As a bullying prevention educator, I’ve spent quite a bit of time explaining the concepts and nuances of juvenile bullying behaviors to teachers, principals, parents, and students. What helps to make these abstract concepts understandable are concrete examples. JD Vance’s posting of an embarrassing video of a teenage girl on social media to mock Vice President Harris provides a wonderful example to explain a variety of bullying concepts.

For those who missed the news, after Harris’s interview on CNN, Vance posted a video clip from 2007 of a teenage beauty pageant contestant struggling to answer an interviewer’s question. Vance used this clip to mock Harris, suggesting that the contestant’s stuttering and incoherent response exemplified how Harris had answered questions in the CNN interview.

Sharing embarrassing videos on social media that reflect negatively on someone is a form of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying involves using social media to direct aggression at a target. The effectiveness of the bullying and its potential for harm correlates in part to the size of the social media audience. In this case, Vance, as the Republican nominee for Vice President, has a huge social media following, and his posts are further amplified by news outlets worldwide. Cyberbullying by someone in Vance’s position can cause significant harm.

Vance’s cyberbullying was typical of juvenile aggression. Juveniles use bullying behavior to improve their social standing among peers. Vance’s cyberbullying was an attempt boost his own social standing among his peers, namely Trump supporters. The effect of the bullying on the target is often irrelevant to the benefit the behavior provides to the aggressor. In this case, Harris seemed completely unaffected, but Trump supporters approved of Vance’s behavior, boosting his social standing.

The type of aggression Vance used is known as “rejective aggression.” In rejective aggression, a member of a peer group directs aggression at a target to indicate to peers that the target is different, “flawed,” and not part of the group. The target is essentially “rejected” by the group for the personal characteristic highlighted by the aggressor—in this case, Vance’s perception of Harris’s speaking ability. Peer group approval of the bullying not only heightens the aggressor’s social standing, but it also reinforces the group’s identity and unity.

What’s particularly interesting about Vance’s bullying is that he used an embarrassing video clip of a member of his own peer group, a fellow Trump supporter. Although it’s not common, juvenile aggressors will occasionally humiliate a group member if doing so provides an overall net social benefit despite the social cost from losing that member’s support. Vance clearly judged that the cost of losing the support of the former pageant contestant, her family, and sympathizers was worth the potential benefit gained by appearing clever to his peers. And Vance might not even lose the former contestant’s support; the need for approval and acceptance by a peer group is so strong that someone long associated with the group may accept humiliation as the price of inclusion.

Vance’s use of the video caused shock and alarm not only because he is an adult vying for the nation’s second highest office but because the former pageant contestant felt so humiliated when the video first surfaced on social media that she considered taking her own life. When Vance was criticized for risking further harm to this woman by reposting the video, he dismissed it, calling his post a “joke”—a response typical of juvenile aggressors. Aggressors generally don’t consider the harm that they might cause through their bullying behaviors. They’re so focused on and desperate for peer group approval that they fail to grasp the potential impact of their actions and generally disregard the feelings of their targets.

The challenge with stopping any type of bullying is that the level of bullying in a peer group is determined by its most popular members. If the most popular members approve of bullying behaviors, then aggressors will be rewarded for using them. The bullying generally will not stop without adult intervention.

When a juvenile engages in cyberbullying, the adults in that child’s life (educators and parents) can help the juvenile to understand why the behavior is wrong and the harm it can cause. An appropriate consequence for cyberbullying is removing the aggressor’s access to social media for a while and then monitoring the aggressor’s use for a period of time to ensure bullying behaviors have stopped. Once the juvenile demonstrates responsible and mature use of social media, unrestricted access can be fully restored. Losing access to social media can make a juvenile feel disconnected from peers and fear a loss of social standing in the peer group. Desperation to reconnect with peers and maintain social standing is often a strong enough motivator to get the bullying behavior to stop.

When an adult engages in cyberbullying, the consequences depend on the role the adult occupies in their community. If Vance were a teacher, for example, he would likely have been fired or forced to resign as his cyberbullying would violate the norms, rules, ethics, and decency standards of a school community.

The challenge in Vance’s case is that the most popular member of his peer group, Donald Trump, regularly engages in bullying, specifically dominance aggression (using threats and intimidation to try to gain the respect of peers) and rejective aggression (name-calling, mockery, insults, dehumanizing language, etc.). Trump’s constant use of these behaviors and approval by his peer group give Vance a strong incentive to continue. Only their larger peer group, American voters, can change this behavior. Voters can indicate whether they find these juvenile behaviors acceptable by how they vote on November 5.

If you have a child or work with a child who knows about Vance’s cyberbullying, please help the child to understand that this type of behavior is not okay, even if an adult does it. For more information on bullying, including how to talk to a child about it, please visit www.circlepointbullying.com.