excerpt: "projective identification in the bully-victim dynamic."

below is an excerpt from my paper on projective identification, for those of you who wonder: "what exactly does kristine do in her org psych program?" psychodynamics is a fascinating field, and group dynamics has been one of my favorite classes in the program. however, it is a difficult, somewhat amorphous concept to wrap my mind around, and writing about it has been challenging, particularly because i am also in the process of developing my "psychologist voice." you might note my "political science" voice, below, especially in the second paragraph. nonetheless, the course has been successful in giving me a new lens from which to view my group experiences.

(btw, don't you love my lofty title for the post and the paper?)
(update: hmmm... this is quite long. i will figure out how to host the paper online, perhaps on blogger or something, and link to that. but for now, here it rests)
(update: okay, i thought about it on my subway ride up to campus, and decided to have an excerpt here, then link to the paper later)

In her New York Times article entitled “Bully for You: Why Push Comes to Shove,” Natalie Angier explores the social phenomenon of bullying, an issue that has risen to the fore of social policy in light of recent incidences of school violence. Across the U.S., legislators and school authorities are working to eliminate what has been portrayed as alarmingly rampant bullying behavior through anti-bullying programs and policy; however, many researchers are skeptical as to whether or not such behavior can really be stamped out (Angier, 2001). As Dr. Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University, argues, “one of the problems in the standard approach to bully analysis is that researchers tend to ignore the subtle dynamics between a bully and the object of a bully’s scorn – the scapegoat” (Angier, 2001). In other words, the focus is frequently on the internal life of the subject and intrapersonal processes such as personality characteristics, character traits, and defensive mechanisms (Wells, 1995). In the article, intrapersonal issues underlie bullying and victim behavior: bullies spent “too much time in day care” and “many students blame victims of bullying for bringing their troubles on themselves;” however, another way to analyze bullying behavior is from the perspective of group-as-a-whole theory, approaching individual behavior in terms of a group mentality (Angier, 2001).

Laura Hess Olsen, an assistant professor child development at Purdue University, who was interviewed for the article, hits the nail on the head when she asserts that “everybody is a player in creating the atmosphere in which bullying occurs” (Angier, 2001). Within the group-as-a-whole framework, group members are interdependent subsystems, and behavior committed by an individual is committed on behalf of the group (Wells, 1995). According to Wells (1995), “the group has a life of its own distinct from but related to the dynamics of the co-actors who compose the group membership.” From this perspective, bullies and scapegoats (victims) are not individual actors, but, rather, are created in groups, by groups, and for groups. Angier (2001) states that “bullies are neither born nor made, but instead have their bulliness thrust upon them,” which, to some extent, accurately portrays the fundamental premise of group-as-a-whole theory; that is, that roles within groups are filled through a subtle collusion between members (Wells, 1995). A bully, according to this perspective, is a bully by a group’s subconscious election; likewise, victims of bullies are given their lot via a similarly democratic process.