The Power of Peer Pressure

Society is an intricate system that entails numerous factors to an individual’s growth as a person. These factors can range from simplistic to complex; a child’s upbringing in a particular neighborhood to a person determining a meticulous career. Both of those situations adhere to the ideology of human interaction and communication. Human interaction and communication can lead to events that place humans in the midst of peer pressure; this idea of peer pressure will play a contributing part for all humans and certainly can override a person’s moral beliefs. To ascertain the strength of peer pressure on humans, numerous experiments were conducted that placed humans in undesirable situations along with historical events that apply to peer pressure.

A man by the name of Stanley Milgram, Yale University psychologist, decided to test the power of peer pressure on humans in 1961. In his experiment, three people took part: the three were given the titles of experimenter, learner (victim), and teacher. The only true participant in the experiment was the teacher, the learner was an actor trained for the experiment; thus, the teacher was under the impression that everyone was a selected participant. The teacher and the learner were then placed in separate rooms where no visualization took place, but where communication was still in effect. The teacher was given an electric shock to emulate what the learner would be receiving throughout the experiment; the learner was then ordered by the teacher to answer a set of questions that would determine if the person would be shocked or not. For each incorrect answer the learner received a shock (in actuality not a real shock, but the teacher was under the impression it was) ...

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...le of peer pressure in history would be slavery. Slavery is a broad term that involves a group of people in bondage and service to another group of people. Slaves had no rights, were not considered people, and had no social or political rights; thus, the majority of people defined slavery a necessity with no threat to civilization. But what about the individuals that did not favor it? Their individual beliefs were not considered relevant for quite some time because of the peer pressure from the majority claiming that the slavery system was fair and correct.

In experiments or situations in history, peer pressure is an inevitable factor for all humans and must be handled with extreme caution. Although society does have common interests for and with the people, an individual’s belief is very important to retain in order for that human to grow as a strong person.