give you shit, and you know they have older brothers and "connections" so you may well get it worse if you "went for help"...in that case a "normal" person, wouldn't really know what to do. That's not a sign of unhealthiness.

We live ina society where "might makes right", we live ina heirarchical and competitive society, so someone is always going to be abused - most people, in fact, are downtrodden. I don't see this as a sign of their "unhealthiness", rather of the unhealthiness of the society.

 

[SillySapienne]

The only trend I've noticed (regarding type) is that bullies tend to be extroverts and victims of bullies tend to be introverts.

That's all.

 

[Grungemouse]

I'm fairly sure victims are chosen by their "different" characteristics; height, weight, hair colour, etc. I've always been very short throughout my childhood. I'm approaching 19 and I'm 5'1. Of course I was teased for it. Classmates would occasionally heckle something. Although I'm not sure that counts as bullying. Sure, it was embarrassing, but I didn't really dwell on it. Yes, I'm short. Not much I can do about it, you know? No point in feeling like a victim.

I wasn't a victim of the bitchy female hierarchy of middle school or high. I hung out with the opposite sex, mostly. I would either grub around for wildlife in the ditches, or play lego bionicle with guys. One of my female friends was really popular at the time, so I was automatically accepted by the girls. After all, if I was a friend, I must be normal, right? That was their logic, any road. They held me in surprisingly high esteem, despite how different I was.

I suppose type could be a factor. I wasn't very reactive to heckling, but I was known for being aggressive in physical confrontations. During highschool, a jealous former best friend of my best friend at the time appeared from out of nowhere and started bullying me. As in, walking right behind me, sitting behind me in class and tugging on my hair, groping me in inappropriate areas in order to humiliate me. I reckon she's an ESXP. At one point she walked past me in a corridor and shoved me, and then I reacted by grabbing her neck and shoving her against a wall. A fight broke out, which caused an embarrassing scene. I think the bullying ended when I told my ESTP brother about it. He rallied a couple of his female friends and they just stood outside the classroom during a maths lesson, glaring at her through the window. Five minutes from the end of the lesson, they sauntered off. They didn't hang around at the end to hassle her, or anything. It was purely for psychological torment. They only wanted to worry her. Having an ESTP as an older brother has its upsides.

 

[Craft]

Pffft, if everyone can be a bully then has anyone seen an INFP bully? Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[KDude]

I was a bully at one period in my life. Kind of weird seeing people say ESxP could be inclined to bullying... Awhile back, I thought I was ISFP, but I could not reconcile it with past behavior like this. ISFP's seemed too chill. So maybe that explains it.

Anyways, I started out as a nice kid, but in the 6th grade, I kicked one of the popular kid's asses (who was a bully himself) in front of a lot of people, and kind of settled on that behavior for the next few years. I saw that being that way got attention.. I ended up being sort of popular. Bad thing was, I started screwing with people for the sake of it.. that's where the bullying came in during middle and highschool. It might have been OK if I left it at simply defending myself like I did when I was in the 6th grade, but I didn't.

 

[simulatedworld]

Common bullies = Any E_T_ or E__J. Occasionally ESFP or ISTP.

Common victims = IN__, or ISFJs.

 

[KDude]

I don't know what type the people I picked on were. Probably introverts. I never messed with kids with differences or eccentricities or anything like that. I was probably a little different myself. I REALLY doubt I ever picked on an INFP or ISFP either. I picked on the more defiant passive aggressive type of introverts (or what I saw as defiance..). I was horrible when certain people basically didn't kiss my ass.
I fought with extroverts who challenged me too, but that's beside the point.

 

[Loxias]

I got bullied throughout primary school mainly for being almost 2 years younger than my peers in my class, for being a weirdo, for being poor at sports and poorly coordinated as well as dressing like a grandpa.
The main bullies, in retropect, would have been ESTP, ESFP and ESTJ for guys and also ESFJ for girls (yes I got bullied by girls too).

Although I didn't care much, and it only impacted my self-confidence on the long run, reinforcing the sense of being a weirdo.

However from teenage years on, I was not bullied anymore, and rather seen as that original guy that it's nice to talk to, and became relatively popular. I think American style jock/popular-girls kind of high school bullying is not something that has any equivalents in the French system though.

 

[KDude]

lol.. "dressing like a grandpa". i probably would have laughed, but sort of liked you as well.

i wasn't exactly the best dresser myself. my first day in middle school, i had ducttape on my shoes and holes in my jeans. the preppy dudes pointed and laughed. but i eventually earned their respect,so to speak. at the same time, it got to me. i remember making friends with better dressed kids and borrowing their clothes a lot.

 

[phthalocyanine]

i was bullied in elementary school because i was a racial minority, a dress wearing tomboy, and because i was a goody two shoes with straight A's. it seemed the more i tried to be polite, forgiving, and avoid negativity, the more i got it hurled at me. it didn't help that i also openly defended the kids that were really bullied badly. kids called me a "fag" a lot. i explained to them that it didn't make sense to call a girl a fag and so they called me "poindexter" for a while after that

so one day i decided to fight back, verbally of course, and told a bunch of kids off. they were stunned because i guess they expected me to quietly kind of take it or something. it was then i realized that being the nerd really had its advantages, because you can always make the person look as stupid as they are if need be with that big nerd brain of yours.

some of those bullies ended up asking me for help with their schoolwork, actually. ha (in most cases i did help them, and tried to make amends as best i could. a couple of kids stopped bullying others because of that. i think it's true that some kids feel inadequate or stupid in comparison to others who they then bully to make themselves feel better, and if the bully-ee can try to be gracious and forgiving, it can make a difference -- this is an unnecessarily long parenthesis but i think this is true.)


i didn't get bullied again until middle school. by this time i lived in a more homogeneous neighborhood, but i was comparatively poor and dressed in plainer clothes that the other girls attempted to ridicule me for. so i told them that if they were willing to judge someone solely on their clothes or socioeconomic status, that that was essentially the same kind prejudice as sexism, racism, or any other discrimination based on circumstances the other person cannot control. i even went so far as to point out to one particularly mean girl that as a jewish person she ought to understand what that kind of prejudice can do to people. (this girl had also mistreated friends of mine because of their races or simply because they were from other countries, so i had a bone to pick with her before she started hatin' on my hanes, lol)

the looks on their face were priceless.

INFPs sure look like perfect targets, but upset that Fi and be ready for retaliation...

 

[KDude]

Fi huh? So how would a bullied ISFP go about it?

 

[Craft]

How would an ISFP bully? Is it even possible?

 

[KDude]

Well... apparently I am an ISFP by tests, and by the estimate of a few ISFPs here.

Cognitive tests say I'm more Se dominant than Fi though (ESFP) and fwiw, I'm fairly social.. and identify with some of the ESFP descriptions. I just don't identify with ESFP stereotypes or party animal bullshit (maybe I was inclined to that at one time, but going through rehab, a dose of spirituality, and lots of introspection changes people.).

Anyways, I questioned myself before on being ISFP for the very reason you raise. How could I be aggressive in these ways in the past if I was ISFP? I woudn't know how to answer you. Maybe I'm just more of a laid back and friendly ISFP now, and was another way before.

 

[Contemptus]

In my personal experience they were the XSTJ's and XSTP'S :workout: (mainly the former)..... and the victims were often introverted NT's and NF's (the SF's that I knew did ok because the were able to blend in to the typical sensing T crowd)... I used to get bullied for a few years here and there... But then in the last few years before school I developed a sharp tongue toward those who acted too big for their boots so any dissidence was stamped out before it could develop.

 

[Johnfloyd6675]

ENTP's aren't bullies, if they're seen 'bullying', it's more likely the bullee actually deserved it. And it wasn't really bullying but in the mind of the ENTP, deserved.

I imagine that, more than most other types, ENTPs in their youth suffered victimization and, more crucially, humiliation by other children that influenced the organization of the adult personality.

ENTPs are famous for their willingness to make fools of themselves for a laugh. Humiliation before others is an entirely different experience. I think that humiliation, and the experience of human cruelty in general, is probably key in understanding ENTP aggression. ENTPs did not spend all these years becoming who they are to be demeaned by inferiors. For me, at least, anybody who hurts me (or my own) brings out the worst and the best in my personality; you know how Snoop Dogg's yearbook photo reveals him as a nerd? Yeah, well, he was charged with murder and got away with it. He's straight ENTP.

 

[goodgrief]

How would an ISFP bully? Is it even possible?

My ISFP friend can be quite cruel on occasion.