This paper focuses on understanding individual and collective dynamics of bullying and its consequences, and reviews literature on three topics: Actors (bullies, the victims and bystanders), consequences on the emotional life, and attribution mechanisms used to explain it. It was found that bullies, generally motivated to increase their status may justify aggression by thinking that the victim deserved what they got. Being a bully affects the ability to establish social relations and the probability in engaging in similar behavior in the future. The victims are usually students that are constantly exposed to abuse and violent actions made from their peers. This can cause anxiety, depression disorders and low self-esteem among others. They sometimes justify aggression on the basis of their own behavior and some other times tolerate aggression and hope that the aggressors will, eventually, receive what they deserve. Finally, the bystanders are the ones who witness the act. They can experience high stress and anxiety levels and fear that they will become victims. In some cases they don’t defend the victim because of fear of being abused, because they believe that aggression is justified or are indifferent to it. We concluded that each actor contributes differently to the emergence and development of bullying. They either conform or react depending (among other things) on attribution and lay theories built to account for it. More investigation is needed on this subject.
