What Causes Someone to Become a Bully? Understanding the Psychology Behind Bullying

Authored by La Jolla Vitality Co.

Bullying is easy to recognize from the outside: someone repeatedly intimidates, humiliates, excludes, threatens, or undermines another person.

But what causes someone to behave this way?

There is no single "bully personality" or one psychological explanation that applies to everyone who bullies. Bullying can emerge from a combination of individual characteristics, family experiences, social environments, learned behavior, insecurity, peer dynamics, and the desire for status or control.

Understanding these factors doesn't excuse bullying.

Instead, it helps us understand how harmful behavior develops—and what may help prevent it.

Bullying Is a Behavior, Not an Identity

It is tempting to describe someone simply as "a bully."

But bullying is a pattern of behavior rather than a permanent identity.

People who bully can have very different personalities and backgrounds.

Some are socially dominant and confident.

Some are insecure.

Some are highly reactive or impulsive.

Some are motivated by status.

Others may have learned that intimidation is an effective way to get what they want.

This distinction matters because it prevents us from assuming that every person who bullies has the same psychological profile.

1. Learned Behavior

One of the most important explanations for bullying is that aggressive behavior can be learned.

Children observe how people around them handle conflict.

If they repeatedly see aggression rewarded with compliance, attention, status, or power, they may learn:

"Aggression works."

For example, if someone gets what they want by threatening others, and nobody challenges the behavior, intimidation may become reinforced.

The same principle can apply in adulthood.

People may continue behaviors that appear to produce desired outcomes.

This doesn't mean every person exposed to aggression becomes aggressive.

It means that social environments can teach people what behaviors are considered effective or acceptable.

2. A Desire for Status and Social Power

For some people, bullying is fundamentally about social hierarchy.

Bullying can provide:

Attention

Popularity

Influence

Fear-based respect

Social status

A sense of dominance

This is particularly relevant in environments where aggression or humiliation is rewarded socially.

A person may discover that making someone else the target of a joke earns laughter or approval from others.

The behavior can then become reinforced.

What begins as one incident can develop into a pattern.

3. Insecurity Can Play a Role

The idea that every bully is secretly insecure is too simplistic.

However, insecurity can contribute to bullying in some individuals.

Someone who feels inadequate, threatened, rejected, or socially inferior may attempt to elevate their own position by putting someone else down.

The underlying psychological process can resemble:

"If I can make you look smaller, I can feel bigger."

This can temporarily provide a sense of power or self-esteem.

But it's an unstable strategy.

Healthy self-esteem comes from developing competence and self-respect—not from diminishing other people.

4. Difficulty Regulating Emotions

Some people who bully have difficulty managing strong emotions such as:

Anger

Frustration

Jealousy

Shame

Rejection

Embarrassment

Instead of processing those emotions internally or communicating them appropriately, they may externalize them through aggression.

For example, someone who feels humiliated may respond by humiliating someone else.

Someone who feels rejected may attempt to regain control by excluding or attacking another person.

Emotional dysregulation doesn't excuse the behavior, but it can help explain why some people respond to ordinary frustrations with disproportionate aggression.

5. Lack of Empathy or Perspective-Taking

Empathy allows us to understand that another person has feelings, needs, and experiences that matter.

When empathy is limited, someone may be less likely to recognize, or care about, the emotional consequences of their behavior.

They may think:

"It's just a joke."

"They're too sensitive."

"They deserved it."

"It's not a big deal."

Sometimes the problem isn't that the person literally cannot understand another person's feelings.

They may simply be unwilling to prioritize those feelings over their own goals.

6. Family Environment

Family experiences can influence how children learn to relate to other people.

Environments characterized by chronic hostility, harsh punishment, inconsistent boundaries, humiliation, or aggression may teach children that relationships are fundamentally about power.

A child may learn:

"The strongest person wins."

or:

"If you don't intimidate people, they'll take advantage of you."

Again, family environment is only one potential influence.

Many people grow up in difficult circumstances and do not become bullies.

Early experiences can increase risk without determining someone's future behavior.

7. Inconsistent Boundaries and Consequences

Children need to learn that behavior has consequences.

When aggressive behavior consistently produces rewards without meaningful consequences, it can become reinforced.

For example, if a child repeatedly intimidates classmates and gains popularity from it while adults ignore the behavior, the child may learn that bullying is effective.

Clear, consistent boundaries can interrupt this reinforcement.

The message should be:

"You are allowed to feel angry. You are not allowed to hurt or humiliate someone because you're angry."

8. Peer Reinforcement

Bullying doesn't always involve just two people.

There can be an audience.

Laughter, encouragement, attention, or silence from peers can reinforce bullying behavior.

A person who receives social rewards after humiliating someone may become more likely to repeat the behavior.

This is why bystander behavior matters.

When a social environment communicates that cruelty is entertaining or socially advantageous, bullying can flourish.

When the environment communicates that cruelty is unacceptable, the behavior becomes less socially rewarding.

9. The Need for Control

Some bullying behavior is motivated primarily by control.

The person discovers that intimidation changes other people's behavior.

Someone stops speaking.

Someone gives them what they want.

Someone avoids them.

Someone changes their behavior out of fear.

That creates a powerful reinforcement loop:

Threat → compliance → perceived power → more threats.

This dynamic can occur in schools, workplaces, friendships, families, and romantic relationships.

10. Jealousy and Competition

Bullying can sometimes emerge from perceived competition.

Someone may feel threatened by another person's:

Appearance

Popularity

Academic success

Career

Relationship

Social connections

Talent

Confidence

Financial success

Instead of managing their feelings constructively, they may attempt to undermine the person they perceive as a rival.

This can be particularly subtle in adulthood.

Gossip, exclusion, public criticism, and deliberate undermining can function as forms of social aggression.

11. Difficulty Handling Rejection

Rejection can activate powerful emotions.

For some people, rejection produces sadness.

For others, it produces anger or shame.

Someone who has difficulty tolerating rejection may respond by attempting to regain power.

They might:

Insult the person who rejected them

Spread rumors

Attempt to damage their reputation

Exclude them socially

Threaten them

Publicly humiliate them

This doesn't mean rejection causes bullying.

Most people experience rejection without becoming aggressive.

The issue is how an individual has learned to respond to painful emotions.

12. Entitlement

Some bullying behavior is driven by the belief that other people should accommodate one's desires.

An entitled person may believe:

"I deserve special treatment."

"You should do what I want."

"You have no right to say no to me."

When others establish boundaries, the person may respond with anger or retaliation.

Healthy development involves learning that other people have their own autonomy.

You can want something without being entitled to it.

13. Modeling From Adults or Authority Figures

Children aren't the only ones who learn from social models.

Adults can also normalize aggressive behavior.

If a workplace leader routinely humiliates employees, for example, other employees may learn that this is an acceptable way to exercise authority.

Similarly, social groups can normalize gossip, exclusion, humiliation, or cruelty.

People often take cues from what their environment rewards and tolerates.

14. Online Environments Can Lower Inhibitions

Digital communication can change how people behave.

Online, people may feel:

Less accountable

More anonymous

Physically removed from consequences

More willing to say things they wouldn't say face-to-face

The absence of immediate feedback can make it easier to forget that there is a real person on the other side of the screen.

This can contribute to cyberbullying.

However, technology itself doesn't cause bullying.

It can simply provide another environment in which existing social and psychological dynamics play out.

15. Some People Learn That Cruelty Creates Connection

This may sound counterintuitive, but social aggression can sometimes create group cohesion.

A group may bond by having a common target.

People laugh together.

They share gossip.

They establish an "us versus them" dynamic.

The target becomes the outsider, while everyone else feels included.

This is one reason bullying can persist even when individual participants might not behave aggressively on their own.

The group itself can reinforce the behavior.

16. Bullying Doesn't Always Come From Low Self-Esteem

It's important to challenge the stereotype that every bully is simply an insecure person with low self-esteem.

Research on bullying suggests that the relationship between self-esteem and bullying is more complicated.

Some people who bully may have relatively positive views of themselves.

They may genuinely believe they are superior to others.

Others may have unstable self-esteem that is easily threatened.

Still others may be motivated primarily by status, control, retaliation, or social rewards.

There is no single psychological explanation.

17. Mental Health Conditions Are Not the Cause of Bullying

It's also important not to automatically associate bullying with mental illness.

Most people with mental health conditions are not bullies.

And most bullying cannot be explained simply by a psychiatric diagnosis.

Bullying is a behavior influenced by many factors, including learning, environment, personality, social incentives, and individual choices.

Using mental illness as a blanket explanation can contribute to unnecessary stigma.

18. Trauma Doesn't Automatically Create a Bully

Another common misconception is:

"Bullies were bullied themselves."

This can happen.

A person who experiences victimization may sometimes respond by becoming aggressive toward others.

But many people who experience bullying do not become bullies.

And some people who bully have never been bullied themselves.

Trauma may be one factor in some individuals' development, but it is not a universal explanation.

19. Why Bullies Sometimes Continue Into Adulthood

Bullying doesn't necessarily disappear after childhood.

Adult bullying can occur in:

Workplaces

Friend groups

Families

Romantic relationships

Online communities

Social organizations

The tactics may simply become more sophisticated.

Instead of pushing someone on a playground, an adult may use:

Social exclusion

Gossip

Reputation attacks

Intimidation

Workplace sabotage

Public humiliation

Manipulation

Threats

Deliberate undermining

The underlying dynamics: power, control, status, and reinforcement, can remain remarkably similar.

Can Bullies Change?

Yes.

But change generally requires more than simply telling someone:

"Stop being mean."

They may need to recognize their behavior, accept responsibility, understand its impact, and develop alternative ways of handling anger, insecurity, conflict, competition, or social relationships.

Useful interventions can include:

Clear boundaries

Consistent consequences

Social accountability

Emotional regulation skills

Empathy development

Conflict-resolution skills

Parenting interventions

School-based programs

Workplace interventions

Psychotherapy when appropriate

The person has to participate in the change.

You cannot force someone to develop empathy or accountability.

Understanding Is Not Excusing

Understanding why someone bullies can create an important distinction:

Explanation is not justification.

Someone may have experienced rejection.

They may have grown up around aggression.

They may feel insecure.

They may have learned that intimidation works.

They may struggle with emotional regulation.

None of these factors gives them permission to harm another person.

Adults remain responsible for their behavior.

Children and adolescents need developmentally appropriate guidance and consequences, but they also need opportunities to learn healthier ways of interacting.

What Actually Prevents Bullying?

Prevention starts with creating environments in which cruelty isn't rewarded.

That means:

Teaching empathy.

Modeling respectful conflict.

Establishing clear boundaries.

Responding consistently to aggression.

Avoiding social rewards for humiliation.

Teaching emotional regulation.

Encouraging healthy ways to achieve status and leadership.

Giving people appropriate ways to express anger and disagreement.

And perhaps most importantly:

Creating cultures where people are expected to treat one another with dignity.

The Bottom Line

There is no single reason someone becomes a bully.

Bullying can emerge from a complex combination of learned behavior, social reinforcement, status seeking, emotional dysregulation, insecurity, entitlement, family and peer environments, difficulty with empathy, and a desire for control.

Some bullies are insecure.

Some are socially confident.

Some have experienced adversity.

Some have not.

Some are seeking attention or status.

Others are seeking control.

The important point is that bullying is a behavior, not an inevitable personality type.

Understanding its causes can help parents, educators, workplaces, and communities intervene more effectively.

But understanding should never become an excuse.

Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, and creating environments where cruelty is neither rewarded nor tolerated is one of the most effective ways to reduce bullying.

At La Jolla Vitality Co., we believe emotional wellness includes understanding the psychological forces that shape our behavior and relationships. Developing empathy, emotional regulation, healthy boundaries, and respectful communication can help create healthier relationships and more compassionate communities.