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Synthesis Essay On Hazing

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Conforming into hazing has shown an impact on a former group of pupils in Florida. Hazing is defined as “a species of brutal horseplay practised on” new students attending a class (Oed.com). On November 2011, new band member Robert Champion Jr was hazed to death. Champion was enrolling to become a new band student at the Florida A&M University. The routine of the band initiation involved running “down the center of the bus while being punched, kicked and assaulted by senior” band members (Source D 2). The students who enacted this are now being charged with manslaughter. This situation exemplifies the detrimental effects of conformity. All the “twelve former students” conformed to the ritual of hazing and attempted to haze Champion. This attempt …show more content…

There are two types of groups when it comes to peer pressure. There is a group that causes peer pressure and pressures others to submit to their ideas; and there is the group that submits into the peer pressure to ‘fit in’. The second one is the group that conforms. This is detrimental because a team of psychologists found in a study that “young people are more likely to misbehave and take risks when their friends are watching” (Source E 1). This study consisted of a “six minute driving game” and they had to reach the destination before a certain time in order to receive an award. The only thing keeping the players from reaching their destination was yellow traffic lights. If they went too slow they would not reach the destination in the time given, if they went too fast then there was a “higher risk of crashing” (Source E 1). Peer pressure takes a role in this because when told that two friends “were watching the play in the next room” the teenagers had “60 percent more crashes” (Source E 1). This is an example of unintentional peer pressure because that friends group had the influence to make the teenager speed in the game. This also exemplifies the act of conforming because the teenagers raced through the light in order to reach the destination faster and receive a “bigger prize” and look cool to their friends (Source E 1). Peer pressure is detrimental to society because if teenager were to get behind the wheel

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