BULLYING remains an ongoing problem across schools, workplaces, homes and cyberspace.
In Malaysia, including Sarawak, this problem has gained significant public attention due to its prevalence along with the growing number of cyberbullying cases.
A forensic psychologist views bullying as not only a behavioural problem but a societal, legal, and mental health concern requiring targeted intervention.
Dr Benfadzil Mohd Salleh of Benfadzil Academy said from a forensic psychology standpoint, bullying is a pattern of aggressive, intentional behaviour, hatred that exploits a real or perceived power imbalance.
He said it is not an isolated incident — it is a repeated, deliberate act designed to harm, humiliate, or dominate another individual.
From a forensic psychology perspective, he said, the inner thoughts and feelings of a bully are not always uniform — they depend on personality type, environment, and motivation — but research and offender profiling point to several recurring patterns.
He also said usually bullies have high energy or octane in their blood with a dare-to-do attitude, kind of a show-off or with a blatant disregard for rules and order.
Here, he shared with Sarawak Tribune his insights on bullying, its causes, and the steps needed to address it.
Sarawak Tribune: Can you describe the meaning of bullying and what are the types of bullying? Who often tends to be bullied? Why? Who does bullies target?
Dr Benfadzil: Bullying can be done on purpose or intentional. This is usually due to non satisfaction feelings.
Bullying can be broadly categorised into physical bullying that involves hitting, kicking, pushing and damaging property; verbal bullying which involves name-calling, insults and threats; social or relational bullying which involves spreading rumours, exclusion from groups and humiliation; cyberbullying which involves harassment, threats, or humiliation using digital platforms; and psychological bullying with sustained intimidation and manipulation targeting a person’s mental state.
Both boys and girls are susceptible. In Sarawak’s context, boys tend to be overrepresented in physical bullying cases, while girls are more involved in relational and cyber forms. Targets are often individuals perceived as “different” due to ethnicity, socio- economic status, appearance, disability, or personality traits.
From a psychology perspective, what drives individuals to engage in bullying behaviour?
Bullying behaviour can satisfy multiple dimensions of a perpetrator’s needs such as ego needs that is by inflating self-image and creating a sense of superiority; mental needs linked to bullying often involve sadism, where the bully derives pleasure from witnessing another person’s suffering; emotional needs in bullying are often satisfied through a sense of dominance and control; and physical needs can create an addiction-like rush from aggression, and this multi-need gratification reinforces the behaviour, making it harder to stop without targeted intervention.
What are the factors of bullying? What are the signs that one is being bullied?
Personality traits linked to bullying include impulsivity, narcissism, low empathy, and sadistic tendencies.
Environmental factors include dysfunctional family dynamics, weak school discipline, and cultures rewarding aggression.
For instance the five main factors of bullying – power imbalance, repeated harm, intent to hurt, lack of empathy and bystander passivity.
While the signs of being bullied are withdrawal, falling performance, injuries, anxiety, avoidance of places or people.
Bullying can be individual (one aggressor) or group-based (mobbing). Group bullying magnifies power imbalance, spreads accountability, and commands greater domination.
It is harder to dismantle because social bonds among aggressors must be broken. Victims in group bullying face compounded humiliation and intimidation.
Bullies may feel ego inflation, sadistic pleasure, emotional release, or physical thrill after an act. Regret varies: low-empathy bullies feel none; some feel guilt only when caught. Fear of reprimand depends on enforcement – group settings reduce fear through shared responsibility.
Bullying gives a sense of authority in a group setting, a dominant power of commanding a situation and the bully wants to be known as the big brother or big sister. Usually it’s the pleasure of being in control and untouchable.
Unlike the person being bullied who will forever feel small, unloved, unsafe, not protected and powerless. This will reduce the person being bullied, his or her ego, self worth to have a low self esteem, shame and guilt. The bully will walk tall with pride, control and arrogance while bragging about his achievement.
Causes include psychological traits (low empathy, narcissism, impulsivity), emotional needs (power, thrill), learned behaviour from family or peers, cultural factors (seniority abuse, prejudice), situational triggers (threat, boredom), and biological contributors (low arousal, hormonal factors, brain differences).
How do the psychological impacts of bullying differ between victims and perpetrators?
To the person being bullied we can see injuries, poor performance, avoidance, changes in appearance.
While unseen, they will face anxiety, depression, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), self-worth erosion, trust issues, helplessness.
In the long-term, it affects mental health conditions, reduces career confidence and relationship issues.
Some victims become bullies later (victim-to-perpetrator cycle) seeking revenge or control, the latter being the normal case as he gains strength and opportunity.
As previously reported, Malaysia ranked second in Asia in terms of cyberbullying. How can this be addressed?
Malaysia’s high cyberbullying rate is due to high social media usage, low digital literacy, and weak legal enforcement.
Solutions: stronger cyber laws, early digital education, parental monitoring, collaboration with tech platforms.
Ethics in the usage of cyberbullying is still not fully known yet or exposed and never been exercised. It is just a shout of awareness but never practised.
The government or the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) should actually provide a strict guideline to ensure cyberbullying is monitored, encourage complaints for action to be taken and not be a guessing thought that lingers uncertainty in a person’s mind.
Education director-general Dr Mohd Azam Ahmad has ordered all state education directors and district education officers to conduct spot checks on schools to curb bullying. The schools have also been urged to lead chants of “Kami Benci Buli” (We Hate Bullying) before and after each school session to instill an abhorrence for bullying among students. Will these measures help to curb bullying in schools?
Spot checks deter overt bullying but can push it online. Chants like “Kami Benci Buli or Buli Musuh Kita” have limited long-term impact without deeper engagement.
There must be improved SOPs – fast investigation, consistent consequences, climate surveys and safe spaces with staff champions.
What changes or additions to the SOPs on school safety could make them more effective from a behavioural standpoint?
Anti-bullying measures should be paired with counselling. Bullies need behavioural therapy and empathy training; victims need trauma- informed care and resilience training.
Teachers training should include recognising subtle bullying, de- escalation, trauma-informed care, and reporting. Teachers should also be exposed to the type and example of bullying and not put protection or favouritism on certain students due to parental position or influence.
Having an emotional transference due to certain factors or other matters could deter an effective solution.
Teachers and peers should be taught safe intervention and rewarded for constructive reporting. Weekly advice during school assembly should be practiced instead of a one-off reminder or reminder when necessary and should be an oath.
Schools should have a big brother or sister concept to protect the junior should they come into contact, if such a problem arises and be supervised by a responsible teacher. The headmaster or headmistress should have a weekly check on this matter.
How can parents be more involved in anti-bullying efforts without overstepping or causing unintended backlash?
Parents should maintain open communication, monitor behaviour, and attend workshops. Avoid overstepping by confronting other children directly; instead, collaborate with schools.
Parents should also be responsible due to their son’s or daughter’s bullying practices and not take sides if any incident occurs. Checking on their children’s performance and behaviour is a good sign of involvement. Parents can supervise their children’s behaviour and performance.
On workplace bullying, how does workplace bullying differ psychologically from school bullying in terms of dynamics and consequences?
Workplace bullying is more subtle and hierarchical, causing burnout and career damage. Victims of school bullying may be vulnerable to workplace bullying later. These should be addressed more in detail and spelt out to clear confusion and misappropriation of such meaning.
Organisations should enforce zero-tolerance policies, train leaders in conflict resolution, offer confidential reporting, and run climate audits.
Every employee should know their rights and practice their ethics in any organisation regardless of their position.
What are the potential long-term mental health impacts if bullying—whether in school or the workplace—goes unaddressed?
If unaddressed, bullying can lead to complex PTSD, chronic depression, substance abuse, distrust, or criminal escalation in perpetrators. Victims might isolate themselves which cause them their performance.
Can bullies be “rehabilitated,” and if so, what kind of interventions have the highest success rates?
There are various ways of rehabilitation of bullies. The effective methods are those of cognitive behavioural therapy, restorative justice, social-emotional learning and family therapy. Although these are all counselling and therapy interventions, those administering these techniques must be well versed in addressing such issues and not off the rack teacher cum counsellor.
Bullying is a learned trait and it can be unlearned with the right approach. In a rehabilitation process it cannot be a trial and error approach in correcting a bully behaviour but more of a tested technique.
It is important in resolving this issue that everyone’s effort is involved, especially teachers, counsellor or therapist, both parents and both persons involved be present and discuss for correction.
All parties should not be overprotective of the issue and should not involve any hyper emotion in solving any issues.
Bullying in Malaysia and Sarawak is a multi-faceted social and psychological challenge. From a forensic perspective, prevention, early detection, enforcement, and rehabilitation for both victims and bullies are essential.
Only with behavioural science, legal measures, and community engagement can we replace bullying culture with empathy, respect, and safety.
It’s impossible to do an instant recovery to irradiate a bully but it’s possible with awareness and proper training.
