draw the line

Teacher finds peer pressure one of the strongest motivators for risky behavior

A 16-year-old Sahuarita High School student and three friends decided to take a risk, and as a result the lives of many people were shattered.

The group snuck off campus to go eat after taking an assessment test. Although the high school, like most others in this era, had a closed-campus policy, the girls decided to flirt with rebellion. Unfortunately, the driver was killed and all three of the others seriously injured, especially the two not wearing seat belts.

These were, by all reports, great kids who were good students and active in extra-curricular activities. They most certainly knew that they were risking a great deal just for the sake of a lunch off campus. Why, then, did they place themselves in such a situation?

More specifically, why do teens engage in risky behavior? That is the question I posed to my two Honors Senior English classes and the topic of a class research paper. The information used for the documented essay was very recent and supported by professionals in many fields. The data winnowed for the report was based on studies completed at prestigious universities or medical centers. The information gleaned from several articles was enlightening to say the least.

Research has shown that teens who are well-off, meaning they had at least $25 a week in spending money, were more likely to engage in risky behavior, including smoking, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and riding in cars without using seatbelts. Adolescents who labeled themselves as “religious” actually experimented with risky behavior at a higher rate than those who did not come from a home where religion was highly valued.

Can these two findings be true? The researchers said that having the funding to purchase alcohol and drugs certainly played a role in influencing negative decision-making. And their conclusion about why teens who see themselves as religious put themselves in dangerous and unhealthy situations is that many have a fundamental belief that what will be, will be. If they are meant to die, then they will die, one article noted as a philosophy many interviewed expressed.

What came as no surprise was the finding that peer pressure is one of the strongest motivators for risky behavior. While no one can ever know for sure, it is unlikely that if just one of the girls in the Sahuarita High School tragedy wanted to leave campus, but no one would join her, that she would have done so. It takes a very emotionally strong and self-assured teen to resist or opt-out when his or her friends are behaving in an illegal or inappropriate manner.

Several of the articles noted that recent brain research has proven what many parents and educators have assumed for years: the area of the brain from which decision-making emerges is underdeveloped in teens as compared to adults. The actual size of this area of the brain is smaller in teens but continues to grow up through early adulthood. It is easy to assume that a physically-mature teen on the verge of legal adulthood is just as capable of making good decisions as an adult, but it just is not so. That is not an excuse for stupid behavior, but it does shed light on why teens no one would ever suspect of certain behaviors actually may be engaging in life-threatening acts.

Most certainly true adults take stupid risks, and there are teens who are able to weigh the pros and cons of a certain behavior and then act judiciously. But it is just as likely that teens will engage in negative behaviors simply because they are teens.