{"id":107745,"date":"2026-02-18T16:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=107745"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:54:18","slug":"opinion-naomi-andrews-and-molly-dawes-discuss-differences-between-playful-and-harmful-teasing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2026\/02\/opinion-naomi-andrews-and-molly-dawes-discuss-differences-between-playful-and-harmful-teasing\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Naomi Andrews and Molly Dawes discuss differences between playful and harmful teasing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Naomi Andrews, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University<\/em>, and Molly Dawes, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of South Carolina, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Picture this: a group of girls are sitting at a table in the lunchroom when a boy walks by. One girl turns to another girl and laughingly says: \u201cOh, isn\u2019t that your boyfriend? You should go kiss him!\u201d<\/p>\n

A different girl chimes in: \u201cYeah, go give him a big kiss!\u201d The girl in question responds: \u201cShh, stop that. I don\u2019t want him to hear you!\u201d and she smiles, but her face goes red. Her friends continue, making kissing noises and laughing. The others in the group join in laughing as well.<\/p>\n

How should the girl interpret that behaviour? Were the teasers being playful \u2014 or taunting her in an aggressive way?<\/p>\n

The answer to that question is: it depends. Teasing is a common but complex behaviour that can serve pro-social functions, such as bonding, signalling\u00a0relational closeness. But it can also have anti-social functions and\u00a0harm the targeted person.<\/p>\n

Like all complex social behaviours, teasing interactions are influenced by a number of factors, like the relationship between teaser and target, the content of the tease and the local and broader context.<\/p>\n

Study about harmful or playful teasing<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our\u00a0recent study, we developed a model that organizes these various factors and the links between them.<\/p>\n

The study used semi-structured interviews with 27 university students, who we asked to describe a teasing interaction from their adolescence that they experienced as harmful and playful.<\/p>\n

Based on the interviews with participants, we developed a model to capture the many dynamics involved in teasing (such as the relationship between parties)\u00a0and profiles\u00a0of both harmful and playful teasing that shows where these factors differ.<\/p>\n

Power differences, motives<\/strong><\/p>\n

As described by research participants, harmful teasing often includes content that is sensitive to the target, and might include a power difference between teaser and target based on factors like gender or sexuality, culture or racialization, as well as wealth or popularity. Some harmful content expressed was about sexuality (more than one participant mentioned homophobia) and ethnicity or religion (one participant was teased about wearing her hijab).<\/p>\n

Playful teasing, on the other hand, often happens between close friends and is based on positive motives (for example, to be friendly, for encouragement). However, there is also substantial overlap between playful and harmful teasing.<\/p>\n

Teasing can also start out as playful but \u201ccross the line\u201d to become harmful. Our\u00a0systematic review of existing research about peer teasing\u00a0revealed that youth consider a few key factors to determine what \u201ccrosses the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teaser\u2019s body language, facial expressions and tone of voice combine to indicate the meaning behind the tease. Intent is important, and a teaser whose intent is clearly playful is less likely to cross the line.<\/p>\n

Changes across development<\/strong><\/p>\n

The interplay between relationships and teasing content is also important. Youth in our study indicated that friends should know what to say and what not to say. That is, given their closeness, friends should know what specific content would cross the line. That said, teasing from friends can still hurt, particularly because they can have intimate knowledge of the target\u2019s vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

Other research also points to important\u00a0changes across children\u2019s development. For example, researchers have noted that teasing is almost always interpreted as harmful by\u00a0younger children. It isn\u2019t\u00a0until adolescence\u00a0that youth recognize the potential for teasing to be playful.<\/p>\n

This suggests that advances in cognitive, social and emotional skills across the transition to adolescence may better help youth understand the complexity and nuance that can be a part of these interactions.<\/p>\n

For adults working with youth \u2014 or thinking about their own lives \u2014 it\u2019s important to remember a social interaction may look harmless from the outside, but can still have negative consequences for those involved.<\/p>\n

As for the distinction\u00a0between teasing and bullying, what our research shows\u00a0is that some harmful teasing can be considered bullying as it meets the hallmarks of that negative behaviour (power differential, intent, repetition), but not always.<\/p>\n

Limits of playful teasing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on findings from our review and across our multiple studies, we suggest some insights around the limits of playful teasing that could be relevant for youth or adults in their own lives \u2014 or adults supporting children and youth.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A good starting place for playful teasing is when the teaser has a positive, close relationship with the person they are teasing. The person being teased should feel comfortable enough to ask for the teasing to stop if they want; and then the teasing should stop right away.<\/li>\n
  2. Teasing shouldn\u2019t involve part of the target\u2019s identity or involve sensitive topics. This is why having a close, positive relationship is a good prerequisite, so that the teaser knows what topics are \u201coff-limits.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. We should always be careful about teasing around an audience, as this can amplify the harm \u2014 even when the audience involves other friends.<\/li>\n
  4. Check in with the person you\u2019re teasing and pay close attention to their reaction. Often playful teasing is reciprocal.<\/li>\n
  5. Repeated teasing \u2014 even about seemingly benign topics \u2014 is more likely to feel harmful.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Lastly, even if a teaser means to be playful, being teased can still hurt. Be prepared to make amends and engage in relationship repair if the playful tease \u201ccrosses the line\u201d and harms someone.<\/p>\n

    \"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Naomi Andrews, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University, and Molly Dawes, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of South Carolina, recently published a piece in The Conversation about the differences between harmful teasing and playful teasing among adolescents. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,38],"tags":[45,8485,522,9715,31,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107754,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107745\/revisions\/107754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}