Many studies have tried making sense of why bullies repeatedly pick on other kids, but none of them ever asked the bullies themselves why they do it. A new research is the first to do so.

Though it may seem logical to go straight to the source on this issue, until now there were no researches that asked the bullies themselves about the reasons driving their actions.

It is widely known that children can indeed by very cruel for a variety of reasons, but investigators say that bullies stand out from this crowd due to the fact that they pick on others, and show cruelty towards them, repeatedly and without provocation.

According to the new research, the most aggressive bullies were those who picked on kids that did not do sports. This was especially true in the case of kids going to schools were sport was heavily promoted.

The team behind the work also learned that, most frequently, bullies tended to pick on kids they perceived as deviating from heterosexual orientations.

All these data would seem to indicate that bullying behavior is somewhat “localized,” in the sense that its intensity is dictated by the beliefs and ideals of the community in which the bullies and their victims interact.

According to scientist Ian Rivers, bullying is nothing less than “social attitudes manifesting themselves in a very basic way within the school environment.”

The expert is based in the United Kingdom at the Brunel University, and he was a research on the new study. The work was presented at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in San Diego, on August 13.

“So if the school really upholds sports, kids who are not good at sport are going to be victimized because they are not living up to the expectations of others,” the scientist adds.

“While [bullies] may well be very sensitive about any differences or any failings that they have, they may also be setting themselves up so that they victimize those who have failings that are more challenged in society, that are perhaps perceived to be more problematic, such as being gay, such as being poor at sports, such as not being good at school work,” Rivers adds, quoted by LiveScience.

The new investigation was conducted on a sample of 666 children aged 12 to 16, who were selected from 14 schools in the UK. The research team says that the findings most likely hold true for students in other countries as well.

Each of the participants completed a questionnaire on bullying, and the researchers then cross-referenced their answers with those supplied by 478 kids who had not engaged in bullying recently.