Sixth Sense Archives - World of Psychology

The Psychology of Middle School Kids Bullying a Bus Monitor With over 1.6 million views at the moment, this video — filmed by one of the students who was apparently involved in the incident — shows a small group of middle school students in Greece, NY bullying Karen Klein, a 68-year-old grandmother and Bus #784’s unfortunate bus monitor.

Klein is shown crying in the video, while the kids hurl profanity and insults at her. Klein reportedly said the comment that hurt the most was when a student told her she is so ugly that her kids “should kill themselves.”

Klein’s son committed suicide ten years ago, according to Metro.

While the school district makes noises about all the kids involved facing “disciplinary action,” the question remains — how did we get here? How did this bullying situation occur, and why did it occur?

The answer is a little more nuanced than you may appreciate.

The Psychology of Spoilers: Do They Spoil the Story? Common wisdom holds that when we share information about a story or plot that is important, it somehow “spoils” the story (hence the term, spoilers). Indeed, knowing the plot twists to some movies for instance, such as The Sixth Sense, make you view the whole movie in a different way.

The psychological suspense we experience in such stories is often integral to the story itself.

And yet, many times we will go back and re-read or view a movie again, even when we know how the story turns out. Our pleasure of the story and its characters seem largely undiminished — even though we know how it all turns out. (My wife, for instance, could watch Emma fifty times in a row and enjoy every showing.)

Researchers recently wanted to see if common wisdom holds true — do spoilers spoil our enjoyment of a story?