Peer Group Pressure

Peer Group Pressure

The other night my wife and i were watching one of those nightly documentary-type news programs on TV. As the true story goes, there were several young fellows ranging from 15 to 16 years old. The oldest one seemed to have a spell over the others. At first the younger lads resisted the power-crazy leader but as time slipped by, peer group pressure and fear dragged them deeper and deeper into some very ominous activities. The whole thing ending with the death of 3 people, including another innocent friend of the boys. A similar story has 4 teens killing a woman for no reason.

As the whole thing played out in court, the weaker boys were charged as adults, which is much more serious, and they were sentenced to 50 years in prison. All of this happened because they were not strong enough to resist the pressure of the peer group leader.

There have been countless other examples of crime from peer group pressure. Sometimes the crimes are less threatening. The Charles Manson “family” comes to mind and so does the horrible events at Columbine High School. And then there was this fellow called Adolf Hitler. All of those tragedies could have been averted if only the weaker people would have known how to stand up to the evil minds of their unintended leaders.

On a more personal level, I know a friend of a friend who was caught up in a similarly bleak dilemma to the one mentioned on TV. When the young man was barely out of high school, he and a couple buddies found themselves entangled with an older man who picked up some girls and slipped them a date-rape drug. As it worked out, they never did rape the girls but one of the women did indeed die and another one almost did. It appears that the younger fellows knew nothing about the drug until it was too late, but they have still spent about 8 years in jail because they waited too long to help the girls. My friend's friend gets out of jail later this year.

Peer group pressure can be very powerful. I experienced it myself, first hand, when on the road to college. There were five of us in a powerful car which one of my buddies was driving. In order to impress everybody, he quickly took the car to well over 100 miles per hour. This is dangerous anywhere, but we were on a scary mountain pass in South Park (Yes the real South Park of cartoon fame). I told my buddies that I wanted out but they didn’t take me seriously. Besides, I wasn’t really sure I wanted out on the top of a mountain pass in the middle of the winter. Anyway, they ignored me and it all ended up okay. But later that year, that same driver lost control of the same car and drove off the side of a mountain. Once again, he escaped injury.

Six months later, some of my college buddies got in a drag race. There were 6 fellows in one car and 2 in the other. They got their cars up to 120 miles per hour on a winding mountain road. The fuller car spun out, crashed into a mountain, flipped end over end and landed upside down with one of the passengers pinned underneath the car and on railroad tracks. I was the first person to arrive at the scene. Blood was everywhere, several of the guys had serious injuries and the driver died.

When it comes to peer group pressure, it can be very difficult to resist. Sometimes it takes incredible courage to stand up to a boy’s advances or to friends offering drugs or alcohol. The thrill of being one of the gang has sent many nice people to jail or worse. Just think of the pressure that today’s gang members must endure.

As for me, I was too weak to get out of a car when I should have. I hope you are smarter than I was.

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