Social pressure often appears in our life, and it affects our life in various ways. Social pressure is when the power from a group influences a single person, this is linked to herd behavior. The phrase “herd behavior” came from the behavior of animals in herds. In the panicking situation, the animals will stay closely with each other, and move together as a unit. When “herd behavior” is applied to humans, it means a group of people doing the same thing at the same time. This is because the emotion of people made them think with irrationality, so they will not cogitate before making an action. When herd behavior occurs, an individual's opinion forming process will be shut down, making them blindly follow the group’s behavior, even if it is wrong.
Social pressure influences people in their daily lives permanently, and it often appears when we are making choices. What we often think is the behavior of most people must be right to follow, but it might not be right from the perspective of ethics. Take an ordinary example, when the teacher said he or she was going to leave the classroom for a while to take equipment, but the teacher noticed that the classroom should be having silent reading during the time he or she was out. When the teacher leaves, instead of having the silent reading, the majority of the students will begin to chat with their friends. And now we will have to decide whether we are going to follow the teacher’s request, or break the rules and chat with our friends. The answer will probably be the second one, to chat with our friends and pretend we are following the instructions when the teacher comes back. Even though we know that chatting with our friends is inappropriate, this is the choice of most people. In this kind of situation, social pressure was influencing us negatively, by letting us make the wrong decision automatically.
The fear of being isolated forces us to follow the group behavior that was actually improper that we really don’t want to. Sometimes, if we are not participating with a group of people, then it means we will be alone, and that makes us struggle to fit in the big group. For example, when we are given two activities, drawing or board games. We have to choose one activity for the afternoon break. The majority of students chose to play board games, but we wanted to do drawings. If we are doing drawings, then we will be the one who is unique, so we will not be able to fit in the big group. Oppositely, if we chose to join the board games’ group, even though we don’t actually like board games, we will then be able to join the chat of the big group, and meet more friends. In this situation, the answer will probably be joining the board games’ group. If we want to fit in, then we will have to sacrifice some of our individual opinions, just to fit in with the group’s opinions and actions. We are being rational to make this kind of decision, at the same time we are being voluntary to sacrifice ourselves. Social pressure can also benefit us by helping us by increasing our self - confidence. When we stay with a group of people, we will definitely have the confidence of a sense of belonging. For example, in the school, there was a choice for us to choose to join the committee or not. If we choose to join, then it means we belong to a group of people, and we have to cooperate together. Opposite to those who chose to not join the committee, they are individuals, who could only solve problems and finish their work by themselves. It is different to have a group of people who can support each other, and an individual who has only themselves. This is the power of social pressure, which provides us a choice of belonging to some place and somebody, which could effectively increase our self – confidence. In conclusion, social pressure often appears in our life, and it affects our life in various ways. Social pressure influences people in their daily lives permanently, and it often appears when we are making choices. What we often think is the behavior of most people must be right to follow, but it might not be right from the perspective of ethics. The fear of being isolated forces us to follow the group behavior that was actually improper that we really don’t want to. We are being rational to make this kind of decision, at the same time we are being voluntary to sacrifice ourselves. Social pressure can also benefit us by helping us by increasing our self - confidence. We are being rational to make this kind of decision, at the same time we are being voluntary to sacrifice ourselves.
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