Most teenagers blame bullies for the trouble they cause in school, but a surprising number also say the victim is at fault for being “different,’’ according to a Swedish study that says peer pressure and schools are less important than individual factors.
Robert Thornberg and Sven Knutsen of Linkoping University asked 176 ninth-grade students who were 15 or 16 years old to answer questionnaires about their own experiences with bullying and give all the reasons they think it happens. Sixty-nine percent said bullies were at fault, because of their own psychological problems or need to boost their social standing. But 42 percent said the victims brought their torment on themselves because they didn’t fit in. Far fewer — 21 percent — said bullying was caused by groups of students; 7 percent said it was the school, and 7 percent said it was just human nature.
More boys than girls — 52 percent vs. 33 percent — blamed the victims. But even 36 percent of students who said they had been victims of bullying themselves also blamed the victim.
BOTTOM LINE: Most teenagers blame bullies for the torment they cause, but many also blame the victim.
CAUTIONS: The study was small and included open-ended answers to questions, which makes it harder to interpret the findings and apply them to other groups of people.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Child & Youth Care Forum, November
Colors can help the medicine go down
The little blue pill? That’s Viagra. The purple one? That would be the heartburn remedy Nexium. Colors — and direct-to-consumer advertising — can help people remember what their medications look like, but colors also affect perceptions of taste even before people swallow them, a study from India suggests.Researcher R.K. Srivastava of the University of Bombay and colleagues interviewed consumers about over-the-counter medications for problems such as headache and heartburn, as well as vitamin B and calcium supplements. They asked 600 participants in three cities in western India to tell them what they thought about a pill’s color and shape. Three-quarters said the color helped them remember their pills, while a little more than half said the shape was a memory aid.
When asked to look at eight pills and tell the researchers what they thought about their taste, more people said pink was sweeter, followed by red. Orange was sour, blue was bitter, yellow was salty, and white was neutral. The favorite? Pink. But it wasn’t a landslide, with just 142 out of 600 votes.
Color may be a component to consider when designing medications that people need to take faithfully, the authors conclude.
BOTTOM LINE: People associate the color of the pill with how it will taste, saying pink is sweet and blue is bitter, for example.
CAUTIONS: Results from India may not be the same as in other cultures.
WHERE TO FIND IT: International Journal of Biotechnology, November
ELIZABETH COONEY 
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