Playground bullying is a childhood hazard that many parents must negotiate, but it would be foolish to dismiss this behaviour as a sign of immaturity. Bullying is a pervasive phenomenon in the adult world, especially now that bullies have found fertile new ground on social media for their offensive behaviour.

There are many reasons posited for adult bullying: insecurity; feelings of powerlessness; feelings of inadequacy; a desire for control; a complete lack of empathy. Bullies may have grown up in households where they learnt this behaviour, or they may have been victims of bullying themselves. They may even be using bullying as a way of deflecting attention from their own inadequacy and incompetence. Whatever the reason, this exquisite form of social torture needs to be identified and called out.

A Guide to Bullying Behaviour

Adult bullies have an advantage over their childhood counterparts: they are much more sophisticated and subtle in the ways in which their behaviour manifests. Look out for the following:

•Carpet Bombing

This is the most easily identifiable bullying technique, which is used by people who are unapologetically aggressive verbal bullies and have no inhibition about using hostile language, insulting nicknames, racist or homophobic epithets, or being openly critical and negative. If these people happen to wield power over their victims (eg a boss and an employee), their barrage of negativity and insults can have a really detrimental impact.

•Power Play

People who occupy powerful positions (boss, leader, manager), or possess all the material trappings of success (wealth, social status, fame) can use their status to belittle and humiliate people who they see as beneath them or who challenge them in some way – perhaps because they possess charm, talent, originality or creativity.

The bullies often have resources (financial, legal, political), or even access to confidential information, which they can use in their campaign of belittlement and may feel brazenly confident that their victims have little comeback. Unfortunately, this toxic behaviour is often applauded as a display of strength and dominance, and not seen as an abusive form of subjugation.

•Insidious Insults

By far the most common form of adult bullying is passive-aggressive. The perpetrator is excellent at appearing to be a well-adjusted social animal, but under this smooth surface they are subtly toying with their unfortunate victims. The ways in which they can do this are legion: scurrilous gossip; indiscreet remarks; subtle put-downs; sarcasm; needling comments; hostile ‘teasing’; eye-rolling and whispering; silent treatment; social exclusion; sabotaging the victim’s reputation with well-planted jibes.

•Cyber-Bullies

Unfortunately, the advent of social media has given bullies an extraordinarily effective new platform. Whether they are openly hostile or insidiously undermining, they have excellent opportunities to torment their victims and can use anonymity to mask their worst excesses. Bullying morphs into trolling – posting provocative comments online, baiting victims, deliberately stirring up conflict – and when attacks are personal, they can tip into online ‘hate’, which targets people because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, race, culture, ethnicity and so on.

How to Beat Bullying

•Bystanders Alert

The best way to beat bullying is for a bystander to intervene; while bullies thrive on attention, they are cowards at heart, and a public or concerted intervention will effectively turn the tables. The more backup you can bring to the problem, the better, so alert other people to your concern that your friend is being bullied and enlist their support. Sometimes simply saying, with a suitable degree of outrage, “Don’t be such a bully!” is enough to close this behaviour down.

If bullying is taking place in a professional context and, because of your own status your feel unable to intervene directly, note down the occurrences of bullying you have observed and take the matter to a higher authority – in most cases, the human resources department.

•Keep clear

Some people who are bullied may feel that the best option is to put a healthy distance between themselves and their antagonist, wherever possible avoiding contact or interaction with the bully. If the attacks are happening online, they might be able to dial up the privacy settings on their social media accounts. This option is ideal for people who shy away from confrontation and showdowns but should only be adopted if the avoidance strategy is not detrimental: for example, if keeping away from a bully means refusing an excellent opportunity at work, you might want to think again.

•Don’t play ball

Showing a bully that their behaviour is upsetting you is playing directly into their hand. They feed off your distress. Instead, demonstrate that their jibes and putdowns are water off a duck’s back. Learn to laugh along when jokes are made at your expense. Pretend to take sarcasm literally, rather than reacting to it as a passive-aggressive weapon. Blithely ignore insults and rude remarks and if your bully enjoys harping on about your past mistakes and transgressions, just say “I don’t care about that anymore – I’ve moved on”.

When a bully’s attacks fall on stony ground, they are humiliated, not you. By refusing to ‘feed’ them, you can effectively shut them down.

•Call the bully out

This is a strategy that most likely comes into play when the preceding strategies have not worked, and the bully is persistent and dogged in their attacks. Standing your ground means starting by pointing out that their behaviour is bullying. You can then go on to question what purpose they think bullying serves. If you are calm and implacable, you might put the bully on the defensive, or embarrass them, which in some cases is enough to halt the behaviour.

•Seek help

Sometimes you have no choice but to look for assistance. At one extreme end of the spectrum, bullying behaviour can turn into violence, harassment, stalking, and so on, and if this is the case, you will clearly need to go to the police. For most of us, however, bullying is a much more pervasive everyday affair. If you are encountering it at work, you should certainly seek help from your managers or human resources team. If you feel you are being bullied by a so-called friend, then you may do well to enlist the help and support of other people within your social circle.

•Remember, it's not your fault

Above all, do not allow yourself to lapse into a victim mentality. The bully has not singled you out because you are pathetic or vulnerable, and it is not your fault that you are being bullied. Often bullies target people who have qualities that they admire, and their resentment stems from their own feelings of psychological inadequacy. You should never take responsibility for being bullied and should focus instead on constructive ways of ensuring this poisonous behaviour stops.