Dealing with Peer Pressure I. Conformity A. What is It? 1. Conformity refers to the desire to be just like everyone else. 2. A conformist is someone who is afraid to be different from the majority. He feels a need to be like everyone else. 3. To conform means to accept the ideas, the fashion, the way of walking and talking that is popular at the time. 4. Our society produces tremendous pressure on all of us to conform to the standards of the group. 5. The pressure to conform is so strong that people are afraid to be different in any way at all. 6. The pressure to conform is the greatest during adolescence. The experiment: Nine confederates, hold up three cards, which has the longest line. One subject, who would conform 75% of the time. This is peer pressure, going against what you know is right, just to fit in. However, if just one other person voted properly, then most students would vote the right way. 7. Have any of you ever been in a situation where you felt you had to conform to the group, rather than do what you wanted? Was it easier to resist if you had someone to side with you? 8. Why is peer pressure so strong during adolescence? a. This is the time when we begin to figure out who we are and what we believe in, but it is also a time of great changes, both physically and mentally, and we often feel worthless and inferior. We lack courage to be who we are, because we often aren�t sure who we are. b. The threat of ridicule or rejection is more painfully real at this time than at any other. You are more sensitive at being laughed at, and you don�t want to take the risk of being different. It�s too scary, and you might be left all alone. B. Problems with Conformity 1. Trying to conform can lead you to behavior that you know is wrong, just so you won�t be rejected. Such behaviors can include using drugs, sexual behaviors, smoking, drinking, bullying or unkind behaviors, vandalism and other criminal behaviors, rejecting others, deemed inferior, judging and condemning those who are different. 2. Conformity often means stifling your own personality, wishes, dreams and ideas. You may be doing things you don�t enjoy, just because you feel you should. You may be dressing ways you don�t like, playing sports you don�t like, watching videos or playing games you don�t like, participating in other kinds of activities you don�t really enjoy. 3. Conformity can cause you to hate yourself when you know that you are being untrue to yourself and to God. C. How can we Resist Conformity? 1.We should think about our actions in advance, and decide what kinds of things we can and cannot do, if we are to be true to ourselves. 2. We should learn some responses to conformity which will allow us to be ourselves, in advance. 3. We should realize that we are called upon to be courageous by God, and that we are to conform only to the likeness of Christ. 4. We should think of ourselves as people who can lead away from the ways of the world. We should be models of Christian behavior, but do it in a strong and willing way, not weakly. 5. We must support others who cannot or will not conform, especially those who cannot conform, for example to current dress styles, because they are poorer, or those who cannot do sports because of physical infirmity. 6. We must learn to identify with the feelings of those who are themselves rejected and ridiculed because they do not conform, and comfort and befriend them. This will make us Christian leaders. D. What does God say about Conformity? 1. Romans 12 - �Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God�s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.� a. Your bodies are the means that you will do both good and evil: will you take drugs or help someone who is being bullied, putting your own body in the path of some unkindness or abuse? Will you offer your bodies for sinful acts, drug use or other abuse of your purity, or will you offer your bodies in service to those in need? Will you be a living sacrifice, or a sacrifice to the false gods of this world: Lust, greed, envy, unkindness, judging and condemning? b. Will you hold to an idea that you will keep yourselves in God�s will, or will you give yourselves over to your own will, or the will of Satan? c. Will you allow yourselves to be used by God to do good, or to be used by Satan to do evil? d. As your brain matures, will you renew it by learning lessons about the ways of evil, or will you simply immerse yourselves in the world, becoming deaf to the words of God. e. Will you think: What would Jesus do? or will you take the easier route of the devil? 2. Another verse which points this up is 1 John 3:13 - �Don�t be surprised, dear friends, if the world hates you.� a. Is it good to be persecuted for God�s sake? b. Have you ever experience this? c. Would you be willing to die for Jesus? 3. God does not want us to follow the whims of the world around us. 4. We are to have in our hearts knowledge of good and evil, and act always to follow what we already know. 5. We can conform to the world in ways that don�t matter, but in ways that do, we must choose the right way. When it comes to being moral and obeying God, I won�t let anyone tell me what to do. People can laugh at me if they want, but I will not let anything keep me from living a Christian life. I will not conform!"
