Discussion

I need support with this Psychology question so I can learn better.

How hard is it to say “no”?

“If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” My mother said this literally two minutes after I got home. Because she had just had a call from a deputy sheriff who had busted three of my friends and I for – you got it – jumping off a bridge.

Now, in all fairness, it was late July. We had been baling hay all day. The river was a mile down the road – actually, we had to go over it on our way back to the barn. So, when Brent* suggested it, Donny said “Hell yeah!,” and Ryan was also quick to agree. Me … well, I knew it wasn’t the BEST idea to jump off that bridge. After all, just the week before, one of our classmate, Brenda J. went off the bridge and was still in the hospital with two broken femurs. But, the other three were like “Dude. DUDE. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude.”

After you’ve been triple-duded, you just can’t not jump. Something Mom didn’t understand.

We jumped. More than once. Oh, did it feel good getting the dust, sweat, and chaff washed off. We jumped, swam, and relished in being in our mid-teens, unbreakable and impervious to everything.

Everything but the long arm of the law and the Wrath of the Mothers. Deputy Steward pulled up on the bridge as Ryan was just getting ready to jump, and of course, Ryan ratted us all out…he didn’t get the snitches get stitches concept, and the deputy made us get going and then went back to the station and called our mom’s.

Looking back on that day, I said numerous times that I didn’t want to jump. I was called a chicken, coward, and much worse by my friend. I grew up with these guys. And finally, to stop the taunts, I went along with the group. A purer case of peer pressure can’t be chronicled.

How hard is it, especially when you’re with a group of people who are you friends, to say ‘no’and stick by it? Because, here’s the thing, when it’s asked as a question in a format like this, people always want to make themselves out to be impervious to things like peer pressure.

So, I want you to tell me about a time where you succumbed to peer pressure and what you could have done to prevent it from happening. And, please, don’t use examples where I’ll be forced to contact the authorities. Heh

*All names have been changed to protect the identities of the other guilty parties.