Do bullies lack empathy

Answer 1

Yes, bullies lack empathy. They do not think about the way their words and actions affect others. There are at least four types of bullying: physical, verbal, psychological, and cyber.

Physical bullies are often considered the worst kind, though words can be just as cruel or more so, depending on the victim. That involves pushing and shoving, gang attacks, sexual assault, theft, vandalism, and threats of violence. They never stop to think how they would feel if others physically attacked them every day.

Verbal bullies do not think about how much their words hurt others. They call others hurtful things such as anti-gay slurs, freak, retard, fat, skinny, loser, various swear words, and other forms of hate speech. They also spread lies about others. Even someone asking someone the same question every time they meet them or calling them a pet name they made up for the other person without their consent is also verbal bullying. The problem is they do not think about how they would feel if someone said all those things to them on a daily basis.

Cyber bullies do not realize that saying something hurtful online is just as bad as saying something hurtful to someone in person. Cyberbullying is often an extension of the above techniques. People saying rude things online to each other is not necessarily cyberbullying, particularly if both parties are insulting equally, and it is over a short duration. However, when it is on-going or combined with offline abuse, then it most certainly is cyberbullying. Cyberbullies usually don't want the things they said about others to be said about them. However, they often feel like victims themselves or simply don't care about others.

Psychological bullying and/or sadism is often a part of the other techniques. It can involve coercion, threats, intimidation, stalking, or exclusion. Sometimes it involves being extra nice to the victim before the attacks. That way, if a target suffers low self-esteem, then artificially boosting it can make the target even more vulnerable. They will feel confusion and betrayal when the actual bullying starts by the same persons. It may also involve giving bad advice to the targets and complimenting them on following it. That group might not mess with the person for a while, but another group of bullies might in response to the victim being coached to make a fool out of themselves. It may involve coercion to commit acts that are outside the person's morals. The bullies tell them that they need to do such an act to gain loyalty, the right to be left alone, or to be like the in-crowd. The only thing is that when they give in and do what was asked, their actions are used as "evidence" to prove they are a bad person and deserving of bullying. It certainly takes a person lacking in empathy to use this category of behaviors to enhance the other categories of abuse.