In my article "The Need for Psychology Understanding,” I discussed how fiction writers need at least a basic understanding of psychology in order to write realistic content, dialogues, characters, and relationships. One such psychological concept is the ways in which biological and genetic factors can affect bullying behavior.

It is known that biological processes affect behavior and, in turn, be affected by behavior and social environment (Funder, 2016). This fact stands true for all forms of social problems including bullying. Bullying can occur anywhere and at any age, yet most people assume that bullying behavior is caused by environmental factors, life events, and/or parenting styles. Not many people understand that bullying behavior can be negatively influenced not just by these factors, but also by biological and/or genetic factors.

Biological Factors

The biological approach to personality psychology attempts to use the mental processes of the brain's neural system in order to account for behavior (Funder, 2019). Behaviors have been found to be the result of interactions between a person’s biology, psychology, and social environment (Watts & McNulty, 2016). Thus it stands to reason that a person’s bullying behaviors are also negatively influenced by biological factors. One such biological factor is the amygdala, which plays a role in generating an emotional response based on its computation of whether the environment seems to offer impending threat or reward; depending on how the situation is perceived the amygdala can increase a person’s heart rate by raising their blood pressure (Funder, 2016). The amygdala is known for its association with chronic anxiety, fearfulness, and sociability. Factors like anxiety or fearfulness might cause an individual to bully another person in an attempt to cover up their own anxiety or fear.

Genetic Factors

The field of behavioral genetics since its’ creation has studied the ways in which inherited biological genes can influence an individual’s broad patterns of behavior (Funder, 2016). One of the key principles of this field is the idea of heritability, which is based on the idea that not all of a person’s personality comes from their life experiences or their environment, but that a good portion of it comes from genes (Turkheimer, 1998, p. 785; Turkheimer & Gottesman, 1991). The idea behind this is that a child can inherit some of his or her personality traits from his or her relatives. Following this idea, children born to parents who possess more aggressive personality traits might find themselves more inclined to engage in bullying behavior. A research study conducted by Veldkamp et al. (2019) observed twins in a school environment in order to examine genetic factors involved in bullying behavior; the study found that the genetic influence on all forms of bullying behavior was 70%. The use of twins in the research study served to prove the effect of genetics on bullying behavior as the twins had similar genetic structures; it is also worth noting that the study made use of an equal number of twins that were educated in the same classroom and those separated in different classes. 

References

Funder, D. (2016). The personality puzzle (7th ed.). W. W. NORTON & COMPANY.

Veldkamp, S.A.M., Boomsma, D.I., De Zeeuw, E.L. et al. (2019).Genetic and environmental influences on different forms of bullying perpetration, bullying victimization, and their co-occurrence. Behavioral Genetics 49, 432–443 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-019-09968-5

Watts, S. J., & McNulty, T. L. (2016). Genes, Parenting, Self-Control, and Criminal Behavior. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 60(4), 469-491.