Page 293 - The Social Animal

Human Aggression 275

devastating of 11 such incidents that took place in our schools in less
than three years.
What drove these kids over the edge? After an intensive study of
the situation, I have come to the conclusion that the rampage
60
killings are just the pathological tip of an enormous iceberg: the poi-
sonous social atmosphere prevalent at most high schools in this
country—an atmosphere fraught with exclusion, rejection, taunting,
and humiliation. In high school, there is an iron-clad hierarchy of
cliques with athletes, class officers, cheerleaders, and “preppies” at the
top. At the bottom are kids who those at the top refer to as nerds,
goths, geeks, loners, homos—kids who are too fat, too thin, too
short, too tall, wear the wrong clothes, or whatever. The teenagers
near the top of the hierarchy are constantly rejecting, taunting, and
ridiculing those near the bottom.
Recent experimental research by Jean Twenge and her colleagues 61
demonstrates that being rejected has a plethora of negative effects, not
the least of which is a dramatic increase in aggressiveness. What
Twenge was able to do to participants in her laboratory was, of course,
much more pallid than the day-to-day rejections faced by teenagers in
high school. For example, in one of Twenge’s experiments, college stu-
dents met in a group and became acquainted.They were then asked to
indicate which of their fellow students they would want to collaborate
with in the future. A random sample of the participants received in-
formation that nobody wanted to work with them. When subse-
quently provided with an opportunity to aggress,the “rejects”expressed
far more intense hostility (against those who rejected them, as well as
against neutral individuals) than those who had not been excluded.
Back in the helter-skelter world of high school, my own research
reveals that rejection and the accompanying humiliation were the
dominant issues underlying every one of the rampage killings. At
Columbine, for example, Harris and Klebold made this graphically
clear. In a videotape they made just prior to the rampage, they specif-
ically railed against the in-group who had rejected and humiliated
them. This was confirmed by a student in the Columbine in-group,
who, when interviewed a few weeks after the tragedy, justified his
own exclusionary behavior by saying

Most kids didn’t want them there. They were into witchcraft.
They were into voodoo. Sure we teased them. But what do you
expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and