They terrorize schoolyards, extort lunch money and belittle their classmates' appearance, social standing and abilities. Some wield their fists; others menace with words.

Regardless, the scourge of bullying has long been dismissed as an inevitable right of passage for children. "Kids will be kids," the adults say.

Lately, however, bullying has been getting a more serious look. Bullies, experts argue, can inflict long-lasting emotional harm on their victims. They can also grow up to dominate workplaces with the same boorish cruelty.

In a Times review of "Bully," A.O. Scott wrote that the film "documents a shift in consciousness of the kind that occurs when isolated, oppressed individuals discover that they are not alone and begin the difficult work of altering intolerable conditions widely regarded as normal."

Still, the documentary, which focuses on the struggles of five families, reveals a surplus of clueless adults. After Alex, a 14-year-old in Sioux City, Iowa, recounts being humiliated and assaulted on a school bus, a dismissive principal calls the children "good as gold."

There are critical reasons to pay closer attention to the problem. One is cited in a Times review of the book "The Bully Society," by Jessie Klein. It mentioned a United States Secret Service study claiming that 71 percent of school shooters had been bullied.

Ms. Klein blames "hypermasculine" cultures for contributing to bullying. "Instead of the range of emotions (marginally) available to girls," she writes, "boys are permitted to feel only anger and are encouraged to control their other feelings." Yet Ms. Klein also shows how girls wreak their own form of bullying, often based on class distinctions and appearance.

Some of that behavior may carry into adulthood. In The Times, Mickey Meece cited a study by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group in Washington State, claiming that 60 percent of workplace bullies were men. But of the 40 percent of female bullies, 70 percent tended to bully other women.

"I've been sabotaged so many times in the workplace by other women, I finally left the corporate world," Roxy Westphal, who started her own company in Arizona, told Ms. Meece.

Regardless of gender, workplace bullying takes a damaging toll. Psychology Today cited several studies from around the world connecting workplace bullying to health problems and absenteeism. And the high rate of suicides in South Korea has brought attention to that nation's bullying corporate culture.

Some governments, like New Zealand's, have passed laws against workplace bullying. And many companies are implementing tougher screening in job interviews to uncover bullying personality types. Google, for example, has a strict "zero-jerks" policy.

But what makes them jerks? Sam Goldstein, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Utah, argued in a blog that childhood bullies typically come from a "family environment characterized by conflict and poor parental monitoring" and often suffer from emotional problems later in life.

Dr. Goldstein urges more comprehensive programs that work with tormentors and tormented, as well as families.

To stop bullies from harming others and themselves.

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The New York Times