Science

The study seems to mention that the bullies have children at an earlier age. I'd be willing to guess that the relation between having more children and bullying is purely correlative and that neither factor has any direct impact on the other. Instead, it seems significantly more likely that impulsiveness drives both bullying behavior and unsafe sex, which then leads to more children.

It seems somewhat odd to me that, instead of addressing possible mechanisms of this correlation, the authors talk about how bullying is an evolutionary trait to pass on genes.

My guesses are that there ate multiple factors at play:

• less educated people make more kids
• "nice guys finish last" - assertive and more socially active people are more likely to find a partner and make children
• forcing others to follow perceived social dynamics means internal pressure to follow them oneself; having children is a social norm and expectation that is expected to be followed

I'd try and look for papers to see if my guesses hold any water, but time eludes me.

Is this evopsych bullshit?

"This study shows us that bullying seems to be associated with some meaningful outcomes that help explain why kids do it," Volk says. "This isn't just 'broken kids' doing bad behavior; it's getting them important things that matter."

Yeah, same as bandits.

Volk says the results support the idea that adolescent bullying is, at least in part, an evolutionary adaptation that may help individuals pass on their genes to future generations.

Yep, evopsych bullshit.

Each has a strong inverse relationship with socioeconomics.

I guess a purely statistical consequence of this would be that the typical child has a greater-than-random chance of having a bully parent, and that chance increases with the number of siblings.