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Positive Peer Pressure

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Positive Peer Pressure Stop. Stand on a busy street and look up at the sky. Crowds will pass by, indifferent to what you are looking at. Now, bring in a friend to help and look up. Others will begin to stop and gaze up as well. According to Bruce Schechter, a writer for New Scientist, this situation is considered peer pressure in his article “Push Me, Pull Me: Put People Together and They Behave Like Atoms in a Magnet. Welcome to the New Physics of Peer Pressure”. Peer pressure is when someone or a group of people influences others to do an activity they typically wouldn’t do. When nearly all people hear the word peer pressure, their thoughts automatically jump to negative examples, such as drugs, alcohol, or bullying; however, peer pressure can have positive effects as well, such as in education and pushing people to explore new, exciting situations in their life.
Unrecognized by most, the stereotype of Chinese students being smart is peer pressure. Not only do the students receive pressure from their families to fit the stereotype, but from their friends as well. These students push each other. Their friends pressure them into spending their evenings studying in a group, pouring over literature and mathematics and history and writing and more. The pressure from their peers to fit the standard quo, while might be stressful, is beneficial to the student in the end. Peer pressure in school applies to other students as well. Friends tend to have the greatest impact on a

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