Join the Club

Basically the concept of peer pressure implies the power of a group to impose its will upon an individual, as Rosenberg states “to coerce a state of being that might not otherwise exist.” Tina Rosenberg in her book “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” tries to give us the message that human behavior is largely defined by our relationships with our friends and colleagues. Any one of us can easily recall his/her childhood years when we used to do things just because our friends did so, just to be in line with the group. Unfortunately this “vice” sometimes is internalized by some people and they keep on imitating others in wrongful deeds too, like smoking, gambling etc. usually this is done for the purpose of creating status in the eyes of our peers. As Rosenberg says, “We are all good boys at risk of the bad crowd. Peer pressure is a mighty and terrible force—so powerful that, for the vast majority of people, the best antidote to it is more peer pressure.” In the antiquity Aristotle would say that human beings by nature are social animals. They cannot live alone, they are destined to live in groups in which they give and take. In this perspective peer pressure can lead to acts of great courage, or to great harm. However just like the authors states too peer pressure can transform the world. If we consider peer pressure as social networking we can easily consider it as a source of such a power that can address from, say adolescent cigarette smoking to dictatorial regimes. We recently were witnesses of the power of social networking and peer pressure in the risings of the so called “Arab Spring” throughout the totalitarian regimes of the Arab World.