What planet are these psychologists from where if you walk away from a bully, they suddenly become stuck in place and give up?
I think the “walk away” thing works better, broadening the situation to not just school bullies, if you stretch the definition or I suppose steelman it to mean do actions where you can leave the bully behind and it’s costly for the bully to follow unless they stalk or resort to means or risks that are too troublesome.
e.g. Quit a workplace full of harassers or leave a club or an organization full of jerks. In some settings if enough victims “vote with their feet”, the bully runs out of victims. Obviously totally unreasonable in settings like schools, prisons etc.
Also moving away from situations with bullies is easier for adults or people with more agency or choice than kids.
But it doesn’t work in settings where locally “walking away” doesn’t put you out of the bullies reach and there is a low barrier for the bully to “walk back to you and resume bullying”—moving to a different part of the playground, the bully will just follow. Changing office spaces, while a harasser still remains your co-worker and will still harass in regular encounter.
Wait what?
What planet are these psychologists from where if you walk away from a bully, they suddenly become stuck in place and give up?
I think the “walk away” thing works better, broadening the situation to not just school bullies, if you stretch the definition or I suppose steelman it to mean do actions where you can leave the bully behind and it’s costly for the bully to follow unless they stalk or resort to means or risks that are too troublesome.
e.g. Quit a workplace full of harassers or leave a club or an organization full of jerks. In some settings if enough victims “vote with their feet”, the bully runs out of victims. Obviously totally unreasonable in settings like schools, prisons etc.
Also moving away from situations with bullies is easier for adults or people with more agency or choice than kids.
But it doesn’t work in settings where locally “walking away” doesn’t put you out of the bullies reach and there is a low barrier for the bully to “walk back to you and resume bullying”—moving to a different part of the playground, the bully will just follow. Changing office spaces, while a harasser still remains your co-worker and will still harass in regular encounter.