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How does diversity impact on personal behaviour
How does diversity impact on personal behaviour
How does diversity impact on personal behaviour
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In times where most kids or teenagers find very important to be popular and to step out on everyone else in their field, it is often difficult to be the divergent kid among everyone else, because of the fact that different kids are usually the ones to be rejected. In other words, being unique around popular teenagers who tend to fit in with each other can cause these special ones left out. Nevertheless, many people argue that teenagers should find a group that they fit into, otherwise they would suffer from lonesome and rejection from every other teenager. However, in my opinion I think that stepping out from everyone else and being different is more important than just being another kid who tries so hard to fit in to some group that he does not belong in. To begin with, different or special kids are often to become something unique when they grow up, many become for example, artists or writers. These special kids might have a hard time getting accepted by other kids at school because they think differently than the rest of the kids. Sure loneliness or rejection may be rough, but if they think about it, it is not really that bad. Thinking differently is a positive and beautiful thing, stepping out on everyone else will eventually attract more kids to these special kids. By the time they become grownups, their lives would turn out to …show more content…
Unlike unique kids, special kids may have the ability to do or create things regular kids cannot do, they tend to think differently and widely of other creative things. If a regular group of kids were given for example a toy, they either would destroy it or play with it until they get bored. But if it was given to a different kid, he would make something out of it or cherish it as a meaningful gift, according to a psychological
The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth is a book by Alexandra Robbins which summarizes the story of seven different teenagers that have many different problems, which many of todays teenagers also have. I found myself having many similarities to the teenagers in the story, for example, when with her group Whitney, the popular bitch, thinks “You didn't day that when we were alone, but now that you're in front of a group you do” (Robbins 21). I can relate to this because I feel as though many people are pressured to say or do things they normally wouldn't whenever they are with their group or ‘clique’. Robbins has this idea that the freaks and geeks, or “cafeteria fringe” will someday grow up and use what they are criticized for to become more successful than the other peopler people. She calls this the ‘Quirk Theory’ (Robbins page 11). This helped me to learn that right now, in high school, not being ‘popular’ may seem like the end of the world, but the reality of it is that after these four years, it wont even matter, but what will be important is how you learned to grow as a person and the true friendships that were made. This makes me want to focus more on my education and learning to grow as a person instead of focusing on how many friends I have or who I sit with at lunch, because truthfully it wont matter once high school is over.
High school can be a place full of cliques and groups of friends but some people aren’t always in cliques. If there is a person who doesn’t always like the same things as other people they might not fit in with a group of people. In high school a person may become different and not find a group of friends that they fit in with. With no group of friends a person in high school may start to become an outcast. Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak used Melinda to show that any high school student can become an outcast.
In many high schools, there is an unspoken social order amongst peer groups; teenagers are either included in the popular group or the unpopular group. These social standings are determined by the popular group whether they will accept certain people based on shared interests and values but mainly on appearance. For example, some groups may isolate a student who does not have clothing considered attractive enough. Teenagers belonging to the popular clique label individuals as outcasts who do not fit the clique’s standards of a perfect appearance. This repression can cause a build up of anger if an outcast seeks to be accepted into that popular group.
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
Everyone knows about the geeks, the freaks, the jocks, the preps, and every other Hollywood idolized clique. Each person in the group donates their own similar attributes, which in turn come together to make the group what it is. In “Divergent”, different classes of people are split into ‘factions’, or, in other words, extreme cliques. These like-minded people have their opinions on how the world was corrupted. The group names and their faction missions are as follows: the Erudite (intelligence), the Dauntless (bravery), the Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (peacekeepers), and the Candor (the honest), all of which uphold their beliefs by exerting the upmost radicality of their manifestos. Each faction then contributes their own ideological products to help all of society. These groupings work “toward a better society and a better world” (pg.44), however, in the end, they are brutally, and massively abraised with the strong will of one lunatic faction member. Others may say that splitting us into groups of peers that we agree with is a good idea, yet it will not take long until the enemy lies and infiltrates our systems, becoming too powerful for our faction to overcome. This is why we all have to mingle, using our talents together for the betterment of society.
Adolescent years are a time period in a human beings life where we search for a place that we are most comfortable. It is a time where we try to find friends with similar interests and those who will easily accept us for who we are. Once we are accepted by those friends, we tend to do more things with hopes of getting approval from “the group.” Trying to fit in during adolescence is a significant factor for self-motivation because it determines the level of being accepted and popularity amongst our peers. Through our year of adolescence we experiment and try to discover oneself as a person, but we also find what our strongest traits are that are used in order to be accepted, or to feel more popular. Popularity is defined as a state of being liked or accepted by a group of people (cite). As the group of people gets larger, so does that person’s popularity. For some people, popularity may come easy due to their charisma or looks, but there are those children who feel lonely due to their lack of popularity.
Identification with a peer group is a critical part of growing up because even though there is a mix between valuable and invaluable points, no one wants to be left with nobody to help them figure out how they fit in the world and get pass tough times. Peer pressure can have positive impacts and not so good but the postive are too valuable to overpass, leaning us over to conclude that classifying with a circle of close friends are a key factor when going into the real
When life becomes overwhelming during adolescence, a child’s first response is to withdraw from the confinement of what is considered socially correct. Individuality then replaces the desire to meet social expectations, and thus the spiral into social non-conformity begins. During the course of Susanna’s high school career, she is different from the other kids. Susanna:
If I were to be born into a specific faction, I believe I would most likely relate with the Dauntless group. This faction believes in its members being brave and showing random acts of bravery with everything they do. This includes standing up for other people and also standing up for what you believe in and what you know is right. The Dauntless manifesto states, “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another… We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves.” My parents’ leadership roles throughout their lives would wear off on me and I believe this is the faction that I most likely would be born into.
A large majority of teens want to fit in and feel like they belong, but how far are they willing to go to fit in? The more they want to fit in the more likely they will be easily influenced by suggestions from others. During my second week of eighth grade, I felt like I wasn’t fitting in and that everyone was silently judging me and criticizing me. Of course now that I think about I don’t think anyone really cared about me, but I was more self-conscious about myself then. One day during lunch my friends and I sat next to a couple of girls who were known as the “popular” girls and I thought that maybe I would fit in more if I was friends with them. I spent the rest of that lunch hour trying to build up the courage to talk to them and at last minute I told the friendliest looking girl, that I loved her shirt and I asked her what store she bought it from. She told me that it was from Free People; she then gushed about the store and told me how everything there was amazing. She suggested that I should check it out sometime so I did. I, of course couldn’t wait to shop there. I told myself that if I shopped at Free People, I could maybe fit in with her and even be a part of the popu...
As preteens and teens push for increasing independence from their parents, they tend to turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. For those who are low in self-esteem and confidence, their safety lies in fitting in and having a place to belong. Most people find a group in which they connect with in a healthy way while others make their way in cliques that give them security but at the price of their own values and individuality. The movie Mean Girls portrays how high school female social cliques operate and the effect they can have on girls. I will argue how if one doesn’t have a strong sense of self-identity, the opinions of others will become their identity.
Adolescence is, for the most part, about fitting in. Most everybody wants friends and wants to feel like they are a part of a social group. Young childhoods are spent meeting new people and making friends that share your common interests. However, in the teenage years, it gets a lot more complicated. Some people will start to leave their old friends for newer, “cooler” ones, and start to wear new clothing to make themselves popular. Everyone wants to fit in, and some people will make more of an effort to do so than others. In middle school specifically, cliques and social groups start forming. This is the time when teens and pre-teens figure out who they are and start to fit in with their friends.
In one journal entry I wrote, I brought to light that the popular group is something that every one of us, for some reason feels as though we need to be a part of. This is from my own experience and things I have observed throughout my four-year career in high school. I think it was perhaps worse in junior high, however. When you are in seventh and eighth grade you are not sure of who you are and are desperately searching around for something to belong to, to be a part of. Why is this, why are we a society that are most often drawn to the most popular, "cool" and "beautiful" that high school has to offer? Why is acceptance the most important thing to us, is belonging really as important as losing your own sense of self? Who you hang out with, who your closest friends are as an adolescent without a doubt help to shape who you are. And it's funny that you seem to end up being friends with the ones who are the same type of people as you. Same fashion sense, taste in music or cars and movies. When searching for an identity in high school, it is hard not to just attempt to pick up the one that seems the most socially acceptable. I know that my personal experiences include these conforming characteristics. Still as a freshman in college I am constantly looking at the fashion of my peers, wondering to myself "do they think I fit in"? This was especially true the first few weeks of college when I wasn't sure who my good friends were going to be; I made sure that I dressed as well as I could everyday, in all the new clothes I had bought specifically for college.
It seems as though that popularity is a main issue to teens. The need to feel accepted by others in order to be the center of attention, and the need to be distinguished greatly from everyone else is a strong force that exposes itself to nearly all teens at school. We spend most of our years at school, and begin well-known can almost seem to complete an emptyness that we feel.
“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.” – Eleanor Roosevelt. These are some very wise and empowering words, I must say. I believe many teenagers in today’s generation are most of the time wearing a mask. A mask that is made up of what the world wants them to be, a mask that they think may protect them from not allowing others in, a mask that was built from peer pressure, a mask that was formed from bullying. There’s always a story behind someone’s mask, as I call it. Most of the time teens nowadays are afraid to be themselves, to be individuals, due to the way they think people will perceive them. I do have to say though, that those that have ripped their masks away are the ones that have truly become individuals. Of course,