Remember how your mother always told you bullies were weak and insecure? Turns out it?s not true. A study of nearly 2,000 kids by UCLA researchers found that bullies are strong psychologically and receive lots of props from their peers. Victims of bullies are ostracized and psychologically damaged, but kids who are bullied and also bully others tend to be the most damaged of all. On the other hand, the UCLA study, published in , also suggested that other kids didn?t really want to hang out with the bullies, but merely treated them as ?cool? to avoid becoming victims themselves. The other striking thing about the study is how prevalent bullying was ? 22 percent of kids had bullied, been bullied, or done both.