Activities: activity-4
SKILLS: Understanding Peer Relationships / Dealing With Peer Pressure
Suggested Time Consideration: 30 mins
RATIONALE
Before starting this activity, discuss the concepts of peer pressure and peer influence with your students. (See the Overview Booklet for information you can share with your students.) Emphasize how we often want to “fit in” and “be liked” by others, and how sometimes the easiest way to accomplish this is by behaving like everyone else. At times, that might mean behaving in a way we would rather not behave.
GETTING STARTED
To reinforce the concept, read this example to your students: A new student comes into the class midway through the year. She notices that she is the only girl wearing a dress in the whole class. Although she likes to wear dresses, she shows up the next day, and every day, wearing pants.
Ask your students:
- Was the girl pressured? (No—there wasn’t any overt pressure. This is an example of peer influence.)
- Why did she choose to wear pants? (She wanted to be accepted. She put pressure on herself to fit in—she was influenced by her peers.)
- Do you think her decision bothered her? (Answers will vary but encourage students to see that the girl is probably disappointed because she may have enjoyed wearing dresses.)
- Do you think the other students care about what she wears? Do you think it is important to them that she dresses the same way they do? (Probably not.)
Share the digital activity link below with your students. Explain to them that they are going to fill out a checklist they will use to measure how peer pressure and influence might affect them. Ask them to complete Part One independently. Students will complete Part One and then wait until you tell them it’s time to move on to Part Two. Begin the discussion below after they have completed Part One.
TALKING ABOUT IT
Part One
When the students have finished Part One, gather as a class or in small groups and encourage discussion. Ask students to think about these questions:
- Did you find any surprises in your answers?
- Did the students in your group answer any of the questions the same way?
- Which issues did you find most important?
See if patterns emerge that indicate students’ sensitivity to peer pressure and peer influence. In particular, do the students see a strong tendency to want to be with other students who hold similar interests, values, etc., as themselves? Open the discussion and ask each group to report on some of the things they learned. In a wrap-up of Part One, acknowledge that the desire to be with those who are most like us is quite common. But also mention that there will always be some ideas and behaviors that students don’t hold in common, even with their best friends, and that this is what makes us individuals. Before students move on to Part Two, explain to them that our friends play certain roles in our lives. They can be people we do things with, people we enjoy talking to, people we confide secrets in, people we like to joke with, etc. Explain to the students that this part of the exercise will help them examine the role friends play in their lives.
Part Two
Ask students to complete Part Two. When they have finished, ask them to talk generally about how important friends are to them. Ask your students:
- Are there times when you prefer to spend your free time by yourself, or with family members, rather than with friends? Why or why not?
- Do you have certain friends with whom you are close enough to keep secrets? (For those who answer “yes,” ask them to speak more generally about the role those friends play in their lives.)
- One of the questions asked if you would lie to protect a friend. Can you offer a possible example in which you would lie to protect a friend? (For example: “My friend slept over at my house the other night. She took one of my sister’s CDs and told me not to tell. When my sister asked me about it, I said…”)
- Can you think of a scenario in which you might consider breaking a promise to a friend? (For example: “I told my friend I would come over on Saturday to help him study for the history exam, but then my dad came home with tickets to the ball game. So I decided…”)
- Think about this situation: There’s a really cool group of students at school. You and your best friends have always wanted to hang out with them. Some of the cool people ask you if you want to go to the mall with them, but they don’t invite your friend. How do you handle this?
- Would you compromise your values and choice to be tobacco and nicotine free if a friend asked you to use a tobacco and nicotine product?
To finish this section, acknowledge how important our friends can be to us, and how difficult it can be when we feel that we have to choose between doing something we don’t necessarily want to do in order to solidify a friendship, and not doing it. Talk about how truly strong friendships can handle differences of interests, values, etc.
Part Three
Explain to students that while our interests and behaviors influence us in our choice of friends, sometimes our friends influence us in our choice of behavior. Ask students to complete Part Three. Then, assemble them in small groups and ask them to discuss their answers and address these questions:
- Why would someone go to a movie she did not want to see?
- Why would someone want to smoke or vape or use smokeless tobacco if he or she didn’t want to?
- If you answered “no” to a particular question, why do you think someone might say “yes” to the same question? What might cause someone to say “yes”?
WRAPPING UP
Have students work in their groups to complete the “You Decide!” section of the activity. After about ten minutes, reconvene and ask your students:
- Was there a consensus in your group about how the situation should be managed?
- What sort of conflicting feelings might a person experiencing this situation be feeling?
- Were there any easy solutions? Do any solutions have a negative consequence attached to them?
This exercise and the follow-up activity can offer you an opportunity to talk with your students about how unhappy people can feel when they give up their own desires and values to go along with those of a group. Talk about how difficult it can be to take a position that is unpopular with one’s peers, but how good it can feel when the student exercises his or her independence. Most times, young people are actually quite tolerant of differences among friends as long as the differences don’t outweigh the similarities.
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY
After completing the digital activity, your students will be presented with the following two scenarios and space to type in their responses. Have them work in small groups to decide how to respond.
1) Pretend your friends are going to get a certain haircut, but you’ve been forbidden by your parents, and your friends tease you about it. What will you do? Why?
2) Imagine you’re thinking about joining the school chorus, but other students think it’s uncool. What will you do? Why?
Then, ask your students:
Was there a consensus in your group about how the situation should be managed?
What sort of conflicting feelings might a person experiencing this situation be feeling?
Were there any easy solutions? Do any solutions have a negative consequence attached to them?
SKILLS: Understanding Peer Relationships / Dealing With Peer Pressure
Suggested Time Consideration: 30 mins
RATIONALE
It’s important for your students to understand that no one enjoys being excluded by peers or doing things that will make peers like them any less. However, we can and should make decisions based on what we think is best for us, rather than on what we want others to think of us.
GETTING STARTED
Before starting the activity, remind your students that peer pressure occurs when the words or actions of our friends push us to do something we don’t want to do. Peer influence is the urge we sometimes feel to do something other people are doing because we want them to think highly of us. (See the Overview Booklet for additional information about peer pressure and influence.)
Read the following examples and comments to your students:
- Peer influence and peer pressure can have positive effects. For example, one of the boys on the football team is lazy, but when he sees all the other boys lifting weights to get ready for the upcoming season, he joins in. His decision is not based on his desire to do the work but on his desire to fit in with his teammates.
- Peer pressure can have negative effects as well. When a group of students that we want to like us all decide to cut math class and they invite us to join them, we might do so. We don’t really want to miss the class, and we wouldn’t cut it if no one else did, but we decide to go along because we like the approval we receive from the others in the group. Explain to students that when they understand peer pressure, they don’t have to give in to it. For example, we can decide that we will go to math class, even if it costs us some popularity with the others.
In this exercise you will give your students four situations, one at a time. They will determine whether each situation is an example of peer influence or peer pressure and consider how the person being influenced or pressured might be feeling. For each situation, they will also complete a “choices and consequences” type of activity that will give them an opportunity to decide what they would do. In this case, students may go back and change their minds—but remind them they can’t always do that in real life. You may opt to present this activity on an interactive whiteboard or have students complete it individually. Share the digital activity link below with your students. Then, read through the instructional text and first situation with students to help them get started.
TALKING ABOUT IT
Ask students to pause after they read each situation and wait for your instructions. For each situation, say to students:
- Put yourself in the character’s position. What sort of conflicting feelings might the characters have?
- What choices does the character have?
- Do you think you would give in to the pressure or influence in this situation?
- Have you ever been in this situation or a similar one?
Answers:
Answers about the character’s feelings and the choices students make in each situation will vary. The situations are examples of:
- peer pressure
- peer pressure
- peer influence
- peer pressure
After discussing the situations, break the class down into small groups and ask each group to come up with two scenarios. In one, have them devise an example of positive peer influence. Then have them devise an example involving tobacco in which negative peer influence or pressure is felt. Each group should act out its scenarios for the rest of the class.
WRAPPING UP
To wrap up, talk about the difference between influence and pressure (or coercion), emphasizing the fact that—whether positive or negative—friends and peers can only encourage a certain behavior. A person is ultimately responsible for his or her decisions and the consequences.
Use the supplemental “Eggin’” video to complement this section. complement this section.
SKILLS: Understanding/Dealing With Peer Pressure, Influence, and Acceptance
Suggested Time Consideration: 60 mins
RATIONALE
In this activity, students will write and act out skits that depict peer pressure and peer influence so that they can better understand options for how to handle both of these. (See the Overview Booklet for additional information about peer pressure and peer influence that you can share with your students.)
GETTING STARTED
Begin by reminding students about the difference between peer pressure (which is exerted when peers try to coax a person into doing something) and peer influence (which occurs when a person is not coaxed or coerced, but comes to behave in a certain way because he or she thinks it’s what will make others accept him/her.) Provide examples for students:
- Peer pressure: You are at the high diving board at the county pool, and your friends are diving off. You don’t want to, but they say you’re a baby if you don’t. They dare you, so you go ahead and try it.
- Peer influence: Someone at school is taking up a collection for a hurricane relief fund. You gave money to a similar fund yesterday, so you don’t want to do so again. But when the person comes to your lunch table, you notice that all of your friends donate money. You do too, because you think they will think ill of you if you don’t.
Organize the students into small groups and share the digital activity link with them. Explain that each group’s assignment is to create a skit that displays peer pressure or peer influence. Peer influence can be depicted as positive or negative.
TALKING ABOUT IT
After each group performs its skit, ask the students why they chose their topic, and why they depicted it the way they did. Open the discussion to the entire classroom and ask for feedback.
- Was the skit realistic?
- Could other students identify with the dilemmas that were presented?
WRAPPING UP
To wrap up, have students reiterate the notion that they don’t have to succumb to peer influence or pressure to be liked and accepted by their true friends. One way to do this is to ask students whether they would think any less of a friend who refused to be pressured into something by them. If not, why should they expect any less from that friend? For instance, pose this scenario:
You want to borrow money from a good friend, but she turns you down. You remind her of the times you’ve lent her money. You tell her how much you need the money, and you tell her that this is what friends do for one another. She answers by telling you that while she very much appreciates the times you have lent her money, she simply can’t afford to lend you any right now.
Ask your students:
- How would you react if you were the one in need of money?
- You may be disappointed with your friend, but will you abandon her as a friend?
Emphasize to your students that they are unlikely to abandon a friend for saying “no.” Nor would the friend abandon them if they did the same.