alt Hacker NewsNo, that is absolutely not a misconception, and is backed by peer reviewed research such as https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/why-stigmatized-ado....
What you may be thinking of is research showing that when kids get to know each other, the ones who will become socially dominant tend to be aggressive early. But once they achieve social status, they usually turn around and become far nicer. With further aggression limited to those who have not accepted their dominance.
The most common scenario for continued aggression is someone near the social bottom, who is attempting to reinforce that there is someone who is still firmly below them.
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The study seems to use self-reported perception of being a bully as the main metric. They didn't even bother making the children rate each other.
> But once they achieve social status, they usually turn around and become far nicer
This sounds to me that their (unprovoked) aggression worked and that counter-aggression should have been encouraged earlier to make it a less viable strategy.
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This also does not describe any kind of bullying I've seen or heard about. It was always those with a high social status, usually a group, though often with a clear leader, targeting one or two children with a low social status.
Some of this bullying was not even driven by the need to gain social status but simple pleasure - see my other comments - pleasure/amusement/entertainment is a major reason for bullying.
I've literally never seen a low-social status child bully a high-social status one. How would that even work? Wouldn't the supposed target be defended by his group?
What is stopping you from beating up bullies every time they bully others as well?
"further aggression limited to those who have not accepted their dominance" doesn't sound anything at all like "turning around" to me.