Bullying is repeated verbal, physical, social or psychological

aggressive behaviour by a person or group directed towards a less

powerful person or group that is intended to cause harm, distress or
fear.

Types of bullying behaviour

There are some specific types of bullying behaviour:

verbal or written abuse - such as targeted name-calling or jokes, or displaying offensive

posters

violence - including threats of violence

sexual harassment - unwelcome or unreciprocated conduct of a sexual nature, which
could reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation or intimidation
homophobia and other hostile behaviour towards students relating to gender and sexuality
discrimination including racial discrimination - treating people differently because of
their identity
cyberbullying - either online or via mobile phone.

Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate
others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by
the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from
conflict.[1] Behaviors used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment or threat,
physical assault or coercion, and such acts may be directed repeatedly towards particular targets.
Rationalizations for such behavior sometimes include differences of social class, race, religion,
gender, sexual orientation, appearance, behavior, body language, personality, reputation, lineage,
strength, size or ability.[2][3] If bullying is done by a group, it is called mobbing.[4]

Bullying can be defined in many different ways. The UK has no legal definition of bullying,[5] while
some U.S. states have laws against it.[6] Bullying is divided into four basic types of abuse
emotional (sometimes called relational), verbal, physical, and cyber.[7] It typically involves subtle
methods of coercion, such as intimidation.

Bullying ranges from simple one-on-one bullying to more complex bullying in which the bully may
have one or more "lieutenants" who may seem to be willing to assist the primary bully in his or her
bullying activities. Bullying in school and the workplace is also referred to as peer abuse.[8] Robert
W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism.

A bullying culture can develop in any context in which humans interact with each other. This
includes school, family, the workplace, home, and neighborhoods. In a 2012 study of male
adolescent American football players, "the strongest predictor [of bullying] was the perception of
whether the most influential male in a player's life would approve of the bullying behavior"