Bullying is in the genes, study suggests

Alok Jha, science correspondent

The Guardian,     Thursday 27 December 2007

Scientists have found a strong genetic influence on whether a child becomes a bully or a victim of bullying.

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London found that genetic influences explained 73% of children's risk of being a victim and 61% of their risk of being a bully. Harriet Ball, who led the study, said: "It's in line with a large body of research which shows that psychological traits have quite a high degree of genetic influence. What this says to us is that there are factors within the child which evoke being victims or cause them to be bullies."

The researchers say that their findings do not imply that genetics should be used to blame a child for being involved in bullying. Ball said the information should help schools and parents find new ways to deal with bullying. "Previous interventions for bullying have mainly focused on the bully and how we can change their behaviour whereas what we know from this research is that there's quite a big impact on things inside the victim, which make him or her become more likely to be a victim."

The results will be published in the January edition of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Liz Carnell, director of Bullying UK, said: "I think the genetic link might be a bit of a red herring. For instance, some children join in with bullying because they are afraid they will be the next target if they don't."

Ball and colleagues at Duke University in the US analysed 1,000 pairs of twins. In the sample 12% of the children had been bullied, 13% frequently bullied others and 2.5% were both severely victimised and frequently bullied.