Week 4: Group Influence

When people get together in pairs or in groups, I think they are definitely inclined to make bad decisions and influenced in bad ways. For some reason, when friends get together in groups, risky behavior seems a lot less risky because the consequences will affect everyone, so you're not going to be alone. I talked to my older sister's best friend's boyfriend, Brian, when we were all out at Dave and Busters a couple nights ago. He said that whenever he gets with his friends, they get into all sorts of trouble. It's because they are always competing and making bets with each other to do things. He gave me one specific example of how they were all out to dinner at a very expensive restaurant one night after winning the CCS baseball championships. The boys were all very rowdy and fired up from the game they had just won. One of Brian's friends who was playing with the pepper dared him to snort a line of it up his nose and offered to pay for his meal if he did it. Some of the other guys got in on the bet and they all watched as Brian accepted because he thought it would be funny and he did not want to back down in front of his teammates. He did it and afterward he said had never felt worse! It burned his nose for a couple days, gave him nosebleeds and he sneezed a lot. I also asked my sister if she was ever influenced to do something dangerous or risky in a group and she told me a story about college. I often hear about people doing this. She said that she was out with some friends for her 22nd birthday and she had to work in the morning, so she told them she was not going to drink too much. But, her friends did not listen and they continued to buy her drinks and shots all night. By the end of the night she had too much to drink and ended up getting sick when she got home. She stayed up for a couple hours because she was so sick and ended up having to call in sick to work, which is what she was trying to avoid. Last but not least, I was talking to my best friend about what him and I had did one time when we were with our friends and how we don't think we would have done it if we weren't in a big group. We were all at a party in highschool one night and one of our friends had an idea to break into an elementary school nearby to play "drunk tag." We agreed and since we had all been drinking, about 12 of us walked to the elementary school. We had to jump the fence and then we started to play tag. About 20 minutes later, we saw some lights and realized the cops had heard us or seen us and there were 2 cop cars outside the gates. We all ran so fast to get back to the house, but 3 of our friends got caught. They were taken in to the police station, and their parents had to pick them up. I was so lucky that I got away that time. Groups can definitely make people do things that would not normally do on their own. Two heads are not always better than one...