Girls never cornered the market on “mean.”

I’ve spent a lot of time the last few weeks gearing up for a new research study that I’m really excited about. It’s a study of what we call “relational aggression” or “social aggression,” and it refers to those hurtful behaviors like rumor-mongering and social exclusion that are usually thought of as the hallmark of the 13-year-old girl.

There’s something of a controversy in the field as to whether relational aggression really is “girl aggression,” though—some researchers find reliable gender differences favoring girls, while others don’t (or even find that boys are more socially aggressive). I happen to fall into the latter camp. The research some colleagues and I have done shows inconsistent gender differences in relational aggression, especially once you get into the adolescent years. Beyond about 9th grade, there don’t seem to be any differences at all.

I mention all that as background. So here’s the story I can’t stop thinking about.

I was recently told by a school principal that she is seeing more and more boys engaging in acts of social bullying severe enough to warrant a talk with her or the school counselor. This principal explained that it used to be “a girl thing”—but now the boys seem to be catching up. Boys who used to solve their disagreements by duking it out or exchanging some hostile words are now using social bullying, instead.

As a researcher, I’m not surprised that boys are using relational aggression. There’s a lot of research out there that tells us they do. What’s interesting to me is that this particular school is experiencing such a rapid change in the kinds of trouble boys are causing for each other. Why the sudden shift? Are zero-tolerance protocols in the schools forcing boys to become less physically violent and more covert in their attempts to do harm? Are anti-bullying programs, which so often teach empathy and perspective-taking, actually teaching boys how to hurt each other in more emotionally damaging ways? And if that’s the case, what can we actually do to stop kids from hurting each other? Kids are going to get into arguments. They’re going to have enemies, peers they dislike. It seems impossible—maybe even unwise—to remove all potential means of conflict. If you outlaw fistfights, you get mean rumors and the cold shoulder. How do you outlaw that? And should we? I wonder how emotionally sterile we’re making our children’s classrooms, and about the long-term consequences on the kids themselves.

Hmm, I have more to say about this. I think this blog needs a Part Two. More to follow.