The important role peers play in healthy cognitive, emotional, and social development cannot be underestimated. Research clearly shows that children and adolescence have a fundamental need to belong and when they do not belong, healthy development is derailed. Indeed, children and adolescents who are rejected, ignored, and/or abused by their peers do not thrive—they tend to have significantly more mental health issues, poorer physical health, and lower academic achievement. What’s more, longitudinal research points to the fact that these associations represent causal outcomes of poor treatment by peers.

In this keynote address professor Vaillancourt outline how bullying and related experiences interferes with that which is instinctually human – the quest to find a social place within the peer group. In making this case, Vaillancourt consider historical events in the fields of medicine and psychology, as well as evolutionary accounts, and delve into the work of neuroscientists, drawing a connection between physical pain and social pain, and their overlapping development.