Bullies are often people who are shy and can't make friends easily, so, as the theme of the movie 'A Bronx Tale' tells us, it is better to be feared if you can't be loved.

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

I started studying shyness in adults in 1972. Shyness operates at so many different levels. Out of that research came the Stanford shyness clinic in 1977.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

Bullies are often people who are shy and can't make friends easily, so, as the theme of the movie 'A Bronx Tale' tells us, it is better to be feared if you can't be loved.

Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.

The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and "mind control" are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, or "brainwashing," but rather the systematic manipulation of the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings.