Swearer, Turner, Givens, and Pollack (2008) parsed bullying into two broad categories: "verbal bullying" and "physical bullying". They defined "verbal bullying" as: group exclusion, name calling, making fun of someone, writing bad things, saying things behind the back, and playing jokes; and they defined "physical bullying" as: doing bad things, attacking, pushing and shoving, and breaking things. .
Athanasiades and Deliyanni-Kouimtzis (2010) parsed bullying into four categories: "frequency", "location", "different forms", and "interpretation of differences." They defined "frequency" of bullying as being more frequent among boys; they defined "location" as happening anywhere but mainly on school playgrounds at recess; they defined "different forms" as boys being more physical bullies, and girls being more verbal bullies; and they defined "interpretation of differences" as boys being stronger and girls being more mature. Lindenberg, Zijlstra, Winter, Verhulst, and Ormel, (2007) parsed bullying by in a relational sense in three ways: "liking-disliking", peer "acceptance"-"rejection" (cooperative social approval goal reinforcement), and "same-sex"-"cross-sex" bullying. The researchers found that more bullying goes on when bullies dislike their victim, their peers accept their actions, and when boys engage in same-sex bullying.
Fouri and Buchanan (2002) described another type of bullying called generic bullying that describes the general characteristics of the victims of bullying. These characteristics are prey, subjugation, and submissiveness features that bullies seek out as targets of opportunity. Victims may be selected because they stand out and are out of the ordinary or they may be selected because they are loners and nobody seems to care to them or protect their backs.